He's announced! Running for president in '08! Here is our hope for the future.
Barack the vote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Fun with translation
You know how fancy shampoos always have both English and French text on the back of the bottle? I'm less convinced that this is for sale in Quebec as much as it is just to look cool: "Our product is so fashionable and sophisticated that half of our customers are French." In much the same vein, English is often used here for a similar effect. Maybe it's the fact that the most famous pop culture icons come out of the American charts; but whatever the reason, the result is that, if a product is in advertised in English, it's considered hip and youthful.
Most of the time, the language is grammatically and contextually fine. But every now and then, you get something cute like this English translation I found on the back of a bottle of aftershave:
"A cooling and alcohol based after shave caring gel with 50 % Aloe Vera Gel. The combination with Panthenol and wheat proteins is notorious for a calming and moisturizing effect."
Heh heh. My first thought was that this is probably what my German sounds like to everyone else. Well, it's still understandable, right? :)
Most of the time, the language is grammatically and contextually fine. But every now and then, you get something cute like this English translation I found on the back of a bottle of aftershave:
"A cooling and alcohol based after shave caring gel with 50 % Aloe Vera Gel. The combination with Panthenol and wheat proteins is notorious for a calming and moisturizing effect."
Heh heh. My first thought was that this is probably what my German sounds like to everyone else. Well, it's still understandable, right? :)
Thursday, February 08, 2007
New post below!
I finally finished a mammoth posting about Shauna's visit, but since entries are published according to the date on which they were started, look for it after the "Roman food" entry below. :) Just fyi!
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
When in Rome, stick to the Roman food
Okay, so I should be getting ready for school. But despite continuously chanting "I am not a snob, I am not a snob" over and over to myself last night, I wake up this morning to the acceptance of the fact that I am, indeed, a snob.
Bert and I went out for a lovely dinner last night. Had a great time: a walk through downtown Ludwigshafen, fantastic conversation, cozy restaurant, the works -- very enjoyable. And despite Shauna's whispered warnings that there appears to be no decent Mexican food outside of the American Southwest and Mexico itself -- even in places which have an otherwise substantial Mexican population -- we thought we'd try a relatively popular place around here which purports to serve a decent enchilada. I almost hesitate to blog about this, because we had such a nice time, not to mention that Bert gallantly bought dinner, and I don't want him to think it wasn't fun. But what made the evening downright funny was the food. It just was too bizarre to keep silent about:
I knew not to expect the same kind of thing I was used to in Arizona. It's only logical. And to be fair, Bert's meal was pretty good, although probably because it didn't depart too far from what they do very well around here: pork covered with a dairy product and some incarnation of potato. (As a side note, German food is awesome. Slab of meat covered in cream sauce and accompanied by a starchy substance? Nothing more satisfying. And when it's done right, it's done right. ) But clearly, the menu wasn't exclusively Mexican-themed, despite the unmistakable decoration and throbbing Daddy Yankee music; and this should have been a tip-off that authenticity was not a priority here. But I couldn't help getting my hopes up just a little, even while reminding myself that this was far from Arizona, and they would probably have their own style. Besides, there's that Chino Bandito place in Phoenix, whose dishes are a shocking mix of Mexican and Chinese food -- and it's good. So this'll just be like, I dunno, Alemáno Bandito.
After perusing the menu, I selected what seemed a relatively safe, well-known, and hard-to-mess-up option: beef fajitas.
Shauna, you were right. The result was almost surreal: it was like the kitchen staff had read something, somewhere, about how to prepare fajitas, but only remembered some arbitrary details and so just filled in the rest by guessing. The pieces of fried beef were brought out in a black pan -- imitation iron skillet? -- though I wondered why, because the pan wasn't hot. There was no other plate; but the pan was accompanied by a single tortilla, which was the size of a plate, and so I was obligated to tear it up into fourths to make the individual fajitas. (Another tip-off here should have been the fact that, when I asked for another tortilla, the waitress didn't even recognize the word until I pointed at it.)
What I found inside the black pan was also an interesting mix of beef (good), bell peppers and onions (very nice)... and zucchini, eggplant slices, and mushrooms? Okayyyy... well, it's their own creation. Be open-minded. I'm not a snob, I'm not a snob...
Load up piece of tortilla. Turn to the plate holding what should have contained beans, sour cream, cheese, guacamole, and salsa.
I blinked. Four identical little containers, each apparently filled with the same puzzingly smooth substance -- except that each one was a different primary color -- sat on a tray next to me. One appeared to be the shiny yellow cheez-sauce that you might pump on cold nachos at the gas station. Another held some kind of pale green-colored dip that might have been guacamole, had the plasticy texture hinted at a content of anything more than 0.03% fresh avocado; another contained shredded mozzarella (now I know the kind of stuff I'm used to is probably Americanized to some extent, but Italian cheese?); and finally, a thing of ketchup. I tasted it. No, not ketchup; barbecue sauce?
I could handle the fact that the odd little assortment didn't seem to include any (even imitation) beans. But how about at least a little salsa? I asked the waitress if they had any.
She pointed at the ketchup. "That's salsa."
I frowned in confusion at the little container, not computing. "No, I mean, like... salsa. You know, with tomatoes, chiles, that kind of thing?"
She gave me the same look I had given her, as if we were speaking with each other in tongues. "Is it not spicy enough? I can add some curry powder if you'd like."
Curry powder. "Uh, no thanks, nevermind, it's fine." I am not a snob, I am not a snob, I am not a... I ate some of the meal anyway, pretending it was just a beef and vegetable sandwich with an assortment of odd squeeze-bottle condiments (though still huffily refused to touch the ketchup or cheez wiz). It was my own fault, I knew. You don't go into a placed called "Hemingway's", which serves feta cheese and french fry dishes, and expect anything resembling even Nico's Taco Shop. I suppose it would be like a Belgian sticking his nose up at the "Belgian waffle" at Denny's. But this place wasn't Denny's; in fact, it was relatively fancy. I just couldn't figure out why they would have something on the menu, call it a "fajita", and then do... this. It was like the "Oktoberfest" in Tucson, which serves Budweiser and hot dogs. Now, to be fair, I am sure there is at least one good Mexican restaurant in Germany. In fact, we had seen a place in Schwetzingen which advertised its head chef as actually coming from Mexico, which I imagine is a good sign. But this cinches it: I am going to the grocery store, finding my own ingredients, and making the damned things myself.
Bert and I went out for a lovely dinner last night. Had a great time: a walk through downtown Ludwigshafen, fantastic conversation, cozy restaurant, the works -- very enjoyable. And despite Shauna's whispered warnings that there appears to be no decent Mexican food outside of the American Southwest and Mexico itself -- even in places which have an otherwise substantial Mexican population -- we thought we'd try a relatively popular place around here which purports to serve a decent enchilada. I almost hesitate to blog about this, because we had such a nice time, not to mention that Bert gallantly bought dinner, and I don't want him to think it wasn't fun. But what made the evening downright funny was the food. It just was too bizarre to keep silent about:
I knew not to expect the same kind of thing I was used to in Arizona. It's only logical. And to be fair, Bert's meal was pretty good, although probably because it didn't depart too far from what they do very well around here: pork covered with a dairy product and some incarnation of potato. (As a side note, German food is awesome. Slab of meat covered in cream sauce and accompanied by a starchy substance? Nothing more satisfying. And when it's done right, it's done right. ) But clearly, the menu wasn't exclusively Mexican-themed, despite the unmistakable decoration and throbbing Daddy Yankee music; and this should have been a tip-off that authenticity was not a priority here. But I couldn't help getting my hopes up just a little, even while reminding myself that this was far from Arizona, and they would probably have their own style. Besides, there's that Chino Bandito place in Phoenix, whose dishes are a shocking mix of Mexican and Chinese food -- and it's good. So this'll just be like, I dunno, Alemáno Bandito.
