The first time I went to a French party, it was filled with "old people." That is to say, along with a smattering of people around my age, there were mostly adults in their 30s to 50s. It was a birthday party for a 30-year-old. Obviously, it was quite tame.
But it left me wondering, how do French kids party? I got a glimpse when the parents in my host family left for the weekend to their house in the country. They called it a "house" but from the pictures it looked more like a chateau.
When your parents are out of town for the weekend, it's almost obligatory to have a party. In high school, my parents left for a cabin in the mountains every other weekend. I rarely went with them because I relished having huge, clandestine parties while they were gone. The frantic cleanups on Sunday mornings were never fun, but it was worth it.
My host sister, an 18-year-old in her first year of college, also abides by the parents-out-of-town-party rule. I had heard lots of drunken laughter emanating from across the hall before, but this was the first time she invited me to join.
On a lonely Saturday night when I had nothing else to do, I was pretty excited when she knocked on my door and asked me to come "take a drink" with her and her friends.
I don't know what I was expecting, but it was no frat party. Ten or 12 kids were assembled in a circle on ornate chairs and couches. In the center was a small table filled with four different types of wine and two or three kinds of hard alcohol. Ingeniously, someone had put down a plastic tarp over the expensive and probably ancient tapestries on the floor.
After choosing a drink and a snack (bizarre but amazing: roast chicken-flavored potato chips), I was given a seat and introduced to everyone, one by one. It was all a bit formal in comparison to what I remember from my high school days.
I never remembered giving proper introductions to my friends and I certainly don't remember having such an extravagant spread of alcohol available to me; the cheapest and largest jug of vodka (McCormick's anyone?) plus any available chaser was de rigueur for my friends, and it didn't get much better in college.
I guess a loosely-enforced drinking age of 16 gets rid of the pathetic desperation for alcohol that is so pervasive in American teens.
It's often said that the less puritanical drinking attitude in Europe inspires less "drinking to get drunk," and I'm sure that's true in many respects. Wine is definitely viewed more as a culinary accompaniment than as a means to get drunk. But kids are kids, and as my host sister told me, "Most people under the age of 30 are heavy drinkers."
That fact made itself apparent as the evening progressed, and it was reassuring to know that American college students aren't the only ones who get "trashed."
Conversation flowed easily with the lubrication of alcohol, my poor French mixing with their better English to produce a drunken cross-cultural exchange. I found out that the French are obsessed with "Desperate Housewives," "Prison Break," and the now-defunct "The O.C." One guy waxed poetically about Summer for 10 minutes, repeatedly affirming in his heavily accented English that she is "so, so hot."
He was incredulous when I told him the show was canceled and I rarely watched it.
At some point, someone put on some music and a few of the girls halfheartedly started to dance drunkenly. I couldn't contain my laughter - a lot of their music is just bad, even the American music they like.
Aside from grating French pop, they were very fond of Pink and what can only be described as insane techno remixes of old American songs. Until you've heard D.J Bassbot's remix of "It's Raining Men" sung by 10 French kids, you haven't lived. My host sister was surprised that I hadn't heard of any of the "famous" French deejays she listed as if they were movie stars.
When I told them that I thought a lot of French music was bad, they agreed. Part of the problem is that French is a difficult language to sing in, with all its strange guttural sounds and awkward pronunciations.
The other problem is that the French focus too much on having meaningful lyrics rather than pleasant-sounding music. American music is often easy and fun to dance to, but the lyrics are often horrible, they said. I had to agree; anyone who has ever analyzed the lyrics of "My Humps" knows it's no Shakespearean sonnet.
Having reached a compromise - the French have better lyrics but the Americans have better music - we had another round of drinks to celebrate our consensus. Then it was time to move on to the discoth??que. But by then I was far too tired and inebriated to go to a club. I don't know if there is a French word for "pre-gaming," but they do it pretty hard.
So ultimately, in spite of some superficial differences, it appears that French kids party pretty much the same way as anyone else. We all have parties when our parents leave town. We all get a little too drunk. We all put on music and sing at the top of our lungs. We all embarrass ourselves and dance when no one else wants to. We all drunkenly spill and frantically apologize, whether it's on a cheap futon or a Louis XV-era sett?©e.
France and America may not always be on the same page, but it's good to know that after you've had a few drinks, everyone speaks the same (slurred) language.
Adam Winograd is a junior majoring in international relations. He can be reached at adam.winograd@tufts.edu.
