Kultur 6 - Henry Warrington

One of my guilty pleasures when checking out at grocery stores is to look at the covers of all of the tabloids. I find their headlines hilarious and also ridiculously out of touch with reality. There is a level of absurdity that almost makes me believe they are satire. While this absurdity is fun for the few minutes I spend in the checkout line, I don't think I could deal with it in my everyday newspaper. The over-the-top aspect of it all would make me less likely to care when a truly large or absurd story broke. Whereas if the New York Times or Washington Post breaks a story with a seemingly absurd headline then it is most likely true and I'll pay more attention to it. It is like the boy who cried wolf; if the shock value in Bild Zeitung is always so high then in order to truly shock us you have to go way over the top and then the story is just absurd.

I'm a pretty timid person when I have to talk to anyone in a position of authority. It would be even harder if every time I had to knock on their door. Being able to look through the open doorway and make eye contact before entering makes it easier for the conversation to start but also makes it seem less like you are barging in. Also seeing a closed door as a sign of being busy also enables a certain level of privacy without the necessity of locking your door so that people don't just walk in on you and distract you or interrupt you with a client.

Finally I think that Germany's many wastebaskets is just needlessly complicated. I doubt it saves much energy recycling wise and I bet all it does it frustrate recycling workers because of all the additional sorting they have to do for people who mess up. Maybe in the US the workers do all the sorting for us and by doing it the way Germany does it we would actually be saving them work. Maybe they just do it give more people jobs and artificially lower their unemployment rate. Now that would be sneaky.

AMD 6 - Henry Warrington

For my sixth AMD, I watched the movie Sommersturm. The movie is about two best friends, Tobi and Achim, during a summer crew competition. Before the competition, Tobi and Achim's team are disappointed when the Berlin Women's team is replaced by another German team where all the members are gay. Tobi's team spends a lot of the movie coming to terms with being around and becoming friends with the gay team. At first they worry about the other team coming into their tents at night and ends with the two teams being friends. Also Tobi and Achim grow apart during this trip because Achim becomes closer with his girlfriend while Tobi realizes that his feelings toward Achim are more than just that of good friends. One of the Berlin rowers helps Tobi deal with those feelings and helps him be more confident about who he is. By the end Tobi admits his sexuality to Achim and that helps to repair their friendship.

I found myself relying on the subtitles a lot since they were talking so quickly and there weren't too many phrases that were repeated for me to catch but there were still times when I would pick out words and phrases. At the beginning of the race they did a countdown "Drei, zwei, eins!". Also whenever the team was at a table and somebody said something they liked, they all knocked on the table and I realized that I got really excited for knowing why they were doing that.

Kultur 5 - Henry Warrington

The Kapital funf kultur texts were interesting to say the least. They were also eye opening and compellingly interesting to read. These readings continue to show the difference between the culture of America and the German culture. Most people in America apologize for the littlest of things because if they don't they get yelled at. In Germany it seems that the level that something has to be to draw out and apology is bloodshed. While I think this might a little too high of a tolerance it is definitely a refreshing thing to think about because the apology happy culture of the US is a little tiring sometimes. Along with their tolerance for physical contact and harm they also are less prudish which we already saw with the much more frequent nudity. Along with public nudity they also have sex shops in perfectly respectable parts of town and no one cares. In the US this would be ridiculous (well except in a college town like Ann Arbor where we have one on South U). It is nice to know that the entire world isn't so prudish.

I recently read a Buzzfeed list about why working retail sucks because of all the horrible things the customers expect. I whole heartedly agreed with the list but still see this job as a good thing for my character. Now a job that I really don't have any envy for is the Klofrau. Having to clean toilets and sinks all day everyday sounds miserable. Also it seems like they really do not make much money which makes the position even more depressing. I hope that should I travel to Germany I remember to bring some change to the bathroom.

Finally the flirting article was definitely interesting because the style of flirting they described that Americans do is laughable. Sure there are the obnoxious people who are as forward as some of the quotes they use but I find most people in the US are much more subtle. While that is the case, I do find Germans' method of flirting as I see it to be a refreshing break from having to work up the guts to talk to someone. Instead you just make quick eye contact and wait to see if they come to you. While offering to buy someone drinks can be a quick way to get their attention it also is hard on the wallet and self esteem, especially if you get turned down.

