It's common in Paris to see beggars; in the streets, metros, near touristy areas etc. Some of them ask you directly for money, others moan at you for money, and others just sit there with a cardboard sign asking for money.
Most of the signs say something like "I'm hungry, please give money or restaurant tickets" (but in French, of course, or badly translated English, near the tourist sites). To go one step further, many have signs that say "I'm hungry, and I have three children" (also in French, usually). If the sign mentions children, it's always 3 children; I'm yet to see a sign telling me that they have 1, 2, or 4 children. 3 is the number to which thou shalt count and the number of the counting shall be 3.
I have often wondered why 3 was the magic number, and I doubted that all these beggars were fans of Monty Python. A few days ago, I finally got around to asking one of my students, and he explained that in France, if you have 3 children, your family is classed as a "Famille Nombreuse" and you receive discounts on public transport, and many other places. This makes sense for the beggars: Have 3 kids, and get the discounts, but a 4th kid is too expensive to feed because the forth kid isn't considerate enough to bring further discounts, and therefore not economically viable.
I have two brothers, which means that my family is "big" my French standards.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hah... Thanks very much, now I have the "3" song in my head. Do you remember that from Australian TV? GAR! But.. if 3 kids is big... and 4 kids is too expensive... I wonder what my family would be classified as with 5 kids!!
I remember one of the Colombian students at GV said (perhaps to Nick) that the reason his family only had 2 children, whereas there were 5 or 6 in the family of another student, was because he was from the city and the other guy came from the countryside. Something to do with not having TV in the countryside.
From Gympie, non?
Post a Comment