The death of Kim Jong-il in North Korea came up briefly in an English lesson today.
My student, a former East German in her late 40s, said news about North Korea always cuts a little close to home, a little too close to how her country could have ended up – she remembers well the same kind of marches and obligatory celebrations, with functionaries checking everyone against an attendance list.
But, she reflected, "Compared to North Korea, we had a Streichelzoo-Diktatur [petting zoo dictatorship]."
Monday, December 19, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Bread Addendum
Oh, and I should have said: I also think it's telling that to say "dinner" in German, you can use the word "Abendessen" (literally "evening meal"), but you can also say "Abendbrot" – "evening bread"!
Some Bread with that Bread?
Seen recently in a bakery: Promotional flyers for some expert or other's particular weight loss program designed to help you "lose weight while you sleep" by eating carb-heavy meals in the morning and protein-heavy meals in the evening.
So far so good (I guess), but then as its tie-in, the bakery was offering a special "high-protein" bread (lots of nuts and seeds and things in it), so that for your evening protein meal, you could have...bread.
(This makes marginally more sense when you know that many Germans still follow the old-fashioned, when-mom-was-at-home-to-cook-during-the-day-every-day pattern of eating a big warm meal during the day, and then just bread with various cold toppings in the evening. And that most Germans can happily eat bread as at least two of their three meals a day without complaint or finding anything odd about it.)
Still, though. Germany: a country so obsessed with bread and bread products, even its non-carb meals are carbs.
So far so good (I guess), but then as its tie-in, the bakery was offering a special "high-protein" bread (lots of nuts and seeds and things in it), so that for your evening protein meal, you could have...bread.
(This makes marginally more sense when you know that many Germans still follow the old-fashioned, when-mom-was-at-home-to-cook-during-the-day-every-day pattern of eating a big warm meal during the day, and then just bread with various cold toppings in the evening. And that most Germans can happily eat bread as at least two of their three meals a day without complaint or finding anything odd about it.)
Still, though. Germany: a country so obsessed with bread and bread products, even its non-carb meals are carbs.
Monday, December 12, 2011
The Christmas Season
When I went grocery shopping on Friday, the check-out clerk was already wishing everyone a "Happy 3rd Advent!"
The whole Advent period (technically the four "Advent Sundays" leading up to Christmas, hence the phrase "3rd Advent" to refer to the third of those weekends) is huge here, Christmas in Germany being essentially an entire season of the year unto itself.
Putting an even more precise start date to the Christmas season, a friend recently informed me that Christmas markets, though they start setting up in November, are not allowed to turn their lights on until after "Totensonntag" (Sunday of the Dead – a Lutheran holiday that's always the last Sunday before the four Advent Sundays...got that?)
Yes, Germany is gradually giving way to commercialism, and the first Christmas cookies do start sneaking their way into the grocery stores in September. (Though you should see the stores NOW – I swear, roughly half of my nearest supermarket is devoted to Christmas chocolates, while on the other hand the baking section has been nearly been picked clean by eager Christmas cookie bakers.)
And yes, as in any majority-Christian country, December is a time of buying gifts. (On a couple – not all – of the Advent weekends, major stores are actually open SUNDAYS, something almost inconceivable in Germany.)
But even more than that, December really is a time when Germans do all those traditional, cozy, Christmas-season kinds of things, and the four Advent weekends are earnestly dedicated to Christmas cookie baking (a major event itself, in which friends descend on one person's kitchen, all bearing their own recipes and ingredients, and proceed to make multiple varieties of cookies simultaneously, in a flurry of activity so overwhelming, I managed to bow out of it entirely this year) and afternoon cookie-and-warm-drink Christmas parties and so many Christmas market visits that you actually lose count, and of course lots and lots of mulled wine.
Then of course there's Nikolaustag (St. Nicholas Day, December 6), when children leave shoes out overnight and find them filled with sweets in the morning – something I always found a bit bizarre, until a Dutch friend pointed out, Yeah, we have shoes, and the Americans have stockings. Oh. Right.
When I went to the post office in early December to mail a package of Chanukah presents to my parents in the U.S. and asked how long it would take to get there, the woman said, Well, it'll be a little late if you're sending it for Nikolaus. I told her, no, I was sending it for Chanukah (though of course she'd have no idea what that means) and smiled privately at the idea that I would be sending a package to my family – my American, not to mention Jewish, family – for St. Nicholas Day.
Then, to round out the whole holiday season, there's Heilige Drei Könige (the day of the "Holy Three Kings," who we know as the Three Wise Men; i.e. Epiphany or Twelfth Night), when kids go around dressed as the three wise men, singing songs and writing blessings in holy chalk (not kidding) over people's doors. I think this is more common in western and southern Germany (which is Catholic), because I haven't seen much of it here in Berlin.
