Here's how small Berlin – or at least the expat/journalist/fellowship-recipient community in Berlin – can be:
I'm looking to sublet my spot in my office share, so I wrote a post to an English-speaking academics' listserv and got a bunch of responses. The first guy to actually make a specific appointment and show up to look at the office (let's call him "S.") was a journalist, but someone I don't know.
But he showed up with a friend of his... who I know! We'll call her E.; we met through friends a few months ago and she even came to my Chanukah party, but that was just before she had a baby, so she understandably dropped off the radar for a while. We were both excited and pleased to have stumbled across each other again.
We tried to explain to S., the journalist, how we knew each other – we were both at a dinner at our mutual friend J.'s house... except in truth I don't even know J. all that well, it's more that she's a friend of my friend R., and R. had invited me along...
"Oh, wait," S. said. "Is that the R. who dated P.? I know P. Through journalist stuff."
Yes. It circled all the way back around.
"Berlin ist ein Dorf," as the saying goes – Berlin is a village.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Friday, April 18, 2014
Spring Ragbag – A Few Culture Notes
Miscellaneous observations each too small to need their own post:
• Helping a friend (German) and her boyfriend (Dutch) move, I was helping the boyfriend get all the boxes optimally organized inside the moving van – and speaking English together rather than German, because he lived in England for years and his English is flawless – when he looked at one box and asked, baffled, "Why is it bad?"
We looked at the box he was indicating, and both realized the word written on it was indeed "Bad" ...as in "bathroom," in German.
Such fun to be had with that particular false cognate! Like a bathroom fixtures store near me with a huge sign that reads "BAD IDEEN" – looks like it means "bad ideas," but actually just translates to "ideas for the bathroom."
I similarly snorted over a beer advertisement in the U-Bahn at Alexanderplatz reading, "Die Nacht Wird Hell" – it means "the night will be bright" or "the night grows bright," but it kind of looks like it's saying the night will be hell.
• Some friends recently threw a baby shower for a friend who's about to have a baby (all involved were North Americans). A couple days before it, I was walking with a friend (French) and her boyfriend (German), and the French friend and I were laughing about how you would normally never have a baby shower in Germany; Germans are superstitious about doing anything ahead of the fact, and won't even wish each other happy birthday a day early because it's "bad luck."
At this point, her German boyfriend broke in to ask who the baby shower we were talking about was for; when told who it was (a mutual friend whose due date is later this month), he said in honest bafflement, "Aber sie hat noch kein Baby." ("But she doesn't have a baby yet.")
And that right there, my friends, is why you will never attend a German baby shower.
• I met the same friends (the French and German couple) at an Italian-style café (or trattoria? or osteria? I'm trying, but I honestly can't sort out all the different Italian terms for eating establishments!) near where they live.
My German friend pointed out that this place was run mostly in the Italian style, with the emphasis on the big deli display case and the shelves of food products, but with concessions to German-style café culture, in the form of more table seating. In Italy, the focus would be almost entirely on the deli case and the delicacies within; in Germany the focus is on the comfortable space to sit and linger; so this place had a bit of both.
And I realized, hey, that's true – as much as we Americans might have this image of Italians/French/southern-Europeans-in-general lingering over coffees on sidewalk cafés, in my actual experience, people in Italy tend to order a shot of espresso, knock it back while standing at the bar, then continue on their way. This seems to be true in France as well (I remember walking along a street in Paris and seeing people leaving a café with tiny espresso-sized to-go cups, which is just adorable) and it also ties in with the Spanish (and Venetian) culture of standing around ordering drinks-that-also-come-with-small-dishes-of-tapas, rather than sitting down for a meal and then also ordering a drink with it.
