Happy Halloween

I’m going across the country later today to visit a friend in Köln (Cologne) for Halloween–we’re going to a gay Halloween party and are dressing up as 80s fitness enthusiasts.  Halloween in Germany apparently is a recent phenomenon.   My German teacher said that 10 years ago, when her son was 9, no one except their American ex-pat neighbors celebrated Halloween. They introduced her son to trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and the like. Otherwise, Halloween was just something kids learned about in school in lessons on American culture.

But that’s changing. There are lots of ads for Halloween parties here in Berlin. There’s a costume store on the corner by my apartment that seems to be doing a big business (although it closed at 7 pm, as usual, every night this week, which I find incredible!). I don’t find this surprising–American culture has already spread so far throughout the world. You’d think a fun tradition like Halloween would be one of the first to be adopted.

Of course I don’t expect the same degree of merriment as in New York–especially on a Friday night, I imagine it will be crazy there. But it will be interesting to see how the Germans celebrate this American holiday.

To the Left, To the Left… or Right?

People always talk about how toilets flush in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere, but what about how keys and doors work in the opposite direction in Europe?  I’ve been here five months and I still forget that most shop doors don’t open out to the street (you push to get in, pull to get out), and that most keys turn to the right to open and to the left to lock.  Or wait, is it the other way around… all I know is that it’s the opposite of what I’m used to, and I wonder why this is.  Did someone in the New World make a conscious decision to do these little things differently from European custom?  Or is it happenstance?

Other little things are different over here too–and usually better.  There are the ubiquitous two-button toilets, energy-saving escalators which start and stop on their own, traffic signals that start to merely blink yellow after a certain hour, windows which open in at least two different ways (horizonally and vertically), remote-controlled lights, and various other everyday innovations.  Americans could borrow some of this technology.  But let’s leave our locks and doors alone!

Size Queens

People in Berlin are just about as obsessed with real estate as in New York–but in slightly different ways.  First of all, I haven’t heard ANYONE in Berlin talking about buying apartments. It seems that everyone here rents.

Second, people here are even more obsessed with neighborhoods than they are in New York.  One reason is that Berlin is very spread out.  Thus the choice of a neighborhood is even more important than in New York, where you can often walk from one to the other in a matter of minutes.  Also, given the history of Berlin as a divided city, the different neighborhoods have very distinct characters — in terms of everything from the age, ethnicity and wealth of the people who live there to the architectural style.  Indeed, probably because of the rapid changes the city has gone through in the last 20 years, there seems to be constant movement within the city — as in New York, it is particularly the young “hipsters” and artists who seem to be perpetually on the move from one formerly neglected area to another.

Finally, size really matters here.  Whenever I talk about my apartment to a Berliner, the first thing I am often asked, even before where it is located, is, “Wie viel Quadratmeter?” (How many square meters?).  Many apartment ads display this number more prominently than anything else, and people determine whether an apartment is appropriately priced mainly on the basis of the cost per square meter.

Judging (and pricing) an apartment primarily on the basis of its size, however, is not very logical — or, it’s so logical that it misses the larger point.  An apartment can be small but charming, in a well-kept building in an awesome location.  Indeed, this practice may be just a manifestation of the German tendency to quantify everything.  Sometimes this is helpful–like in supermarkets, where nutrition facts are often exhaustively listed, not only “per serving” but per 100 grams.  Other times, it just seems silly–like in advertisements, where companies that list phone numbers are seemingly required to state how much a call to that number is going to cost the reader.  So, too, with apartments.  The Germans may be missing the forest because they’re busy counting the trees.

Things I Hate About Germany, Vol. II: The Weather Forecast

Germans are somewhat obsessed with the weather.  TV stations seem to donate a lot of time to detailed forecasts of every region of the country.  But what bugs me is that I have seen absolutely no mention, not once, ever, in the German broadcast media of weather elsewhere in Europe, let alone around the world.

