Reflection

How does your city represent French culture as a whole, and how is it unique?

Versailles represents French culture as the pinncacle of its history nd as the birthplace of the nation's independence. This city is the mother of France as we know it in the modern day- a cradle of cuisine and culture and chronology. Despite this, Versailles is a unique subset of France for its history- the Royal capital of the nation for centuries, Versailles was an extravagant, lavish place only welcoming to royalty and the wealthy. Even today, Versailles is considered a massively wealthy suburb of Paris. The commune is not just unique in class, it is also distinctive due to the very things that make it representative of France as a whole. The city can be considered a "trendsetter" in terms of how what was initially unique to it spread through the rest of France like wildfire- especially in terms of its politics.

How do French traditions compare with your own cultural practices?

France's traditions differ deeply from my own cultural practices in many ways. The main manner in which I find it differs is in terms of cuisine- French cooking deeply values high amounts of butter, while cooking in my own cuisine tends to utilise much smaller amounts of the counterpart ingredient ghee. Further than cuisine, French architecture differs deeply from my own national architecture- with looming, fluted baroque edifices instead of rounded and wide buildings. Finally, the third main difference which I find in French culture as compared to my own is the celebrations- the majority of my own cultural celebrations tend to be of religious origins, while many French celebrations are of non-religious background and have originated through other means.