Katia - 08:31pm Mar 8, 2006 (#1 of 11)
Our responses made me think about how normal smoking in public places in France is. I know that smoking might be a lot more accepted over there because it seems as if the French and Europeans in general are much more open-minded when it comes to smoking and drinking. Am I correct on this assumption?
Do a lot of students at L'Ecole smoke? If so, what are the
general rules about where you guys are allowed to smoke? This might
seem a bit weird, but are there a lot of smoke detectors? At MIT, there
are smoke detectors in every single room and because of this we have a
lot of false alarms. In my dormitory, it is pretty common that someone
burns popcorn in the microwave and 5 minutes later the entire building
has to be evacuated while firemen check for fire. As you can see it is
a necessary evil which really annoys me because I have had to wake up
at 2 am for a false alarm.
Hi all,
It was interesting to find that the French responses included a lot of direct actions on the smoker, but the MIT respsonses required the server to do something. I think it is kind of a difference in the culture of restaurant dining in the States. Gratuity is never included unless it is a big group so they have to work for their 15 to 20 % so we probably feel its part of their job to handle the whole restaurant experience.
Smoking not as common in the States compared to Europe. It's funny because in Europe they have all those bigs signs on the cigarette packs, but no seems to mind and here it is in small font on the side of the carton.
jin kim
Hey,
I also noticed that MIT students were much more prone to call the
waiter while l'X students were more likely to confront the smoker
directly. Does any one have any ideas about why this might be? I agree
with Jin Kim about the influnce of extra tip versus included tip.
However, I think there is something more to it. It seems MIT students
are much more likely to avoid confrontation in this situation. When
thinking about my own response to this question, i would call the
waiter because I would be afraid that the smoker would not listen to me
or just ignore me when I asked them to stop. I thought that the waiter
has more authority than I do so they would have more of a chance of
making them stop. I was curious about the response "il n'y a pas de
reelle zone non fumeur dans un restaurant" Is this techniacally true or
is it more of a generalisation? I was also curious as what the average
age that people start smoking is in France and how old do you have to
be to start bying cigarettes? I would also like to know what perectage
of your campus smokes and where smoking is permitted on campus.
The
united states has had a trend over the years to convert public spaces
into completely non-smoking zones, as the population percentage of
non-smokers is greater than smokers. The prices of cigarettes have also
been rising sharply; I see both actions as an attempt to curb cigarette
usage among people. Has the French government taken any rather drastic
steps to lower smoking, or would such an action be too unpopular among
France's general population to pass?
Salut !
Nous en sommes arrivés aux mêmes conclusions que vous, en ce qui concerne le fait qu'aux USA, vous passez principalement par le serveur alors qu'en France on privilégie le contact direct. Il est aussi intéressant de remarquer que dans le cas de la demande directe au fumeur, les réponses Fr. se divisent en 7 demandes "polies" et 4 demandes "impolies" (c'est à dire de façon peu aimable) alors que pour les réponses US, c'est 1 demande "polie" et 3 demandes "impolies" ("you are going to die" etc...).
Comment expliquer le fait que dans vos réponses, vous passez majoritairement par l'intermédiaire du serveur ? Comme Teodora je pense qu'il s'agit d'une fuite de la confrontation directe pour éviter les ennuis. Il est plus difficile de s'adresser à quelqu'un directement.
Je crois que malheureusement, nos sociétés évoluent dans ce sens : avec Internet, on peut communiquer sans se voir, sans risquer la confrontation. C'est tellement plus facile de taper sur un clavier ou de parler dans un micro, que de se parler en face !
Concernant les zones non-fumeur (quand elles existent !), c'est hélas vrai qu'en général elles ne sont pas clairement séparées des zones fumeur. Parfois la frontière entre les deux n'est qu'une vulgaire plante verte, et finalement on sent tout autant la cigarette. Ces derniers temps, la tendance a été de culpabiliser le fumeur, de marquer "fumer tue" sur les paquets et d'augmenter les prix. Une loi interdit de fumer dans les lieux publics mais elle n'est pas toujours très bien appliquée.