AMD 5 - Henry Warrington

For the fifth AMD, I read the Wikipedia article and the New York Times article about Denglish. If was interesting to see how German speakers use English words or even variations of English words for everyday use. The weirdest thing was how they used English in advertising and on their application pages. I assume this is so they can attract as many people as possible no matter whether they speak German or not. Only downside to that might be that hiring someone who doesn't speak German could be hard to deal with once they are hired. I wouldn't want to be in charge of their training. As the op-ed author shows, English is more often used to shorten what would otherwise be very long and complicated phrases for things such as apps or blogs. While he says that some people see it as a bastardization of German, I see it as a result of the internet age. All cultures and languages are able to mix now so they all start to share more of themselves with the other cultures leading to words and customs being shared. I would also expect to see it continue but I don't see any major language suffering irreparable damage from it.

Kultur Kapital 4 - Henry Warrington

As always the Kultur readings were interesting, engaging, and made me reflect on US culture and how it differs from German culture. The article about the bike paths was particularly interesting especially when it commented on how bad our bike paths are. It reminds me of this video where a man goes to show how bad our bike lanes are by riding in them and crashing into anything that has been put in the way. He crashes into car, buses, cones, and finally a cop car all to prove that sometimes it isn't safe to bike in the bike lanes.

The article about crossing the street made me laugh because most people in Ann Arbor treat the crossing signs as suggestions instead of rules and cross whenever and wherever they want. The worst intersection is probably the intersection by the Union. Any student walking there not only doesn't pay attention or care about the traffic there but usually they are on their phone and are pretty slow the cross the cross walk. I guess most of us would have to learn some patience so as to not get hurt in Germany.

The article about the subway being free made me laugh during the part where it talked about how in America we have to pay. It made me laugh because recently when I was in Boston my friend paid and the gate didn't open because it was broken so my friend just hopped over the fence. It was funny because it looked like he didn't pay even though he had. It also shows that I would say most Americans have a fairly good sense of morals and would pay even if there were no turnstiles because the turnstiles are pretty easy to jump.

Finally the articles about the nudists were very interesting because of the lack of public nudity in the US. It is always interesting to hear my parents talk about having to take gym after school and showering the locker room with everyone else because I feel like that rarely happens now unless you are on a sports team. The younger generations seem to be more prudish and less comfortable being naked around either their friends or people they don't know. It seems like that is what is happening in Germany now and it is somewhat sad that the world is so offended by the naked human body.

AMD 4 - Henry Warrington

For the fourth AMD, I decided to watch an episode of a German soap opera that I had stumbled upon on youtube a few weeks back. The show is called Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love). This episode had a very stereotypical soap opera story line. One of the couples, Christian and Olli, was fighting because Christian had cheated during a drunken one night stand while in England for work. During the course of the episode Christian spent much of the time begging for forgiveness and trying to prove his love again because he was going back to England for another year for work and did not want to leave on a bad note. Since he was constantly trying to reaffirm his love he constantly said "Aber ich liebe dich". With only a few hours until his flight left, a friend locked the two of them in their bedroom to force them to talk (seriously who has a lock on their bedroom door that can be locked from the outside? What is this a prison? Oh well soap opera magic!) Eventually Olli finds the spare key to unlock the door but right as he is about to tell Christian to leave to catch his flight he finally decides to talk about the issue. They go over all the events leading up to Christian's one night stand and eventually make up. Their friend finally comes back to unlock the door to find in unlocked and the couple in bed. She then says, "See there isn't a problem that can't be fixed with sex." And the couple responds that sex is what caused their problems.

It was definitely interesting to watch the show in German and be able to catch snippets of conversation. It was still very hard to catch separate words but I could usually catch the first and last words in a phrase and if I knew what they were saying based on the subtitle I could sometimes hear some of the words in the middle. As interesting as it was I think I'll stay away from soap operas for now.