After perusing the menu, I selected what seemed a relatively safe, well-known, and hard-to-mess-up option: beef fajitas.
Shauna, you were right. The result was almost surreal: it was like the kitchen staff had read something, somewhere, about how to prepare fajitas, but only remembered some arbitrary details and so just filled in the rest by guessing. The pieces of fried beef were brought out in a black pan -- imitation iron skillet? -- though I wondered why, because the pan wasn't hot. There was no other plate; but the pan was accompanied by a single tortilla, which was the size of a plate, and so I was obligated to tear it up into fourths to make the individual fajitas. (Another tip-off here should have been the fact that, when I asked for another tortilla, the waitress didn't even recognize the word until I pointed at it.)
What I found inside the black pan was also an interesting mix of beef (good), bell peppers and onions (very nice)... and zucchini, eggplant slices, and mushrooms? Okayyyy... well, it's their own creation. Be open-minded. I'm not a snob, I'm not a snob...
Load up piece of tortilla. Turn to the plate holding what should have contained beans, sour cream, cheese, guacamole, and salsa.
I blinked. Four identical little containers, each apparently filled with the same puzzingly smooth substance -- except that each one was a different primary color -- sat on a tray next to me. One appeared to be the shiny yellow cheez-sauce that you might pump on cold nachos at the gas station. Another held some kind of pale green-colored dip that might have been guacamole, had the plasticy texture hinted at a content of anything more than 0.03% fresh avocado; another contained shredded mozzarella (now I know the kind of stuff I'm used to is probably Americanized to some extent, but Italian cheese?); and finally, a thing of ketchup. I tasted it. No, not ketchup; barbecue sauce?
I could handle the fact that the odd little assortment didn't seem to include any (even imitation) beans. But how about at least a little salsa? I asked the waitress if they had any.
She pointed at the ketchup. "That's salsa."
I frowned in confusion at the little container, not computing. "No, I mean, like... salsa. You know, with tomatoes, chiles, that kind of thing?"
She gave me the same look I had given her, as if we were speaking with each other in tongues. "Is it not spicy enough? I can add some curry powder if you'd like."
Curry powder. "Uh, no thanks, nevermind, it's fine." I am not a snob, I am not a snob, I am not a... I ate some of the meal anyway, pretending it was just a beef and vegetable sandwich with an assortment of odd squeeze-bottle condiments (though still huffily refused to touch the ketchup or cheez wiz). It was my own fault, I knew. You don't go into a placed called "Hemingway's", which serves feta cheese and french fry dishes, and expect anything resembling even Nico's Taco Shop. I suppose it would be like a Belgian sticking his nose up at the "Belgian waffle" at Denny's. But this place wasn't Denny's; in fact, it was relatively fancy. I just couldn't figure out why they would have something on the menu, call it a "fajita", and then do... this. It was like the "Oktoberfest" in Tucson, which serves Budweiser and hot dogs. Now, to be fair, I am sure there is at least one good Mexican restaurant in Germany. In fact, we had seen a place in Schwetzingen which advertised its head chef as actually coming from Mexico, which I imagine is a good sign. But this cinches it: I am going to the grocery store, finding my own ingredients, and making the damned things myself.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Shauna's visit: castles, cathedrals, and a capitol
Well, now that the pictures are organized and posted, how about a little narrative to accompany them? :)
The rest of Shauna's visit was great. After poking our noses around Burg Berwartstein during her first weekend here, I came home early enough on Wednesday for a little field trip to the nearby town of Speyer. This charming place boasts the largest Romanesque cathedral ever (cute, since the town's name is pronounced "Shpire"), along with the Historic Museum of the Pfalz and a number of cafes and pedestrian shopping streets. It was really cold -- for Arizonans -- but pretty in the light layer of sparkling snow, and we bought a soft pretzel (for which the town is also famous) and ooh'ed and ahh'ed at the sites.
That weekend, we finally went to visit Conny and Nate in Berlin. Berlin is an... interesting city. The first time I visited was just for a couple days during the summer of 2005, and unfortunately have few other memories of the place other than its being very, very big; rather smoggy and hot; and -- much as I hate to admit this, and I ask the other 98% of the world's population, who seems to absolutely adore the city, to please accept my heartfelt apologies -- that it was probably the ugliest German city I'd ever seen. Before you gasp in horror, let me explain:
Most German cities, at least in my experience, always seem to somehow stay amazingly clean and pretty, regardless of size: Munich, Cologne, Dresden, Karlsruhe, Leipzig; I've never been to Hamburg, but have heard it's also quite aesthetic. Granted, surface aestheticism should by no means be the metric for a city's sense of community, or economic, social, or cultural merit; it's just that, when you're used to fascinating cities also being pleasantly picturesque, Berlin can take you by surprise. It may impress a visitor -- oh, who am I kidding, I mean, me -- as overly industrial, dirty, spraypainted, overall unharmonious... and again, very, very big. There, I said it. Whew. I'm a little nervous admitting this to the wide wide world of web, and now I'll probably get tons of indignant messages now protesting that I have overlooked what a great personality Berlin has. That is certainly true. But sorry, I still wouldn't date it.
I am also being supremely unfair, given the city's tumultuous history. In addition, the thought occurs to me that Berlin is not overly beautiful because it's not supposed to be. When people talk about Berlin, they talk about what an exciting city it is, how in-your-face and fast; how the people themselves are in-your-face and fast and exciting, and the in-your-face art galleries and fast nightlife and exciting social undercurrents just combine into one big irresistable swirling whirlpool of inyourfasticitement. Maybe my problem is that I'm just too shallow for all this edgy culture, and find myself more at home in a laid-back Biergarten with a Hefeweizen. Not that I don't dig alternativiness; quite the contrary. I like to think of myself as a very progressive liberal. But maybe my kind of alternative culture aligns more with the hippy Seattle coffee shop than the neon glow of a nightclub.
The rest of Shauna's visit was great. After poking our noses around Burg Berwartstein during her first weekend here, I came home early enough on Wednesday for a little field trip to the nearby town of Speyer. This charming place boasts the largest Romanesque cathedral ever (cute, since the town's name is pronounced "Shpire"), along with the Historic Museum of the Pfalz and a number of cafes and pedestrian shopping streets. It was really cold -- for Arizonans -- but pretty in the light layer of sparkling snow, and we bought a soft pretzel (for which the town is also famous) and ooh'ed and ahh'ed at the sites.
That weekend, we finally went to visit Conny and Nate in Berlin. Berlin is an... interesting city. The first time I visited was just for a couple days during the summer of 2005, and unfortunately have few other memories of the place other than its being very, very big; rather smoggy and hot; and -- much as I hate to admit this, and I ask the other 98% of the world's population, who seems to absolutely adore the city, to please accept my heartfelt apologies -- that it was probably the ugliest German city I'd ever seen. Before you gasp in horror, let me explain:
Most German cities, at least in my experience, always seem to somehow stay amazingly clean and pretty, regardless of size: Munich, Cologne, Dresden, Karlsruhe, Leipzig; I've never been to Hamburg, but have heard it's also quite aesthetic. Granted, surface aestheticism should by no means be the metric for a city's sense of community, or economic, social, or cultural merit; it's just that, when you're used to fascinating cities also being pleasantly picturesque, Berlin can take you by surprise. It may impress a visitor -- oh, who am I kidding, I mean, me -- as overly industrial, dirty, spraypainted, overall unharmonious... and again, very, very big. There, I said it. Whew. I'm a little nervous admitting this to the wide wide world of web, and now I'll probably get tons of indignant messages now protesting that I have overlooked what a great personality Berlin has. That is certainly true. But sorry, I still wouldn't date it.