That hanging-out-over-coffee culture that I appreciate so much here (no one will ever rush you out or give you the bill as a subtle hint to leave; it's completely acceptable to hang out, chatting over coffee, for hours, because the whole point of a café is that it's somewhere you go to chat and hang out) and which I think of as being a "European" thing – perhaps it's not actually a European thing but a German thing, at least in the form in which I know it. (Though, yes, Italy is absolutely the source of the "slow foods" movement, of the idea of placing value on taking time over good food and good company – so maybe that philosophy applies in some contexts and not others?)
At any rate, my German friend, at least, says we have Austria to thank for the "hanging out over coffee" culture – that's Viennese culture, coffeehouse culture, from a tradition of sitting and discussing philosophy. It's not often I can think of anything I'm specifically grateful to Austria for, so, score one for Austria!
• A couple weekends ago, I went out on a bike ride in the countryside east of Berlin for an afternoon, and on the train back at the end of the day, ended up talking with a Dutch guy who's living in Berlin to build up his start-up company (what else!) and was similarly exploring the countryside. It was fun hearing his perspective as someone who's newly in Germany and only just discovering the cultural differences, and he seemed intrigued to hear my perspective as someone who's been here for a number of years and could confirm or refute some of the things he'd been wondering.
One thing we got to talking about is how environmentally minded Germans are, but often in these very small, obsessive, detail-oriented ways, rather than in a big-picture way. He laughed about the little sign next to the train door that says "on cold days, please close the doors" and joked that he could totally see Germans doing that, making a point of going over and pressing the button to close the doors.
I added the example of, "You don't need this light on, do you?" – Yes, Germans really do sit around in the semi-dark a lot of the time, because they seem to think turning off one lightbulb makes a big difference in their overall electricity consumption.
This is a hard one for me, because I love how much Germans think about the environment. I love that a basic level of environmentalism is simply a given, a building block of the culture, taken for granted. Of course we recycle, and save energy when we can, and ride bicycles and want more green energy. That attitude is one of the biggest things that drew me to this country in the first place.
But at the same time, people are then so very pleased with themselves, patting themselves on the back for doing even the smallest things. I get the sense that people who recycle and turn off the lights when they don't need them think that's it, they're done now – they're the good guys, the environmentalists, they've done their bit to "save the planet" and now they don't have to think about it any further.
And turning off the lights is well and good, but as long as I'm still living in a modern apartment with electricity and gas heating and own a computer and a cell phone and other gadgets and fly in planes and buy really anything at all in plastic packaging (even if I'm going to recycle it afterward) and take hot showers every day, I have no illusions about the overall environmental balance of my existence. And I think Germans tend to forget that, while they're so caught up in the small, obsessive details.
• To counter that with an example of something cool about Germany: the very idea of a "Kur."
That's "cure," I suppose, in the old-fashioned sense of "taking the cure" (picture olden-days posh British people going to Bath for the winter...) Do we even have a word for this in modern day English?
I doubt it, because we don't even really have the concept – it's preventive medicine (gasp!), and the idea is that you go away and take care of your health before a problem becomes acute. A German guy I know (early 50's, perfectly healthy) just went on a week-long "Kur" sponsored by his employer, where they did lots of exercise and outdoorsy stuff, and learned about good nutrition, and even had a couple sessions with a psychologist, just as a routine part of the program. It's then followed up by a once-a-week exercise course once they're back in Berlin.
It's a pilot program sponsored by a retirement pension scheme (either the company's scheme, or the government's, or a mix of both, I wasn't entirely clear on that) and I can only assume the idea is that if you help your employees learn to take care of their health now, then they're less like to end up on long-term sick leave or taking early retirement a few years down the line because of problems that could have been preventable.
Can you imagine that in the US? Where the overarching work culture seems to be: Work until you drop, work no matter how sick you are and no matter how long working-while-sick ends up extending your illness, and by the way you'll be grateful for those measly two weeks of vacation we allow you a year?
