This episode is supported by Shopify, the platform I use for my online shop. Check
the video description for more info and a free trial! Hi everyone, it's Justine. There is a
new show on Netflix it's about a young american woman who moves to paris for a year to work in a
marketing agency i'm french i lived in paris and i lived in the us so right now i'm getting quite
a few messages asking justine what do you think of emily in paris what do i think i feel personally
addressed by this show and in today's video i'm gonna be with judge and party as we say it what
in this show is true or has a part of truth what is just a big pile of cliches let's have a look
shall we emily in paris is clearly a mix between sex and the city and the devil wears prada meaning
a mean boss lots of designer clothes inappropriate for both the weather and the pavement in paris
affairs and unlikely situations don't get me wrong both of these shows are very good
entertainment wildly successful no question but emily in paris is happening in my country now so
we need to do a bit of myth busting first wanting to work in france without learning the language
i'd say bold so at the beginning of the first episode first season emily arrives in paris goes
to her new workplace meets her boss well that's very unfortunate excuse me that you don't speak
french it's a problem well i'm going to take a class but je parl um francais already english
speakers tend to assume that the rest of the world speaks english which is partly true because most
countries do teach english in schools but not everyone feels comfortable speaking that language
and if you're just assuming that people have to speak your language it can come across
as disrespectful in France on top of that you are missing out on the culture and everything
which matters so much to us that's why we take it personally i say we like people in general um we
are very proud of our culture our history our food and gastronomy and you want to speak the language
so that you get the finesse of our culture or so we think so if you're a tourist in france
i highly recommend that you ask first to the person you're speaking to if they speak english
without assuming that they do and starting to just chat away also just learn the basic words bonjour
s'il-vous-plaît merci excusez-moi. French people will always appreciate the effort and try to
improve your french as well then café de flore in the saint-germain district which is the literature
culture and university district of paris
so emily's stable neighbor turns out to be a philosophy professor
talks about simone de beauvoir etc um that's very famous i'm surprised that they did not mention
that ken lagerfeld used to work there because it's a show about fashion and he's very famous
for that he sketched in that cafe for years it contributed to make it famous actually
and then i saw the prices on the menu behind them
and i thought what what so i checked the prices online they charge 740 euros
for a cappuccino hello hello hello that that's like that's stealing never paid that much for
a coffee not even any berries please ridiculous then i checked the other side of the street let's
go the other cafe that they're mentioning they charge eight euros for a cappuccino that's like
copenhagen level under my standards and salaries in denmark are a bit higher than in france
please don't pay that much for a coffee in paris ever then we have the parisian
snob new boyfriend thomas despises and avoids regular conversations and wants to talk about
philosophy and higher things all the time yeah i agree so though talking about wine it's like
conversation about the weather far more interesting to drink it
no it's exaggerated of course but it touches upon something that does exist and that we call the
snob parisian parisian as opposed to provence not provence not the same thing provence means
basically the rest of the country everything that is not paris
snobs real parisians as people from outside call them are usually born raised in paris still live
there have never lived anywhere else and they can come across as arrogant and disdainful
even towards other french people who were not born in paris but somewhere else in the country
like me i lived in paris but i'm not from paris snobs are generally well educated intellectual
friends of the arts why not often affluent and they tend to gravitate inside that social
privileged bubble i've experienced it firsthand and i can totally see how it would bother
foreigners as well because it's a very exclusive milieu i do think that people like this exist
in every affluent capital city in the world that i've seen so far but it's true that this
cliche in the show does hold true then affairs in the workplace something you should know
is antoine's mistress
so sylvie who is emily's boss the boss of the agency is in an affair with antoine antoine is a
very married client of the agency and the wife of antoine and sylvia are actually even friends and
and they meet on regular occasions and everyone seems to find that normal well let me tell you
this isn't normal and when the same antoine gives lingerie to emily and sends that
to her office and emily finds it inappropriate yes it is inappropriate we talk more easily and openly
about relationships than in other countries but but we are not like that geography issues
in the first minute when emilia arrives in paris and gets driven to her new apartment by
a cap they drive past eiffel tower check ponte check the train check check check
check that has all frenchies roll their eyes but then also it doesn't make any sense geographically
they start in eiffel tower drive to the ponteo and then come back to the ag detrion it's like filming
a movie in new york and having the guy drive from wall street to the west village via central park
about speaking too loud i can't find that scene anymore but basically it's at the office emily's
speaking and one of her colleagues goes why are you shouting yes it's true that people in the u.s
speak a lot louder than we do after living in the us myself i still don't know why is it because the
cities are super loud because you have so many cars and then if you want that cap to stop and
pick you up you really have to make him hear you i don't know maybe if you're american enlighten me
in french restaurants for instance the music is very subtle quiet and people
are expected to also speak quietly whereas in restaurants in the us the music is super loud
and if you want your direct neighbor to hear what you're saying you really have to speak up
i have problems with this the whole time that i lived in new york uh people kept
asking me to speak louder and i was like i can't i'm french i don't want to yell at you
next one cigarettes over food oh there you are stop eating why are you eating
i'm sorry it's just so good and i'm so hungry we'll have a cigarette no no no no no no
do you want to have lunch no i'll have a cigarette
