Stranger in a Strange Land

I had sworn that I would end my blog after that last post when I had been back in the US for a little while, and I had intended on keeping that promise; however, it has come to my attention that several people were unhappy with my portrayal of Giessen and of Germany. With this post I want to make my positions perfectly clear, so please read carefully! I did not hate Giessen. I did not hate Germany. I did not hate Europe.

Yes, I did complain a bit in this blog. In particular, the ranting post about life in Eichendorffring comes to mind. To be fair, I warned you all about the caustic nature of that post. I was very upset about a number of aspects of life in that dorm, in that hall—my food had been stolen numerous times; the common area/kitchen was always a mess because people didn’t clean up after themselves; people would run and yell down the hall in the middle of the night on weeknights when I had classes the next morning, as well as throwing parties that, and I exaggerate not, were heard by residents living five floors above and that lasted past 4AM, on weeknights when I had classes the next day. And on top of it all, despite my attempts to say “hi”, wave to, and smile at the people in that dorm, I was essentially shunned; with one resident in particular always giving me the dirtiest looks you could ever imagine…that is, on the times he would acknowledge that I’d said anything. Sometimes he would just look away immediately, as if he had looked upon something foul that he did not want to see again. Please, please, PLEASE do not think that I somehow brought this upon myself by acting stuck up or aloof toward these people first. I really did make an honest effort to be friendly and say hi to them. But except for one girl and the guy who offered me a Capri Sun, no one ever made any effort to return my smiles, waves, or greetings of “hallo.” What was I supposed to think?

Perhaps someone may misconstrue my rantings on my dorm mates as a criticism on all Germans. I wish to debunk this myth. Never did I say that I had a problem with the Germans. In fact, I can think of several posts in which I described the fun times I had with both my German friends and my ERASMUS friends. Some people did things that I (and others around me for that matter) didn’t fully understand and which just seemed silly, and thus "crazy" (this is "crazy" in the "strange" or "funny" sense, not "crazy" as in literally crazy in the negative sense). (I’m thinking of that guy who sat down in the middle of the road.) But never did my respect for Germans on the whole drop due to these silly little events. Furthermore, I would like to add that practically none of my dorm mates were Germans and that although they came from various countries, I do not hold other citizens of these countries accountable for the actions of their fellow countrymen. That would be like if you were to hold me accountable for the behavior of “Snooki” from “Jersey Shore.” I just somehow got stuck on the asshole floor, and so tried to avoid those who were jerks, occasionally venting my frustrations in my blog. I did not, however, try to avoid my friends and cannot imagine how any of them could have gotten the idea that I was.

But really, other than that one post, I have struggled to find posts that portrayed Giessen or Germany in a negative light. Every so often, I found a critique on some aspect of German life, but I always strived to understand it within the context, and sometimes I even used it to level a criticism toward the US. For example, I criticized the German take on American food, but then questioned why it is that fast food is held up as an example of American cuisine, blaming it on the overly aggressive nature of the American fast food industry, as well as criticizing American fast food in general. Maybe it would have helped if I had actually eaten at an American fast food restaurant in Germany. It could very well be that McDonald’s in Germany is of better quality than McDonald’s in the United States. After all, as I posted before, the vast majority of food in Germany is of rather high quality. In most cases, food in Germany is better and cheaper than similar products in the US. To be fair, I had originally planned to visit the McDonald’s in Giessen (as well as other American-themed restaurants and fast food places), and strangely enough, one of my regrets is that I never did visit those places. I just never got around to going those restaurants, partially because I wanted to experience Germany, not Americana in Germany, and partially because eating out is expensive and when you only have 500 Euros/month to live on, with 230 of that going toward rent, and 60 going toward insurance, you really have to save every nickel and penny you get.

Some of my critiques were silly; for instance, the critique that milk in Germany is too rich and creamy. Does it really matter how something as trivial as the taste of milk or the price of peanut butter seems to me? Of course not! And they were not at all meant to be serious critiques. Rather, I wrote them down as observations. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion; I merely shared my opinion through the internet, with the intention of my family members back home reading it. There was no disrespect at all towards the Germans or the Giesseners in those posts. And I even tried to spin some of those silly, stupid, trivial critiques around to try to imagine how someone coming from the opposite side would feel—just as an example, I wrote that to me German milk was too creamy, but to a German, I would imagine that American milk is very bland. Indeed, among foreigners I’ve known who have lived in the US—Germans, Russians, Indians, etc; it doesn’t matter—one of their biggest complaints is about how bland and flavorless our food is. Maybe they meant it to offend me when they said it, but I never took any offense to it, because tastes are personal and differ from individual to individual. And why on earth should the taste or cost of any food ever be used as an insult? I think there are far more important issues to worry about.