• Also. Based on my own rigorous and empirical research, I now present to you the only proven way to not just endure but in fact enjoy a 15-minute wait on line at the grocery store check-out (because Germans panic and rush to the stores to stock up whenever there's a public holiday coming up and the stores are going to be closed for a day):
mp3 player cued up with old episodes of Cabin Pressure. Seriously, guys, the best and most cleverly written radio comedy out there! I could listen to that thing on endless repeat. (And, basically, do.)
• Helping a friend (German) and her boyfriend (Dutch) move, I was helping the boyfriend get all the boxes optimally organized inside the moving van – and speaking English together rather than German, because he lived in England for years and his English is flawless – when he looked at one box and asked, baffled, "Why is it bad?"
We looked at the box he was indicating, and both realized the word written on it was indeed "Bad" ...as in "bathroom," in German.
Such fun to be had with that particular false cognate! Like a bathroom fixtures store near me with a huge sign that reads "BAD IDEEN" – looks like it means "bad ideas," but actually just translates to "ideas for the bathroom."
I similarly snorted over a beer advertisement in the U-Bahn at Alexanderplatz reading, "Die Nacht Wird Hell" – it means "the night will be bright" or "the night grows bright," but it kind of looks like it's saying the night will be hell.
• Some friends recently threw a baby shower for a friend who's about to have a baby (all involved were North Americans). A couple days before it, I was walking with a friend (French) and her boyfriend (German), and the French friend and I were laughing about how you would normally never have a baby shower in Germany; Germans are superstitious about doing anything ahead of the fact, and won't even wish each other happy birthday a day early because it's "bad luck."
At this point, her German boyfriend broke in to ask who the baby shower we were talking about was for; when told who it was (a mutual friend whose due date is later this month), he said in honest bafflement, "Aber sie hat noch kein Baby." ("But she doesn't have a baby yet.")
And that right there, my friends, is why you will never attend a German baby shower.
• I met the same friends (the French and German couple) at an Italian-style café (or trattoria? or osteria? I'm trying, but I honestly can't sort out all the different Italian terms for eating establishments!) near where they live.
My German friend pointed out that this place was run mostly in the Italian style, with the emphasis on the big deli display case and the shelves of food products, but with concessions to German-style café culture, in the form of more table seating. In Italy, the focus would be almost entirely on the deli case and the delicacies within; in Germany the focus is on the comfortable space to sit and linger; so this place had a bit of both.
And I realized, hey, that's true – as much as we Americans might have this image of Italians/French/southern-Europeans-in-general lingering over coffees on sidewalk cafés, in my actual experience, people in Italy tend to order a shot of espresso, knock it back while standing at the bar, then continue on their way. This seems to be true in France as well (I remember walking along a street in Paris and seeing people leaving a café with tiny espresso-sized to-go cups, which is just adorable) and it also ties in with the Spanish (and Venetian) culture of standing around ordering drinks-that-also-come-with-small-dishes-of-tapas, rather than sitting down for a meal and then also ordering a drink with it.
That hanging-out-over-coffee culture that I appreciate so much here (no one will ever rush you out or give you the bill as a subtle hint to leave; it's completely acceptable to hang out, chatting over coffee, for hours, because the whole point of a café is that it's somewhere you go to chat and hang out) and which I think of as being a "European" thing – perhaps it's not actually a European thing but a German thing, at least in the form in which I know it. (Though, yes, Italy is absolutely the source of the "slow foods" movement, of the idea of placing value on taking time over good food and good company – so maybe that philosophy applies in some contexts and not others?)
At any rate, my German friend, at least, says we have Austria to thank for the "hanging out over coffee" culture – that's Viennese culture, coffeehouse culture, from a tradition of sitting and discussing philosophy. It's not often I can think of anything I'm specifically grateful to Austria for, so, score one for Austria!
• A couple weekends ago, I went out on a bike ride in the countryside east of Berlin for an afternoon, and on the train back at the end of the day, ended up talking with a Dutch guy who's living in Berlin to build up his start-up company (what else!) and was similarly exploring the countryside. It was fun hearing his perspective as someone who's newly in Germany and only just discovering the cultural differences, and he seemed intrigued to hear my perspective as someone who's been here for a number of years and could confirm or refute some of the things he'd been wondering.
