Chapter 19 Chapter Nineteen

Yes, there are crooks and bigots in Provence, just like anywhere else in the world.But we are lucky, Provence has been very kind to us.Here we are welcomed and happy.No regrets, no regrets, full of joy. life through rose colored glasses (1) "Provence"! I don't know if the word should be called a joke?insult?Or a compliment?This is from a friend from London.He paid us a surprise visit on his way to the sea, and stayed for lunch.We hadn't seen him for five years and he was clearly curious to know how life in Provence had affected us.So take a good look at us and try to spot any mental or physical degradation.

We weren't aware of any change, but he was pretty sure there was, though he couldn't say why.Unable to find any obvious signs of "insanity," "English degradation," or "premature senescence," he resorted to a vague, convenient, sweeping word—Provençalization—to describe us. When he drove away in a clean car, the antenna of the car phone swayed briskly in the breeze, and I looked at my local Citroen without any communication equipment, it was really small and dirty.Compared with my friend's designer clothes from the "Côte d'Azur", I was dressed in local outfits - old shirts, shorts, and bare feet.Then I remembered that he looked at his watch from time to time during dinner, because he had an appointment with a friend in Nice at six-thirty, not later that day, or at a certain time in the evening, but at half-past six, exactly.And we have long since abandoned the habit of accurate timekeeping, because the locals don't eat it at all, and we now follow the "almost good" rule.Another manifestation of localization.

The more we think about it, the more we realize that we have really changed!I don't think it's "localization," but there are so many differences between the new life and the old life, and we have to adapt to everything.It's not difficult.Most changes happen slowly, happily, and imperceptibly.And to me, it's all a change for the better. We don't watch TV any more, it's not that we're smug enough to set aside more time for intellectual pursuits, the change is just so natural.In summer, watching TV cannot be compared with enjoying the night sky; in winter, it is better to have a big meal at night.By now, the TV had been moved into the closet to make room for more books.

We eat better than before, or eat cheaper.It's impossible to stay in France for any length of time without catching on to the French food craze, and who would want to escape the fun?Why not have fun with your everyday diet?We have long kept up with the food rhythm of Provence and learned to make good use of the special products of nature throughout the year-asparagus, matchstick-sized lentils, peppers, peaches, apricots, cantaloupe, grapes, wild mushrooms, olives, truffles, Every season nature has a different feast, except for the expensive truffles, almost all the rest can be bought for a few francs a kilogram.

Meat is another matter, the prices in butcher shops can scare away tourists.Provence is not a cattle-grazing area, so Britons planning to buy steak on Sunday morning had better bring a check book and be prepared, because beef is neither cheap nor tender.But mutton is different. The sheep near Sisteron are raised on herbs, and the meat has a special taste, which makes people think it is a sin to cook with mint sauce.As for the pork?No matter which part is delicious. Even so, we ate less meat now, and sometimes had a good quality native chicken from Bresse, or the hare that Enri brought in in the winter.Or try the pot of lentil stew when the temperature drops and the northwest wind blows—it's nice to have some meat now and then.Eating meat every day is a thing of the past.In addition, there are countless things - fish from the Mediterranean, fresh pasta, various vegetable recipes, dozens of breads, hundreds of cheeses... .

Eating habits have changed, cooking methods have changed, and we use olive oil for almost all cooking today, yet we lose weight.It’s only a little bit, but it’s enough to surprise my friends. They thought we’d be round fat people with bulging stomachs. Usually it’s only when you have a good appetite and are lucky enough to eat and drink in France. appear on people. Although there is no deliberate plan, we exercise a lot more, not the kind of aerobics performed by skinny girls in tights. There are eight or nine months of the year where we can do outdoor activities, and the amount of exercise naturally increases. The small exercises necessary for life, such as picking firewood, weeding, clearing ditches, planting flowers, pruning branches, bending over, and lifting heavy objects, are not serious exercises.By the way, there is another item, which is to walk every day in different weathers.

