Do you also miss your home culture?

Hi all,

Just curious if you too have low moments when you really miss your culture back home. I'm having a very low phase at the moment because of this.

I've been in Munich for more than 4 years and have met alot of really wonderful people, but none from my social circle (Cape Malay from South Africa). All my family is back home and whereas I have a strong support network here, I do so miss my childhood traditions. Its funny though cos I hated these exact traditions as a kid/teenager.

Do you feel the same sometimes?

Best regards,
Nu

Quite naturally, yes.

It's january. Tis the season to jump infront of an s-bahn.

yes and no. I miss it now but as soon as I get back there I will say"what the hell am I doing back here?"

less and less... and not at all as long the White House is a ship of fools and theives.

A little. Particularly the shopping when I want !

It comes and goes... I miss it when I know everyone at home is partying... diwali, holi etc. I love it here when it is payday...

I miss the food, beach, open spaces and the threat of being beaten up every other weekend

i completely miss the fact that people here have no decent understanding of the kamasutra! all they can come up with is silly half witted remarks.

i miss not having hash filled sweets to me hearts content at least once a year ... legally.

i miss the beach, the sun, the vibrancy that a billion people only can bring, the amazing food, the paying your way through everything gosh so much, i am saad now.

I miss it, but not enough to want to go back. I know the novelty of being home will wear off quickly and I'll miss the culture here more.

Nope.

it always was and always will be. your stuck here then mate.

seriously i miss some things, but i recreate them for myself and my children so it isnt so bad. i seriously believe your culture is in your heart not the place where you came from.

Nuwoman, make yourself a mean Bobotie. I did that last week and felt much better.

Don't miss it at all.

For those that do...

Suffering homesickness as a foreigner in Munich, Advice and solutions

Me neither..

"The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land."

--Hugo of St. Victor, Didascalicon

The key to survival in foreignland - FACT

What culture?

I feel much more at home here than in the UK anyway so nope i don't miss it at all

I sometimes really miss good old Nebraska farm boys.

I came to Germany to experience something different. I'd be very unhappy with myself if I found myself living SA in Germany. Then I may as well just go "home".

I guess I'm just torn between 2 countries and 2 cultures. I see myself losing my old cuture and becoming more "German" every day and it scares me. Its hard for me to "stay real" if there's no body here to remind me.

I still prefer Bobotie. After returning to Germany a week ago, I entered a Gasthaus in Tegernsee. The smell of Schweinebraten, smoke and stale beer hit me between the eyes. The waitress barked at me as we asked to pretty-please be seated. We then waited half an hour before we got a coffee.. I then had to get used to dirty toilets again as well. It's incredible how you get used to things when you live here.

I have hit an all-time low after being here for 10 months. Maybe it's the time of year, maybe it's the never-ending project here in Frankfurt, maybe it's the German court which seem to endlessly delay simple things...maybe it's a combination of all these things, but I feel the urge to pack my bags and head home. I've never been a very emotional person, but since moving here, I cry over the stupidest things. Right now, I just wanna go home! Funny thing is, I was there for 2 weeks over Christmas/New Year's and longed to be back here.

Oh ajohnson. I know EXACTLY what you mean. When I go home too , I just wanna be back in Germany. I think we're all damned.

ah - you get used to it after awhile. Winter's are usually the roughest. But - Spring is just around the corner, and then you'll feel better - promise!

Papa Geno posted this a while back. Hope it helps :

That's true. Wait til the beergardens open up again.

Yeah, I miss it. I find a trip home does actually help. They say six months and a year are the times most people move back home because of this. Maybe another bout comes on at four years. I say use it as a time to take stock and decide what you really want to do.

'ajohnson'

Once you get that Go-Kart sideways at full throttle on Friday you'll feel a lot better!

I don't miss Russia at all anymore, so it seems that it is difficult first ten years and then you just get used to it;)

On the other hand I do miss Finland so much, that I'm thinking about moving back.

I'd miss Finland too, its wonderful. I have been homesick lately, and looking at jobs back home and appartments too. Hard to define why or what, I don't feel at peace here.

That's exactly it - Life here is fine, of better quality than I could have in the UK at the moment, but there's a constant background feeling that it just isn't home. I'd be interested to know, do women feel this more than men?

Dunno, i feel more at home here than anywhere else i have ever been but i have been here on and off since '84, certainly more settled here than the UK.

I do not miss home. There are certain aspects about home that I miss which are my dogs, my family, and my best friends. I am actually dreading the day I have to go back home - time is going by entirely too fast. I have made tons of friends who are a billion times more genuine than most people I come in contact with at home. Life is just so much simpler here. It was hard in the beginning when I didn't know a soul here (the first 3 months) but now I love it and if I could move my dogs and family here, I would try to stay forever. Perhaps one day it will be possible to do so.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
--T.S. Elliot

Obviously I miss certain things from home like supermarkets, fresh fruit and vegetables, edible curry and shop opening hours.

However, apart from the above and friends from England there isn't really anything else I miss. When I do go back to England I can't wait to get back home to Munich. And for me that says it all if I am looking forward to coming 'home' to Munich.

