Remember when hating the French was as American as apple pie? Those were the good old days of Freedom Fries and Liberty Kissing. (Although the promised land of anti-French sentiment, downward price pressure on the best burgundies and champagne, never really materialized. Apparently people who “raise up their glasses against evil forces” don’t drink the best French wines.)
These days the country that hates France the most is China. France is seen as behind the opposition to China’s Tibet policies. They are blamed for the protesters who are using the Olympics as an opportunity to tarnish China’s image around the globe. This pisses off the Chinese, especially the young professional class, so much that the Chinese government had to ask them to chillax a bit.
Why all the aggro? Chin a sees the Olympics as their moment in the sun, when they would display to the world the glories of the Chinese way of life. These protests are storm clouds that threaten to blot out that mighty sun. It looks to them like the protesters–who really aren’t that French, as far as I can tell–are politicizing the Olympics.
We can’t help but think that this is pretty much awesome. Whoever managed to get the French and the Chinese to start exchanging blows deserves a medal. But what we really want to know is what the Chinese are calling French Fries. And what will this do to the global price of potatoes?
–John Carney hopes that the Laotian government doesn’t mind him writing this kind of thing from its northern provinces.
— Advertisement —
Comments (64)
Leave a comment
You can log in with your account or comment as a guest below.
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
Geez you need a history lesson. Apart from some pathetic over-reaction to France not joining Bush v Saddam Part Deux, the US and France have been allies on and off since before the revolutionary war (who made the Statue of Liberty again?). The Brits, on the other hand, have been Gallic haters and tellers of good French capitualtion jokes for a thousand years.
Carney, I enjoyed the post all the same.
Just finished reading Ernie Pyle’s 1943 book, “Your War” about the North African campaign he covered as a correspondent. (He mentions a lot of New Yorkers by address in the homespun tale, fyi) Surprisingly, he was very complimentary of French forces…those who weren’t shooting at the Allies anyway….A very good read. Ernie Pyle survived the European war and was covering the Pacific story when he was killed by a Japanese machine gunner. You can see a picture of Ernie laying dead by a road on some Pacific island by Googling same. All DB staff should know about Ernie Pyle.
French fries are called “potato sticks”(shu tiao, 薯条) in China. I doubt many people even know the name “French fries”.
@10:05 A rare smart one. You’re gay, correct? GAnalYst
The Brits have been telling French capitulation jokes for a thousand years? Didn’t a bunch of angry Frenchmen conquer Britain about a thousand years ago, and their descendants continue to rule today? Guess guest@9:53 needs a history lesson.
@9:53 seriously? what planet do you live on where you think americans like the french?
@10:14 – if you truly believe that Americans have a deep-seated hatred of the French, I suggest you stop living on the planet of Republican Talking Points-land
Actually, don’t only 10% of Americans have passports? I’m gonna say not many of the remaining 90% (who are the ones at which R talking points are aimed) are big fans of the French.
@10:11 Vikings who extorted a duchy out of the Capetians =/= French.
They were Normans, not frogs.
French are still fags though and their women dont shave body hair – they are a disgusting culture.
It is indeed strange that their women have more body hair than the men.
And whatever, the Normans are basically the French.
10.11 – guess you need a history and politics lesson.
a) The Royals don’t really do any ruling – we just keep them on for the tourists and the lulz
b) As 10.31 pointed out they were Normans
c) The French have surrendered to us and to many others a good few times since then, hence the jokes.
d) The current family are the Windsors. Their parent house are the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas (Germans) and the current Pince Consort is ‘Phil the Greek’
e) We’ve had a few hiccups since Willy the Conqueror (Cromwell, Glorious Revolution, Elizabeth I etc.)
Which all points at 10.11 being pretty much utterly wrong and in no position to tall anyone they need a lesson.
Wharfer
10.43 – really? Even those who lived in Sicily? Or do you not know?
Ugh. *Prince*, *tell*, *, etc.*
Fine, the Normans from France who invaded England are basically French. They may have started out as Vikings but then they settled and intermarried with the locals, adopted their customs and language, and had some real Vikings cruised by at that time, they would have thumped the French Normans for being smelly Frenchmen.