A visitor once refused to admit that walking is a high-intensity exercise that is neither strenuous nor immediately tiring, nor quick nor intense.They said, "Who can't walk, how can this be called exercise?!" If they insisted, we took them and the dogs for a walk. The first ten minutes were nothing. Walking slowly along the path down the mountain was very easy and effortless. Along the way, you could enjoy the fresh air and the beautiful scenery of Mount Ventoux in the distance.Does this count as exercise?Haven't even begun to breathe yet! Then we turned a corner and followed the path to the cedar forest on the Luberon ridge.The road surface has changed from a gravel road covered with pine needles to a slope full of gravel, let's start climbing.Five minutes later, no one dared to say that walking is an exercise for the elderly.Ten minutes later, no one said a word at all, only the sound of increasingly heavy breathing and coughing in between.The small mountain road twists and turns along the big rocks, and some places with low-hanging branches require double bending to walk over.The exciting summit was nowhere to be seen, but only a narrow, steep stone path about a hundred yards ahead, disappearing behind the next boulder outcropping.If there was any strength to breathe, it must be the curse of the sprained ankle on the gravel - the legs and lungs seemed to be on fire all the time.

The dogs ran ahead, leaving us behind. Several people were separated by long and short distances, staggering, with their bodies deeply arched and their hands on their thighs.Out of self-esteem, they tend to bite the bullet and keep walking, panting, bowing their heads, feeling sick!From then on, they never dared to say that walking is not exercise! The prize for reaching the summit is finding yourself in a peaceful, unique mountain setting, sometimes eerie, but always beautiful.The cedar forest is covered with thick snow clothes, how magnificent and magical!Behind the woods, on the south side of the mountain, the gray land quickly melted into the distance, and the thyme and boxwood, which can also grow in the cracks of the rocks, interspersed and softened the scene.

When the weather is fine, the northwest wind blows, and even the air is shining brightly. Looking to the other side of the sea, the vision is wide and clear, as if it has been magnified, and there is a feeling of being far away from the world.I once met a farmer on a trail in a cedar forest, riding an old bicycle, with a gun on his back, and a dog running beside him.We were all startled to see each other.There are usually few people here, and the only sound is the wind blowing through the treetops. Here, the days pass slowly, but the weeks fly by.We don't use diaries or dates at all now to keep track of time.In February the apricots were in bloom, and for a few weeks the yard had spring syndrome and we started doing the things we had been talking about all winter.In spring, the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and Wanmu is delighted, along with the first group of tourists who came together, looking forward to the subtropical climate, but often only looking forward to the wind and rain.Summer sometimes starts in April, sometimes in May.We knew summer was coming when Mr. Bernard called to help us uncover and clean the pool.

Poppies in June, drought in July, torrential rain in August, and then the vines begin to turn rust-colored, the hunters wake up from their summer dormancy, and it’s time to pick grapes.The water in the swimming pool was getting colder, and gradually, jumping into the water at noon became a kind of masochism, which was the end of October. Winter is the season for making resolutions, and some of them came true.For example, a dead tree was cut down, a wall was built, and the old iron leaning in the garden was repainted. Whenever we had time, we picked up the dictionary and continued to struggle with French.

