The Other Side of the Coin

<rant>

Seriously though, maybe we bring it on ourselves. In the previous post I argued that people in general tend toward a habit of victimization and egoism. I wrote about this in the context of the bevy of anti-American sentiments that I've encountered here.

Naturally there's another side to this coin. To put it mildly, I've been less than impressed by the comportment of my compatriots. It's an unfortunate paradox that the Americans that spend the most time abroad are generally those that we would want to be represented by the least. They are a self-centered, ungrateful and inconsiderate lot. They are characterized by being, by and large, white, female, and decidedly upper-middle class. They are loud and opinionated and exude a pomposity typically reserved for old-timey oil barons. They are American university students, in their sophomore or junior years (placing them at that age of grand wisdom, 19-20), engaging in the revered ritual of the "semester abroad."

If you would like to become a member of this rarefied breed, here is a crash course:

• Come to class about 60% of the time
• When in class speak in English to your neighbor (of course only if neighbor is American, if neighbor is not American ignore him or her completely)
• Make no attempt at concealing the fact that you are speaking in English (even though you are in French class, in France)
• Repeat funny-sounding French words until you are doubled over laughing at your own hilariousness
• Never follow along so that when the professor calls on you you have to mumble and flip through pages in an attempt to answer
• Complain about the fact that someone else, for the benefit of the 15 other peopme waiting, answered for you while you were searching for the answer
• Do not try to pronounce French words correctly (just because other people pronounce the French "r" differently than the English "r" doesn't mean that you have to!)

Seriously, it's bad. I regularly observe better behavior from the French high school students that I teach and they 1) aren't paying for their school and, 2) are required to be there. The worst aspect of this is that the rest of my class is filled with people who are making a considerable personal investment in terms of time and money to be in this class. They are in the 24-35 age range and have either lived in France for some time or have recently relocated here. The Americans come off as a bunch of ungrateful buffoons, seeing the world on their parents dime and getting nothing out of it. Some concrete examples:

• When asked about traveling, one American replies that he has been to Mexico. The professor asks where and if he saw some of the ruins of the previous civilizations. He replies that he was in Cancun the entire time, didn't leave his resort, and spent the majority of the time drunk. (Remember that a good number of the other students in my class are proud Latin Americans, I imagine that his response didn't demonstrate "respect" for their cultures.)
• An American girl who never follows along in class constantly shouting, "What does that mean?" immediately after the professor explains what something means.
• An American girl wears a big, stupid hat to class. France has a more traditional approach to education so wearing a hat in class is looked down upon. You are expected to come to class, sit up straight, face forward, and work hard. The professor asks why she is wearing a hat and she attempts to directly translate "I'm having a bad-hair day." Naturally no one understands this idiom so she puts her head down on the table. A few minutes later she takes off her shoes and socks and puts her feet up on the chair next to her so that her bare feet hang into the aisle, obstructing the movement of the professor as she passes out papers. Not exactly appropriate behavior by American standards, let alone French standards.

Now, I don't want it to seem that I'm getting down on Americans, but the six Americans in my class are doing nothing good for our image abroad. They act according to one of the worst stereotypes of Americans, that we have no appreciation for foreign cultures and behave if we are at home even when we are guests. I don't understand why they are wasting an opportunity that such a small portion of the world would ever have the chance to enjoy. It's unfortunate for them and unfortunate for our national image. Esther told me that her university had a big seminar before she came to the United States for her year abroad. They told her to respect local traditions, be generally non-confrontational, and to work to improve the image of France. I'm not sure if the American students had anything like that before they left, if they did it certainly had no effect. Bottom line, I'm embarrassed to be associated with them.

</rant>

Unclear Thinking

The good news is that I've found that living in a foreign country goes a long way in understanding people, specifically what traits tend to be more universal. The bad news is that I've found people to be prone to disastrously unclear thinking and completely irrational behavior. Naturally, a few examples:

Two weeks ago I had a coffee with a woman in my French class from a Central American country. After a little bit of chit-chat about our common experiences as foreigners, she launched into a series of accusations and speculations against the United States. This isn't anything new, most people have some pretty strong emotions about the United States and I understand their desire to share them when they meet an American. When in this situation I try my best to explain that, yes, the United States has done and is doing some bad things but that it also does plenty of good things as well. Yes, there are plenty of crazy, nationalistic people in the United States but that they are vastly outnumbered by the good, normal people. Normally people grasp this and I feel that, even if they haven't changed their mind about the United States, they are a little more balanced in their analysis of it.

