Feel the disapproval - Germany

Hi all,

I need to vent. Before I do, can I just say to all the Germans on the site that there are many, many things about your country I love. The ICE trains, the wonderful bread, the proper sausages, the brilliant infrastructure... and here, where I live, people are very friendly. I have found the locals uniformly welcoming and kind.

But here's the thing I need to vent about. They're trying to make me German. For example, I went on a sightseeing trip with a friend recently. About an hour into it, she whipped out a little picnic, which I thought was very nice. Ha, I obviously didn't get it.

I got an email two days before the next little trip, clarifying that I needed to bring a picnic - apparently I had flouted the local custom by freeloading off her. Well, where I come from, we don't do little picnics on trains, like they do in the Pfalz. We either have breakfast before we go, or buy something on the way. An outrageous waste of money, I know, by there you go.

A small thing, granted. But it's the sheer weight of disapproval I feel all the time from Germans, even though I know it's often kindly meant. They don't see me as a foreigner who might do things differently. They see me as a proto-German who needs to be brought up to scratch.

Speaking of wasting money brings me to my next complaint: thriftiness. An admirable virtue, I grant you - except when it results in constant comments from all and sundry about the incredible waste of money my daily take away coffee is (small town - everybody notices). And then there are the books I buy from Amazon. One friend is horrified at the expense, as she sees the new books on my table. "But you haven't read all the English books in the library!" she says. Everywhere I go someone is telling me how dumb I was for buying something at full price, or not booking the train/plane whatever in time to get the discount. Helpful, yes. Appreciated, yes. Tone of voice, not appreciated.

And - hypocrite that I am, because here I am complaining - I hate the complaining and downright jealousy. Some of the people I know don't like their jobs. OK, there's a recession, which means they're stuck for the moment. But they see themselves as permanently stuck, having to be in that job forever because it's secure/local/whatever. So out comes the backbiting. Worse is the constant speculating over who earns what and how so-and-so could have afforded some new car. WTF? Who really cares what someone else earns? But some people seem to think that if someone else has a good salary, they personally are missing out.

Anyway, rant over. Like I said at the beginning, there are many, many things I like about Germany. Just not the attempts to MAKE me German, which in any case are doomed. I am simply too old to mend my profligate, unhandy, impractical ways.

Milton

PS Thought of another complaint: why can't these people queue? Most organised people on earth, but they can't manage a straight line.

The Vent

Toytown Germany
A different face of conformism

I've been meaning to say something about that.
Milton, we live in the same town. As far as I know you're the only other TTer to ever call this town home. We need a TT meetup, Pfalz style. There's a festival Sunday just up the road. A few of us will be going. Care to join?

Maybe this is off topic, but there is a little bakery right on my street. I bought a pastry and asked if they had coffee. She pulled a bag of ground coffee off the shelf (!) but did not have drip coffee or an espresso machine. I thought she'd make a killing off wasteful, big spending (!) Americans like me who would probably stop by every morning to buy a cup to drink in my car on the way to work. I noticed several years ago that German cars didn't have cup holders (I think some do now) so I should have gotten a clue. I know that Europeans in general don't drink things "on the run". But I think a cheap coffee maker and some paper cups could increase their profit margin a good deal.

along the lines of frugality...my kitchen faucet is broken and I mentioned it to the landlord. He said he thought he had another one in his shed. I told him it would be really nice to get one that arched up so I could get a pot in the sink to fill it (instead of using the bathtub) and he looked at me like I was nuts for suggesting he actually buy a new one when he probably had an old one lying around somewhere. Oh, well...

I'm leaving in less than a week so thank god I don't have to think about this again, but this quote is very very true. I caught on to the trend though, and had to hear loads of shit from my family back home when I kept talking about money and jobs and salary. And when people didn't want to talk about their salaries I didn't understand. But I had forgotten just had rude it is. Talking about money here is an obsession and a very unhealthy one. People don't know how to contemplate something's worth unless it has a price tag telling them how much they will lose or gain by the transaction, even with love. Very sad.