Which Laotian prison can we write to JC? Hope they have a Happy Hour.
@11:02 Persistence gets you a history lesson
910 or thereabouts, Rollo and his merry band settle in Normandie and become Norman. Apart from language, they’re no more French than Wolfram von Eschenbach.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s family is only tortuously related to the Normans. Consider the English ruling dynasties:
Angevins (actually French)
Tudors (Welsh)
Stuart (Scottish)
Orange (Dutch)
Hanover (German)
Windsor (nee Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) (German)
And to finish:
Darling: I’m as British as Queen Victoria!
Blackadder: So your father’s German, you’re half German, and you married a German!
11:02 – I don’t even know where to start with that. You know how the rest of the world thinks of Americans as parochial retards? That’s because of you.
11:15 – not even language
wow Novice did you do that all from memory? that is very impressive without looking it up at all.
who cares? none of this changes the fact that the french are pussies.
i’m pretty sure “the rest of the world,” which is mostly non-european, could not give two shits about the difference between a Norman and a Frank either.
@11:30 Second majors are for fun, economics pays the bills.
@11:33 Do you want us to applaud your ignorance, or just quietly nod in approval?
Pfft the normans couldn’t have been all that if the French were able to conquer normandy instead of the other way around.
With all due respect, 11:17 and 11:39, the rest of the world does not like you any better just because you know the difference between a norman and an angevin or whatever. In fact, Novice, this goes for you especially, pedantry is obnoxious no matter what country you are in.
We’re making insults based on national heritage and you decide *now* to toss out the obnoxious charge?
Potato sticks! So they were already anti-French before the Olympics. Figures. The Chinese. Always thinking ahead.
Yes, only because reading everyone else (including 11:17) it sounds like they are all basically engaging in good natured stereotyping and culture-baiting, which is much funnier than your know-it-all-ism.
It’s sort of like if a white guy from California calls a white guy from Vermont a “cracker”
They are all just a bunch of white guys to me.
@12:02 Fair enough.
I enjoyed the factoids about the Normans. People forget that at one time the French, under Napoleon, aspired to be conquerors of Europe and beyond. Not many considered the French hapless cowards then. The French reluctance to fight in World War II stemmed in large part from the ungodly slaughter of their young men in World War I. Imagine how eager we would have been as a nation to go to war twenty years after the Civil War!
However, at times, it’s hard to refrain from regarding the French as silly beyond belief. I read in a recent New Yorker about a long feud between film directors Truffaut and Godard. Fine points of film criticism, left wing French politics (which were really down to earth in the 60s and 70s), and money lead to lifelong enmity between two men who had once been close friends.
Galliphobia? Fear of Gallipoli?
Even Google says: Did you mean: Gallophobia
“Those were the good old days of Freedom Fries and Liberty Kissing.”
Yeah, four years of hell for French Expatriates… Ask anyone at Miquelon.org or SuperFrenchie.com
People don’t forget that. Perhaps you forget that Napoleon was a Corsican fellow and not a Frenchman.
@1:28 that’s funny, I’ve never seen those websites before but they are hilarious!
“Just finished reading Ernie Pyle’s 1943 book, “Your War” about the North African campaign he covered as a correspondent. (He mentions a lot of New Yorkers by address in the homespun tale, fyi) Surprisingly, he was very complimentary of French forces…those who weren’t shooting at the Allies anyway….A very good read. Ernie Pyle survived the European war and was covering the Pacific story when he was killed by a Japanese machine gunner. You can see a picture of Ernie laying dead by a road on some Pacific island by Googling same. All DB staff should know about Ernie Pyle.”
wow, i read this post and had to think long and hard if i didn’t write it and just forget for some reason. I just read Your War too…he mentions a barber who lived five blocks north of me (50 years ago…20 years before I was born). even though this guy was defintiely a simpleton, and his books are definitely not meant to be thought provoking or anythihng, they do have historical value, and make good reads.
Brave Men was pretty good too. I go to the Bloomingdale branch, and the Pyle books are all in the little “war” section they have towards the fiction wall.
Yes, I know Napoleon was a Corsican, but the men fighting under his command were French.
what’s that old saying, you can lead a frog to water but you can’t make him fight a winter campaign in russia?