In this case, however, there was something qualitatively different. My classmate would concede that, yes, surely there are good people in the United States, but that it is an evil empire out to destroy the little countries and people of the world. For example, she told me that she had read that there are private citizens camping out on the Mexican border trying to "defend" it. I told her that this was correct, that they call themselves the Minutemen, that I think they are wasting their time, and that they just want to play soldier. She told me that they were actively hunting and killing immigrants. I told her that they had never killed anyone, at most they notify the Border Patrol who then arrests the immigrants. She told me that she "wasn't sure" about that, which is to say that she went on believing that the American government is letting its citizens kill immigrants because they are considered "less than human, like animals" (her words). In a different story, though in the same conversation, she told me about a friend of hers who had won a full-ride scholarship to an American university. When applying for the required long-stay visa, however, she was turned down and wasn't able to take advantage of her scholarship. Obviously that would be rough, I commiserated a bit and then said that there must have been some reason to deny the visa, that the State Department doesn't simply deny visas at random. (If they did, it would be a much cheaper and quicker process.) To this, my classmate said, "You really think so? I'm not so sure, the entire experience is designed to be psychologically terrifying. There are huge walls around the embassy, there are soldiers with automatic weapons guarding it and then they give you a scholarship and then take it away." This line of logic was simply stunning to me and I found it really difficult to respond. The whole conversation was a real mess, I got up to leave in frustration at one point, explaining that I wasn't the ambassador of the United States, that I didn't need a lecture about the bad things that my country does (there are enough easily substantiated ones that these ridiculous, half-baked theories that she was telling me weren't at all necessary). In the end, I was polite and we went away from it saying that it was a worthwhile exchange (though we haven't spoken since).

This conversation left me thinking, why was it that someone would spend so much time concocting absurd conspiracy theories about another country and then feel the need to explain them to a citizen of that country? Was it something peculiar to Latin Americans? I have noticed far more anti-American hostility from this quarter than from any other, including the Iraqis and Iranians that I have interacted with.

[Side Story: At one point the classmate from the above story along with a group of other Latin American women questioned me about why we call ourselves "American". I said that I could see why they wanted to ask this, they, of course, are "American" too. I said something about the original distinction between "American" and "European" dating from the creation of the country and that the name has just stuck. Also, it's difficult to create a descriptive from "United States of America", what else could it be, "United Statesian"? Anyway, they already seemed to know the answer and were only to happy to tell me it. That answer is, "Because you (i.e. Americans, or United Statesians) take the whole continent for yourselves." You can't really say anything to people when they confront you like this, they already have their minds made up so I just let it drop.]

Why were these people behaving like this? I get the sense that they are blaming the US for a lot of the problems in their countries. Certainly there is some support for this, the US has had a long history of not-so-positive involvement with Latin American countries that has led to a general anti-American sentiment there. But, it ignores all of the ways that the leaders of the countries have driven them in the wrong direction for so long. I get the feeling that there is a sort of victimization present, that people want to believe that somebody is out to get them. The appeal of this is intuitive, by blaming a huge outside power you get to feel that you are doing all that you can to improve the situation. Since the huge outside power is unchangeable, the most that you can do is complain. Also, there is a certain egoism involved in this too. Take the case of the friend of the classmate who got the scholarship but was denied the visa. In thinking that there is a big machine working against you you have to believe that you, yourself or a group that you belong to, are important enough to get the attention of this machine. This is almost never the case. There are huge, bureaucratic policy decisions that create these massive government machines that can chew a person up if they don't navigate it well. It's awful that it works this way but it is a reality of modern governments. If you were denied a visa, it's not because the US government is out to get you, it's because the series of bureaucrats pushing their papers around came to a systematic decision. That's all, it's not as romantic as being the victim of some terrible hegemony, but it's the ugly truth of it.

I don't want to give the impression that this tendency toward victimization and egoism are peculiarly Latin American traits, by all means they are not. In fact, that is the central point of this post. These are universal traits that people across all nationalities and cultures share that are most often, but certainly not always, expressed in relatively difficult economic times (by which I mean situations where there are close neighbors who are doing much better than you). In fact, when I was jotting some notes for this post, I overheard a discussion of some American girls. They were talking about the difficulty they had registering at the Sorbonne, that it took a long time, etc... What was their conclusion, "I think that they are purposely delaying our paperwork because we are American." Are you serious?! Why would they do that? What interest of the Sorbonne's would that serve?

