Germans are ethnocentric

October 16th, 2008

Although you only see German flags during international soccer competitions (or handball tournaments if they happen to be winning there), Germans are deeply nationalistic. They are just afraid of being labeled nationalistic.

While the Germans consider all aspects of German culture superior to all others’,  they generally limit their overt boasting to the safer topics of chocolate, beer, and bread, but German patriotism manifests itself in many ways, when you take a deeper look. For example, schools take on such names as Goethe-Gymnasium, Einstein-Gymnasium, or Geschwister-Scholl-Hauptschule. Germans only name their streets after famous Germans like Mr. Maximillian, Mr. Reeper, and Mr. Einbahn.

The Germans inexplicably prefer German cars to the obviously superior Japanese varieties, whose quality ratings consistently dominate “German Engineering” year in and year out.  Germans even think they invented stuff they didn’t such as flight, the telephone, and the light bulb.  And although German literature leaves much to be desired, Germans still force their kids to memorize things like Der Erlkönig, as if it were a necessary part of being a well-rounded person.

In America we are open and tolerant to the many cultures of the world and demonstrate this by naming our cities after theirs. Here you’ll find Amsterdam, New York,  Paris, Texas, as well as Bremen, Alabama.  Germany pretty much only has German names like Darmstadt, Mühlheim, Oberpfaffenhofen, Kiel, and so on.

Despite a large number of Turkish and Russian guests, you will never hear “Please press 1 for German” in Germany, because those who don’t assimilate won’t be accommodated.

Germany would love to portray the image of an enlightened, tolerant culture with arms open wide to embrace the vast array of equally valid world views, but when it comes down to it, Germans are ethnocentric. Why else would there be Rosenstolz?

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How Germans learn to eat 1.7 times faster than Americans

September 14th, 2008

We all know that Germans eat 1.7 times faster than we do, but it sometimes remains a mystery to us just how these skills are acquired.  It turns out that the ability to eat in a super-efficient manner, much like the ability to say vowels with dots over them, is developed in early childhood.

To train their kids to be ready for 30 minute lunch breaks as working adults, German parents give their children a little fork and a thing they call a food-shover. The food-shover looks like a little tiny garden hoe and teaches their toddlers, that the main purpose of a knife is not to cut food into bits, but rather to rake it onto your fork.

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Gabel und Essenschieber

Germans subsidize traffic jams

September 2nd, 2008

Evil Wee-bonAny student of economics knows that incentives drive behavior, and government subsidies have a real impact on the way people live their lives. That’s why Germany is filled with windmills, whereas we are just getting started with ramping up wind power. In America we use the tax code to subsidize home ownership, Germans use the tax code to subsidize traffic jams.

In Germany you can write off about $0.45 for every half mile you drive over 12 miles in your daily commute from your taxes. Germany pays you to cause congestion. Every radio station in Germany announces the success of their program each morning by listing how many kilometers long the Stau is on each street.

The worst part of this program is that it makes you susceptible on trips to the evil Autobahn toilet empire, even on trips as short as a few hundred miles. Since the highways are clogged with trucks and commuters, your cross country drive is going to be slow and nerve-racking. In short, you will need to take a break, and you will likely pause at a roadside rest stop. Here you will find some mediocre food and the only large cups of soda in all of Germany. At first you will excitedly fill your half liter mug to the brim with our delicious and refreshing export of joy, but soon you will realize exactly why these people “generously” provided you with this right-sized coke container, to make you fall victim to their pay-per-pee entrapment.

You know that this half liter is going to have to come back out, but you never know when you might be stuck in hours of the Stau. You simply can’t afford to risk skipping the bathroom before proceeding, and this is where their sinister plan takes hold.

You have to pay $0.75 to use the bathroom.

To make you feel like you haven’t been completely scammed, the automated bathroom entry systems provides you with a coupon to be redeemed at a rest stop. Unfortunately, you will have already bought all the overpriced items you wanted before you needed the bathroom, rendering the coupon useless to you at this point. Once you make it back home you will throw this coupon into the pile of coupons you had previously gathered, but always seem to forget to grab before the journey. Once you finally remember to bring your stash along with you for the trip and attempt to pay for your trucker-schnitzel  and pop with them, the cashier will inform you that they have expired, and the evil procedure starts anew.

On the bright side though, you know that the bathroom will be clean and have some soothing rain forest jungle sounds to ease your road rage.

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Benefits of studying abroad in Germany

August 30th, 2008

We live in an increasingly globalized, increasingly homogeneous world culture, and a crucial aspect of your resume for prospective employers will be your semester abroad. The location you choose for your 6 months of horizon expansion is largely irrelevant to graduate schools and corporations as a native English speaker. The main point is really that you have ventured outside your comfort zone to see something new. You should choose Germany, though, as your temporary home for a number of reasons.

The best reason to go to Germany is to take advantage of their socialism. There is a time to be pro socialism and a time to be anti socialism, and the time to go pro is when you are poor, the standard condition of a student. It is always better to receive than to give. Going to Germany as a student allows you access to nearly free higher education, greatly subsidized health care, and a transportation infrastructure that will get you all over the country on other people’s dime. Living in Germany once you start receiving a real pay check is much less fun, as you start having to pay for all those amenities you previously enjoyed.

Another great reason to choose Germany for your semester abroad is that the bureaucracy in obtaining a residence permit isn’t bad at all.  Sure you will have to do this anmelden thing, where you tell the government where you live, and you may have to wake up early to spend one day at the Foreigners’ Office to get your $50 stamp in your passport, but just ask a German what they go through to get a visa for America, and you’ll quickly realize that your ordeal has been a cake walk.

Finally, studying abroad in Germany is a great way to meet new people from all over the United States. You will likely join a program with courses taught in English and meet people from many different American universities, which will come in very handy as you will want to discover Europe together and still have a chance to debate your picks for fantasy football on the long train rides. 

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Germans hate customer service

August 17th, 2008

Upon arrival in Germany, you will learn quickly that the Germans hate customer service, because German companies even advertise on television to tell you how much they want to avoid having to deal with you, and Germans still do business with them.

Your first task in setting up a new life in Germany may be going to the Deutsche Telekom to set up phone and Internet services. When you go to the T-Point you will be met at the door by one or two attractive young employees who will ask you what you would like to do, and after you explain to these friendly people your communication needs, they will tell you to go stand in line behind everyone else. These two people could easily be replaced by a sign that says, “Welcome, please take a number,” but that would triple the amount of employees on duty that actually do something for you, which is unacceptable.

Once you have your telephone set up, which in 2008 still takes somewhere between a week and a month in Germany to flip that switch, you are ready to deal with other companies that don’t want to talk to you. You will learn this because they will tell you right in the advertisement that calling them will cost you 15 cents per minute, so the longer they put you on hold, the more you get to pay for their bad customer service. The more inept their service reps are, the more you have to pay to do business with them.

Since nearly every company in Germany charges you to talk to them, it is an undeniable fact that the Germans hate customer service.

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