Frequently asked questions
Q: How are you?
A: Fine, thank you.
Q: Why do you hate Germany?
A: I don’t hate Germany, I love Germany. The problem is that I live in America now, and I have an extremely bad case of the-grass-is-always-greener syndrome, so I tend to focus on negative things to try to convince myself that I am happy to live in America again. Also, I am on a low-carb diet which makes me grumpy in general.
Q: Why do complain the weather in Germany so much?
A: Where I live in America has the same latitude as north Africa. That means it has similar weather to Portugal, Mallorca, Greece, and other places Germans go on vacation purely for the weather.
Q: Do you even speak German?
A: My German is completely flawless. In fact, I even intentionally mix up the words wie and als to give my speech a slight touch of Bavarian to it.
Q: What is the point of all this?
A: It has been my life-long dream to appear on TV Total with Stefan Raab. I train for 45 minutes each day on Torwandschiessen, so I think I could beat him in such a duel. I hope to achieve enough fame to be invited to schlag den Raab, before his show gets canceled.
Q: All the comments seem to come from Germany. Do any Americans actually read this site?
A: Yes, my mom reads this every single day, which is why you can’t use dirty words in the comments. We would have a second American reader, but my grandpa told me he doesn’t think I’m funny.
Q: Why don’t you take the time to spell things properly and punctuate correctly?
A: I am an engineer. It’s not that I am not trying my hardest to do all this right, it’s just that I can’t write good.
Q: Astrid? Astrid? Who the [heck] is Astrid?
A: Astrid is my girlfriend’s mom.
Q: Why are the German translations so bad?
A: The translations are performed using some artificial intelligence software I wrote, but the quality of the translation is limited by current computing technology.
Q: Why do the German translations take so long?
A: The translations are performed with distributed computing by thousands of users on the Playstation 3, harnessing the power of the Cell Broadband Engine. Although this represents the pinnacle of today’s processing capabilities, it takes some time. Please be patient.
Q: Why does everyone say you live near Münster, when in fact you live in Texas?
A: I don’t know. I speculate that people jump to conclusions based on the picture of me on the about page . I clearly labeled it Muenster and not Münster, so I am not sure why this could really be a source of confusion, but it is the most plausible theory I can come up with, since I have no connection with Münster whatsoever.
Q: So is this it? Are you just going to attract a huge audience of readers eagerly anticipating new articles and simply walk away from the whole gig?
A: No. It’s just that I have been really busy lately. I got a job in the mean time, and my employer gave me dual 24″ monitors with a common stand that allows a multitude of configurable angles. I wrote a book, I bought my first house, I planted a New Mexican green Chile garden, and I am planning a marriage proposal.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
Well, this is one American who is reading posts on this site…and I am not like the author, I do hate Germany. In fact, there is nothing I like about it except my husband and his family. Other than that, I can’t wait to get home. Let Germany go down in its Totalitarianism…..don’t say I didn’t warn you!
August 19th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
you make me laugh! you have a president that does not give a rats a$$ about his people!! by the way i am a german living in america and “honey” your country is looking like a 3rd world country in a lot of places!!! i have been in almost all the different states! you know it’s true!! highest prison population on earth! racist, religious nuts, red necks. but you know what even though i met some pretty [crappy] people here i still don’t think all americans are bad!!! did you ever leave your house in germany? maybe you are not very friendly so people don’t wanna be around you. my husband is american and he loves germany! he can’t wait to go back! he thinks german people are great, but he is a really nice guy so he gets along with most of them! good luck to you and your family!!
Editor’s note: hmm ok. Well, whatever, no bad words, please.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Wow, looks like you got two exemplary nutbars here: The US expat who likes nothing more than moving back to Puyallup, IL where they at least have drive-through ATMs, 25,000 feet of supermarket aisles full of every imaginable soft drink and combinations thereof, and American Idol on TV every night.