Other posts in my blog vented some of my frustrations; for instance, having to constantly go visit various government offices, setting up a bank account, and having to buy German insurance. These hassles, as I already mentioned in a previous post, are dealt with by any immigrant to nearly any country in the world. They are in no way shape or form unique to Germany or to Giessen. In fact, I would venture to guess that immigrants to the US experience far more complicated and frustrating immigration procedures, simply given the US’s history of trying to prevent immigrants from “overrunning” the country. The only difference is that having been born in the US, I’ve never had to immigrate to this country, so I do not have much for a basis of comparison other than relying on stories I’ve heard from people who have immigrated. And so, although these frustrations were critiques on German bureaucracy, they were really critiques on bureaucracies in general, and could have theoretically been leveled against any country in the world, and thus Germans should not take offense at this, as this is not a uniquely German “problem”. (And really, they’re not even huge problems; it’s just a lot of little hassles which, when added up and put together with other minor frustrations, such as the terrible weather, are compounded and cause frustration. But once you know how to deal with all of these mini-hassles, they become not a big problem at all.)

The same sort of story goes for the criticism I had of weather in Germany. I’m not going to lie—the weather in Giessen during the time of year in which I was there was awful…in my opinion, anyway.  It was always cloudy and rained nearly every day for the first three months or so, and the temperature rarely went much past 70F, even in the summer. I had heard about how people up north often get depressed from the lack of sunlight, and many have to buy special lamps to help them deal with their depression. But never had I seen how true that depression can be until I had to deal with it myself. But although that kind of chilly, damp, dark weather got to me the first few months in Germany, by the time I got back, I found myself getting excited when “Giessen weather” would show up in Illinois or Ohio, which leads me to believe that one (or at least I) can get accustomed to different weather patterns and climates. And really, it’s all relative. Too hot and dry for one person is too cold and wet for another. And with time, we can better acclimate ourselves to different climates. So perhaps if I had had the opportunity to spend more than just 5 months in Giessen, I would have become more acclimated and wouldn’t have been so upset by a little extra rain and cold here and there. And furthermore, are my complaints about the weather really the biggest problem in the world right now?

One interesting thing I have noticed, however, is that several of the people who have accused this blog of having an unfairly negative outlook on Germany were mostly Germans themselves. I found it somewhat strange that a country that has generally been regarded as being able to critically look at itself and its past (Vergangenheitsbewältigung, anyone?) would be so terribly insulted by my own humble opinions.  After all, who am I but a simple girl who went to another country for a few months and wrote about what she experienced?  This was especially strange to me, considering that neither I nor my American friends and family members particularly found much negativity in this blog. I just wonder where the difference in mentality comes from. Maybe it was simply a matter of misunderstandings: the Americans will understand the subtle nuances of my stories, but for a German whose native language is German and not American English it may have been slightly more difficult to pick up on the little things and understand when I was joking versus when I was completely serious. And so a post that to an American came across as a mild poke at German culture will seem like complete disrespect to a German.  Maybe it would have helped if I had tried to write this blog in German.  The only problem with that is that my family for the most part doesn't speak German, and some of them even got frustrated from having to look up the numerous German words I would throw into my posts whenever I wanted to spice up the language or in the rare instance that I couldn't immediately recall the English word (yes, it happened a few times).  Furthermore, it would have taken me a lot longer to write these posts in German and further still, although my German is pretty decent (or so the tests and my grades in German classes tell me), it is still really difficult to say a whole lot when you don't feel that you have enough words to be as expressive as you want to be...which is partially the reason why I also didn't say very much.  Combine the quietness of a girl like me with the insecurity of feeling that you don't have a sufficient vocabulary, and I guarantee you that the conversations will be short and that I'll do more listening than talking.  It doesn't mean I didn't understand you or that I was unhappy in Giessen or whatever.

Or maybe the reason for the different mentality is that Germans don’t like to laugh at their country as much as Americans and foreigners alike laugh at or even outright ridicule ours (could Green Day ever write a song called “German Idiot”? Could Werner Herzog’s “Stroszek” have featured an American who goes to Germany and eventually kills himself because life is too difficult there?)… though I would hate to think that this was the case, since it would confirm the stereotype that Germans don’t have a sense of humor or even know what laughter is.  Furthermore, this would assume that all Germans are the same, which is just as silly as saying all Americans are the same. Or maybe there is some other reason for this discord that I’m not seeing.

But regardless of the reason, feelings were hurt, and for that I sincerely apologize. It was never my intention to hurt anyone’s feelings or to portray Germany or Giessen as negatively as some people thought I did. In fact, there were a number of things that I found to be better in Germany. And most of the negatives probably could have been remedied by simply having spent more than 5 months in a strange land.  Now let's all have a Capri Sun, forget about our differences, and have some fun!  Life, like study abroad semesters, is too short to spend wallowing in sorrow or getting upset about misunderstandings. :)