The whole Advent period (technically the four "Advent Sundays" leading up to Christmas, hence the phrase "3rd Advent" to refer to the third of those weekends) is huge here, Christmas in Germany being essentially an entire season of the year unto itself.
Putting an even more precise start date to the Christmas season, a friend recently informed me that Christmas markets, though they start setting up in November, are not allowed to turn their lights on until after "Totensonntag" (Sunday of the Dead – a Lutheran holiday that's always the last Sunday before the four Advent Sundays...got that?)
Yes, Germany is gradually giving way to commercialism, and the first Christmas cookies do start sneaking their way into the grocery stores in September. (Though you should see the stores NOW – I swear, roughly half of my nearest supermarket is devoted to Christmas chocolates, while on the other hand the baking section has been nearly been picked clean by eager Christmas cookie bakers.)
And yes, as in any majority-Christian country, December is a time of buying gifts. (On a couple – not all – of the Advent weekends, major stores are actually open SUNDAYS, something almost inconceivable in Germany.)
But even more than that, December really is a time when Germans do all those traditional, cozy, Christmas-season kinds of things, and the four Advent weekends are earnestly dedicated to Christmas cookie baking (a major event itself, in which friends descend on one person's kitchen, all bearing their own recipes and ingredients, and proceed to make multiple varieties of cookies simultaneously, in a flurry of activity so overwhelming, I managed to bow out of it entirely this year) and afternoon cookie-and-warm-drink Christmas parties and so many Christmas market visits that you actually lose count, and of course lots and lots of mulled wine.
Then of course there's Nikolaustag (St. Nicholas Day, December 6), when children leave shoes out overnight and find them filled with sweets in the morning – something I always found a bit bizarre, until a Dutch friend pointed out, Yeah, we have shoes, and the Americans have stockings. Oh. Right.
When I went to the post office in early December to mail a package of Chanukah presents to my parents in the U.S. and asked how long it would take to get there, the woman said, Well, it'll be a little late if you're sending it for Nikolaus. I told her, no, I was sending it for Chanukah (though of course she'd have no idea what that means) and smiled privately at the idea that I would be sending a package to my family – my American, not to mention Jewish, family – for St. Nicholas Day.
Then, to round out the whole holiday season, there's Heilige Drei Könige (the day of the "Holy Three Kings," who we know as the Three Wise Men; i.e. Epiphany or Twelfth Night), when kids go around dressed as the three wise men, singing songs and writing blessings in holy chalk (not kidding) over people's doors. I think this is more common in western and southern Germany (which is Catholic), because I haven't seen much of it here in Berlin.
The Simplest Questions Are the Hardest
Germans don't know how to answer the question "How are you?"
In English, I mean. If they've learned English for a while, they've likely had drilled into their heads that "How are you?" is just something we say to be polite, it is not an invitation to launch into a litany of your woes, and the correct answer is always "Fine, thanks."
"What if I'm really ill?" they ask me. "What if I'm actually not fine? Do I have to lie?" I generally tell them that, no, honesty is okay, but yes, the expectation is that you keep your answer more or less neutral.
Incidentally, someone recently made the valid point that it's a bit silly for Germans to complain about how we do or don't answer "How are you?" because in German often they don't even ask each other a proper question at all, but (especially young people, among friends) simply greet each other with the nonsense particle "Na?" To which the only real response is another "Na?"
Since it sounds goofy to answer "Na?" with "Na?" this can easily turn into a race to see who can say "Na?" first, leaving the other to lamely echo, "Na?"
And don't even get me started on the British, whose "How do you do" is not, as you might think, a question, but rather a phrase of greeting, and is properly – and only – answered with another "How do you do."
In English, I mean. If they've learned English for a while, they've likely had drilled into their heads that "How are you?" is just something we say to be polite, it is not an invitation to launch into a litany of your woes, and the correct answer is always "Fine, thanks."
"What if I'm really ill?" they ask me. "What if I'm actually not fine? Do I have to lie?" I generally tell them that, no, honesty is okay, but yes, the expectation is that you keep your answer more or less neutral.
Incidentally, someone recently made the valid point that it's a bit silly for Germans to complain about how we do or don't answer "How are you?" because in German often they don't even ask each other a proper question at all, but (especially young people, among friends) simply greet each other with the nonsense particle "Na?" To which the only real response is another "Na?"
Since it sounds goofy to answer "Na?" with "Na?" this can easily turn into a race to see who can say "Na?" first, leaving the other to lamely echo, "Na?"
And don't even get me started on the British, whose "How do you do" is not, as you might think, a question, but rather a phrase of greeting, and is properly – and only – answered with another "How do you do."
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Suns and Moons
It's 3:30 p.m. and the sun is setting!
(Technically sunset today is 3:52 p.m., not that different from Ithaca's 4:33 p.m., but it sure FEELS earlier.)