I went and posted this discussion in the comments section at those french bashing websites, i figured those guys would get a kick out of it
@ 4:05PM Thanks but to be precise, those are Anti-French Bashing Websites.
This might be funny for some of you, but French Bashing is a serious matter for those who were harassed at work, school, by collegues, employers, the butt of offensive jokes and lambasted nightly by America’s pop culture stewards.
“No other national or ethnic group appears to get the same continually negative treatment in print media reserved for France and the French, with the possible exception of Arabs or Palestinians, and even there, the treatment is not so much cultural as political, linked to a specific context or event.If one were to substitute, for example, “Mexican” or “Japanese” or “Indian” for “French”, what would reader reaction be?.” Edward C.Knox, May 2002
i meant the sites are about french-bashing. sorry if that was unclear. anyway what happened to the guy who was saying here that americans actually really like the french? doesn’t sound like these guys think so.
Uh, Carney, i hate to tell you but the “storm clouds blocking the sun” have nothing to do with the protesters…as a matter of fact they’re not storm clouds at all…still a complete mystery to me how China got the olympic bid (zj’s) for a city where the air quality makes LA look like an untouched Utopia.
“@ 4:05PM Thanks but to be precise, those are Anti-French Bashing Websites.
This might be funny for some of you, but French Bashing is a serious matter for those who were harassed at work, school, by collegues, employers, the butt of offensive jokes and lambasted nightly by America’s pop culture stewards.”
Cause, ya know, the French are nothing but sunshine and roses toward Americans.
@ 5:49PM Two wrongs don’t make a right.
I also don’t believe in symmetrical arguments, the X does A to Y, so it’s ok for Y to do A to X. We have a right to denounce French Bashing in the USA without having you reproach anti-Americanism in France as that is an entirely different issue. One issue at a time.
If Corsicans or Normans are not French, then people from Wyoming are not Americans (lucky bastards).
I don’t see how French bashing in the U.S. is a different issue from anti-Americanism in France. It’s the same issue — xenophobia — with different root causes. But I do agree with @7:08pm that France doesn’t have to be perfect for a French person to deplore demeaning treatment in the U.S. If we embraced that standard, no criticism would be valid, because we’re all imperfect. Upon hearing rational argument, I think my own attitude could use some adjusting.
“I don’t see how French bashing in the U.S. is a different issue from anti-Americanism in France.”
Because there is no French equivalent to the word “lynch”.
8:57 – Simple, but simply wrong. A better parallel would be to say “If Corsicans or Normans are not French, then people from [the indigenous tribes who populated the Americas (before the people who weren't clever enough to make it in Europe went over and gave birth to you lot)] are not Americans.
Yeah, never mind Napoleon Bonaparte was educated in France and rose through the ranks of the French army….
I mean it’s hardly like he conquered Europe with his Corsican army, after he became a master in fishing lobsters and an expert randoneer…
(If you were actually wondering, he conquered the whole of continental Europe after having learnt War at French academies and using la Grande Armee)
In my view, arguing Bonaparte wasn’t French is a case of intellectual dishonesty… I mean it’s like saying Washington wasn’t American, but British…
Anyway, for those of you who think “teh french, they is all teh pussies, uh, uh, uh”, please read this enlightening review by War Nerd (who is hardly known as an advocate for any sort of pussy-ism).
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7061&IBLOCK_ID=35
You can also try to read some real military history book, like “The Blitz Krieg Myth” by John Mausier (surprise surprise, an American himself – guess education and research is efficient in overcoming prejudice), instead of relying on tropes and stereotypes to look like you’ve got some conversation.
Cheers,
Fumble.
As for Guillaume le Conquerant, do your research: the Normans were completely frenchified by the time he conquered England.
The reason why it’s referred to as “the Norman conquest” is twofold:
a – The English just couldn’t stand being conquered by the French.
b – The Normans went along to spare the hurt pride of their nobles and population.
You need to remember Guillaume built the Tower of London to protect himself not from invading hordes, but from angry saxon nobles and common men.
The English could not have stood being conquered by the French – the hereditary ennemy, and as it was, hardly stood being conquered by Normans.
