So tell me about France

[Xue Sheng]

I have this re-occurring fantasy that I will one day move out of the USA to someplace else and I generally have this fantasy whenever I get to a “this place is beginning to really annoy the hell out of me” moment, and I’m in one now.

This may come as some surprise to many but I generally start thinking China not France. As a matter of fact not once has France ever been a thought at that moment; Canada, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Japan, China, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Norway, Sweden and even Liechtenstein... did I mention China... but never France

But today I came across something that said France was a great place to live, #1 in the world to the #7 rank of the USA and I am in one of those “this place is annoying the hell out of me” moods so what the heck…what about France. And most important, is there a fairly good size Chinatown somewhere in France…. Sorry I can’t get to far away from good Chinese food and this very Germanic looking guy tends to be most comfortable in a good Chinese tea house... and of course half my family is Chinese.

Understand I am in reality not going to go anywhere…well at least not for another 10 to 15 years that is… and likely not then but right now, if I could, I’d leave.

 

[CoryKS]

Sorry man, all those places have people too.

 

[Xue Sheng]

True, but it is not necessarily the people... although I have been heard to utter on more than one occasion "it would be a nice planet if it were not for the people"

And even if it is, it would take several years to get annoyed at them...they'd be new to me with new customs…. And I would know none of them and none of them would know me.

But that is not the issue; I am just curious about France… which if you knew me off MT that would come as a rather big shock

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I can't see anything nice about France. Ok, it has trees.

 

[Tez3]

You have to look at France as you would the 'United States of America' when asking about it, 'France' is a relatively new country although the name has been around for a long time, it's actually a collection of countries and areas. Probably wasn't until Napoleon that it was all joined up.

Brittany is lovely, the people aren't French but Celtic, their language is almost the same as Cornish. The Cornish and the Bretons have been close for a long time and share a lot of tradtions such as wrestling. Go down to Provence, the people like the weather is warm and welcoming. They don''t consider themselves French but Provencal and have a language similiar to Latin. The south of France is looked down on by Parisians who have long been jealous of the south. There are some lovely wildernesses in the Provencal hills, you can live up there happily.
Lyon is a nice warm city with very good food. Burgundy is a wonderful place for red wine, Baune is the place to make for there. Rheims for champagne.

If you forget about the stereotypes and stay away from Paris ( most French do as they can't stand the place or the inhabitants) you will enjoy France, remember each place is very different. It covers a huge area but has actually very few people so there is a great sense of space in the country.

 

[Carol]

I'd look at Andorra before France. It is in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. Tiny country, but it is duty free and just gorgeous.

 

[Big Don]

So… tell me about France

The world's leading exporter of French people and French things.

 

[Big Don]

My pipe dream has always been to own an island.
There are a bunch for sale, I would avoid those in the Caribbean, pirates, you know...

 

[Touch Of Death]

I have this re-occurring fantasy that I will one day move out of the USA to someplace else and I generally have this fantasy whenever I get to a “this place is beginning to really annoy the hell out of me” moment, and I’m in one now.

This may come as some surprise to many but I generally start thinking China not France. As a matter of fact not once has France ever been a thought at that moment; Canada, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Japan, China, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Norway, Sweden and even Liechtenstein... did I mention China... but never France

But today I came across something that said France was a great place to live, #1 in the world to the #7 rank of the USA and I am in one of those “this place is annoying the hell out of me” moods so what the heck…what about France. And most important, is there a fairly good size Chinatown somewhere in France…. Sorry I can’t get to far away from good Chinese food and this very Germanic looking guy tends to be most comfortable in a good Chinese tea house... and of course half my family is Chinese.

Understand I am in reality not going to go anywhere…well at least not for another 10 to 15 years that is… and likely not then but right now, if I could, I’d leave.

They have an unsustainable economic system. What ever is so nice about it, won't last.
Sean

 

[Bruno@MT]

They have an unsustainable economic system. What ever is so nice about it, won't last.
Sean

It's been lasting for a long time.
What makes you think it is not sustainable? The fact that they protest and burn things?
They've been doing that for a long time. Protests are to the French what guns are to Americans.

As for why not France...
Dunno. It would not be on the top of my list. Otoh, they do have good cheese, good cognac, and there are plenty of nice places where you can buy a nice house on a nice piece of land for a nice price.

But otoh I've done a couple of projects for a large French company, and I am not too thrilled about the French way of working.

 

[Touch Of Death]

It's been lasting for a long time.
What makes you think it is not sustainable? The fact that they protest and burn things?
They've been doing that for a long time. Protests are to the French what guns are to Americans.