The most serious problem that I see with this trend is that it leads people to misunderstand the problem which, in turn, prevents them from finding a good solution. One response of Latin American countries to the transgressions of the United States is to elect leaders like Hugo Chavez who do silly things that are almost certain to be harmful for the country in the long run. This victimization and egoism leads people to blame the bad guy next door rather than look inward and see the more serious problems therein. This misses the point and leads to only more problems in the future and sets the whole process of reform and improvement back years.

On a final note, one of the topics that came up often in the big conversation with the classmate was immigration to the US. She was arguing that the US should be more open to letting immigrants in, although she said that she understood that they couldn't let everyone in (though offered no opinion on where the right balance was). I was reminded of an interview I saw of Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST Robotics, inventor of the Segway scooter and many other vastly more useful devices, on the Colbert Report. Colbert, in character as always, asks about some water purification and engery generation devices that Kamen has invented and whether they can be used to solve the illegal immigration problem. Kamen answers yes, saying that if they can be used to raised the standard of living in these other countries, they will reduce the demand to come to the United States to have clean water, regular electricity, and to earn a decent wage. This is where I think the focus should be, helping other people get into situations where they are no longer wanting basic services or some particular luxuries. How to best do that? That's another post all together...

What's the word...

...oh yeah, that's it, UNCONSCIONABLE.

Have a look at this post on the Freakonomics Blog regarding the markup on generic drugs at pharmacies compared to the price at Costco and Sam's Club. Here's the meat of it:

Even once you factor in the cost of buying a membership at Costco and Sam’s Club, the price differences were astounding. Here are the prices he found at Houston stores for 90 tablets of generic Prozac:

Walgreens: $117

Eckerd: $115

CVS: $115

Sam’s Club: $15

Costco: $12

Those aren’t typos. Walgreens charges $117 for a bottle of the same pills for which Costco charges $12.

Now, I'm all for the market deciding the price of goods in most cases. If someone is willing to pay $20 for a pound of bananas, by all means someone should sell them at that price. However, drugs are not bananas and high prices encourage non-compliance with doctors' orders, thereby putting patients at considerable risk. Furthermore, as the author of the post notes, one explanation for this is that elderly people, the largest consumers of prescription medications, are most likely to continue shopping at the corner pharmacy rather than shop around for a better deal. As the blog author says, "Talk about information asymmetry; talk about price discrimination."

This is a very clear example of "Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should."

Found originally on Boing Boing.

UPDATE: Ahh, la France...

Yesterday (Saturday for those of you keeping track, not Monday) I received a letter from the Social Security office saying that I had full coverage. It's not my official card, but it will work just the same. It seems like this chapter of French bureaucracy is over and with my new health coverage I'm looking forward to getting really sick and putting it to the test. That is, before it expires in two months...

Ahh, la France...

It's been a while since I've written anything specifically about France but the time has come again. Let me preface my remarks by saying that I really enjoy living in France, the people are wonderful and the food is delicious (though a bit heavy on the meats, but nothing like Germany). What could a person like me complain about? Well, the same thing that all of the French people complain about, the French Government and, specifically, the health care system.

Here's my story. I came to France to teach in their public schools as an English assistant, that means that I'm an employee of the government. As a visitor with a temporary residency permit I'm entitled to coverage under the national health care program. It sounds like a great idea until you actually get down to the nuts and bolts of it. To make the long story short, though I've been in France since September 2006 and have been working since October 2006, I won't get full coverage until March 2007. Then I leave the country in April 2007. Seven months in the country. Two months of coverage. Oh, and of course I've been paying for this since I began working.

Now, how is this possible you ask? Well, like many jobs you don't get immediate coverage and it's the same thing here, 90 days are required at the job before you get the benefits. This doesn't come as so much of a surprise, but again, the details. It's not that you someone turns on the tap and your benefits begin flowing on your 91st day of employment. No, you can apply to get your benefits starting on that day. As you may know from some of my previous rants, applying to the French Government for anything substantial is at least a 45-day process. This time it has taken a bit longer.