Kultur 3 - Henry Warrington

The first three articles I read were "An Obsession Explained: Beer, Brewskies and Liquid Bread," "Capping the Bottle: Germany Looks to Tighten Up Public Drinking Rules," and "Yo Dude, What about the Turks? An Introduction to Germany's Real Fast Food Joints." I feel like these articles all give a great idea about the normal day to day culture of Germany while addressing some interesting stereotypes. The Beer, Brewskies, and Liquid Bread article is interesting because it reminds me of the emerging microbrewery industry in the US and how each state seems to have its own take on beer. Having lived in both Michigan and Colorado during the last year and tasting many microbrews from both places I have favorites in both places and cannot find comparisons.
The public drinking article was interesting not because it talked about public drinking but because of one paragraph where they mentioned teenage binge drinking. In the US we are tired of the 21 year old requirement to purchase alcohol and try to use European countries as examples for why we should lower it. The fact that Germany still has an issue with teenage binge drinking shows that a lower drinking age wouldn't fix our issue of teenage binge drinking.
The real fast food of Germany article was interesting because when most people think of the US fast food they think of McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's but each part of the country has its own fast food such as In n Out Burger, Whataburger, and other local chains like Skyline Chili around Cincinnati.  While McDonalds and the like are the most well known they are not necessarily the most popular anymore.
The articles about Germans being pessimistic and also their humor is an interesting thing to think about because a lot of the humor is how I act with my friends. We are always playfully ribbing with each other and making fun of each other while knowing the boundaries.

AMD 2 - Henry Warrington

For my second AMD, I read "The Awful German Language" and "The Horrors of the German Language" by Mark Twain. "The Horrors of the German Language" was and interesting not because it showed how different German and English word order are but instead how similar they are. While German has much stronger rules for verb placement and whatnot, most of the sentences worked as good English sentences when translated literally. Usually only one word or phrase would have to be moved in order to make a proper English sentence. This article definitely showed the strong Germanic background of English.

"The Awful German Language" took on a more critical tone whereas the other article was more satirical. In this article, Mark Twain complains that there is too much work that goes into making a proper German sentence with all the conjugating and declining and determining which case to put the noun in. For me his complaints fall on deaf ears though because the language I first learned was Latin. Latin I would argue is harder because there are even more exceptions to the traditional rules and every single case no matter the gender has a different ending. There are 5 declension for nouns and the three genders are covered in all of them, there are 5 conjugations of verbs, there are two different classes of adjectives, and all sorts of other fun things to memorize. Constructing a Latin sentence is much more difficult than constructing a German one. Making sure everything is properly declined and conjugated is hard enough in German when a lot doesn't necessarily change from the nominative to the akusative. Latin is hard to translate from English to Latin because of all these different specific parts. Going from Latin to English is easier unless of course it is poetry. Since Latin has so much more detail in endings, word order means almost nothing (the subject is usually first and the verb usually goes at the end of the clause but that is about it). Having to translate 5 lines of subordinating clauses and adjectives and nouns to finally get a verb to piece it all together is a rough way to learn a language. Then again as Mark Twain says German can do that too: "I would only the language method - the luxurious, elaborate construction - compress, the eternal parenthesis suppress, do away with, annihilate; the introduction of more than thirteen subjects in one sentence forbid; the verb so far to the front pull that one it without a telescope discover can."

Kultur2 - Henry Warrington

The articles on complaining in Germany take two different yet interesting views on complaining. The first one just sees the complaining as people complaining for complainings sake. Also the first article made me think of Americans because it seems like all people do now-a-days is complain about how America is going down hill, the government doesn't do anything, the economy sucks, etc. The only difference is that apparently Germans complain about nonexistant issues whereas Americans have reason to complain about our government and economy right now. The other view of complaining as helpful for continuing to improve is a great view to take. The following quote about two German executives is telling about Germany:

"When two Deutsche executives discuss their businesses, you hear complaints about various problems, despite solid growth and strong profits."

The fact that they still focus on the problems even when things are going well shows that they are always seeking to improve. Nowadays it seems like all you hear is how the economy is growing instead of the problems that we still have. If more people always sought to remove problems even when things are going well then the world would probably be doing a lot better right now.

Have I caught myself staring at a stranger? Sure have and it is especially awkward when they catch me doing it. I guess the biggest difference is that a German starer won't get that awkward feeling when they are caught and instead will just keep right on staring. It was especially interesting to hear about the generational differences and how the act comes from German Communism. Maybe as Germany gets more removed from the oppressive Communism then the staring habit will die down.

