One baffling thing about Germans is that 90% of them honestly wonder why Americans immediately think of Bavaria as soon as Germany is mentioned. The remaining 10% are all Bavarian.
Germans, try this experiment with me: Picture a stereotypical Bavarian. OK, done? Let me guess, you thought of either a girl wearing a dirndl or some dude with a huge mustache wearing lederhosen. Now think of a stereotypical German from Hessen. You can’t and neither can we.
Americans are not the least bit ashamed to ignore the rest of Germany, because Bavaria is exactly what we are looking for. We come to Europe to see old stuff. In Munich we can see buildings that are nearly 60 years old. We read the same fairy tales as you growing up (ok, well our fairy tales edit out all the really creepy stuff you’ve got) and we want see a real castle that makes us think those fairy tales could have really happened. Neuschwanstein gives us that hope.
But most importantly, we don’t have the time to learn the culture and pick up on subtleties, because we only get two weeks of vacation per year. We want stuff that is big and obvious, and Bavaria is pretty much the only place that delivers for us. Americans love big stuff and that’s what Bavaria gives us, beer in one liter mugs, huge pretzels, haxn, and the Alps.
We love Bavaria, because its Germany’s version of Texas: They’re big. They’re mostly rural. Despite being rural, they’re hotbeds for industry and high tech companies. They’re way down south. People talk with a funny accent there. They remember when they were their own countries and wish they would become their own country again. The rest of the country doesn’t really like them, and the people there don’t really like the rest of the country.
And the best part is that in both Texas and Bavaria, the locals still play dress up in outdated clothing now and then.
deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden
Gruß Gott Astrid,
hier die Übersetzung:
I’m dreaming of a Bluewhite Germany…
Es ist rätselhaft, dass 90% der Deutschen sich ernsthaft darüber wundern, dass Amerikaner sofort an Bayern denken, sobald Deutschland irgendwo erwähnt wird. Die restlichen 10 % sind alles Bayern.
Deutsche, versuchen Sie bitte dieses Experiment: Stellen Sie sich einen typischen Bayern vor. Okay, fertig? Lassen Sie mich raten, Sie haben entweder an ein Mädchen im Dirndl gedacht oder an einen Typen in Lederhosen, der einen riesigen Schnauzbart hat. Nun stellen Sie sich einen typischen Hessen vor. Das können Sie nicht, genausowenig wie wir.
Amerikaner schämen sich überhaupt nicht, den Rest von Deutschland einfach zu ignorieren, weil Bayern genau das ist, was wir suchen. Wir kommen nach Europa, um alte Sachen zu sehen. In München können wir Gebäude sehen, die fast 60 Jahre alt sind. Während unserer Kindheit lesen wir die gleichen Märchen wie ihr (naja, unsere Märchen enthalten nicht all die furchterregenden Einzelheiten die Sie haben) und wir möchten ein echtes Schloss sehen, das uns glauben lässt, dass diese Märchen wirklich passiert sein könnten. Neuschwanstein gibt uns diese Hoffnung.
Aber das Allerwichtigste ist, dass wir keine Zeit haben, um die Kultur kennenzulernen und kleine Feinheiten zu erkennen, weil wir nur 2 Wochen Urlaub im Jahr haben. Wir wollen Zeug, das groß und unübersehbar ist, und Bayern ist so ziemlich der einzigste Ort Deutschlands, der uns dies bietet. Amerikaner lieben alles, was groß ist, und das ist, was Bayern uns gibt, Bier in Maßkrügen, Riesenbrezeln, Haxn und die Alpen.
Wir lieben Bayern, weil es Deutschlands Version von Texas ist: Es ist groß. Es ist in den meisten Teilen ländlich, aber trotzdem hat viele high-tech Firmen und eine blühende Wirtschaft. Es liegt ganz im Süden. Die Menschen dort sprechen mit einem lustigen Akzent. Sie erinnern sich noch an die Zeit, als sie ein eigenes Land waren und wären gerne wieder ein eigenes Land. Der Rest der Landsleute mag sie nicht wirklich gerne und sie mögen den Rest des Landes nicht wirklich gerne.
Das allerbeste ist, dass die Menschen in Bayern und Texas sich von Zeit zu Zeit immer noch gerne mit veralteten Klamotten verkleiden.
leise Servus,
John
This entry was posted
on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
“We love Bavaria, because its Germany’s version of Texas” - great comparison! hilarious
May 15th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
The difference is though that Germans don’t think of America as just being Texas. We have certian places we like to visit more - New York or LA - but at least we acknowledge the existence of the other parts of the country.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
ROFL!!!!! Thumbs up!
May 15th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
*lol*
Greetings from a German in Germany who just found your blog and loves it. Added it to my blogroll
May 15th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Greetings form a German who found your blog in Louffis blogroll.
I come form Northern Germany (Eastfrisia/Ostfriesland) and yes i do not like Bavarians very much.
We have the better beer, no disturbing mountains in our sight, and the northern sea.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Texas! That’s what I’ve been saying for years. But now, when you mention it: There is one thing, sorry for coming up with it…
AFAIK there has never been a bavarian elected president (or better: chancelor) of Germany. So the present American president makes at least one difference
May 15th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Thanks, I enjoyed this article :).
May 15th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
*kisses Lobo*
Sorry ’bout that, John…
May 15th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Hey, forget the beer, the castles and the ridiculous Dirndl or Lederhose.
I’m from Hamburg, we’ve got the REEPERBAHN ;-).
May 15th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Well, this is the mandatory disclaimer:
Bavaria consists of several parts, Franconia, Swabia and (old) Bavaria. Only in old Bavaria People dress like this (on some occasions). We speak different dialects, have different culture and a different history. Sorry for destroying your dreams ;-). Maybe the only thing all Bavarians have got in common is the card-game Schafkopf. But most Americans probably never heard of it…
May 15th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Bavaria? Forget about that. They are foreighners to us! Come to Berlin, its a MUST!!!