Also, if you're somewhere that's dark right now, go check out the last total lunar eclipse until 2014! It's happening in the morning U.S. time (so on the east coast you might still catch a bit of the penumbral eclipse before the moon sets and the sun rises) and here in Germany, the total eclipse ends at 3:57 p.m., the partial eclipse at 5:18 and the penumbral eclipse at 6:30, so we may catch some of it as the moon's rising.
(Technically sunset today is 3:52 p.m., not that different from Ithaca's 4:33 p.m., but it sure FEELS earlier.)
Also, if you're somewhere that's dark right now, go check out the last total lunar eclipse until 2014! It's happening in the morning U.S. time (so on the east coast you might still catch a bit of the penumbral eclipse before the moon sets and the sun rises) and here in Germany, the total eclipse ends at 3:57 p.m., the partial eclipse at 5:18 and the penumbral eclipse at 6:30, so we may catch some of it as the moon's rising.
Friday, December 9, 2011
This Is Why You're German
So amazing. SO amazing. Possibly less amazing if you're not very familiar with Germany...but still amazing:
This Is Why You're German
I would try to list a few of my favorites, but then we'd be here all day.
This Is Why You're German
I would try to list a few of my favorites, but then we'd be here all day.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Life in Three Thirds
This morning I finally sent out an invitation to my upcoming Chanukah celebration. Just out of curiosity, because I'm always interested in such things, after I sent the e-mail I took a closer look at my guest list, and was delighted to discover that the 18 friends I'd invited distributed perfectly into thirds: 6 Germans, 6 Americans and 6 "other" (British, Irish, French, Israeli, Canadian).
I enjoy that kind of coincidentally symmetry anyway (for example, when I realized there had been exactly 28 people at my 28th birthday party), but this is somehow especially pleasing in the way it makes a little microcosm of my Berlin life, which I think also could roughly be defined as "one-third German, one-third American and one-third other."
I enjoy that kind of coincidentally symmetry anyway (for example, when I realized there had been exactly 28 people at my 28th birthday party), but this is somehow especially pleasing in the way it makes a little microcosm of my Berlin life, which I think also could roughly be defined as "one-third German, one-third American and one-third other."
Saturday, December 3, 2011
The Dark Days of Winter/The Confetti Tram
Last Saturday and this Saturday I traveled way out to a far-flung part of eastern Berlin to take a sort of brush-up-your-French crash course for...well, let me leave that for another post, but let's just say, for my mystery next travel destination! (No, not France.)
Doing this course entailed getting up around 6:30 a.m. (on a Saturday! I don't even do that on weekdays!), well before the sun was even thinking of rising. By the time I was on the tram around 8 a.m., the sun was finally getting around to leaving the horizon, though of course you can't quite tell when exactly sunrise is with so many buildings around.
I had just been talking to one of the neighbors in my building about the many incarnations of the M10 tram, which runs right past our door. The M10 starts at Berlin's main north-south train line, curves all the way through the district of Prenzlauer Berg, (a generally yuppie kind of place, but pretty hip as well) and ends at Warschauer Strasse, a major party area and a stop on the east-west train line. (The M10 is that fairly central dark green arc on this map, if that helps at all.)
So in the mornings, there are these seriously stroller-filled rush times, where every parent in Prenzlauer Berg is trying to cram their massive baby carriage onto the tram to get their kids to preschool. But then at night, the M10 becomes THE party tram, shuttling drunk (and drinking) young folks to and from the clubs at Warschauer Strasse.
When I got on this morning shortly before 8, I was amused to see that the floor of the tram was still strewn with confetti, a testament to the tram's long Berlin night. There were also a few folks onboard who were definitely just coming home from partying, while others were clearly on their way to work.
Doing this course entailed getting up around 6:30 a.m. (on a Saturday! I don't even do that on weekdays!), well before the sun was even thinking of rising. By the time I was on the tram around 8 a.m., the sun was finally getting around to leaving the horizon, though of course you can't quite tell when exactly sunrise is with so many buildings around.
I had just been talking to one of the neighbors in my building about the many incarnations of the M10 tram, which runs right past our door. The M10 starts at Berlin's main north-south train line, curves all the way through the district of Prenzlauer Berg, (a generally yuppie kind of place, but pretty hip as well) and ends at Warschauer Strasse, a major party area and a stop on the east-west train line. (The M10 is that fairly central dark green arc on this map, if that helps at all.)
So in the mornings, there are these seriously stroller-filled rush times, where every parent in Prenzlauer Berg is trying to cram their massive baby carriage onto the tram to get their kids to preschool. But then at night, the M10 becomes THE party tram, shuttling drunk (and drinking) young folks to and from the clubs at Warschauer Strasse.
When I got on this morning shortly before 8, I was amused to see that the floor of the tram was still strewn with confetti, a testament to the tram's long Berlin night. There were also a few folks onboard who were definitely just coming home from partying, while others were clearly on their way to work.
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