"How, after all, can honesty be rude?"

This above quote is definitely and interesting one. Most Americans would say that the truth can be rude. If someone asks you to hang out and you truthfully say you don't want to then that person might be offended. It must be nice to be able to say exactly why you do or don't want to do anything and not worry about offending someone as long as you are telling the truth.

Finally Germans' love of statistics is a pretty cool thing. While knowing all sorts of facts and figures isn't necessarily all that useful for life in general it is a good idea to know general sizes of places. Whenever someone asks me to approximate the population of the city I come from I'm always off by a good amount. I feel like if I knew how many people actually lived in my city than I could better approximate sizes of other cities and towns.

AMD1 - Henry Warrington

For this assignment I set my Facebook to Deutsch. Most of the functionality was still easily accessible since most of the actions are muscle memory but some things took some effort. While my Facebook was in Deutsch, I decided to change my profile picture. To do so I had to go to "Optionen" while looking at the picture and then select "Als Profilbild verwenden." Once it was my profile picture, I didn't like how the smaller version of it showed up on my wall so I had to select "Profilbild bearbeiten" and then select "miniaturbild bearbeiten" in order to make it as I wanted. I also have a fairly longstanding Anstupsen war going on with a friend. While somethings were more difficult to do, nothing was out of reach. Having my Facebook in German? Gerfällt mir!

Kultur1 - Henry Warrington

How German is American?
Having grown up in a very German influenced city this brochure was an interesting read. Cincinnati has many German influences scattered all throughout the city. I grew up eating brats and avoiding the sauerkraut that my parents would eat. I constantly heard about the crime happening in Over the Rhine, a predominantly African American community with very high levels of crime. I saw the ads for Cincinnati's annual Oktoberfest celebration and was always confused as to why it was in September. The popular bar in the town across the river is called the Hofbräuhaus. All of these things were just parts of my life while growing up. Never did I think about the heavy German influence on the local culture until later on in my teenage life. Reading "How German is American?" helped to solidify the culture influences in my mind and also helped to explain why they are not as obvious as other cultures' influence. As the brochure says, many of the German communities were the locations that African Americans moved into after World War II and that would help to explain why Over the Rhine is now a predominantly black neighborhood with only the name to remind people of its German heritage. Cincinnati's Oktoberfest, also known as Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, is a highly publicized event and I spent most of my childhood trying to figure out what those strange people were wearing. That was of course until I watched the Sound of Music and my mother explained what Lederhosen were. She also explained that I had a pair of Lederhosen when I was child. While reading the brochure and how it mentions that most American Oktoberfests are more about making German culture one culture, I know wonder to what extent Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, the largest Oktoberfest in the United States, boils down a multi-faceted and complex culture into one culture that can be summed up by beer, brats, sauerkraut, cheese, Lederhosen, and the chicken dance (apparently Oktoberfest Zinzinnati holds the world record for most participants in the chicken dance at 48,000 participants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest_Zinzinnati)). "How German is American?" made me to begin asking the questions about how German is Cincinnati and how much of it is a farce versus true German heritage showing through after all these years.

Greetings and Farewells and Titles of Address
During most of my day to day conversations my typical greeting is some variation of "hello" whether is is "hello," "hey," or "hi" completely depends on how well I know the person and how excited I am to see them. While this type of greeting is my more colloquial greeting, when I am at work I greet most customers with "Good ______!" depending on the time of day and when they leave the store I either wish them a good day or a good night once again depending on the time of day. Along with the different greetings, my titles of address vary depending on the person and how well I know them. Close friends will get called anything from "dude" to "bud" to nothing. On the other hand, most adults or professionals I do not know well will be addressed as a Mr., Miss, Mrs., or Professor unless they ask me to call them differently. While at work I also address the customers as either Sir, Miss, or Ma'am depending on gender and age of the customer. While these different greetings and titles are different than the seemingly more formal German counterparts I think that they are no more or less formal but just different because of the two different cultures.
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Mein Lieblingswort ist Österreicher

Mein Lieblingswort ist Österreicher