France: A Friend's Birthday Party
My son received an invitation to a classmate's birthday party! I happily replied that we would love to attend, but then I realized that in Japan, we were rarely invited to birthday parties outside of family... I wondered if there were any customs I should know about, or what I should do about a gift.
The Contribution System: "cagnotte"
What would be a good gift? Just as I was wondering, I received a message from the birthday boy's mother saying something like, "Please use this for the 'cagnotte'." What is a "cagnotte"? When I looked it up in the dictionary, it said "betting pool" or "savings fund." I see, so it's for collecting money. Just like for weddings or funerals!
Well, it certainly costs money to host a birthday party. Preparing food and cake, or in this case, booking a facility where they can play "laser tag." As a parent, I might actually be happier receiving money! Though gifts are nice too, of course.
At first, the instructions for payment were through a bill-splitting app called "Tricount." It's an excellent app that makes it easy to split expenses incurred when dining or traveling in a group using your smartphone. Wow, there are so many convenient features out there.
However, I didn't really understand how to participate, so when I asked for help, she sent me a link to a system called "Lydia," saying, "This might be easier." The payment method and input were dramatically simple and self-explanatory! As expected of a mother who works as an IT consultant. I have so much respect for her!!
My First Tram Ride
First, we all met up and played at a facility called "Laser World" for laser tag (a laser version of a survival game). For transportation, I used a "tram" for the first time since coming to Paris. A tram is a streetcar.
There are no ticket gates, so you open the doors yourself directly from the platform to board. You can use the same pass you use for the Metro, so you either tap it after boarding or insert your ticket into the machine if you are using one.
As far as I could see, everyone was tapping their passes properly, but I talked to my son about how it would be easy to ride for free if you weren't careful. I thought it was a very easy-to-use and good system, as it's more casual than the Metro or trains and more reliable than buses.
As a side note, there is a streetcar in Tokyo called the "Toden Arakawa Line" (Tokyo Sakura Tram). When I visited Moscow to see a friend who had returned to Russia after living in Japan for a while, that friend introduced the streetcar to me by saying, "This is a Toden." I tilted my head, wondering why they called it "Toden" in Russia, but they must have misunderstood that the word for "streetcar" itself in Japanese is "Toden."
"Confetti"
About 12 children gathered, and they had a great time playing laser tag, soccer in the park, and singing Happy Birthday at the house (which is universal, after all). When the party was reaching its peak, the birthday boy's mother said, "Traditionally, we do 'confetti'," and started calling the children over.
"Confetti" refers to paper scraps, and the children gathered in one room and had a blast making a mess with shredded paper and crumbled Styrofoam. Kids love that kind of thing, don't they? When I asked where she got the paper, she said, "I've been slowly shredding and collecting paper waste from work for a while now." I'm the type of person who tends to do things like that for children, so I felt a sense of kinship and understood completely.
Pick-up Time
Around 6:00 PM, parents started showing up one by one to pick up their children. What I thought was different from Japan was that the parents picking them up were almost all fathers. It might be because most of the invited children were boys, but it felt very fresh to me.
Thank you for the precious opportunity to get a glimpse into a French household, and above all, for the wonderful time!