I am also being supremely unfair, given the city's tumultuous history. In addition, the thought occurs to me that Berlin is not overly beautiful because it's not supposed to be. When people talk about Berlin, they talk about what an exciting city it is, how in-your-face and fast; how the people themselves are in-your-face and fast and exciting, and the in-your-face art galleries and fast nightlife and exciting social undercurrents just combine into one big irresistable swirling whirlpool of inyourfasticitement. Maybe my problem is that I'm just too shallow for all this edgy culture, and find myself more at home in a laid-back Biergarten with a Hefeweizen. Not that I don't dig alternativiness; quite the contrary. I like to think of myself as a very progressive liberal. But maybe my kind of alternative culture aligns more with the hippy Seattle coffee shop than the neon glow of a nightclub.
This is not to say, however, that Berlin can't be really fun to visit -- which we found out during Shauna's last weekend. My friend Conny and her (hilarious, check out his blog on the right) husband, Nate, live near the Technische Universität, where Conny is working on her PhD, and we thought it was high time to go barge in on them. Also, prettiness factor aside, Shauna had never been to the capitol; and oh yeah, Bert's friends have an empty apartment there in which we could stay for free. Decision thus made, we hopped a train on Thursday evening and settled in for a cozy trip eastbound.
It was a really lovely visit. We decided to just chill, and see what there was to see without stressing too much about it. The apartment was adorable and cozy, with high ceilings, hardwood floors, and an assortment of interesting decor that the owners had collected on their many world adventures. So Thursday evening, we took it easy and went to bed early, and then slept in so late that we woke up just in time to run over to Conny's building and bug her at lunchtime. In fulfillment of her prediction, the cafeteria on the 20th floor had awful food but a fantastic view: all of the famous landmarks, like the Reichstag, Victory Tower, Fernsehturm, and Brandenburg Gate, were visible through the huge windows.
After lunch, Shauna and Bert and I decided to just wander around and see what we could find to take pictures of. We walked around the dome of the Reichstag in a snowstorm; noodled around in front of the Brandenburg Gate; had an Amaretto coffee in a cafe on Potsdamer Platz; then went grocery shopping and stocked up for a dinner of fried potatoes, scrambled eggs with veggies, and Gluehwein. In the snow, Berlin was a lot better-looking than I had remembered it, and we Arizonans went crazy stomping through sparkling white drifts and flinging balls of the fluffy white stuff at each other.
Saturday was marvellous. We made a stop at the Hackescher Markt and realized that we could easily eat our way through the entire city. Multicultural doesn't even do it justice... on every corner, there's a Spanish restaurant or Thai grocery store or Indian buffet, not to mention the ubiquitous Turkish Döner. At the Hackescher Markt, Bert, ever the Wurst connoisseur, sampled a Blutwurst with Sauerkraut, which happily met his high expectations. Shauna and I found a crepe stand run by a talkative French guy, who explained his love of Berlin to us as we tried not to drool all over ourselves while consuming the delicious crepes. "See," he said, "Everyone here is completely free to be themselves. Berlin's plurality is exactly what gives it a common culture. In fact, I think it's the city for everyone who doesn't fit in elsewhere." We laughed at his last point, but overall it was an interesting sentiment -- and one I might agree with. So maybe the city is not my particular style; but I was starting to understand some of its quirky, spraypaint-expressed charm. The Hackescher Markt was itself pretty cool: standing in the sun and the brilliantly reflective snow, we stood chewing blissfully on hot crepes filled with Nutella and bananas -- or ham and cheese, in Shauna's case -- and took in the fruit stands, crafts, hawking vendors, and highly various passersby.
After this, we meandered over to a part of the city that actually is highly aesthetic: the Museumsinsel (Museum Island). It's an island in the middle of the river Spree which, true to its name, holds a number of impressive museums, not to mention the Berliner Dom (Cathedral). It's kind of like a big park scattered with huge stately buildings. We wanted to explore the cathedral, but given that it cost 5 Euro just to go inside, we contented ourselves with taking pictures from the outside and then heading over to meet Conny and Nate at the Pergamon Museum. This was awesome. Of course, Shauna and I have always been history geeks. But fortunately, so were the rest of our party, and so we wandered around for hours with our headsets, listening rapt to various explanations of 2500-year-old stone sphinx guardian figures from ancient Mesopotamia, or the looming, blue-glazed Ishtar Gate from Babylon, or the collection of marble frieze figures from a Greek temple in Pergamon (for which the museum is named). They also had a fascinating adjoining museum for Islamic Art, and we were arrested by the detail of brilliantly illuminated pages from a 17th-century copy of the Koran and by the exotic patterns woven into 300-year-old Turkish rugs.
After our brains had had about all they could handle, we went to Conny and Nate's apartment for delicious hot stew, great conversation, and a dignity-robbing game of Cranium, finally leaving around 11 o'clock at night. Conny suggested that next time, we should stay at their place so that we can maximize our time there -- an offer I will happily take her up on! :)
The train back the next day was also cozy and pleasant. We sat at a table for three next to huge windows, and thoroughly enjoyed the smooth ride as we flew through the beautiful, often snow-frosted, countryside. A couple cappuccinos, more great conversation, and we were back in Neustadt.
Now, Shauna had missed out the last two times we'd gone to this Didarius place. Remember, the underground medieval tavern? So that night -- despite the fact that it was Sunday and we all had to get up early the next day -- we paid a little visit to the Ye Olden Dayes and sat at a heavy wooden table, drinking cup after delicious cup of blueberry and strawberry wine and cracking up at the earnest medieval music. Now I hadn't realized it before, but this wine is pretty sneaky. It's cold and sweet, obviously made with geniunely fresh berries, and tastes as if it contains no more alcohol than a lightly fermented cider. You only realize the deception during the stagger home, when it takes the combined effort of all three people to propel everyone in a roughly straight direction, made even more difficult by the fact that you're laughing hysterically at every tiny stumble or uneven cobblestone.
Such an awesome visit made it even harder to say goodbye on Tuesday morning. I had a lot of (hungover) work to do on Monday, and couldn't get away until the evening. Then neither Shauna or I wanted to actually go to sleep, because we knew that once we did, the next thing we'd be conscious of was getting her stuff together for the taxi outside. Which is pretty much how it went. The alarm buzzed at 4:30, and the taxi arrived at 5:20. I went with her to the Neustadt train station, and then couldn't bear to part yet, so hopped the train with her to Mannheim. And then there we were at the exact same platform on which we'd parted in September, her standing in the door of the ICE as the whistle blew; looking back at me through the window as the door closed; and then slowly pulling away and accelerating off into the still-dark. When will I learn that that sucks?? I got ahold of myself again just in time to sprint for the train back to Neustadt.
Luckily, I had time to go back to bed for a couple hours before school; and then was so busy the rest of the day that I didn't have time to sit and dwell about it. We webcammed after she got back to Seattle, so that helped, too. And then I sprained my ankle on Thursday; went out with the teachers anyway on Friday; went to the doctor on Saturday (although by this time, my ankle was so mysteriously better that I could actually put a little weight on it, and the crutches they gave me felt a little superfluous); and then spent a lovely Saturday night with the Hamanns. The kids were over (Andreas is my age, 26, and Uli is 24), and we made homemade Spätzle with salad, followed by Birne Helene (pears with chocolate sauce and cream, mmm!) for dessert. As usual, the evening was so cozy and the company so great that we didn't part ways until after midnight!
