ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author introduces a case study of B. Monsieur, a French engineer and small factory owner, who acted on his obligation to receive gifts from the United States in the form of technical and managerial knowledge to illustrates the obligation to receive. The obligation felt by B. Monsieur to give both gifts and his presence at ceremonies is strong enough so that he has interrupted a family vacation to return to Paris for the baptism of a niece. A French observer of ceremonial gift practices in rural France also describes baptism such as Monsieur B. often attends. Whatever motives were attributed by the French to Americans in making gifts of knowledge, B. Monsieur and his productivity team became pupils of the Americans for six weeks. They accepted the gifts and asked for more as time went on.