The importance of PR shouldn’t be underestimated – after all, it is St Georges’ day today, and the Turkish Dragon Slayer started to get some stage space in England only after Guillaume conquered the country – untill then, it was a former Saxon King, Saint Edmund, who was the patron saint of the land.
So yeah, the Normans lied, and didn’t tell anybody they were french, just to stay in power. No doubt someone on these boards is going to find tat cowardly or dishonourable…
Cheers,
Fumble.
“Cause, ya know, the French are nothing but sunshine and roses toward Americans.”
Just compare the esperience of Americans living in France with the experience of French living in the USA, and you’ll understand the difference.
It’s is quite revealing (I had never thought of that) that so few Americans living in France, or Europe, complain of anti-Americanism.
@8:57 my point exactly!
And no, Washington was definitely NOT American, most certainly he WAS British, the concept of “American” did not even exist for many years after the revolution, but I definitely do not hold it against any Frenchman for not knowing that.
However, I hope whoever was so furiously arguing that the Normans were not French will take note of the recent comments. I think that means Novice, for one.
Fumble – you’re a bally idiot. Completely ‘Frenchified’? Care to explain what you mean by that, given ‘France’ did not even conceptually exist then?
Or have you read 2 wikipedia articles and (rather quickly) become educated beyond your intelligence?
Oh does it say that in wikipedia? Because that would be a pretty good argument that William I was in fact Frenchified if that is the word for it (Frankofied?)
Guest 10:12
Nope, no wikipedia – education and radio4.
You should know wikipedia is no substitute for original knowledge – it only lets you find back references for things you already know.
As for frenchified, you should also know it’s a long time english tradition to make up words on the fly – come on, think about it for a second, I’m sure even you will understand the meaning.
Anyway, just to answer in kind to your anonymous (talk about courage) trolling of me being a bally idiot: no, you are.
Cheers,
Fumble.
French Fries is normally called “fried potato sticks” in China. Potato related foods are considered secondary foods, (a level lower than rice and wheat) historically, it was considered to feed barbarians. Only during starving period, people eat potato as an alternative choice.
Can someone explain me how come France and the French fought more wars and won more wars than any other nation on earth?
Who surrendered in Vietnam , Somalia and in a couple of years in Iran ,oops, I meant Iraq ?
Obviously, US wins the medal to stmulate the blows between China and French (or Europe). With its soft power decreses wordwide due to the ill-managed economy and war in Iraq, USA watched the rise of the soft power from China in recent years. The best way to defame China is let China and Europe fight each other. China even can switch all its commercial airplane orders from Airbus to Boeing. Bush abd Cheny finaly get smart, but a little bit too late.
This must be a pulpit for fools who can’t spell!
WSB.
“French fries” is a typically US expression. French fries are known in other english speaking countries as “chips”. French fries have no relation with the French, by the way, they are, in fact, belgian.
Fumble, you miss my point spectacularly. Reread. France did not exist in the 10th and 11th Centuries. Therefore, talk of William becoming ‘French’ified is monumentally wrongheaded.
Here’s a made up word for you, you are a ‘dinist’. Care to speculate on its etymology?
french fries only bear a superficial resemblance to chips, as most englishmen could tell you
I am from Perú in South America and I do not have french or english ancestry. I can speak as a neutral (and excuse my bad english). It is incredible all the excuses that some guys built to deny the fact the peoples from France conquered England in 1066. Some facts:
1. If you read the Anglo Saxons Chronicles, wrote by anglo saxons monks and scribes, you will see that they refer to the conquerors as frenchmen. Example: “The frenchmen gained the field (of Hastings), and so God punished us for our sins”.
2. The normans have settled in Normandy 150 years before 1066, that is, 5 or 6 generations of mixing with gallo-roman and franks. Considering them some sort of “foreign post” in french land is ridiculuous.
3. Not only normans filled the rank and file of Guillaume army, but men from all northern France: bretons, men from Maine, Anjou, Aquitaine, men from Flanders.
4. In his laws, Guillaume does not speak of his subjets in England as “norman, french and english”. Only as “french and english”.
You should read, say, the Cambridge Medieval History (I have been browsing it in the library) before droping so many foolish platitudes.