In the other corner the teutonic, holier than thou crusader against the uncivilized US of A, complete with a little “your country is bad because you have what I think is a bad president”, and “I don’t hate all of you just some, because I am a good, civilized person”, and the prerequesite third world remark.
Not bad. I suspect though you made those two guys up.
October 26th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Anyway, I think you are funny. By the way, I’m a German.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
How much money do you make from the ads on your site ?
October 30th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
@Michael - not much. I am technically not allowed to give out any details on the amounts, but basically i make a little bit anytime someone clicks on an ad, and almost noone does, so not much.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:33 am
*whitelists this site on his adblocker*
*klicks all ads*
now you’re gonna be rich
November 26th, 2008 at 8:28 am
nice side. i loughted a lot.
anyways, didn’t someone told you that the most of germans don’t like bavaria. and bavaria don’t want to be a part of germany at all. but this based on mutural.
i don’t watch tv at all, but you would invited to raab, i would watch it.
enjoy the weather in texas. in germany it realy… ähhh… bad. whatever.
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:05 pm
i always looking for such pages! more more and more…. be gently with us germans
December 10th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Somebody said, read this site and I did so. My comment: What a crap. If there is an American living in unloved Germany I say: Move move.
December 19th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I read this.
I am American.
I am NOT his grandfather (I think)
February 1st, 2009 at 9:52 am
I am Asian and I work with Germans everyday. I read this and there is some truth to it, if only you see it from an outsider’s perspective.
March 15th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
[…] Darin schreibt der Texaner John, der einige Zeit in Deutschland gelebt hat (und die Deutschen nach eigener Aussage liebt), aus amerikanischer Perspektive über die Eigenarten und Marotten der Deutschen. Zum […]
March 19th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Well maybe people think you live near Muenster because you wrote that, couldn’t that be possible?
“Muenster, near where I live.”
Great Blog btw, Keep up the good work!
March 28th, 2009 at 2:41 am
I’m an American who used to live in Germany and over half my family still lives there. Almost every frickin word is TRUE! The funnier, the more likely it is to be true.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:41 am
My husband and I laughed so hard reading your hilarious blog.
Marry Astrid’s daughter - I hope that she will write a blog seen from ‘the other side’ and I also hope that she is as funny as you are.
October 17th, 2009 at 9:00 am
sag mal was auf deutsch
October 30th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
streichholzchächtelchen
ist das ok, oder willst du noch mehr auf deutsch
btw, i’m a german guy, i’ve got some friends in the usa (even without having been there jet), and they told me about your book, so i bought it, and it’s amazing! the only thing i didn’t like about the german edition is, that the jokes don’t always work as well as in the english edition (yes, i’m a book-nerd, i’ve got both editions:P)
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I live in Belgium, is much the same here as you mention Germany is. Love the sense of humor…they don’t seem to understand mine here in lovely, friendly Belgium. :p
November 25th, 2009 at 11:20 am
There is an English edition of your book?
Where can I get it?
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:55 pm
amazon.uk?!
December 26th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
<>
Arschtritt?
January 4th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
cool book
January 21st, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Hi John,
Damn i loughed so much about your way to look on those little differences and there’re a lot of things i can’t understand too although i’m german.
For example, the part in which you’re telling about your incomprehension for getting alcohol everywhere and everytime in germany but no aspirin which is only available in pharmacy stores from 8am to 6pm usually.
But in some cases i think you misunderstood us. I remind a part in your book where you’d said that germans like to plan everything even their illness (diseases? i want to say “Krankheiten”) and further you wrote, when you work together with germans and you try to call someone who’s sick, then your boss would answer, he will return next tuesday. Because germans will not return to work until the doctor allows it….
You should know that this is a problem of insurancy. Normally, everyone in german has got an illness insurance and when you go to work before your doctor allows it, you loose it. That’s the reason why. But when you can’t expect it to return to work, for sure, you can ask your doctor.
So, “nothing for ungood”, oh man, i love your book and sorry for my english, especially my comma placement. I hope you’ve understood everything.