Our French improved so much that we no longer shy away from attending parties that are all French.But if it is to be worthy of the words commonly used in school report cards, the revolution has not yet succeeded, and comrades still need to work hard.So, we gathered together step by step, read from Banuel 13 to Gioneau 14, and then to Maupassant, regularly read the "Journal de Provence", insisted on listening to the machine gun-like news broadcast on the radio, and tried to figure out the mystery- Although everyone speaks French is a highly logical language. I think French is a myth, a language invented by the French to drive foreigners crazy.For example, where is the logic for the different "sex" of nouns and proper nouns?Why is the Rhône masculine and the Durance feminine?Both are rivers. If there must be gender, why can't it be the same sex?I asked this question of a Frenchman, who made a long speech about sources, tributaries, and floods, and then thought he had answered my question reasonably.Then he told me that the ocean is masculine, the sea is feminine, the lake is masculine, and the puddle is feminine.I was confused by looking at the water. Seeing life through rose-colored glasses (2) His tirade doesn't change my opinion, sex exists just to make life harder.They appear in random ways, sometimes ignoring the actual physical makeup of things.The French word for "vagina" is masculine, so how can bewildered students be expected to use logic correctly in a language that lists vagina as masculine? In addition, there is the androgynous pronoun "lui", which means "he/she", which is specially hiding in front of the sentence waiting to frame us.Generally, "lui" refers to the masculine "he", but in some sentences it can be transformed into a feminine "she".We often don't know the gender of "lui" until we find the subject of the sentence "she" or "he" later.For example, "Je lui ai telephone" (I called him/her), "mais elle etait occupee" (but she is busy).Although the answer to this riddle lies in the back, it is enough to confuse beginners, especially when the "lui" name is also unisex, such as Jean-Marie/Marie or Marie/Marie Pierre Well, what a mess! Still, that wasn't the worst of it.With the grammatical structure of French, absurd and weird things may happen every day.A recent newspaper article about the wedding of rock singer Johnny Halliday detailed the bride's gown to compliment the groom.It reads, "ll est une grande vedette." It means "he's a great actress."Look, just a short sentence can actually change the sex of a star, and it's still at his wedding. Perhaps because of French's complexity and awkwardness, it has been the language of diplomacy for centuries.For diplomacy, simplicity and clarity are not important, or even necessary.Careful statements are often formalized and vague, so that different interpretations are possible.Therefore, asking diplomats to use very concise and clear words to express their meaning is to make things difficult for them.According to Alex Dreyer15, a diplomat is someone who thinks twice before saying nothing.Ambiguity is the essence.French may have been invented to allow this kind of linguistic seed to flourish in the tiniest detail of every sentence. However, French is indeed a beautiful, soft, and romantic language, but like some people who regard it as a national treasure, they raise French lessons to the height of "civilization lessons", or regard French as the best way to guide human beings how to speak. A role model is too much.We can imagine the dismay of these French orthodox purists in the present situation when foreign cultures are invading the French language. This "corruption" began around the time the loanword "Le Weekend" crept across the English Channel to Paris.At the same time, the owner of a nightclub in the Pigalle district named his new mansion Le Sexy, coining the phrase "le weekend sexy" and making Paris The hotel owners in the Brighton (Brighton) area also aroused the opposition of hotel owners and other serious resort hotel operators. Verbal aggression isn't limited to the bedroom, it has seeped into the office as well.The manager now has an un job (job), and if the job pressure is too great, he will feel stressed (under pressure).Perhaps because of the need to become an un leader (leader) in the lemarketing (market competition) of a business jungle, this poor guy is overworked and doesn't even have time for a traditional three-hour lunch, so he can only make do with le fast-food ( fast food).It was Anglo-French at its worst, and it pissed off a bunch of old gentlemen from the Collège de France.I don't blame them.What a shame, in other words, les pits (pathetic) for such a clumsy invasion of an elegant language! —Another English-French sentence! The reason for the growing proliferation of Anglo-French is that French has a much smaller vocabulary than English, which creates problems because the same word has many different meanings.For example, in Paris, "je suis ravi" usually means "I'm happy", but in the "avant-garde cafe" in the village of Mena, "ravi" is a derogatory term.Thus, the same sentence has another almost completely opposite meaning - I am a bumpkin. To hide my confusion, or at least to avoid falling into some of the language pitfalls, I learned to gurgle like the locals, making short but expressive sounds—gasps, clicks my tongue in understanding, murmurs "beh oui" (Yeah! Yeah!) This is a cutscene used to change the conversation topic. One of the most flexible and therefore useful sentences is the short and clear "ah bon" (really?), which can be used as a question as well as a non-question.In the past, I thought it only expressed