‘Holiday’ is an untranslatable word

Paris in the summer

Dear Friend,

I hope you are enjoying your summer!

We have finally had some sun here in Paris, but only fleetingly. As usual at this time of year, the city is emptied of locals and full of even more tourists than usual.

My mum came to visit for the day earlier this week (she doesn’t stay for long as she gets back to her cat and small commune of guinea pigs). When I dropped her off at Gare du Nord, I saw a mum and son coming confusedly out into the taxi rank, which is currently under renovation ahead of the Olympics. So what they actually exited to was a narrow alleyway that smelled of pee.

“I didn’t think Paris would smell,” said the little boy. “Everyone knows Paris is stinky”, replied his mother.

Relatedly, I was talking to a Japanese friend today about ‘Paris Syndrome’, a real condition experienced by largely Japanese visitors to Paris, a kind of mental breakdown caused by the gap between the individual’s idealised perception of the capital, and the real, messy, sometimes pee-smelling version that meets them here.

Summer in Paris

The syndrome was elaborated by Dr. Hiroaki Ota, a Japanese psychiatrist who works at Hospital Saint-Anne, where many foreigners go for treatment thanks to a multilingual staff of doctors. Symptoms really include delusions, hallucinations, dizziness and sweating. (It might not be that simple though, my friend also said that the people who fall prey to this condition, often young women, could already be vulnerable; it is not unusual, she said, for some parents to send difficult adolescents or those with mental-health conditions to Europe for a change of scenery.)

In any case, it is always interesting and sometimes surreal to live in a place that exists both in reality and in the imagination and dreams of so many. And though it’s true that not every day here is an episode of Emily in Paris (or indeed, any day), it is still an unerringly charming and mostly exceptionally beautiful place.

This week, while I get ready to travel to another fabled place, Hounslow, I am going to republish below the text of my very first Pen Friend letter. I hope you will enjoy it — it speaks about the French vs. British attitude to holidays. If you read it the first time, I hope you don’t mind reading it again!

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“Holiday” is not a translatable word

It took me a few years to realise that ‘holiday’ or ‘vacation’ is not a good-quality translation for ‘Les vacances’, the French word for the summer break. This is because the two concepts are not the same thing.

When I, a British woman, think of “holidays”, the following images spring to mind: Cliff Richard, a bus, a bucket and spade, a slightly blustery beach, a board game, a campsite, an annual leave request, some kind of internet booking site.

In fact, though I can’t claim to represent all British people (nor would I wish to), I think these last two are quite important because I would venture to say that a holiday, for the Brits, is a lot about the process. I would go as far as to say that the following occupy just as much mental attention, if not more, than the break itself: the annual leave request, the out-of-office, the outfit shopping, the packing squares, the breakfast at the airport.

I think this is because in British culture, taking a week off work is seen as a bit MAD. It’s almost like living a fantasy, a celestial dream right here on Planet Earth. It’s not normal. It’s a big deal. It’s a process. When it’s over, we come back, maybe share our photos, assess our often meagre tans, and then return to the natural order of things, that is to say, the routine of working life.

‘I blame Rick Steves’ - drawing by Hannah Meltzer

Whereas, I would argue, in France ‘Les vacances’ represent a return to a natural, lizard-like state. This idea crystallised for me when I asked French co-workers how their summer holidays were, and they replied with phrases like: “Super! We had beach, sun, swimming, good food,” adding “tout ce qu’il faut”, or ‘all the necessary things’. As many others have pointed out before me, for the French, pleasure is the point. The point of life and the point of interesting conversation.

(I wrote about this idea during the first Covid lockdown for Telegraph Travel, when I saw that the local shops considered ‘essential’ included pastry shops, artisanal chocolatiers and even a truffle emporium.)

It took me a while to realise that while in a British office, we bond by talking about the ins and outs of work—so much so that we continue talking about them well into the evening—in French culture, social Brownie-points are earned by conversationally basking in the leisurely elements of your life.

This was a transformative realisation for me. When a French person asks about your holiday, they do not want to hear you talk it down, or worse, say you don’t have any booked at all! Above all, they do not want to hear about the logistics of it. For future reference, you must look them in the eye and tell them with a wistful far-away expression what you have planned for your summer break, followed by the words “ça fait du bien” or ‘it does you good’. They will nod, smile and agree, and you will seem human to them.

If you don’t actually have time away planned, just say you do.

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A few weeks ago I wrote about my trip to the French Riviera for an article. That article is published! I had a delightful time and I hope you enjoy the article too (if you have any issues with the registration wall, drop me a line and I can send you a copy).

Thank you to those who wrote back to my letter last week. It’s always great to hear from you.

Please do share this letter if you enjoyed it! I’ll write very soon. Have a lovely week until then.

Yours,

Hannah