May 15th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Und vor allem: Texas und Bayern hatten (solange Bayern noch Grenzen zu echtem Ausland hatte) ein Unikat: Eine landeseigene Grenzschutztruppe: Die Bayerische Grenzpolizei und die Texas Border Patrol. Man traut einfach dem Staat ned zu, das er das besser kann als man selber.
And most of all: Texas and Bavaria (as long as there were real borders to protect) both had something unique: A stateside border protection agency: Die Bayerische Grenzpolizei and the Texas Border Patrol.
Or would you trust the Feds to protect YOUR borders?
May 15th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
And that’s propably why we never elected someone from a country that doesn’t trust us…
May 15th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Very interesting site / entertaining reading material. Especially for me, as I myself (German) have spend three years of my life in the States and now live in Bavaria for almost nine years.
By the way: 60 years, huh? Try adding another zero to that
May 15th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
“AFAIK there has never been a bavarian elected president (or better: chancelor) of Germany”
and there never wil be.
There’s another difference. Texans occasionally elect democratic governours, reps and senators, whereas bavaria is ruled by the iron fist of the christian conservatives ;).
May 15th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Love your blog! I laugh me away
Keep goin!
May 15th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
I love the scene in “The Office” wherein Dwight tells the employees’ daugthers part of a Struwelpeter fairy tail and Michael comes in and says “stop telling them your stories from your Nazi war criminal grand mother”.
I actually was creeped out by Struwelpeter and Hensel and Gretel especially by the illustrations you can find in some books.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Dent: What about the years and years of SPD rule in Munich? Is Munich the Bavarian Austin, TX?
May 16th, 2008 at 8:53 am
@ Susanna: Wrong, for most Europeans (and other people too) a Texan IS the stereotypical American. Ask anybody in the world to draw a typical American, and he/she will draw a cowboy with a stetson. So yet another similarity.
And BTW, I (as a German) was *furious* at the Soccer World Cup’s organizational committee in 2006, when they decided to hold the opening ceremonies at Munich. And what did those awful bavarians do? Perform bavarian folk dances in lederhosen while slapping each other. Publicly, for 3 billion people to watch on tv. The worst stereotype coming true. Luckily, Americans don’t watch soccer..
May 17th, 2008 at 10:12 am
@Germaican:
First of all Munich isn’t like the rest of bavaria, and there are always some exceptions from the rule. There is this small town were they just elected a 22 year old gay, socialdemocratic student as mayor but the real shocking part is that he’s a protestant. But this only counts for local elections, in state- or nationwide elections their like friggin’ Kansas
May 17th, 2008 at 10:46 am
There have in fact been three Bavarian chancellors so far. At least theoretically. The first one was Ludwig Erhard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Erhard), though he was from Franconia and not the old, southern part of Bavaria and lived outside of Bavaria almost all of his life. The second one was Helmut Kohl, because when he was born in 1930, the Palatine was still a part of Bavaria. Of course the culture there was quite different from the “original Bavaria”, so he doesn’t really count as well. The third one with an even weaker link was Gerhard Schröder, who got the Bavarian citizenship by marrying Doris Schröder-Köpf, who is Bavarian because she was born in Augsburg, the Bavarian part of Swabia. Yes, there is a distinctive Bavarian citizenship, but in theory only. It is mentioned in the Bavarian constitution, but there has never been a law to determine the details.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I hate the fact that Americans think I am from Bavaria, when I tell them I am from Germany. There’s so much more than Wurst, Lederhosen and Neuschwanenstein. Everything here is called “Bavarian….”. We have German grovery stores here in Oregon, restaurants and all are “Bavarian”. I am really sick of that. They are like the Texans - conversative, arrogant and sometimes weird. Of course not all of them, but my mentality is way different than theirs.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:13 am
There are other kinds of Germans you could imagine if I asked you: e.g. Berlin/Prussia. Now you see a soldier with Pickelhaube/piked helmet. Or what about ‘een Hamburger Jung’/Friese ?! “Hummel, hummel - mors, mors.”
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 pm
man your comparison of bavaria and texas hits the spot!!!
I’m bavarian by birth and i think that’S just the reason why in texas i feel at home right away (additional to the fact that every 3rd texan you meet comes up to you saying “hey you’re german? that’s awesome! I’m german too!”
May 27th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
“We come to Europe to see old stuff. In Munich we can see buildings that are nearly 60 years old. ”
lol!! i just peed a little
June 17th, 2008 at 1:50 am
I am going to be completely honest with you right now. (Clears throat)
I have never even heard of Bavaria. I still don’t know much about this place.
People say “Germany” I think “Place in Europe.”
…or I image Epcot’s Germany. (Disney World)
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I too must be honest- before dating and then marrying my German husband- I could have named Germany on a map of Europe, but would have been hard pressed to have ANY clue about where any major cities were! The thing that Europeans always seem to forget is that the United States is itself an area geographically roughly the size of Europe. Most Americans would be happy to know all the differences between the states in the US, just as I’m sure most Europeans would be happy to know the differences between EU countries- much less the subtle (but incredibly important) differences between all the different regions within each of those different countries! California is area-wise about the size of Germany, and I guarantee that at least 90% of you who just pictured a “Californian” imagine a girl in a bikini or a guy on a surfboard! Is this stereotype truly representative of the entire state of CA? Well, you’ve the farmers in central California, the wineries in the Napa Valley, the mountains, the deserts, etc. You get the picture. My only question is why are Germans surprised that Bavaria has become the unofficial stereotype of Germany? Especially after the iconic travel documentary, I mean movie “European Vacation”??