Ep.6: French & Serbian stereotypes with Eloi–Francuz u Srbiji!

We are Ivana and Maki, your hosts.

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We

have,

how do you call it, like a nickname, like you have a Serbian name,

Ilya. Yeah, we just named you Ilya today.

Because it's too difficult, Ilya, it's like, yeah.

Ilya. It's just too difficult.

Hey, but we're not used to actually like several vowels at the same time.

So that's quite tricky, but also because of the way of writing.

So first of all, I should have told you.

Bonjour, bonsoir, comment ça va?

Oui, comment ça va?

Bah écoute, franchement, ça va hyper bien.

Ouais, ça va hyper bien.

Aujourd'hui, j'ai passé une super journée.

J'ai donné quelques cours.

J'ai fait les la vaisselles, tout ça.

so it's a very busy day, I'm very happy

he was occupied, something like that yeah, you got it yeah,

I'm good

just to know, our followers, we're not going to have this in French oh,

was just a...

Oh, twice. Oh.

Neither in Serbian, unfortunately.

Not yet. But one day we will do it in Serbian.

Hey, maybe next time when we meet up

and then we can all do it in Serbian

because hopefully by that time, everyone's going to have a bit more, like just

feel a bit more comfortable speaking in Serbian, right?

But yeah.

But before I actually continue or restart asking questions, guys, if you don't know

who this is,

it's Elway. he is a french teacher as far as i know right this

is at least one of the things that you do uh you're also a

youtuber uh i would say you're a comedian as well because i think this

specialty in your videos and also i want to say he is a husband

is your

so exactly you believe that right yeah congratulations thank

you so much

okay guys we have a lot of questions and i before we so we

kind of like introduced you

right now but we would like to you to kind of give us um

maybe the introduction of yourself or like how your story before you came to

serbia how how did it you know i'm asking that myself yes

every day so i was born in france right at the beginning uh so

yeah i'm french i'm uh i was studying something totally different i was not

studying how to teach french but somehow uh yeah i was teaching how to

manage non-profit organization basically and yeah and i

came in serbia for a contract of 10 months with maladies like it's a

non-profitable organization How did you find them?

It was a European Volontary Service.

Or Evropský Volontárský Servis.

It's only a

English. Razumeyu.

But I think in English, it's European Voluntary Service.

So you can work for the NGO in any country of European Union.

And some country like Serbia, Turkey, Russia, like a few countries.

And the dots.

Oh, yeah. So Turkey also.

I think Turkey is part of the program also.

And yeah, so I did that for 10 months.

And I met my now wife.

so then I decided to stay and obviously here I cannot

rework in management of

organization because I will need to speak Serbian

so when my

contract ended and I was thinking what to do

with my life in Serbia and I

speak French, that's the skills I

have that I can use easily so yeah then I passed a diploma to

French and now I'm teaching in

teach

some schools in Belgrade and yeah it's doing fine and yeah

I made some videos on

YouTube and somehow

few people watched it so no yeah so a lot of people watched it

i mean it depends on the video

but i mean yeah i got really surprised and since i like everything that

is like editing and writing

and shooting like behind the camera then i continue i don't really like to

be in front of

the camera but uh no i have to so but i also kind of

train myself you know to to be in front of the

camera so it's quite fun but yeah what i prefer is mostly like to

write and to do the editing

and yeah that's it now I do those videos even though I'm not very

productive at the moment

but I will be and teaching French I think that's yeah that's me so

how many years are we talking

about when was the last the first time that you came here for this

project and how long has it

been since then so it was in 2016 then I came back to France

for like about a year and I came back in 2018 and then I

was like okay

shit I need to learn Serbian because my job was in English before so

now I came back I don't have

a job and I need to make friends and everything and to speak with

the family of Lara so then I

had to I mean I had I wanted to learn Serbian and yeah I

started in 2018 even though I could already say like dobardan farah and yeah

and those kind of things but i really like learn much more that's good

i mean in a short time you you conquered a lot your your long

videos are all in serbian

yeah but you don't see all the editing behind it and all the cutting

but hey even the whale just for it to be in in serbian is

quite a lot actually so but you see what what love does look at

him you know i had a i had a whole list of questions and

then i thought of this one question and i talked to maki so i'm gonna ask you

now which is like what do actually

serbs know about france and french people do they what is

like the stereotype for that or like what

do they think of like i actually i know some people that don't even

know the capital of france So, yeah, was it something that was surprising for

you? It's only fair enough because a lot of French people probably don't know

the capital of Serbia.