Today, Verena -- one of the other teachers -- and I went running (obviously my ankle is practically back to normal. Must be taking my vitamins! :) )... and we're tentatively entertaining the idea of training for a half-marathon! It's in six and a half weeks, though; and right now, we can both run for about forty-five minutes before pooping out. So we'll see. But the marathon & half-marathon are part of the celebrations for the re-opening of the Hambacher Schloss, a fortification here in Hambach (the part of Neustadt where I live), at which the Hambacher Fest took place in 1832. It would be awesome if we could run with a crowd of Neustadter in celebration of the 175th anniversary of German democracy and unity. We shall see. For now, Verena's dog shows us both up by taking off into the woods and and then coming back with an exasperated look at the two gasping, lagging humans in her wake.
Okay okay, this entry is long enough. I hope everyone's February is off to a good start, and if you come visit me in the spring, we can celebrate the Hambacher Fest together!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!!!
Happy birthday to my little sister, Kaitlyn Grace, who turned 5 on Sunday! I hope your day was perfect and sunny, Katiedid. And keep an eye on the mail! ;)
Friday, February 02, 2007
An American in Germany, Part Zwei
Well, I had a very long to-do list this morning. However, the mere fact of taking a shower proved an exercise in balance, flexibility, and strength as I attempted to keep from applying any pressure whatsoever to my left ankle. Even so, after turning off the water with an accomplished sigh, I pivoted around on my right heel only to come face to face with the ledge separating the shower from the bathroom floor, looming up as aggressive and challenging as Hadrian's wall. How does a person hop on one foot over three inches of obstruction, when the surface being sprung out of is soapily slippery, and the only things to cling to are two flimsy shower doors that would probably come down at the application of the slightest bit of weight? Solution: bend slowly down onto your hands and knees, left foot still held carefully out of the way, and crawl out of said shower. At this rate, doing laundry and dishes, much less grocery shopping, seem quite out of the question! So instead, I think I'll just continue a bit in the blog. :)
So anyway! Now that I've sort of touched on the American's perspective, let's talk a bit about:
How Germans deal with said American.
Looking back, it's interesting to note the various ways people here react to my nationality when they discover it. The typical reaction in the States to foreigners seems to be either, "Cool accent, where are you from? Aren't you just loving our fabulous country?" or "You aren't one of them ter-or-ists, is ya?" (This is assuming the hapless foreigner in question isn't Hispanic. In that case, the usual reaction would probably be, "Hey you, speak American!")
But strangely enough, despite the almost overwhelming friendliness of people here in general, I find myself hesitant to own up to my American citizenship. I'm sure a lot of this has to do with simple shame at our current leadership; unfortunately, that seems to be the only prevailing impression of America abroad, is that we have a xenophobic cowboy at the helm of a nation whose people's general attitude is one of ignorant, nationalistic arrogance. I gotta tell you, it's tough work trying to emphasize to my students the true multifaceted, multicolored, multireligioned, often-conflicted nature of the 300 million people who call themselves Americans, and the impossibility of trying to characterize all of them under a single descriptive umbrella. Here's a brief survey of various reactions I get when people find out where I'm from:
- Girl in the video store: "Oh my god. That's so awesome. I've always wanted to go to America." She giggled at me as if I were a movie star.
- My younger students: "Have you been to New York? Have you been to Hollywood? Do you know any stars?"
- My older students: "Is it true you have to be 21 in order to drink??"
- Guy at restaurant who came over and talked to us because he knew the Hamanns: "You don't look like an American."
Me: "Really? How am I supposed to look?"
Him: "You're not fat, for one thing. And where are your sports shoes?"
- Bert's dad: "We don't meet many Americans around here. It's nice to find out that they're not all raving Bush fans."
- Bert's aunt: "Isn't Thanksgiving a Christmas celebration of some sort?"
And various other little telling encounters, among which are:
- Bert himself, looking at a picture book of the States that Mom gave him for Christmas. He was vastly absorbed in the spreading photographs of canyons, praries, tundra, Rocky Mountains, everglades, and desert. "Huh," he observed. "It really does look like there are a lot of various and interesting things to see. No wonder people travel there -- there's more to the place than just Hollywood and President Bush." Not having realized that that had been his image of my country beforehand, I was enormously gratified to hear this. :)
- Some not-so-positive encounters, like the guy at the repair shop the other day. Shauna and I walked in and the first thing the older man behind the counter did was to use the informal address of "du" (instead of "Sie"). As customers at a shop, this is considered quite rude and patronizing, and tipped us off that we weren't dealing with a gentleman, here. After talking with us for a few minutes, he asked where I was from, and I hesitated a little before saying. He just seemed like the xenophobic type who didn't take well to foreigners, particularly American ones; and sure enough, his response was, "No, you're no American."
I was suprised. "I'm not?"
"No, you're not."
Since he didn't offer any further explanation, I couldn't help pressing a little further. "Um... is that a good or a bad thing?"
He smirked through his enormous waxed moustache. "It's a good thing."
Of course, this was a guy who was going out of his way to insult us, especially by continuing with the remark that "women and technology don't go together." (My sister, a brilliant computer programmer, didn't say a word. We exchanged knowing smiles and chalked the tasteless comment up to the idiosyncrasies of an older generation.) We left the shop without buying any services; but the one thing that stuck in my head was the man's lack of any sort of hesitation to tell me that "not being an American" was a good thing.
- Some of my coworkers don't really seem to know what to make of me. Not all of them, to be sure; many are supremely cool and interesting. However, perhaps some of the others haven't ever traveled to another country -- or at least outside of Europe -- themselves, and consequently don't have much of a concept of exactly how different the two countries are or are not. I speak relatively decent German, and would imagine that that would be a tip-off that I have some experience with the country. However, I have gotten some well-meaning but flabbergasting questions such as, "Have you ever had a baguette before? It's bread from France," or "We should take you out sometime to experience typical German food. Have you tried a Bratwurst yet?" Again, these inquiries are sweet and well-intentioned, and there's no way for them to know otherwise; it would be ungrateful and classless indeed of me to ruffle my feathers about it. After all, if I were talking to a Vietnamese girl fresh off the plane, I'd probably ask if she'd had good old fashioned American barbecue, yet. It's not the innocently ignorant questions that bother me. But maybe this does have something to do with why I find myself less and less inclined to hang out socially with many of the other teachers at the school: kind as they are, whenever these deliberate and careful invitations are extended to do something social, it is under the overt pretext of showing the lost and helpless foreigner around. Even if it is partly impelled by actual personal interest on their part, the whole interaction is still permeated with the view of me as the Outsider -- after all, my status as the Outsider was the whole reason for the invitation to begin with. (And believe me, I'm not falsely imbuing the situation with my own paranoid impressions. It is quite literally a matter of, "Have you been to a Christmas market before? You should taste some Gluehwein. Why don't you come with so-and-so and me this Friday and we'll introduce you to this tradition?") Again, I feel enormously ill-mannered to be complaining about such kindness. I'm sure that, had I fallen off the boat from China and found myself suddenly in a totally alien setting, I would be enormously grateful for such overtures. But as it is, I smile politely and accept, and don't mention that I know a Gluehwein recipe that's probably better than the weak stuff at the local Christmas market.
I should point out that this is not the majority attitude among the teachers. Many of them I like very much, and I don't get the feeling that they only want to hang out with me out of duty to the Token Foreigner. But on the whole, I personally enjoy socializing much more with (whom I've come to call) the Ludwigshafen crowd. There, I'm just another member of the group, and I can blend in and be "me" without sitting through the formal, interview-like setting of, "So, what brings an American to Germany? Have you had cappuccino before? We should go out for one." And even if you want to talk in terms of being truly being The Foreigner -- which of course I still am, technically -- one learns much more as a fly on the wall, and by being acknowledged and taken in as a member of the group, than by being formally presented with traditions and customs like so many attractions on a tour. All the experiences I've had by now with sitting around at a Gasthaus, drinking local beer and pounding a fist on the table to emphasize a point in a political argument, have not come about as a result of being formally shown around by a well-meaning colleague.