This is such a perfect summary of so many complaints ex-pats have about Germany. Five stars.

Funny about the books. My in-laws are shocked by how many I have, and only a SMALL fraction of them are here in Germany! I get the feeling that my husband must have owned all of 3 books as a kid... they can't believe how many my 4 year old has.

Oh, thank God it's not just me.

I am so tired of all the conversations about how to save money and the disapproval about my spending choices. As it happens, I love going to the opera and have met some people to go with. But I have stopped going, because I find it so embarrassing. Someone goes and buys the cheapest possible ten euro tickets, with a poor view. Then we wait until everyone is seated and the doors are closed and then run until we find unoccupied expensive seats. Having taken seats we haven't paid for, we then endure the glares of people in those rows who have paid the full amount.

Honestly, I would rather pay a bit more and get a proper seat with a proper view and just be happy about it.

Now that my German has improved, I realise that more than half of the conversations I overhear on the street or in the trains are about money: how to save it, who has got it, how expensive things are, blah blah blah

And yes, I know that if we all behaved like the Germans, our finances would be in better shape. But geez, I don't just turn up to work for nothing. I endure all the difficulties of being an ex-pat in a foreign country precisely for all the fun things like travel and access to European culture.

proto-German - classic.

Yea but it's not like they are doing so great. Americans are notorious for their spending habits and bad credit, something germans like to remind me if I ever enter a political or economical conversation about the world (which I avoid for this very same reason), but we don't have to worry about taxes supporting people to stay at home all day. I'm not one to talk, I lived off welfare for a while, but I didn't do it because I wanted to.

That's the funny thing here. I remember going to the doctor to get a sick notice, and my now ex boyfriend was sitting there telling the doctor I'm going to get fired for being sick and blah blah blah. The doctor only laughed and said, "That's fine. Let them fire her. She'll get welfare money anyway." It's just a joke and no one takes the responsibility seriously because they know they've got something to fall back on. Which is good for people in need but also hurting their economy.

I disagree about the books, my Germans (the ones related to me) all have loads of books (of course they all have to be kept in pristine condition) but everything else is spot on . Particularly the little politeness customs such as the picnic you mentioned. I stumble across these cultural faux pas all the time that cause me no end of trouble at work and with the relatives (not bringing flowers, not saying good morning every single day, not calling exactly on the day of someones birthday etc. etc.)

Reminds me of my father-in-law pooh-poohing because I wouldn't eat the gristle from the goose. I just lobbed it over to his plate so he could eat it. Frugality is built-in to a lot of Germans because of the lack of enough of anything was experienced twice this century. Even younger folks who were brought up in prosperous times had this beat into them as children and now they do it too. This is the basis of my theory on why older ladies are usually the worst at queuing. If you were polite when queuing back in the lean times you didn't get any bread.

Edit: I mean last century?

Yes, we have bad spending habits, and we only eat hamburgers. Potential renters were here yesterday and were seriously shocked to see me throwing a bunch of green vegetables in the pan. "Wo sind die hamburgers und pommes frites??" He wasn't joking.

I think that's hit the nail on the head. If the rest of us had watched our worlds crumble not once, but twice, I guess we would be the same. And maybe when the Finanzkrise is over we'll all be doing the same thing.

But oh God...it's the constant frickin' talking about it. Who's got more, who's missing out, what costs too much, what's a bargain...

More to the point, it's the constant frickin' talk about my own personal habits. You think they'd be grateful to have a spendthrift foreigner pumping money into the local economy!

I'm quite surprised about the comments in this thread because I have experienced nothing of the sort here really. In fact, I sound a bit like the people you described!

My German ex boyfriend wasted money terribly. He would buy things in Karstadt when you can buy the exact same thing in Woolworths for half the price - it drove me mad.

Then again, I have to be quite careful about money because I don't earn loads.