But I mean, I guess here the stereotype and crucial, the same that the

American half, for example, a lot of people have, like that we are very

rude, even though we are much more polite than Serbs.

Okay. No, Serbian people are very nice, but when it comes to politeness, like

Molim, it doesn't exist here.

Daimika-fa.

not like so but it's not a problem but yeah but

it's funny because like when i ask my student for example what do you

think about serbia they think we're rude people but when i told them like

i mean

come on like how do you order a cafe for example and they're like

oh but i mean i mean so i thought the same thing actually yeah

so yeah they think like wheat escargot like pougevy uh snails oh yeah

like and which is sometimes true like me i just tried it two times

it's quite yeah i mean all the

typical cliche like yeah like baguette fromage like cheese the fact that um but

also one thing

because here like serbian people they love history and like they know so much

for example about the fact that France helped during the First

World War, Serbia, which I

didn't know, so now I learned a lot about

history here. They really know a lot

and France and Serbia used to be very close

nation, especially before the Second

World War.

I think

a lot of people like French

culture because of this, but then we were part of NATO and everything, so

also have a lot of people that don't like

you

what France represents, so it's

a bit mixed.

it's always a polarity in Serbia I feel like and um so also one

of the things that that was kind of

um interesting is that Zaz the group the group was very famous in Serbia

actually yeah I don't know

there was even uh yeah there was even the cafe Zaz I mean I

think it's closed I don't know

but yeah when I saw that I mean I was like literally like this

because Zaz is not so popular in France.

I mean, I cannot judge

I heard that. cannot judge. because

Because I only know one song.

But we heard it all the time. Yeah.

So we don't really like it.

Yeah, I think most of people just know.

Je veux de la joie, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. But yeah, somehow she's very popular in Serbia.

I don't know why.

Yeah, even I knew the song.

And so now we already kind of talked about stereotypes.

But can you tell us then what stereotypes are correct about French people now

that you already mentioned some of them.

Yes, yes. For example, for the cheese, it's totally correct.

Like, we eat cheese all the time.

We have actually more than...

I didn't know that.

We have more than a thousand type of cheese.

Wow. We don't have that.

Yeah. Recently, a guy made a world record.

A world record, yeah.

He made a pizza, but like a normal-sized pizza, you know, with more than

a thousand type of cheese.

So he only used two grams of each cheese.

it's like more than two kilos of cheese and one little pizza oh my

we do love our cheese and we do love our bread i would i

god

would say that that's the only two

things i miss when i'm in serbia it's bread and cheese what about pan

au chocolat no pan au chocolat

yeah croissant that's also i think how do you find the croissant here because

in every bakery you see croissant like something like croissant maybe we have kiflet

though like the crof

we have that but that's not like with the type of like phyllo dough

like this very i don't know it's a bit different but you do have

croissant only

you usually put something inside and for us it's like a sacrilege it's like

a heresy it.

So wait, croissant without anything, pan au chocolat with

chocolat, right? Yes.

What else do you then have?

other types of like fillings? Do you have

Yeah, you can do it with apple.

How do you call that one?

That's a good question.

It's been a long time.

I haven't been to a French bakery.

I think it's croissant au pan, probably.

Croissant, no.

And the fact that we're rude,

I would say it's mostly like a European thing compared to the US because

it's mostly like a

cliche from the US that I mean if they go to Paris and of

course we don't have like the tip culture

so we're not smiling all the time so they think we're rude but I

think that there is no difference

between France and Spain and Serbia and a lot of countries in that regard

so yeah I don't think this cliche is very true and yeah um you

said rude okay uh are you picky with your food

if i'm picky with my food yeah french people if they're french people yes

yes i mean not as much

as italian for example which are very picky but we know we eat of

everything and we accept everything

um just some things were a bit picky like for example putting ketchup on

pizza

so i mean for me for example it's okay like to break spaghetti in

half like i do that

yeah but to put pizza and ketchup for me it's like an insult it's

like you're saying to the

guy your pizza is shit and i need something to to put taste but

this i would say that french

should be picky for this kind of thing if you do that in front

of them but otherwise no we

we are not we eat everything how do you find the cheese in serbia

as you are kind of an expert of Cheese.