- At the doctor's office with Anna was another interesting culture clash. I had gone to a particular "women's doctor" (Frauenarzt -- haha, German is such a wonderfully practical language!) for my annual female brouhaha, and found him kindly, competent, and easy to be around. So when Anna needed to see someone about her mysterious stomach problems, I therefore made an appointment with the doctor's wife, who was a general practitioner in the same office where he had his. She was... intelligent and approachable, but much less easygoing. And definitely had no idea what she sounded like when making the following statements:
Anna started to explain that she'd had some mysterious digestive complaints off and on for the last three months, involving puzzingly conflicting symptoms, and not seeming to respond to experiments like avoiding dairy products or gluten. The doctor seemed to listen to this, but her first suggestion was, "Well, you're American, right? The Americans aren't known to eat a particularly nourishing diet. Perhaps that's the problem." I can't even begin to express the absurdity -- not to mention ignorance and basis in uninformed stereotype -- of this statement. First of all, the trouble began after Anna came to Germany; and even if it hadn't, and if we pretend that her assumption regarding the typical American diet is correct, then why aren't all Americans experiencing this problem? Secondly, how on earth does she even know how we eat at all? She admitted that she'd never been to the States herself. And even if that were the general stereotype, she didn't even ask what Anna herself ate. Many Americans, myself included, are actually verifiable health-food nuts. Even more ridiculous is the fact that German cuisine is not necessarily based on wheatgrass and bran, either. I would hardly call pig stomach stuffed with greasy and questionable pork parts, covered with heavy cream sauce, served with salted cabbage -- all vitamins having been leached out in the pickling process -- and washed down with unfiltered beer a balanced diet. Anna and I just kind of stared at the doctor and said, no, that wasn't it.
Minutes later, the doctor had Anna remove her sweater and lie down on her back so that she could palpitate her stomach. She did so, and the doctor exclaimed in surprise at Anna's slender torso: "Why, you're so trim!" As if she shouldn't be...? But no matter, Anna does indeed have a most impressive six-pack; perhaps the doctor was simply admiring the apparent health of a good human specimen. The likelihood of this, however, seemed to diminish when the doctor later called a colleague to whom she referred us: "I have a young American woman here to whom I'm referring you. But don't worry, she's quite slender and easy to examine."
It didn't stop there. I took the opportunity to also ask the doctor for a refill of the prescription I had obtained every summer from the UA Health Center (I get a natural mottling on the skin of my back when it gets humid, and a simple tablet taken every six months takes care of it quite well). She had a look at my back, also expressing surprise at my apparent lack of obesity, and offered me a lotion. I explained that I'd tried the lotion before; unfortunately, it was only a temporary solution, and the internal medication worked much more effectively. "You Americans!" she snapped irritably, "Popping pills for everything!" ...Huh? What was her problem? Did she think I was trying to tell her how to do her job, and so responded with annoyance? How is one type of pharmaceutical administration different from another, except in degrees of effectiveness? What did she know about the American medical community, anyway? Anna and I should have said something, but we were taken so off guard, and weren't immediately sure that we really could be hearing such ignorance and prejudice from an relatively young, educated professional, that we simply took the reference and our prescriptions and left. It was later that it all sort of sunk in, and I had to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole interaction.
Happily, there have been many more positive encounters than negative ones. But perhaps it is the latter which stick in your head, as they give more cause for retrospection, while the former are simply enjoyed as lovely bits of hospitality from a people for whom the majority are naturally friendly and curious. I can't tell you how often I've asked a stranger on the street for directions, and have been practically personally walked to said location; how many waiters have brought us extra slices of pie because they hear we're exploring the city as tourists and are interested in the local cuisine; or the lady behind the counter at the winery, who slipped two bottles of sparkling red wine gratis into our bag, because she had overheard me tell Shauna that she should try Dornfelder Sekt in addition to the usual array of sparkling whites.
Okay, well, like the last one, this post is way too long. Maybe my ankle feels up to tackling the dishes again... I'll ask it and see what it says.
So anyway! Now that I've sort of touched on the American's perspective, let's talk a bit about:
How Germans deal with said American.
Looking back, it's interesting to note the various ways people here react to my nationality when they discover it. The typical reaction in the States to foreigners seems to be either, "Cool accent, where are you from? Aren't you just loving our fabulous country?" or "You aren't one of them ter-or-ists, is ya?" (This is assuming the hapless foreigner in question isn't Hispanic. In that case, the usual reaction would probably be, "Hey you, speak American!")
But strangely enough, despite the almost overwhelming friendliness of people here in general, I find myself hesitant to own up to my American citizenship. I'm sure a lot of this has to do with simple shame at our current leadership; unfortunately, that seems to be the only prevailing impression of America abroad, is that we have a xenophobic cowboy at the helm of a nation whose people's general attitude is one of ignorant, nationalistic arrogance. I gotta tell you, it's tough work trying to emphasize to my students the true multifaceted, multicolored, multireligioned, often-conflicted nature of the 300 million people who call themselves Americans, and the impossibility of trying to characterize all of them under a single descriptive umbrella. Here's a brief survey of various reactions I get when people find out where I'm from:
- Girl in the video store: "Oh my god. That's so awesome. I've always wanted to go to America." She giggled at me as if I were a movie star.
- My younger students: "Have you been to New York? Have you been to Hollywood? Do you know any stars?"
- My older students: "Is it true you have to be 21 in order to drink??"
- Guy at restaurant who came over and talked to us because he knew the Hamanns: "You don't look like an American."
Me: "Really? How am I supposed to look?"
Him: "You're not fat, for one thing. And where are your sports shoes?"
- Bert's dad: "We don't meet many Americans around here. It's nice to find out that they're not all raving Bush fans."
- Bert's aunt: "Isn't Thanksgiving a Christmas celebration of some sort?"
And various other little telling encounters, among which are:
- Bert himself, looking at a picture book of the States that Mom gave him for Christmas. He was vastly absorbed in the spreading photographs of canyons, praries, tundra, Rocky Mountains, everglades, and desert. "Huh," he observed. "It really does look like there are a lot of various and interesting things to see. No wonder people travel there -- there's more to the place than just Hollywood and President Bush." Not having realized that that had been his image of my country beforehand, I was enormously gratified to hear this. :)
- Some not-so-positive encounters, like the guy at the repair shop the other day. Shauna and I walked in and the first thing the older man behind the counter did was to use the informal address of "du" (instead of "Sie"). As customers at a shop, this is considered quite rude and patronizing, and tipped us off that we weren't dealing with a gentleman, here. After talking with us for a few minutes, he asked where I was from, and I hesitated a little before saying. He just seemed like the xenophobic type who didn't take well to foreigners, particularly American ones; and sure enough, his response was, "No, you're no American."
I was suprised. "I'm not?"
"No, you're not."
Since he didn't offer any further explanation, I couldn't help pressing a little further. "Um... is that a good or a bad thing?"
He smirked through his enormous waxed moustache. "It's a good thing."
Of course, this was a guy who was going out of his way to insult us, especially by continuing with the remark that "women and technology don't go together." (My sister, a brilliant computer programmer, didn't say a word. We exchanged knowing smiles and chalked the tasteless comment up to the idiosyncrasies of an older generation.) We left the shop without buying any services; but the one thing that stuck in my head was the man's lack of any sort of hesitation to tell me that "not being an American" was a good thing.