See you
Torben
February 5th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Hay John
Ich finde dein Buch echt super und musste auch oft selbst schunzeln. Eines ist mir aber noch aufgefallen undzwar das einige Dinge etwas übertrieben sind. Ich komme selbst aus Bayern und weiß das niemand (auser auf dem Oktoberfest) mit einer Lederhose oder einem Diandl’ herumläuft. Auserdem lafen wir an heißen Sommertagen auch nicht mit einer langen Hose und einem Pulli draußen herum. Wir haben es viel lieber mit kurzer Hose und T-Shirt. Ich bin zwar erst 11, aber trotzdem ist dein Buch echt klasse!!
Ein fröhliches Servus aus dem wunderschönen Bayern sendet dir
deine kleine Maria
March 21st, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Gosh, John, I (a Texan) and my wife, a German, have been laughing our heads off reading your book, which is how I found out about your blog. I think some of the folks who responded just don’t get your tongue-in-cheek humor. But they are probably taking life way to seriously as it is.
Danke, dass Du die deutschen Eigenheiten, die einem Amerikaner einfach auffallen müssen, so gekonnt humorvoll rüberbringst! Weiter so!
April 14th, 2010 at 9:36 am
Two things:
1. I love how most the people posting here completely missed the point of your book and are challenging its awesome “facts” about Germany. You need more of these, and they should be included in your second book.
2. Your book is an excellent choice for people who are looking to improve their German reading skills. I speak German fluently (except of course for the der/die/das nonsense), but have avoided German books due to most of them being written by or translated by Germans. After being here 3 years, your book may be the first one I actually read.
April 17th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
I can’t help being a picky German, but wasn’t John’s book translated by a German too?
April 28th, 2010 at 11:51 am
The problem with der/die/das was actually solved by a german comedian named Kaja Yanar. He is mixed turkish and arabian or so…and he does speak fluent german. But he also noticed that a lot of “foreigners” have problems with der/die/das. So he said “Just use DE”…de Bus, de Hund, de Tuer, de Bier etc…
I tried that in public (I am german and speak the language quite well)…it works…nobody said anything or looked at me strange. So for everybody who has problems…that should take care of that problem!!!
So. De Chef will nicht, dass ich privat im Internet kuck…ciao…later
April 29th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
So is DeeHexi the plural form of De Hexe?
You’re funny, by the way. Sure you’re German? Ha ha…. I like you.
May 1st, 2010 at 12:29 pm
hi john,
your book is so absolutely awesome. first, please excuse my english translation, and second yes, i´m german.
i read your book in 3 hours through (and now start laughing because of this sentence, only germans would write it).
for some chapters i think your wright, 100%, but some others i think, what the heck he is writing there, does he really lives in germany or do the french people pranked him.
nevertheless, if you ever want to come again to germany, your welcome.
and please check your book for updates. visit Bad Hersfeld in the middle of october, it´s worth it, even it´s arschkalt…
best regards Benjamin (from Hessen, and there´s sunny, but a slice of rain want to keep falling today….
)
July 26th, 2010 at 1:20 am
Hey John,
As a Canadian expat living in Switzerland, a friend of mine showed me your blog. It is absolute gold. I forwarded the link to a couple of my German colleagues (I am surrounded by them because the Swiss avoid engineering and go into banking instead) who found it even funnier than I did. Who knew?
Hoping to hear some more amusing stereotypes.
August 19th, 2010 at 8:00 am
@Christine…
hell yes, I am german. Full bread. To answer your question about DeeHexi…;o)
Dee is what I used to be called because of my first name…and Hexi is something my uncle used to call me when I was little. It means “little witch”. So now you know. Took me a while to answer, huh. That is because I am soooo darn busy working and partying that I only have time at work to browse around the http://www. Since I live in an area in Germany that has different fests and parties every weekend it is easy to be busy on weekends. Actually they have only 2 reasons here to have a fest.
1. It’s raining
2. It’s not raining
So as you can imagine there are a lot of opportunities.