the literal meaning, but it is not.In a typical conversation, the following lines of dialogue would occur for an appropriate level of grief. "Little John Peel is really in trouble this time!" "Oui? (Really?)" "Beh oui. (Really!) He came out of the cafe, got into his car, and ran over a policeman, hit a wall, got knocked out, through the windshield, hit his head It blossomed, and its legs broke into 14 pieces." "Ah bon?" (Really?) In different tones, "ah bon" can express surprise, disbelief, indifference, anger, or pleasure.For just two words, what a remarkable achievement! Similarly.A short conversation can be completed with only two monosyllabic words. "?a va" literally means "it goes".Every day in every village and town around Provence, acquaintances meet by chance on the street, first shake hands habitually, and then start the following habitual dialogue: "?a va?" (OK?) "Oui. ?a va, ?a va. Et vous? (Okay, good, good, how about you?) "Bohf, ?a va." (Very good!) "Bieng. ?a va alors." (Everything is fine!) "Oui, oui. ?a va." (Yeah, all good.) "Allez. Au voir." (Well, bye!) "Au voir." (Goodbye!) Shrugs, sighs, and thoughtful pauses are needed for occasions when words alone are not enough.If the sun is good and you are not in a hurry, this pause can last for two to three minutes.Of course, this kind of leisurely and happy conversation with the neighbors is usually repeated many times on the way out to run errands in the morning. After a few months, this kind of simple meeting can easily make people mistakenly think that they have made significant progress in spoken French. You may even spend the whole night with French people, and they also claim to understand you. French.They gradually surpass acquaintances and become friends.When the time comes, they'll offer you a gift of verbal gestures of friendliness, and with that comes a whole new set of opportunities for you to be fooled.They started calling "you" instead of "you," an intimate sign that has its own dedicated verb. The day the French changed from the formal "thou" to the intimate "thou" was arguably a very important day, a clear sign that after weeks, months, or even years, he decided I like you!It's rude and unfriendly if you don't respond to the person.In this way, when you finally get used to using "you" and all related plural usages, you will fall headlong into the world of "you", unless you want to learn from the former French President Giscard that even his wife is deliberately honored as "you". you". We stutter French, make all the mistakes that violate the rules of grammar and attributes, and use long and convoluted sentences just to avoid getting bogged down in the "subjunctive mood" and glossing over the lack of vocabulary. Intimidated by such clumsiness with their dear language.They will kindly say that our French will not frighten them. I doubt it, but I can be sure that they want us to feel at home. What we enjoy every day is not only sunshine, but also the warmth of friendship. At least that's what we've experienced.Obviously not one size fits all, some people either don't believe it or hate it.Others directly accuse us of feigning joy, of turning a blind eye to small issues, or of trying to disregard the dark side of Provence.This unpleasant cliché, clinging to words like dishonesty, laziness, obstinacy, avarice, roughness, as if all these bad qualities were local, to the honest, hardworking, fair, innocent foreigner , It was the first time I saw it in my life. Yes, there are crooks and bigots in Provence, just like anywhere else in the world.But we are lucky, Provence has been very kind to us.In some other countries we are perpetual tourists stepping on someone else's land, but here we are welcomed and happy.No regrets, no regrets, full of joy. Thank you, Provence! 1 The number of famous dining and tourism guides in France is divided into two systems: green guides and red guides. The green guides mainly introduce scenic spots, while the red guides mainly focus on restaurants and hotels. Seeing life through rose-colored glasses (3) 2 Mark brandy, Marc, is distilled from the fermented grape skins left after squeezing the juice, and is produced all over France. 3 A pie baked with a hot dog buried in the roux. The hot dog poking out of the pie looks like a toad poking its head out of a burrow. 4 Warriors in Greek mythology 5 A cold medicine tablet. 6 The British are always ridiculed as animals whose skin turns red immediately after a little exposure to the sun. 7 General Noriega, former President of Panama. 8 Fort Knox, an American military base in Kentucky. 9 High-end French restaurants will offer a "tasting package" (menu degustation), usually a small amount, but there are many types, and they are all the restaurant's signature dishes. 10 Marquis de Sade (Marquis de Sade, 1740-1814), a French writer, wrote many pornographic works, mainly describing some satyrs.Later, his name became a proper noun "Sadism" (Sadism), meaning "sexual sadism". 11 Fauchon, a well-known food store in Paris, was founded in the 1980s and mainly sells pastries, candied fruit, chocolate, tea, coffee, etc. 12 The Opinel pocket knife is known as the French national knife. In 1890, French knifemaker Joseph Opinel designed a practical pocket knife with a wooden handle for people who often went to work in the mountains. Its appearance has remained unchanged for more than 100 years. 13 Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974), a famous French playwright, director and novelist in the 20th century 14 Jean Giono (1895-1970), a famous French writer, whose main works include "Light Cavalry on the Roof" and so on. 15 Alex Dreier (1916-2000), American actor