As for why not France...
Dunno. It would not be on the top of my list. Otoh, they do have good cheese, good cognac, and there are plenty of nice places where you can buy a nice house on a nice piece of land for a nice price.

But otoh I've done a couple of projects for a large French company, and I am not too thrilled about the French way of working.

Perhaps this was on Fox News; so, you can take it with a grain of salt and a bottle of cough syrup, but according to them only 1/4 of the population pays taxes. Employers must pay the government exactly what the pay an employee; so, its doulble time all the time. And the general population expects to be taken care of by a government that can't collect any taxes. All revolts are generaly to get more stuff... enjoy.
Sean

 

[crushing]

I stayed a night and spent several hours in Strasbourg once. My rental car got keyed during the night. It was a pretty cool looking place with old buildings and big church. Went to buy some ice cream at a shop and the douchebag behind the counter threw the menus at us with a look of disgust on his face. Driving throught the countryside was kind of cool with round-a-bouts rather than stop lights/signs to help keep traffic moving. From Strasbourg I headed South to Italy.

When I got to Switzerland and that was really nice. The people were very nice. My car didn't get vandalized. If I were to get rich and had an opportunity live anywhere in the world, I would seriously consider Interlaken Switzerland. Such a beautiful place. On the way to Italy I think I drove through, what was at the time, the longest tunnel in the world. Didn't take long for that to get boring.

Anyway, got to Italy and drove around for a couple minutes just to say I was there, then turned around and started heading back to Kaiserslautern Germany, but stayed a night at a bed and breakfast near Luzern Switzerland that was nice.

In one weekend I saw parts of Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy. Had I planned a little better I could have easily hit Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

I wish I had a couple weeks, rather than a couple days for my trip.

Oh yeah, the previous weekend was a trip to Austria with some stops at a couple castles on the way, including Schloss Neuschwanstein.

I had previously stayed in the Berchtesgaden area, which is also very beautiful. I stayed at a hotel that was a major meeting place for high ranking Germans during WWII. I also took a tour up to the Kehlsteinhaus. It was kind of strange for so much beauty the area held, how horrible some of the ideas and plans were that came from out of there. I may have stayed in the same room a war criminal once lodged. Underneath the hotel was a tunnel system that was never completed, but was supposed to connect various Nazi buildings as well as the Eagle's Nest. The hotel was run by Americans at the time. I've read that it was turned back over to the Germans and they tore it down. On that trip I visited Salzburg, and toured Mozart's house and saw various landmarks that were in The Sounds of Music, like the Church, Fountain, House, and the cemetary that the family hid in. Actually, the cemetary scene was filmed in a studio. In the actual cemetary there is no space behind the large headstones to hide. Just a bit of trivia for you.

Oh yeah, China. I had a business trip that took me to Hong Kong a few years ago. I went out to the island with one of the local employees. There was a hotel on the side of a large hill with a big hole in the hotel. Apparently there is a dragon that comes down from the hill and the hole was put in the hotel to allow this dragon a path down to the waters of Stanley Bay. Unfortunately I didn't see the dragon when we drove by the hotel.

One of my days in Hong Kong I took a ferry to China then a van to Guangzho where my company had a manufacturing plant. Going in to Guangzho was a five or six lane highway, with a bunch of people riding and walking bicycles and pushing carts with just a few vehicles.

My first night in Hong Kong a local employee took us to a vegetarian restaurant. I had no idea what to order. I ended up with some sort of seaweed soup that looked like it had eyeballs floating in it. The eyeball things tasted sweater than I would expect eyeballs to be, plus it was a vegetarian plate, so I'm pretty sure they weren't eyeballs. Whatever they were, it was good. Actually, all the food I had in Hong Kong and China tasted really good. Well, except when we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. That was pretty boring in comparison.

Anyway, just a few of my experiences from a few of the places on your list. I still think about driving through Interlaken and how beautiful and blue the lake was nestled between the mountains.


EDIT: I really did ramble on. Sorry about that.

 

[Sukerkin]

Nothing to apologise for, Crushing - it was interesting to hear your experiences and 'taste' of other lands.

Tez rather took the wind out of the "Land of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys" spiel I was going to launch into about France :lol:.

Most of the negative cliches that we all have about The French (TM) are down to Parisians. Much like Londoners over here in England, they think they are better than everyone else and have continental sized chips on their shoulders {which act as a multiplier for Gallic shrugging :lol:}.

At the end of the day, to quote Pat Travers, "People are people where-ever you go".