Well, gotta do some work now…later to all you people out there.
It’s pre-Friday and you are allowed to drink Kalua in your morning coffee today!!!
November 10th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Hi,
thanks for this great view in German culture. I read your book in about 1 hour (by the way: sorry for the bad english, i´m German
)
Please keep on writing, and maybe you could write a little bit more about cultural differences in between Germany itself. For example: I´m from Upper Franconian. It´s located in Bavaria, but the Franconians don´t see themselves as Bavarians, but as Franconians, and the bavarians don´t like the Franconians as members of bavaria. Everyone else in Germany thinks of Franconian as of a small part of Bavaria….what a mess, but quite funny and strange I think
Greetings, Jasmin
December 3rd, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Min: Don’t forget that Franconians are indeed quite different from (Old) Bavarians (Altbayern), both in language and in cultural aspects! They’re basically a different ethnic group, closely related but still, so are the various Slavic peoples, too (and some of those are distinct by even a lot tinier differences - so Croatians, Bosnians and Serbians are different by religion and script, but what exactly distinguishes Serbians and Montenegrins?). In comparison, the differences between Franconians and Bavarians (and the close relations between Bavarians and Austrians, with the exception of Alemannic Vorarlberg) are pretty obvious. It was Napoleon’s idea to incorporate Franconia and part of Swabia into Bavaria, totally counter to traditional tribal/ethnic separations. To Central Europeans of the early 21th century, this subject may seem petty and good for a laugh but not serious debate, but in other parts of the world such as Africa bitter feuds and bloody wars are fought over political borders even nowadays, and the single most fatal heritage of colonial times were perhaps the arbitrary drawn boundaries, causing a lot of trouble after decolonisation and remaining a bane hampering the development of the continent.
December 26th, 2010 at 8:41 am
John,
Your writing is ‘Bill Brysonish’. What better can you say about an author.
Kind regards,
Bernd (German)
April 8th, 2011 at 7:00 pm
hey! well i live in Baden-Württemberg but i´ve never heard of this “kehrwoche”-thingy.
But your book Mr Madison is off da hook!! i hope you won´t criticize my english :))
liebe grüße
May 4th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
hey
I’m German and I live in Boise, Idaho right now, for a High School Year. But anyways my mum send me your book as an Easter prasent and I loved it.. I actually failed my Government Test the next day cause i couldn’t stop reading it and had to finish it in one night so I totally forgot to study. A few days later I told my English teacher about it and cause we learn about Satires right now and ur book kinda is a Satire she made the whole class read it and I think everyone liked it. So Good Job.
But I have to say there are some thinks I have to disagree with you in the book and that I never noticed the 15,5 Years I lived in Germany. And all the Amerikans (Idahoans) I know that have been to Germany before went to the Volksfest in Stuttgart and just one of them to the Oktoberfest and I live super close to Stuttgart so I have been there a million times and I know a lot of Germans that have been to both and no one woulf go to the Oktoberfest instead of the Volksfest cause the swabians are totally more fun than the people who don’t even wanna be Germans!!! Baden-Württemberg is just awesome
So a question: Where in Germany did u live, what brought you there, how long did u stay and would u recommend it? (cause a lot of my American friends want to come and live there for a while but the most don’t even speak German and I just say I would love to have u guys there but I wouldn’t do it cause to learn German must be super hard…)
Thanks Soph
June 6th, 2011 at 2:36 am
Hey John,
I bought your book before I moved from Freiburg to New Hampshire last august and I absolutely loved it! You made me laugh
I would say 99% of your perception is true. I have to say I’m from Baden-Württemberg and I know that these people are just awesome also the weather. When I compare the New Hampshire winter (which was about 4 months) and the winter in BaWü I rather choose the German weather 
You did an amazing research! Thumbs up 
I liked your book so much that I’ll write an essay on it for my college homework. Maybe you could wirte a second book about the perspective of a German in the U.S. … I’m pretty sure you as an American could feel into it 
All I can say is good job
Thanks(!)