I find this really odd, considering a) Germany is an integral part of the European Union, with key ties to Brussels, Paris, London, etc.; b) Germans are known to be incessant travelers, constantly going abroad for business or pleasure; c) there are some regions of Germany that are barely distinguishable from the regions just across the border with, say, France or Switzerland.  Plus, you’d think there would be some added entertainment value in occasionally mentioning that it’s gonna be rainy in London, or hot and sunny in Madrid, or chilly in Moscow.

But no.  The weather maps always show Germany as if it’s the only nation on the planet, as if the cold fronts materialized and disintegrated at the German border.  I can only wonder whether this a symptom of a persistent German worldview, that even today, in the EU era, sees Germany as the only important place in the world.

One for the Journalists

As a former reporter I have always been interested in the difference between the sourcing terms “off the record,” “on background,” and the ever-unclear, “deep background.”  As I understand it, there are no hard-and-fast rules or definitions of these terms, and reporters in the States are supposed to clarify how they are going to refer to a source on a case-by-case basis.

Wouldn’t you know, in Germany there are more strictly defined and numbered categories for these things.  I ran across the term “unter drei” (under three) in an email, and was interested to discover the following system:

• “under 1″: interviewee may be quoted by name
• “under 2″: the interviewee may be cited, but not by name; rather with a term such as “a member of the Board” or “from a reliable source”
• “under 3″: the information may not be published, and is only to be used as “background info” for the journalist.

I doubt this system is any clearer in practice than the American one, but it at least sounds more organized.

Take a Seat, Stay a While

Whether as cause or effect of a less hurried lifestyle, restaurants in Germany generally don’t bring you the check at the end of a meal until you ask for it.  (Exceptions are when the server’s shift is ending or the place is closing for the night.) This is nice, since you don’t feel rushed to leave, but can also be annoying, when you are trying to get a table at a popular joint!

I was thinking about the implications of this last night while trying to hail down the waitress to bezahlen (pay).  The assumption behind this practice, as well as the reality it contributes to, is that there are more important things in life than being productive, earning money and consuming as much as possible–whether for the customers, who are not expected to have to rush off to their next destination right after eating, or for the establishments, who could surely make more profit with greater turnover.  The assumption, rather, is that the customers have every right to sit and talk and spend time, without spending more money on food or drink if they don’t want to.  How civilized!–or, how luxuriant!  No wonder, one could argue, Berlin is a poor city and the European economy underperforms compared to other parts of the world.

As with other examples of cultural difference, I don’t yet see either model as unquestionably better. But I am definitely still unaccustomed to the German way–so much so that after five months here, when I want to sit in a cafe and read or work for a couple of hours, I still seek out a self-service place (the Starbucks model). Those, after all, are the only establishments in the States where one doesn’t feel obligated to continually order more stuff to justify occupying a free table! Maybe by the end of the year I will hold down a table for a couple of hours at a non-self-service place, but I suspect it will still feel weird.

You Know You’re Not in New York Anymore…

when you see two different people wearing “I ♥ NY” T-shirts in a gay club, and a third wearing an “Abercrombie & Fitch New York” T-shirt.

Thoughts on Adulthood

I’ve been thinking over the past few months about why I came abroad and what I am trying to accomplish this year.  One of my goals is to become more of an adult.  I am 31 years old (halfway to 32 as of October 1) but still often do not feel like an adult in a meaningful way.  By coming abroad, putting myself in a new environment with new challenges (above all learning a new language, but also having to make new friends, get settled in a (somewhat) foreign culture, etc.) I would grow up a bit.  But this begs the question, what does it mean to grow up?  What does it mean to be an adult?  I have come up with a working list of four characteristics I believe an adult (should) have:

1. Adults have a sense of perspective on one’s own life and on life in general. (This goes to knowing how big, or small, a given issue is, relatively speaking.)

2. Adults generally act responsibly and do the right thing (which means not only having a sense of what the right thing is in a given situation, but also doing it, rather than shirking that duty for whatever reason).

3. Adults recognize the concerns and interests of others around them. (Childhood and adolesence are usually marked by a circumscribed view of the world, but adults should, at minimum, be able to see beyond themselves.)