- Some of my coworkers don't really seem to know what to make of me. Not all of them, to be sure; many are supremely cool and interesting. However, perhaps some of the others haven't ever traveled to another country -- or at least outside of Europe -- themselves, and consequently don't have much of a concept of exactly how different the two countries are or are not. I speak relatively decent German, and would imagine that that would be a tip-off that I have some experience with the country. However, I have gotten some well-meaning but flabbergasting questions such as, "Have you ever had a baguette before? It's bread from France," or "We should take you out sometime to experience typical German food. Have you tried a Bratwurst yet?" Again, these inquiries are sweet and well-intentioned, and there's no way for them to know otherwise; it would be ungrateful and classless indeed of me to ruffle my feathers about it. After all, if I were talking to a Vietnamese girl fresh off the plane, I'd probably ask if she'd had good old fashioned American barbecue, yet. It's not the innocently ignorant questions that bother me. But maybe this does have something to do with why I find myself less and less inclined to hang out socially with many of the other teachers at the school: kind as they are, whenever these deliberate and careful invitations are extended to do something social, it is under the overt pretext of showing the lost and helpless foreigner around. Even if it is partly impelled by actual personal interest on their part, the whole interaction is still permeated with the view of me as the Outsider -- after all, my status as the Outsider was the whole reason for the invitation to begin with. (And believe me, I'm not falsely imbuing the situation with my own paranoid impressions. It is quite literally a matter of, "Have you been to a Christmas market before? You should taste some Gluehwein. Why don't you come with so-and-so and me this Friday and we'll introduce you to this tradition?") Again, I feel enormously ill-mannered to be complaining about such kindness. I'm sure that, had I fallen off the boat from China and found myself suddenly in a totally alien setting, I would be enormously grateful for such overtures. But as it is, I smile politely and accept, and don't mention that I know a Gluehwein recipe that's probably better than the weak stuff at the local Christmas market.
I should point out that this is not the majority attitude among the teachers. Many of them I like very much, and I don't get the feeling that they only want to hang out with me out of duty to the Token Foreigner. But on the whole, I personally enjoy socializing much more with (whom I've come to call) the Ludwigshafen crowd. There, I'm just another member of the group, and I can blend in and be "me" without sitting through the formal, interview-like setting of, "So, what brings an American to Germany? Have you had cappuccino before? We should go out for one." And even if you want to talk in terms of being truly being The Foreigner -- which of course I still am, technically -- one learns much more as a fly on the wall, and by being acknowledged and taken in as a member of the group, than by being formally presented with traditions and customs like so many attractions on a tour. All the experiences I've had by now with sitting around at a Gasthaus, drinking local beer and pounding a fist on the table to emphasize a point in a political argument, have not come about as a result of being formally shown around by a well-meaning colleague.
- At the doctor's office with Anna was another interesting culture clash. I had gone to a particular "women's doctor" (Frauenarzt -- haha, German is such a wonderfully practical language!) for my annual female brouhaha, and found him kindly, competent, and easy to be around. So when Anna needed to see someone about her mysterious stomach problems, I therefore made an appointment with the doctor's wife, who was a general practitioner in the same office where he had his. She was... intelligent and approachable, but much less easygoing. And definitely had no idea what she sounded like when making the following statements:
Anna started to explain that she'd had some mysterious digestive complaints off and on for the last three months, involving puzzingly conflicting symptoms, and not seeming to respond to experiments like avoiding dairy products or gluten. The doctor seemed to listen to this, but her first suggestion was, "Well, you're American, right? The Americans aren't known to eat a particularly nourishing diet. Perhaps that's the problem." I can't even begin to express the absurdity -- not to mention ignorance and basis in uninformed stereotype -- of this statement. First of all, the trouble began after Anna came to Germany; and even if it hadn't, and if we pretend that her assumption regarding the typical American diet is correct, then why aren't all Americans experiencing this problem? Secondly, how on earth does she even know how we eat at all? She admitted that she'd never been to the States herself. And even if that were the general stereotype, she didn't even ask what Anna herself ate. Many Americans, myself included, are actually verifiable health-food nuts. Even more ridiculous is the fact that German cuisine is not necessarily based on wheatgrass and bran, either. I would hardly call pig stomach stuffed with greasy and questionable pork parts, covered with heavy cream sauce, served with salted cabbage -- all vitamins having been leached out in the pickling process -- and washed down with unfiltered beer a balanced diet. Anna and I just kind of stared at the doctor and said, no, that wasn't it.
Minutes later, the doctor had Anna remove her sweater and lie down on her back so that she could palpitate her stomach. She did so, and the doctor exclaimed in surprise at Anna's slender torso: "Why, you're so trim!" As if she shouldn't be...? But no matter, Anna does indeed have a most impressive six-pack; perhaps the doctor was simply admiring the apparent health of a good human specimen. The likelihood of this, however, seemed to diminish when the doctor later called a colleague to whom she referred us: "I have a young American woman here to whom I'm referring you. But don't worry, she's quite slender and easy to examine."
It didn't stop there. I took the opportunity to also ask the doctor for a refill of the prescription I had obtained every summer from the UA Health Center (I get a natural mottling on the skin of my back when it gets humid, and a simple tablet taken every six months takes care of it quite well). She had a look at my back, also expressing surprise at my apparent lack of obesity, and offered me a lotion. I explained that I'd tried the lotion before; unfortunately, it was only a temporary solution, and the internal medication worked much more effectively. "You Americans!" she snapped irritably, "Popping pills for everything!" ...Huh? What was her problem? Did she think I was trying to tell her how to do her job, and so responded with annoyance? How is one type of pharmaceutical administration different from another, except in degrees of effectiveness? What did she know about the American medical community, anyway? Anna and I should have said something, but we were taken so off guard, and weren't immediately sure that we really could be hearing such ignorance and prejudice from an relatively young, educated professional, that we simply took the reference and our prescriptions and left. It was later that it all sort of sunk in, and I had to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole interaction.
Happily, there have been many more positive encounters than negative ones. But perhaps it is the latter which stick in your head, as they give more cause for retrospection, while the former are simply enjoyed as lovely bits of hospitality from a people for whom the majority are naturally friendly and curious. I can't tell you how often I've asked a stranger on the street for directions, and have been practically personally walked to said location; how many waiters have brought us extra slices of pie because they hear we're exploring the city as tourists and are interested in the local cuisine; or the lady behind the counter at the winery, who slipped two bottles of sparkling red wine gratis into our bag, because she had overheard me tell Shauna that she should try Dornfelder Sekt in addition to the usual array of sparkling whites.
Okay, well, like the last one, this post is way too long. Maybe my ankle feels up to tackling the dishes again... I'll ask it and see what it says.
Not an Englishman in New York, but a legal alien nonetheless
So, after five months of hanging out on the other side of the world, I figured it was time for an "impressions" survey. Not really sure where to start; there are a number of semi-connected ideas banging around in my head that I'm just too lazy to organize into any kind of premeditated structure, so I think I'll just start typing and see what makes its way out and what gets lost in the mad rush to escape the narrow confines of my brain. ;)
Living as opposed to visiting...
