NY Times article

I'm not sure what I think of this article.

While there are a few things I agree with or find true, like the fact that French people don't wear their athletic clothes to go grocery shoppping, it seems pompous and "bourgeois" (as B would say) to then continue the story talking about the ambassador and minister of this and that that stop by that the journalist is best buddies with.

I don't like either that the journalist starts off the article talking about how she spent 5 years trying to fit in in Paris, but that she never succeeded. French people don't succeed. Everyone's a transplant in Paris, or almost, and it's not France's fault if it's largest city is rather anonymous and it's not the fault of the French either. She should have moved to Ariège, where people recognized me on the street and offered my rides back to town.

It's true French women spend more time conditionning their skin than putting on lots of make-up (I feel like eye-liner and mascara are the only things worn by many), but only in France have seen so many women over 50 wearing bright blue, green, and orange mascara. I admit, I dabbled a bit in the colored mascara when I was in high school. But that was 10 years ago now and 50-60 year old French woman with nearly glow in the dark eyelashes seem somehow out of place.

I feel like the article is one long back handed compliment for France. Are Americans going to see the compliment, or just the gripes? And rather than treating France delicately, as the title indicates, you have to be firm, assertive, intense, and at times almost agressive to succeed. Maybe that's why the journalist didn't fit in: she was too soft.