Since I am always looking for the opportunity to help others (and complain about the French government) here's a guide to getting government medical coverage in France, compiled from my own experiences:

1. Get message from employer that I can begin the application process.
2. Ask where I do that and get conflicting advice until Esther calls the central number and gets some correct information.
3. Take my papers to the Social Security office and attempt communication with civil servant.
4. Civil servant is surprisingly patient with mumbling foreigner and demands one more document, a pay stub from the employer.
5. Ask at place of employment how to get a pay stub. Get response that the only person who can possibly do that is sick for two weeks.
6. Wait for person to get healthy.
7. Talk to said person and get pay stub.
8. Take pay stub back to social security office. Speak with another civil servant who speaks very quickly. Leave a bit confused but understanding that you need to wait "a good month" before you will receive my coverage and card.
9. Wait said month.
10. Receive fat envelope in the mail from the Social Security office and eagerly open it.
11. Feel crushing disappointment when you see that they returned the entire file with a letter at the front explaining that you are not eligible for coverage because you are not authorized to work in France.
12. Feel confusion set in. Deep confusion. Didn't you include a pay stub? And a copy of your residency permit that says that you can work right on the front of it?
13. Realize that the first page of the file is a copy of your temporary temporary residency permit, the paper that you got while you waited for them to make the real card. This thing says that it itself doesn't authorize you to work, though, of course, the real one does.
    
14. Remember that you include a pay stub. Look for it in the file and realize that it is the second page.
15. Emphasize that your pay stub, from the French government is the second page.
    
16. Ask yourself, "If a person saw this pay stub from the government, how could they possibly think that I'm not authorized to work?"
17. Realize that this person never saw this pay stub because... THEY NEVER LOOKED PAST THE FIRST PAGE OF YOUR FILE!
18. Anger.
19. Realization that this person will get to retire with 80% of his/her salary (plus full benefits) at the age of 55 for such job performance.
    
20. More anger, though of a different sort, more visceral this time.
21. Anger flows to Esther who talks to her parents. Her mom resolves to go with you to the Social Security office together.
22. Go to the Social Security office with Esther's mom. Speak with civil servant who explains that you need one more little piece of paper in your file. She says it came with your residency permit when you picked that up. Respond that you never received such a little paper.
    
23. Go home with Esther's mom to make calls to figure out how to get a replacement for this paper.
24. Learn that the paper came from your medical examination ("Turn your head and cough...") not with your residency permit.
25. More anger because you had this little paper with you the whole time though no one ever told you that they needed it.
    
26. Return to Social Security office with Esther's mom.
27. Realize that you forgot the file at home. Run home and get it. (OK, I admit, this was my fault, but it didn't help the frustration level at all.)
28. Give civil servant little paper.
29. Civil servant promises that you will get your card on Monday.
30. Wait for Monday.

I'm still on Step 30, I'll tell you all tomorrow how it works out.

So that's been my experience with the French system so far. Pay for benefits you cannot receive and be told conflicting advice from different civil servants and their agencies. But hey, c'est la vie, non?

That said, I've counted that there are 10 weeks left on my working contract and four of those will be spent on paid vacation, beginning with the next two. Ha! Maybe this system isn't so bad after all...

And you thought Comcast was bad...

The only way that I am able to post this now is courtesy of some unsecured wireless network from which I can get a 'Low' or 'Very Low' signal (thank you Apple Network 9a9027). We are supposed to be connecting through our own conncection, provided by a French ISP named Free. They have a really good deal that for 29.90 euros per month you get a high speed ADSL connection, unlimited telephone calls throughout Europe and North America, and a few television channels. Almost too good to be true!

Esther signed a contract with them in early September to connect with the line here. In mid-September the France Telecom telephone landline was disconnected since we were planning on having the Free line available to us. Here it is early October and they have yet to connect our line.

Another interesting quirk about France is that most phone numbers for companies are the equivalient of 900 numbers in the US. If you want to order something from a cataloge you pay 15 cents/minute. Similarly, if you want to call customer service because they didn't connect your line like they were supposed to, you pay 34 cents/minute. That is, if you are calling from a landline. Calling from a cellphone results in a whole different set of charges.

So imagine that you are trying to connect your brand new internet/telephone/TV service and you encounter a problem. Since you have disconnected your old telephone you have to use a cell phone. What happens? You spend over 6 euros for a call that lasts less than 7 minutes where the only information you get is, "Try it again tomorrow, you may or may not get a confirmation email when we have connected your line."

I guess in France the saying, "The customer is king" is accurate, but being a king in France hasn't always been the most comfortable position.