...has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. To be sure, I'd lived in Germany for six years before, but it was as a child: and needless to say, your perspective as such is much more limited. Excepting the excellent efforts of our parents to take us out to explore Europe, a kid's normal daily encounters are usually Home, Schoolbus, Neighborhood Kids, and the Half-Mile Radius Around Your House. Although we did benefit greatly from our parents' determination to see as much as possible of the area and surrounding countries, and to integrate themselves as much as two foreigners could into the culture -- Dad was stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base, but we lived off-base, in a village, and our friends consisted of equal parts Germans and Americans -- a person's recollections 14 years later of their life from age seven to twelve is bound to be a little hazy. Of course we were deeply imprinted with the basic feel and smell of German language and culture; that's the age when humans are still growing, and their surroundings become as much absorbed into their cells and subconscious as does the food they eat and the parenting they receive. Right now, church bells are calling outside from the distant Innenstadt below, and the stately, deep, arrhythmic "bong" is setting off answering rings from one of the inner chambers of my heart (maybe it's the left ventricle). It was this slow steeping in Germanness -- the absorption of the warm, dark brown language and the smell of Lebkuchen at a Weihnachtsmarkt, the high view of treetops from the wall of a castle ruin, the dim memory of a cozy Gasthaus that served Jaegerschnitzel (my favorite) and the comforting aroma of my dad's beer -- that drew me inexhorably to German Studies much later at the university. (Huh, funny, maybe that's why I love the smell of good beer on men. I have, probably certifiably, the best dad anyone could possibly wish for; and so my associations with beer are not only happy, but also somehow connected to the conviction that beer is How a Man Should Smell.)
Anyway, studying German at the university opened up a whole array of complicated currents (politics, culture, history, literature, and other various Zeitgeists) that had been swirling around us unnoticed as we played with our friends or stopped at a roadside stand for a Bratwurst. Kids just kind of accept their surroundings without too much consideration: sure, there was the field behind my friend's house where we weren't allowed to play, because authorities couldn't be sure if they'd ever really cleared out the landmines from WWII; and yeah, there were some cities where the ground was noticeably higher in some spots due to newer structures having been built on top of rubble, also from the war. But that was a background detail: real, but (to a child) long ago and irrelevant. What was realer to me was the fact that this particular cathedral was -- whoa! -- a thousand years old! I would wonder who had wandered down this nave before me. Or take for granted that the look and feel of some of the older villages as something from a fairytale, the surrounding forests cool and green and probably populated by witches in gingerbread houses or Tolkeinish folk. I loved Germany. But we were imaginative kids, and my impressions of it were thoroughly mixed with the whimsical world of childhood.
When you grow up a little, though, and start to study mindsets and literature, you gain, needless to say, a much more enriched perspective. I still think of Germany as the place of gingerbread, forests, and far-off church bells. But now I also think of the land of the Romantics and the Englightenment; before that, a medieval world just as full of discovery and struggle as the 21st century; religious conflict; an only recently politically unified country -- Germany became an actual nation only in 1871! -- from what was before a collection of highly factional principalities, each with their own dialect and culture and interests.
The struggle to define a national identity continues today: am I Bavarian first, German second? Or the other way around? What about my neighbor, whose parents are Turkish? She wears a headscarf and speaks Turkish to her family, but she was born and raised here; is she really "a German"? See, in the States, we're used to this: most of us are decendants of some immigrant wave or another, some more historically distant than others. But until recently, your average German was a part of the very soil he tilled. There isn't really a direct or even adequate English translation for the word Heimat: it's more than just "home". It means the land of your roots, of all your family, probably since the Middle Ages or before. Bert goes back to the Erzgebirge, and that's where he belongs. This is not to say he isn't a well-traveled and broad-minded individual; he is indeed. But being the vagabond I and all of my family are and have been, it took me a little while to realize that the Erzgebirge isn't just the place his family happened to buy a house a couple generations ago (like many of us gypsy Americans); no, in fact, you could almost call it his ancestral home. Bert will call himself a Saxon before he identifies himself with the more general term "German."
Which leads of course into all the other complications of a German identity. What about the reunification in 1990? Germans were just starting to figure out who they might be as a nation before a moustachioed maniac came to power and took it way too far. Immediately afterward, the young country was divided into a communist Eastern half and a capitalist Western half -- both of whom weren't even independent states themselves, occupied as they were by, respectively, the Russians and (eventually exclusively) the Americans. What's it like, to have a foreign air base next to your village? Foreign soldiers walking down your street in their uniforms, loudly speaking their own language and complaining that your doorhandles are handles instead of knobs? Or worse, on the other side, not to be allowed to leave your own half of the country, or even listen to radio broadcasts from the other half? Then suddenly, after forty years -- two generations -- the two halves try to fit themselves back together again. Try to turn that into a sense of national identity. To say nothing of the difficulty of coming to terms with a piece of the past that most of the younger generation would prefer to pretend had never happened, and yet it's there in front of their faces every way they turn. How do you answer for the crimes of your grandparents? Should you? How can we learn from the past if we don't remember it, study it, look it in the eye; but what if doing so comes with an almost crushing sense of blame which you feel you haven't personally earned? For sixty years, Germans have been practically allergic to any hint of nationalistic pride. One simply does not play or sing the national anthem, except maybe at the Olympics. Until last summer, no one flew the flag out their window, the way we Americans do at seemingly every opportunity -- at home, at school, in the workplace, in our back windshields. And yet... since the World Cup was held in Germany last summer 2006, there has been a shy attempt to maybe not stash all the "Go Krauts!" paraphernalia away again. Sometimes someone will wear a red-black-and-gold sock, or even more daringly, have not put away the flag hanging off their apartment balcony. I like this. It seems a much healthier balance. And maybe it's just the Germanistik student in me, but as I said before, I love Germany. The large black stain in the middle of the 20th century is indeed glaring and horrible; but there is so much more to the country than just that, and I personally believe it's high time we allow a nation to redeem itself and be a nation again. Go, Krauts. :)
All righty, well, to return to the heading of this little chunk, let me just reiterate that these are all things you can't get just by visiting a place. After all this study, it's wonderful to actually get to come and live it for once. To not view a people and country from the distance of a classroom or through the pages of great, but static, literature; instead, to once again sit in a cozy Gasthaus, and this time, smell more than just the beer. It seems like every weekend, I'm sitting around another table with someone new and discussing philosophy and history; exploring a new town; making dinner in someone's kitchen and arguing about comparative school systems or the future of higher education; world politics; American politics; cultural idiosyncrasies; unemployment; the chasm between East and West; dealing with the past; the list is endless. I think I had kind of intended this blog to be a record of such conversations and impressions, but perhaps I haven't been as conscientious as I meant to be. This entry alone has taken over an hour and a half, and there is still so much to say... sometimes the most I can do is a hasty listing of all the things we've done and seen, just to record them for the indistinct Future when I do have a chance to imbue it with the better retrospection that such experiences deserve. Ah well, my coffee's waiting, and there are lessons to be planned... auf Wiedersehen, for now. :)
Living as opposed to visiting...
...has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. To be sure, I'd lived in Germany for six years before, but it was as a child: and needless to say, your perspective as such is much more limited. Excepting the excellent efforts of our parents to take us out to explore Europe, a kid's normal daily encounters are usually Home, Schoolbus, Neighborhood Kids, and the Half-Mile Radius Around Your House. Although we did benefit greatly from our parents' determination to see as much as possible of the area and surrounding countries, and to integrate themselves as much as two foreigners could into the culture -- Dad was stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base, but we lived off-base, in a village, and our friends consisted of equal parts Germans and Americans -- a person's recollections 14 years later of their life from age seven to twelve is bound to be a little hazy. Of course we were deeply imprinted with the basic feel and smell of German language and culture; that's the age when humans are still growing, and their surroundings become as much absorbed into their cells and subconscious as does the food they eat and the parenting they receive. Right now, church bells are calling outside from the distant Innenstadt below, and the stately, deep, arrhythmic "bong" is setting off answering rings from one of the inner chambers of my heart (maybe it's the left ventricle). It was this slow steeping in Germanness -- the absorption of the warm, dark brown language and the smell of Lebkuchen at a Weihnachtsmarkt, the high view of treetops from the wall of a castle ruin, the dim memory of a cozy Gasthaus that served Jaegerschnitzel (my favorite) and the comforting aroma of my dad's beer -- that drew me inexhorably to German Studies much later at the university. (Huh, funny, maybe that's why I love the smell of good beer on men. I have, probably certifiably, the best dad anyone could possibly wish for; and so my associations with beer are not only happy, but also somehow connected to the conviction that beer is How a Man Should Smell.)