Oh, an expert.

No, I love it.

Because here you have two things kaczkavaille and belisir, let's say, like white cheese.

When it comes to white cheese, Serbia, like it's, I mean, Greek and Serbian

cheese are the best.

Like it's awesome.

Like every cheese, I have so much taste.

And we don't have this in France. I love it.

It's not a thing.

But when it comes to kaczkavaille, I mean, no country can compare to France.

Sorry, if I'm very patriotic here.

but I would I mean, it makes sense because you really like if you

have 1000 types of cheese,

I mean, you really perfected your craft.

So I think, yeah, I think we can give that one to you.

No, you have a great food.

But when it comes to cheese, I mean, to catch cabal specifically,

you have good ones, you have a very good cheese.

listen, being realistic is totally fine.

But I mean,

What about French people being romantic?

well me for example i'm the least romantic person in the planet i believe

what about you what does your wife say oh she totally agree on this

yeah okay perfect

but she's not romantic also so we are a non-romantic couple but uh i

i mean for us it's more italian italian for us they are very romantic don't know if

it's like the country of

love and everything but uh now that i came to syria i heard that

we are the country of love so I don't know.

Exactly.

I think I would say France is like a country of love and Italy

is the country of desire,

maybe.

I don't know how to explain it.

Like, because they always like kind of, you know, like, oh, Bella, like, you

know, pretty

looking good or something like that.

So like, like to conquer in a way, you know, but, but this is

a stereotype because I, it's

not like I went to France and I had people being very romantic around.

me so this is just like the stereotypes that are right yeah maybe i

mean i agree but yeah for me

we are not especially romantic let's say but i guess there is the image

of the french language probably the romantism like i mean maybe the writer i

don't know i don't know where does it

come from but i don't think we're any more romantic than other people i

have one uh request please one of my friends is fangirling that you like

would uh how do you say uh respond like on my

stories or whatever can you just say can you repeat sorry can you just

say you

she loves you just

so you know she loves you i just thought of that so she's gonna

love this didn't tell her that i have a that i'm talking to you

so she's gonna love it okay the last one

she oh hey my wife is not i'm joking uh

she's uh she's about 27 i think something like that

but she's uh she knows also she loves french so this is one of

the reasons why she also loves you

and she loves your videos she loves your sense of humor um she probably

just gets you completely and that's why she was like oh you know and

you are learning serbian like her language so she's

like yes um okay so the last one is that french people are artistic

slash intellectuals oh very

very intellectual yes is it true

again it's hard for me to general because i met a lot of artistic

and intellectual people in Serbia.

So it's hard to say for the whole country that people are like that.

but it is true that we have a lot of famous people in art,

in cinema, in painting, in writing.

Yeah, I would say, I mean, again, it's a generalization.

It's hard to say French people are more intellectual than others.

I cannot say that.

yeah they're all these are all very stereotypical generalizations so we we are all

we all know that

this it's but but but for once it's a nice stereotype so we'll take

it i will say oh yeah

okay that's patriarchism comes so hey if it's me why not

okay yes

um do you want to make some questions because i feel like i took

over with my french stereotype type uh yeah now i want to ask about

serbians to you let's talk about like uh stereotypes for serbs okay for

example and be careful about what you say because your wife is serbian as

yes you have lots of followers as well but i think they're all open

well

to your criticism anyway yeah i think they're used to it before we continue

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And now let's get back to our episode.

Serbs drink a lot.

Yes, yes, that's totally true.

And your drink increased since you came here.

Actually, maybe it's not so true.

I think French people drink more, but Serbs drink more early, I would say.

Interesting. How early? Like in the morning.

Like Yeah, coffee and raki.

Like when I compared, I mean, in France, it's totally normal to have a

glass of wine when you eat the lunch at noon.

Like it's the most normal thing.

And I never see anybody like drinking alcohol for lunch, for example, in Serbia.

and we also drink quite a lot

wine and beer in the evening

so we do

drink actually quite too much maybe

but Serbs

they drink more pure

alcohol like rakija stronger ones it's not popular in France

like rakija, rum, vodka

I mean it is for young people but

it's not so popular, it's mostly like

wine and beer so I would say that Serbs maybe