Des vêtements secs
Voici une devinette : que fait la ménagère professionnelle italienne quand dehors il pleut et qu'il fait froid ?
Réponse : elle met le linge fraîchement lavé à sécher dehors !
Je trouve cet aspect de la culture italienne totalement fascinant tellement il est irrationel. Avant de venir en Italie, j'avais ce préjugé selon lequel les femmes italiennes restent en majorité à la maison (par opposition à travailler), et qu'eles ont toutes à leurs fenêtres des fils à linge sur lesquels elles attachent les vêtements pour qu'ils sêchent. Vous savez, comme dans le quartier italien de "la belle et le clochard", le classique de Disney, quand les deux chiens mangent des spaghetti chez Tony.
Cela dit, mettre le linge à sécher dehors est en soi une très bonne chose : c'est gratuit et écologique, et ça peut être extrêmement efficace (dans un bon jour, à Jérusalem, ça prend moins de 10 minutes pour totalement sécher des vêtements dégoulinants). Quoi qu'il en soit, quand il fait environ quatre degrés au-dessus du point de congélation, et que la pluie tombe jour après jour, et nuit après nuit, je ne parviens plus à percevoir le bien fondé du séchage de linge en extérieur, pour la bonne raison que rien ne peut sécher à ces températures, même sans pluie ! Avec de la pluie, c'est encore pire, vu que la pluie à Bologne n'est pas moins mouillée qu'ailleurs; en fait elle est peut-être même pire qu'ailleurs.
Néanmoins, la ménagère italienne met infailliblement sa lessive à sécher dehors, et laissent leurs soutien-gorges et les sous-vêtements de leurs maris pendus dehors pendant presque une semaine avant de les rentrer, aussi mouillés que quand elles les ont étendus.
Pourquoi est-ce qu'elles continuent, génération après génération ? Est-ce qu'elles ne voient pas la futilité, voire la stupitidé de tout ça ? Où, si elles l'ont vue, pourquoi continuent-elles à faire comme si le ciel était bleu et le soleil éclatant ?
La voilà, la vraie devinette !
Et je n'ai pas la réponse... pas encore...
Traduit de l'anglais par O., le texte original se trouve en suite de l'article...
Dry clothes
This is a riddle: When it rains outside and it is cold, what does the professional Italian housewife do?
Answer: She puts the newly washed clothes outside to get dry!
I find this aspect of Italian culture totally amazing because of how irrational it is. Before coming to Italy, I had this prejudice that Italian women by and large stay at home (as distinct from working outside), and that they all have lines outside their windows onto which they attach clothes for getting dry; you know just like the Italian neighbourhood in the Disney classic Lady and the Tramp, when the dogs eat spaghetti at Tonys.
Lo and behold, thats exactly what its like in real life too. In spite of pollution and car-fumes, clothes (even intimate clothing) are put up outside on these lines to get dry. Now, drying clothes outside is per se a very good thing; its cheap and environmentally friendly, and can be extremely efficient (on a good day in Jerusalem, it takes less than ten minutes to get dripping wet clothes completely dry). However, when the temperature is about four degrees above freezing point, and when the rain is pouring down day after day and night after night, I can no longer see the point in outdoor-drying of clothes, for the simple reason that nothing will get dry at those temperatures even without rain! With rain, its even worse, as the rain in Bologna is not less wet than elsewhere; in fact, it might even be wetter. Yet, Italian housewives unfailingly puts outside their clean washing to get dry, and they let their bras and the underpants of their husbands and jeans and whatever else hang out there for almost a week before they take it inside again, in a condition as wet as when they put it out to get dry. Why do they continue to do this, generation after generation? Why have they not realised the futility and even stupidity of it? Or, if they have realised it, why do they continue to act the same way, as if the sky was blue and the sun was shining? Now, this is really a riddle! And I dont know the answer to it. Yet.
Écrit par loic
le 14 janvier 2003
à 16:01
Dear PA,
thanks for your questions! If I have understood you correctly (my French is extremely bad), you're asking if my questions are genuine questions or if they're a judgement. In fact, they are questions (and if you have the answers, please tell me!). I am genuinly wondering why they do this.
Having said that, let me also give an apology. I have reread the text I wrote, and realise now that I have been to rash in my statements. I think I got carried away by my own amazement in such a way that I ended up asking whether they have not realised the futility and stupidity of their action. I realise that I should have phrased myself very differently, so as not to be misunderstood. Let me first point out that I do not call the Italian housewives stupid; the question concerns the action, not the people. Secondly, let me just say that the clothe-drying business does seem futile and therefore stupid to ME; this does not mean that it is in fact futile and stupid. It may well be that there is a very good reason why they have the clothes out when it's raining, and so maybe it's not at all futile or stupid. But being Norwegian, I do not know (yet) what this reason may be; I hope to find out, though. This is of course a question of cultural differences; what seems stupid to a Norwegian may not seem stupid to an Italian and vice versa! For all I know, maybe an Italian seeing Norwegians running out to take in the clothes when it starts raining thinks that the Norwegians are totally stupid (or at least that they act stupidly). Actually, I would be very interested in getting an outsider's view on Norwegian behaviour, as outsiders are able to see things which insiders often don't see (because it's taken for granted). So, maybe the stupidity lies in my own ignorance of Italian culture. Again, let me state that I am sorry I wrote what I wrote in this way; I merely meant to convey my amazement at this action (amazement is of course not something negative or judging; on the contrary, it opens up for questions, which judgements don't do), which, as long as I do not know the WHY behind it, SEEMS futile (if the aim is to get dry clothes) and stupid (because the aim is not reached, quite on the contrary).
Thirdly, of course not all Italian housewives do this. I know of at least one exception, who actually asked me to take in the clothes for her if it began raining while she was out. Yet, being a Norwegian I have been stuck by how many who actually do put their clothes out in the rain.
So, has anyone got any answers to my questions?
Tina ou plutôt TUNA KATETAIRE,
Pourquoi les femmes disent se faire avoir par les hommes depuis si longtemps ?
Et pourtant Tina, cela se dit depuis des générations, ce qui ne t'empêche pas j'en suis certain de fréquenter des hommes.
Je n'irais pas pour autant te traiter de stupide ou autre qualificatif.
Charité bien ordonnée commence par soit même.
Ma mère et ma femme sont toutes deux Italiennes, et sincèrement, je n'échangerai pas leur état d'esprit ni leur us et coutumes contre les tiens Tina qui m'ont d'avoir surtout la qualité de tes défauts.
A bon entendeur, salut
Il n'y a pas de fait studipe, il n'y a hélas et surtout que des gens avide de critique au jugement tellement ignorant et arbitraire