Typical culture shock really. It always hits you at about 8-10 months. The excitement of arriving in a new country is now rubbing off and you're having to get used to a new country and settle down. On top of that is the time of year. Now is when the learning experience begins...enjoy!

so, the guy living in the Paris airport is the most perfect (living) person in the world?

Yeah, and I wonder who cleans those toilets back home. Stale beer? You're trying to say the beer back home is better!? Keydeck where are you!!!??? True, our steak beats Schweinebraten hands-down wrt both quality and price and our waiters a lot friendlier, but that's more due to the fact that waiters back home earn everything on tips. The basic is max. 3% of turnover. Here they get way more before the tips. The tips are just a bonus here.

Homesickness can also depend on the qualiy of life you had at home before u came here, I know people here that came from holes and they think that munich is the greatest ever, other people are horrifed cuz they come from great situations and are stuck here cuz of work or spouses.. u (nuwoman) say ur from south africa, where theres relativly good weather, Im from southern cal and I find the only element i can't shake off with a laugh is the weather.. totally get the blues too once i see the first snowflake, but it is pretty sweet here in the spring

Why, a Canadian like yourself should have no problems with the weather here

Dont miss Bozlem at all, I came here to get away from the place.

If you're a surfer and from California and not Canada as you say in your profile - trust me there are no fundamentalists hanging around here! - then go snowboarding! Coming from a fellow surfer and someone who also hails from SA and has absolutely no problem with the weather or the country.

I like these two quotes. Well I've been in Munich for three years, and spent over 7 years outside my home country - Ireland. I have recently decided to go back to Ireland to start a new job in Dublin (not my home town). I decided to try and compare Dublin with Munich in terms of quality of life. You know, the usual stuff such as cost of living, quality and availability of accommodation, eating out, public transport, state of the roads, amenities, level of crime, social services, health services etc. Munich beats Dublin hands down in almost every category. Objectivly the only things Dublin has going for it ahead of Munich that I could think of are proximity of the sea and smoke-free pubs (oh, and the winter's not so cold and icy).

However these quality of life measures don't really mean anything if you yourself are unhappy in a city. Perhaps I wouldn't go as far as to say I was unhappy here. Munich is a nice city and I have mostly enjoyed my time here, but I have no ties which would really hold me here. And sometimes it is tough feeling like a foreigner and feeling that you have to justify yourself everytime you open your mouth (and here I feel sorry for people with darker skin colours, they must feel they have to justify themselves before they even do anything). I can speak German, and I don't get negative attitudes for being a foreigner, but there is always some attention there, and I don't particularly like the attention. Also, sometimes the fact that things are naturally done differently here can get you down.

So one of the things which made me decide to go home was that I wanted to feel "at home" - i.e. that I wouldn't feel foreign and wouldn't stand out. Also that it is the culture I grew up in and know the best. Sure, there's plenty of things about it that can piss me off, but it's easier to deal with. And finally and perhaps most importantly I'll be close to my family again - about a two to three hour drive/train journey.

I'm under no illusions that I will go home, be welcomed with open arms, and everything will be like it was when I was twenty two. The country's changed, people lives have changed and people have moved on. I will have to start again when I get home. So I guess I'll be a bit like Hugo's "perfect" (though I certainly don't consider myself perfect) in that I'll be home but will probably feel like it too is a foreign land.

At the end of the day, each person must decide for him/herself whether they want to stay in Munich (or indeed any foreign country) or if they would prefer to go back to their home culture. But you shouldn't feel you have to stay because you left home and told everyone how much better it is in Munich, or because you feel like it would be admiting failure to return. Similarly you shouldn't dismiss your experience here if you then do decide to return. Hopefully you will have experienced and learnt something from your time here. However long that may be.

So if anyone else is battling with the decision "should I stay or should I go", I wish you the best of luck. Weigh it up with both your head and your heart.

Listen up, seun. If you had to choose between having no jobs or having a job as a toilet cleaner, which would you prefer if you need to survive somehow. And don't you start on me now, I have already had to take on some seriously weird stuff in order to survive as well. The Gasthäuser here stink during daytime already. I dislike the smell of stale beer, especially during the day. I can't get used to this German custom of drinking alcohol during the day time already, it's gross. The beer back home sucks big-time, I never said it's any good. Don't know where you read that, dude. And just for the record, I don't eat steak either. I don't likee the smell of meat either, especially pig. Pig stinks. Never ate the shit. The people here are unfriendly because in general Germany has a rather selective understanding of customer service.

I could really recommend a chicken bobotie! I have a good recipe. Made it the other day. Totally yummy!
P.S.:
Going home again in March (90%)

Well put, JohnDoe

Eh, I never heard of chicken bobotie. Mince bobotie yes. If you have a problem with meat and pork then you're gonna have a problem in Bavaria.

Which Gasthaüse are you going to? Try the non-stinky ones. What's wrong with drinking beer during the day? I can't think of anything better than a cold beer on a hot, summer's day.

As for the job thing, you missed the point. We have poor, desparate black people who do it for us. Here in Germany, it's just not bloody worth it paying someone the minimum wage to clean the bloody toilets.

So, if the people here are unfriendly, why don't you go back home? I mean, South Africa is such a great place. No problems whatsoever!

Nice anoter west coaster. I miss the Pacific so bad. Actual waves with blue water.