no one skips lunch no one since we're here
let's talk about all the comments i got under my previous videos about french culture like
french women are thin because they don't eat they just smoke and drink coffee all day where
where is that coming from look i'm french huh i don't drink coffee i don't smoke
none of my friends do and i certainly don't skip lunch or any meal and i don't know anybody
who does that myth about french people smoking like chimney i don't know where it comes from i
think it comes from older movies i'm just going to look at the statistics objectively from the world
health organization american smokers would smoke 22.5 cigarettes per day versus 14.4 for french
smokers it's data from 2012 so we'll see in two years when they update the data but like it's not
true that french people smoke so much more as for smoking indoors which keeps coming in this series
no it's forbidden to smoke in the workplace or in any public place by law since 2007 and in
bars and restaurants since 2008 so no no then the pleasure of doing nothing you know the wonderful
thing about paris is that nobody judges you for doing nothing i mean it's practically an
art form here yes absolutely true we take time to enjoy life and it doesn't mean being lazy at all
i love to sit down in a cafe with a glass of wine or a tea or whatever alone or in company and just
appreciate the moment unload all that stress when was the last time that you did that
that you took a step back and just breathed literally it's a happiness booster you should try
also i read somewhere not in that show somewhere else but i can't find the source anymore
that americans are good at entertainment while french people are good at leisure i couldn't
agree more i think it's very accurate next point than a big one the customer is always right
the chef tells me the stick is correct um well correct for him but not correct for me so she's
basically arguing with the waiter about having the cook cook her meat for longer i suggest you try it
uh maybe you suggest you cook it longer yeah i'll take yours no no come on the customer is always
right major cultural difference right there no here the customer is never right well maybe
i'll educate the chef a little bit about customer service you think you're gonna change the entire
french culture by sending back a steak yes in france we do think that the customer is king
just not like in the u.s in france when you're eating a restaurant you are guests as a guest you
get the good treatment white tablecloth napkins made in cloth the bread the free water everything
you get three courses the waiter is expected to guess what you will need before you even have
to ask for it and without asking you what you need the cook is your host it would be rude to
make them feel like they've made a mistake before you even tried before you even tasted your meal
looking at it in another way it's the cook's job to present you perfectly cooked and seasoned meals
with a beautiful presentation it's your job to assume that the kitchen did their job right
that's exactly why the waiter and then the cook tells emily you should try it you might like it
as it is i'm gonna add a bonus tip in there don't put salt and pepper automatically before you have
tasted your food assume that the cook seasoned it the way it is meant to be eaten
it's rude if you put more ingredients before having tasted french cooks love
foodies clients who can just taste and immediately tell you this ingredient you added a bit of this
a bit of that like they love people who know and appreciate what they're eating if you're able to
do that the cook will come out of the kitchen to salute you and have a chat the waiter will
get you a complimentary coffee you'll get a dj's teeth on top of that and the next time you walk in
they'll call you by your name and give you the best table that's how it's done awkward situations
due to translation mercy for the shower what the shower is la douche oh i enjoy languages and
and puns in other languages so i find that part really funny if you speak both english and french
you'll get the nuances the jokes are not always good taste but they're all pretty accurate
eiffel tower charms yes that was missing i could eat your clothes
here again the scene is extremely exaggerated but yeah it comes across a stacky it's like
wearing a giant sign on your forehead saying i'm a tourist it's not cool in france if you want to
blend in and or live like a local i'd avoid that one more we have one more
oh this is it it's on the fifth floor this is the fourth floor uh i just swept off
these bags five flights this is the fifth floor obviously the ground floor is zero da
this is called segundo in french the context and the tone of what people are saying is
essential to understand if they are being serious ironic or plainly kidding and this
tonality thing there is a law between cultures in the u.s people usually say what they mean
in french there is more of a context to understand you need to be able to read between the lines
in japan you need to even understand what has not been said at all like
it's another level of complexity in terms of understanding nuances there is a full scope
of communication differences sources of miscommunication and misunderstandings if you're
interested in this there is a great book called the cultural map that analyzes and maps countries
on an axis based on how much context you need to understand the language is super interesting
so yeah if you're american and you move to france especially paris you need to get used to
that kind of gymnastics that's it for the little roundup thumbs up if you enjoyed this video thank
you very much i must say for me at least it was very fun to film so i hope you liked it as well
what bothers me most i think in this netflix show is that it puts all french people into one box
and we don't like to be put into boxes we want to be unique in the way we dress the way we look
our behavior our style i guess in this sense we are quite a homogeneous bunch after all
i've done previous videos about the french culture since that's my field of expertise um i will link
them here and down below in the description for instance the way we wear perfume our relationship
to food the way we do skincare and makeup how we see beauty in general if you're interested
in more insights on the french culture then to be fair we would now need an american to review
this show from the american perspective because there are quite a few stereotypes about the us
served in there as well but that is not my field of expertise so i want to open the discussion to
you guys if you know the us and all friends if you've been to paris what do you think is that
what you expected do you think there are some stereotypes that are completely out of line or
others that have not been picked up yet by the show and that you find are missing let me know
see you very soon in a new video and until then you'll find me on instagram take care bye