The South of France is supposedly wonderful, mind you. So wonderful in fact that a high proportion of it's population are actually English! Not too much of a surprise really as it is 'ours' by right of conquest anyway; they only nicked it back because we had a monarch more focussed on 'home turf' matters at the time!

One of my work-mates, who clearly gets paid vastly more than me, has a second home there and will retire there when the time comes.

 

[CoryKS]

My first night in Hong Kong a local employee took us to a vegetarian restaurant. I had no idea what to order. I ended up with some sort of seaweed soup that looked like it had eyeballs floating in it. The eyeball things tasted sweater than I would expect eyeballs to be, plus it was a vegetarian plate, so I'm pretty sure they weren't eyeballs. Whatever they were, it was good. Actually, all the food I had in Hong Kong and China tasted really good. Well, except when we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. That was pretty boring in comparison.

I had those eyeball thingies in Japan. Never did find out what they really were. They weren't bad other than they looked like eyeballs and burst when you bit into them.

 

[Flying Crane]

lets see... France... I believe that was the backdrop for that hit musical, les Miserables...

that's about all I got for ya.

 

[Flying Crane]

Tez rather took the wind out of the "Land of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys" spiel I was going to launch into about France :lol:.

Having been born in and grew up in Wisconsin, I take exception to the implication that eating cheese is a bad thing!

 

[Sukerkin]

Not at all, FC, not at all ... except that the stinking ordure that the French eat cannot be called cheese (other than by English people trying to prove how posh they are) :lol:. Then again, American cheese ... {edited for the interests of international harmony }

The soup that Cory referred to by the way sounds like Mochi or Ozoni, a treat usually reserved for New Year celebrations. I fear to mention that the things that looked like eyes were probably salmon caviar, so not really vegetarian (unless eggs are okay of course).

 

[Sukerkin]

Speaking of things Japanese, I came across this earlier which is inspiring me to get back to my books and study harder (well, the first picture is anyhow ) ...

http://www.tofugu.com/2010/06/18/top-10-reasons-a-japanese-girlfriend-wont-help-your-japanese/

 

[David43515]

Hey thanks for the link. I never heard of tofugu before.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Perhaps this was on Fox News; so, you can take it with a grain of salt and a bottle of cough syrup, but according to them only 1/4 of the population pays taxes. Employers must pay the government exactly what the pay an employee; so, its doulble time all the time. And the general population expects to be taken care of by a government that can't collect any taxes. All revolts are generaly to get more stuff... enjoy.
Sean

Oh...

Well, let me assure you, that that could not be farther from the truth.
Practically everybody pays taxes, no matter how little they earn. But just like in the US (I guess) you pay in windows. So the first part of your wages are subject to 10% income tax. The next window of x0000euro is covered by 15% tax. And so on. The US will have different percentages of course.

What could be correct, is that only 1/4 of the population have wages that fall in the highest bracket. Or something like that.

Employers also don't have to pay the government the same in taxes which they pay the employee, though this lie is based in fact. In Belgium (and I assume in France to, since our fiscal models have similarities) an employer pays a tax as well for the employment. I don't know the rationale for this because I never really bothered to do the research. The percentage varies, depending on whether the job is public or private, and some other factors, but it can be up to 30%. Granted, this is still a sizable amount, but not 100% of course, and not for all employees.

So you see, the story is different from the Fox story (shock horror).
And while Conservative Americans sometimes say that socialist people expect to get a full wage without working... That's not correct either. If you lose your job, you get a % of your former wages for a fixed amount of time. I don't know how long exactly, but say it's a year, or even 2. I don't know, but it is something like that.

This is intended as a saftey net, and allows people to find new jobs within their domain without having to sell their house immediately, or without having to start flipping burgers. Because if you've spent a year flipping burgers, it's hard to get back into semiconductor research or avionics, or anything that requires keeping active and up to date. And if you can find another job, you'll be again a serious asset to the economy, with minimal disruption to your family and the economy. Everybody wins.

If you don't find a job within that period, you drop down to welfare income.
And honestly, I would invite any skeptic to give it a try sometime, if I could. You'll live. If you use the money sparingly, live in cheap or socialized apartment, and don't spend anything on luxury items. You'll survive. But don't believe that any but a very small minority will voluntarily choose this situation.

Those people are not sitting on the beach drinking margaritas while we are working hard. These people wear second hand clothes, live in a house with practically no heating, and eat food that is enough to survive. And the majority of those people (which are a minority) would do anything to get even a bais job, but can't have one for some reason or other. They won't become homeless drifters, aye. I am proud of that. But they are not living la vida loca.