Anyway, studying German at the university opened up a whole array of complicated currents (politics, culture, history, literature, and other various Zeitgeists) that had been swirling around us unnoticed as we played with our friends or stopped at a roadside stand for a Bratwurst. Kids just kind of accept their surroundings without too much consideration: sure, there was the field behind my friend's house where we weren't allowed to play, because authorities couldn't be sure if they'd ever really cleared out the landmines from WWII; and yeah, there were some cities where the ground was noticeably higher in some spots due to newer structures having been built on top of rubble, also from the war. But that was a background detail: real, but (to a child) long ago and irrelevant. What was realer to me was the fact that this particular cathedral was -- whoa! -- a thousand years old! I would wonder who had wandered down this nave before me. Or take for granted that the look and feel of some of the older villages as something from a fairytale, the surrounding forests cool and green and probably populated by witches in gingerbread houses or Tolkeinish folk. I loved Germany. But we were imaginative kids, and my impressions of it were thoroughly mixed with the whimsical world of childhood.
When you grow up a little, though, and start to study mindsets and literature, you gain, needless to say, a much more enriched perspective. I still think of Germany as the place of gingerbread, forests, and far-off church bells. But now I also think of the land of the Romantics and the Englightenment; before that, a medieval world just as full of discovery and struggle as the 21st century; religious conflict; an only recently politically unified country -- Germany became an actual nation only in 1871! -- from what was before a collection of highly factional principalities, each with their own dialect and culture and interests.
The struggle to define a national identity continues today: am I Bavarian first, German second? Or the other way around? What about my neighbor, whose parents are Turkish? She wears a headscarf and speaks Turkish to her family, but she was born and raised here; is she really "a German"? See, in the States, we're used to this: most of us are decendants of some immigrant wave or another, some more historically distant than others. But until recently, your average German was a part of the very soil he tilled. There isn't really a direct or even adequate English translation for the word Heimat: it's more than just "home". It means the land of your roots, of all your family, probably since the Middle Ages or before. Bert goes back to the Erzgebirge, and that's where he belongs. This is not to say he isn't a well-traveled and broad-minded individual; he is indeed. But being the vagabond I and all of my family are and have been, it took me a little while to realize that the Erzgebirge isn't just the place his family happened to buy a house a couple generations ago (like many of us gypsy Americans); no, in fact, you could almost call it his ancestral home. Bert will call himself a Saxon before he identifies himself with the more general term "German."
Which leads of course into all the other complications of a German identity. What about the reunification in 1990? Germans were just starting to figure out who they might be as a nation before a moustachioed maniac came to power and took it way too far. Immediately afterward, the young country was divided into a communist Eastern half and a capitalist Western half -- both of whom weren't even independent states themselves, occupied as they were by, respectively, the Russians and (eventually exclusively) the Americans. What's it like, to have a foreign air base next to your village? Foreign soldiers walking down your street in their uniforms, loudly speaking their own language and complaining that your doorhandles are handles instead of knobs? Or worse, on the other side, not to be allowed to leave your own half of the country, or even listen to radio broadcasts from the other half? Then suddenly, after forty years -- two generations -- the two halves try to fit themselves back together again. Try to turn that into a sense of national identity. To say nothing of the difficulty of coming to terms with a piece of the past that most of the younger generation would prefer to pretend had never happened, and yet it's there in front of their faces every way they turn. How do you answer for the crimes of your grandparents? Should you? How can we learn from the past if we don't remember it, study it, look it in the eye; but what if doing so comes with an almost crushing sense of blame which you feel you haven't personally earned? For sixty years, Germans have been practically allergic to any hint of nationalistic pride. One simply does not play or sing the national anthem, except maybe at the Olympics. Until last summer, no one flew the flag out their window, the way we Americans do at seemingly every opportunity -- at home, at school, in the workplace, in our back windshields. And yet... since the World Cup was held in Germany last summer 2006, there has been a shy attempt to maybe not stash all the "Go Krauts!" paraphernalia away again. Sometimes someone will wear a red-black-and-gold sock, or even more daringly, have not put away the flag hanging off their apartment balcony. I like this. It seems a much healthier balance. And maybe it's just the Germanistik student in me, but as I said before, I love Germany. The large black stain in the middle of the 20th century is indeed glaring and horrible; but there is so much more to the country than just that, and I personally believe it's high time we allow a nation to redeem itself and be a nation again. Go, Krauts. :)
All righty, well, to return to the heading of this little chunk, let me just reiterate that these are all things you can't get just by visiting a place. After all this study, it's wonderful to actually get to come and live it for once. To not view a people and country from the distance of a classroom or through the pages of great, but static, literature; instead, to once again sit in a cozy Gasthaus, and this time, smell more than just the beer. It seems like every weekend, I'm sitting around another table with someone new and discussing philosophy and history; exploring a new town; making dinner in someone's kitchen and arguing about comparative school systems or the future of higher education; world politics; American politics; cultural idiosyncrasies; unemployment; the chasm between East and West; dealing with the past; the list is endless. I think I had kind of intended this blog to be a record of such conversations and impressions, but perhaps I haven't been as conscientious as I meant to be. This entry alone has taken over an hour and a half, and there is still so much to say... sometimes the most I can do is a hasty listing of all the things we've done and seen, just to record them for the indistinct Future when I do have a chance to imbue it with the better retrospection that such experiences deserve. Ah well, my coffee's waiting, and there are lessons to be planned... auf Wiedersehen, for now. :)
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Oh, de leg bone connected to de hip bone...
Because a blog often consists, simply by nature, of self-indulgent ramblings, I'll start this post by observing that I have weird joints. Specifically, I think my bones might somehow be more loosely connected than most peoples'... For example, I remember doing crescent kicks in Taekwondo when I was seventeen -- an action requiring one to swing one's entire extended leg in an arc from the hip joint -- and having to subtly twitch my hip afterward in order to "click" the femur back in place. A year later, I sprained an ankle after a jump side-kick because the foot I landed on bent sideways toward my leg, and ended up on crutches for three weeks. Two years after that, I fell off a scooter and landed front down on both elbows, the result of which being that my right shoulder popped clean out of the socket. (It has never since rightly healed; the tendons in that joint have gotten so weak, in fact, that I am incapable of the simple motion of extending my right arm up and back without the shoulder slipping again -- to the accompaniment of excruciating pain. I know I need surgery, but what's a TA with minimal health insurance to do?) And actually, now that I think about it, even sometimes when chewing something especially crunchy, my jaw clicks slightly sideways and I have to un-stick it before proceeding. Does this herald a mass of joint problems in forty years? Am I going to get up from my rocking chair one day and collapse to the floor in a heap of disjointed skeleton? Just this afternoon, I stepped out of the drugstore and landed slightly unevenly on the same foot that was sprained eight years ago; by this evening, the danged ankle is swollen up and I can hardly put weight on it. That's not good. I walk everywhere. Well, lemme sleep on it and see how it is in the morning...
Anybody know any good remedies for too-elastic joints? :)
Anybody know any good remedies for too-elastic joints? :)
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