#Maeva & Patjun

[couplesbeyondborders]

Maeva + Patjun

Maeva Country: France Patjun Country: United States of America

When I met Maeva and Patjun, on February 6th, 2016, they were living in New Jersey.  They wanted me to take a picture of them in Grand Central Terminal, in New York, because they met each other for the first time there two years earlier. After that, we went to Le Pain Quotidien, had a coffee, and they told me their story.

Maeva and Patjun met on social media. After Patjun’s school year was over in Rochester, upstate New York, he took a trip to Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Knowing Maeva was living in New York, he asked her if she could show him around the city. Obviously, she said ‘yes.’ A few weeks later they saw each other again and this is how their relationship started. It was the end of May, 2014.

A few months later, Patjun met Maeva’s parents and he explains how culture differences can sometimes be confusing. “When you are in France, you have to do la bise* and the first time I did it, it was with her dad, but I didn’t know that if you don’t really know a guy well, then you don’t do that,  you can just shake the hand. Also some people kiss two or three times and when you don’t know, it’s kind of confusing.”

As for Maeva, when they visited Patjun’s family during Christmas, she experienced something that French people are not used to. “They were doing clay target shooting and at first, I was like that’s cool, I’m going to try and actually it was very uncomfortable for me to be around so many people with guns. We don’t have the same views on this.”

They learned that not only are their personal perspectives different, but also their cultural customs.

Patjun was surprised that French people eat at a certain hour. “When I was in France with Maeva, we were eating around noon every day and then at 8.” He adds “obviously there is always bread at the table and I thought it was kind of weird how we were taking the bread, tearing it off and eating it. There is also a lot of wine drinking. I mean, we were drinking wine at noon, at lunch. Here people drink at lunch time, but it’s not common I guess. I feel like over there, more people drink wine. It’s like a cultural thing.”

“When we were in Oregon, at Patjun’s parents, we went to a restaurant with his family at 6PM and I thought it was early to have dinner, but for him it’s you eat when you are hungry,” says Maeva.

At the end of our conversation, Patjun tells me that he likes to spend time in the countryside in the South of France, living in a relaxing way with no noise. He prefers it to New York “where everyone is so busy all the time that nobody has time to relax, spend time with other people, and even if you try to meet people and you don’t have the same days off, it’s impossible to see them.”

As for Maeva, she loves the feeling that “New Yorkers are willing to help you,” and also she likes “how big the U.S is. You can go from one state to another and it’s completely different. “

* La bise: French way of greeting people by kissing someone’s cheek alternately.