4. Adults speak up for themselves, rather than waiting for others to speak up for them or protect them (which is what children do, in reliance on their parents or caretakers).

What do you think?

Je suis désolée … Lo siento … Ik ben droevig … Sono spiacente … Perdóname … Es tut mir leid?

It’s interesting to hear English sprinkled throughout German conversation.  Even when two Germans are speaking to one another, English words appear with surprising regularity.  I have noticed at least three general categories in which these words fall: (1) words having to do with modern technology or the business world, for which there is no accepted German substitute; (2) words that refer to distinctly American/British items; and (3) words that are simply easier to express in English.

Many of the words in Category 1 are obvious — especially technology-related words like “Internet,” “E-Mail” and “Laptop.”  These are used exactly in German as in English.  Another English word now used in German is “handy,” for cell phone.  I don’t know where this comes from, but it’s kind of cute.  But these words also make German seem a little outdated.  John McCain can’t use the Internet, and Germans don’t use their own word for many (if not most) 21st century items.

Category 2 is a little more unexpected.  My favorite example is the word “basecap.”  This is a German word used for “baseball cap.”  I don’t know how this got started but someone ought to tell the Germans that we say “ball cap,” if anything, in the U.S.

Category 3 is the most surprising to me.  The fact is, there are words that English simply expresses more concisely than German.  The most prominent example of this is the word “Sorry,” which one hears native German speakers saying to each other all the time — for example, in the context of accidentally bumping into someone on the street or making a similar mistake.  One can say in German, “Es tut mir leid,” but that is a full sentence.  One can also say “Entschuldigung,” but not only is that longer and more cumbersome, it also carries a weightier connotation than “Sorry.”  It really means, “Excuse me.”  Thus, it has been explained to me, when one says that to someone on the street here, that other person is likely to think you want to ask them a question–not apologize for having done something wrong.  Perhaps this is also the reason there is no German in the multilingual lyrics to Madonna’s “Sorry”!

There are a couple of German words we use in English (“Gesundheit,” “schadenfreude” and “blitz” come to mind), but probably a miniscule fraction of the English words used in German–especially when we’re talking about daily life.  I don’t know enough about the history or linguistics to say whether this is more a function of English’s prevalence in the world today or of English’s relative simplicity in comparison to German, but surely both are major factors.

Putting Things in Perspective

I’ve been feeling somewhat overqualified the past couple of weeks at my first internship of the fellowship year. I’m at a place that basically organizes events, so a lot of my work involves things like creating guest lists, figuring out who should sit where at dinners, and even checking guests in (clipboard and all).  I did my fair share of mundane work as a corporate lawyer, too, but at least I got paid for it.

Anyway, I was feeling typically sorry for myself tonight while listening to Kenneth Pollack — an expert* on national security, military affairs and the Persian Gulf formerly in the Clinton Administration and now with the Brookings Institution — give a speech proposing a new “grand strategy” for the Middle East.  Pollack argued that, in his view, one of the main causes of radicalism in the Middle East is that millions of young men throughout the region are being denied the “pleasures of adulthood” because they live in countries with failed economic systems characterized by high inflation, unemployment, and underemployment.  As an example of the latter, he spoke of men who had earned Ph.D.s driving taxicabs in Middle Eastern cities, and other men who had just graduated from law school making money doing embroidery.

Pollack explained that because of these economic conditions, young men cannot get steady jobs, and therefore cannot get married and settle down, leaving them without sex, without family and without the self-respect that comes from being independent.  Instead, they think of themselves as burdens on their families, and often see their lives as meaningless.  This anger and frustration can lead to hatred of their own governments, of the secularism and materialism they see creeping in from the West, and, of course, of the West itself.

Bottom line: Clearly, I should be more thankful for what I have!

* I have to put an asterisk next to “expert” since Pollack argued strenuously in favor of the American invasion of Iraq, even claiming in an influential book that America had “no choice” but to invade Iraq. What does one have to do to lose the moniker “expert”?