One thing we got to talking about is how environmentally minded Germans are, but often in these very small, obsessive, detail-oriented ways, rather than in a big-picture way. He laughed about the little sign next to the train door that says "on cold days, please close the doors" and joked that he could totally see Germans doing that, making a point of going over and pressing the button to close the doors.
I added the example of, "You don't need this light on, do you?" – Yes, Germans really do sit around in the semi-dark a lot of the time, because they seem to think turning off one lightbulb makes a big difference in their overall electricity consumption.
This is a hard one for me, because I love how much Germans think about the environment. I love that a basic level of environmentalism is simply a given, a building block of the culture, taken for granted. Of course we recycle, and save energy when we can, and ride bicycles and want more green energy. That attitude is one of the biggest things that drew me to this country in the first place.
But at the same time, people are then so very pleased with themselves, patting themselves on the back for doing even the smallest things. I get the sense that people who recycle and turn off the lights when they don't need them think that's it, they're done now – they're the good guys, the environmentalists, they've done their bit to "save the planet" and now they don't have to think about it any further.
And turning off the lights is well and good, but as long as I'm still living in a modern apartment with electricity and gas heating and own a computer and a cell phone and other gadgets and fly in planes and buy really anything at all in plastic packaging (even if I'm going to recycle it afterward) and take hot showers every day, I have no illusions about the overall environmental balance of my existence. And I think Germans tend to forget that, while they're so caught up in the small, obsessive details.
• To counter that with an example of something cool about Germany: the very idea of a "Kur."
That's "cure," I suppose, in the old-fashioned sense of "taking the cure" (picture olden-days posh British people going to Bath for the winter...) Do we even have a word for this in modern day English?
I doubt it, because we don't even really have the concept – it's preventive medicine (gasp!), and the idea is that you go away and take care of your health before a problem becomes acute. A German guy I know (early 50's, perfectly healthy) just went on a week-long "Kur" sponsored by his employer, where they did lots of exercise and outdoorsy stuff, and learned about good nutrition, and even had a couple sessions with a psychologist, just as a routine part of the program. It's then followed up by a once-a-week exercise course once they're back in Berlin.
It's a pilot program sponsored by a retirement pension scheme (either the company's scheme, or the government's, or a mix of both, I wasn't entirely clear on that) and I can only assume the idea is that if you help your employees learn to take care of their health now, then they're less like to end up on long-term sick leave or taking early retirement a few years down the line because of problems that could have been preventable.
Can you imagine that in the US? Where the overarching work culture seems to be: Work until you drop, work no matter how sick you are and no matter how long working-while-sick ends up extending your illness, and by the way you'll be grateful for those measly two weeks of vacation we allow you a year?
• Also. Based on my own rigorous and empirical research, I now present to you the only proven way to not just endure but in fact enjoy a 15-minute wait on line at the grocery store check-out (because Germans panic and rush to the stores to stock up whenever there's a public holiday coming up and the stores are going to be closed for a day):
mp3 player cued up with old episodes of Cabin Pressure. Seriously, guys, the best and most cleverly written radio comedy out there! I could listen to that thing on endless repeat. (And, basically, do.)
Friday, April 4, 2014
When German Is Too Literal
I just learned that the German word for "morgue" is "Leichenschauhaus." It literally means "corpse show house."
Or you can say "Leichenhalle" or "Leichenhaus" ("corpse hall" and "corpse house"). "Leichenkeller" ("corpse basement") is also an option.
My dear German language. I love your literal-mindedness! But sometimes... it's a bit much.
Or you can say "Leichenhalle" or "Leichenhaus" ("corpse hall" and "corpse house"). "Leichenkeller" ("corpse basement") is also an option.
My dear German language. I love your literal-mindedness! But sometimes... it's a bit much.
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