Clément.
salut à tous, Pour parler de l'X, il y a très peu de fumeurs dans notre école si on nous compare avec la population française, je ne saurais dire à quoi c'est exactement du, serions nous plus raisonnables? j'en doute; sommes-nous assez détendus pour ne pas avoir besoin de fumer pour paraître "cools", ou alors est ce que l'interdiction de fumer des parents ou de la société est très marqué chez nous? Personellement, je pense qu'il s'agit plutôt du dernier cas.
Sinon j'ai une question plus personnelle pour vous, pourquoi
ne vous addressez vous que peu à la personne qui fume? Avez vous peur
de sa réaction ou de quelquechose d'autre? Estimez-vous très impoli de
parler à quelqu'un qu'on ne connait pas? est ce que vous avez une
explication?
Clement's observation on the trend of our culture is really interesting. I never thought of it that way, that we can be so accustomed to all these cyber means of communication that we develop some form of fear to confront people face to face.
In this case, I'm not sure if that is the reason why the MIT responses have the tendency to avoid talking directly to the person. I think placing the waiter as the middle person is like finding a middle ground between standing up for the right thing and still being nice at the same time. Perhaps that's how tact is defined here in the US, just to be safe in case the other person may get offended when a stranger tells them what not to do, or if that person simply is not aware of the regulation.
I do find it a little paradoxical if it is the case that the
person who is smoking got offended when someone else confronts them. If
anything, it's the non-smokers who are entitled to be offended because
technically speaking, the smoker infringes their rights to breathe
fresh air. But then again, people don't always behave the same way as
we expect; that's just part of humanity I guess.
Hello Alban,
Trying to respond to your question of why we don't say directly to the person that's smoking to stop, I'll venture to say that in this case, as in other situations, the MIT responses should not be considered representative of the people of the United States. It may be a little far fetched, and not to be taken as an offense to anyone from our side, but here's on what I base my response. Most MIT students have spent most of their lives really focused in school and learning, and sometimes they don't have as much social interaction as the average American youngster. I don't mean we are nerds like those you see depicted in the movies (although there are some people that do resemble them), and I do not mean it either as a bad thing (without the dedication and the time we spend by ourselves figuring out problems in the world, most of us would become the future scientists and engineers of the future). I would venture to say though, based on my own experience, and by observation, that the typical MIT student avoids personal confrontation more than the typical American person. That does not mean that Americans are trouble seekers, or that MIT students just don't do anything if treated unfairly, but they are more measured in their responses as a whole.
So it would be my guess that whenever an intermediary could be found, like the waiter in this case, and direct confrontation be avoided, the typical MIT student would take that way out (at least it's what seems logical to me). In the case of the movie theater, however, there's no intermediary so the person is confronted directly since there's no other choice.
Once again, this is my theory and it may not be shared by the rest of my classmates, but I hope it gives you another way to view the reactions.
Greetings to everybody!
Je n'ai lu qu'en diagonale ce qui a été dis: le médecin de l'X m'a dit que seul 10% des X fummaient. (C'est d'ailleurs très difficile d'emprunter des cigarettes ici vus que presque personne ne fume ! :)
MAIS si on regarde les statistiques des jeunes de notre age en dehors de l'X, il y a BEAUCOUP PLUS de fumeurs. Par exemple tous mes amis "d'enfance" fument !
Pour revenir sur ce que dit Alban, je pense que effectivement
c'est une question d'interdiction implicite et inconciente qui en est
le resultat. MAIS (encore) ceci est vrai, ici à l'X, où je pense une
grande majorité vient de mileux sociaux relativement ( voire très)
aisés et élevés , et où certains ont grandi dans des familles qui ont
des valeurs morales fortes qu'on ne retrouve pas forcement dans
l'ensemble de la population.
Personnelement, quand je vais dans un restaurant non fumeur et qu'une personne fume effectivement, je pense que c'est au personnel de faire respecter l'interdiction! Pour moi il est tout à fait naturel de passer par cet intermédiaire.
Bien sur, si la personne en question est assise proche de moi, je m'adresserais directement à elle.
Hatim : si tu relis la phrase à compléter, il s'agit de quelqu'un qui est assis... à la table d'à coté.
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