Comments on: July 4th in Toulouse, France

By: » July 4th in Toulouse, France » Violet

» July 4th in Toulouse, France » Violet — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:32:24 +0000

[...] Original post by Owen [...]

By: Owen

Owen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:58:03 +0000

Thanks for your comment, it made my day, hell week!

By: La Framéricaine

La Framéricaine — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:50:46 +0000

My husband is a 71 year old Frenchman who has lived in the USA since 12/17/87. One of the things that never ceases to amaze him is the number of churches in the US and the ubiquity of American flags–they’re everywhere!

Needless to say, I won’t have one draped in front of my little house in central France. I suppose that context is everything and, depending upon why a given individual went to France to begin with, there might be a variety of reasons that an American in France would want to wave an American flag. I can’t, however, for the life of me, imagine why. You won’t catch me doing it.

It would be particularly galling to me to leave my country of birth, precisely to experience an expanded worldview, and find myself having mental or voiced conversations about whether I should or should not wave a US flag. Gag me with a phonebook or kill me now, whichever you prefer!

Stick to your guns and don’t be wavin’ no flags just to fit in. Moving to France was about not fitting in, so keep it up!!! “Quels cons!”, as they say in France and at my house.

Amitiés,

By: sunny beach

sunny beach — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:55:37 +0000

LOL, I can see you standing there behind the others, Owen.
Now seriously, I enjoy the way you wrote it and how you felt in that moment. I don´t feel like you´re unpatriotic after this, instead now I´m sure you´re a great and intelligent person who value intelligence and true friendship

By: Owen

Owen — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:02:51 +0000

@Gil, if you had said more maybe I’d know if this was tongue in cheek or serious, oh well. If not wanting to hold a flag, it would be the same for any country’s flag BTW, makes me un-american, then that’s me, UN-AMERICAN. Patriotism is too close to nationalism for me. BTW#2, one of the reasons I left the US was because it was becoming a bit too embarrassing to say I am an American, so the charge of being un-american really doesn’t strike fear in my heart.

By: gil

gil — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:03:11 +0000

how very un-american….

By: francetales.com

francetales.com — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:53:04 +0000

I guess as we try to make more friends I’ll have to deal with this more but I don’t want to pretend to be someone I am not. It’s strange, being gay, no problem, being skeptical of America, maybe a problem.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:45:04 +0000

I completely understand your point, and would have felt the same.

By: Owen

Owen — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:14:24 +0000

It wasn’t like they wanted to do laps with the flag waving in the wind, but we were asked if we wanted to hold the flag for the photos. That is something I never want to do. Of course they wouldn’t know but maybe on my part it is a realization that we don’t know that many people here well who would know better than to ask such a question.

Here is the story in Digg, there is an interesting comment from an acquaintance in Portugal.
http://digg.com/travel_places/July_4th_in_Toulouse_France

By: Lost in France

Lost in France — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:20:20 +0000

Maybe I should be glad that I missed the flag waving!