Cultural Differences

There seem to be two very distinct aspects of German culture that come out in this chapters readings.  Germans are seen as a xenophobic, closed off, cold, and calculating society by many outsiders.  This can be seen on the German flirting scene.  There are so many unwritten rules and ways to act.  If you don't have those rules down be ready to get shot down pretty regularly.  This mainly includes not coming on too strongly, which could ruin most American guys.  I have not been apart of the dating scene for sometime and am not too sure of the intricacies of the American style, but from what I have seen it mostly consists of drinking a lot and being a douche bag, lol.  This would be a big no no in Germany.  Another example of the closed aspect is on the subject of politeness.  As in the articles, the cold eyed stare as someone treads on your shoe would be a major Faux pas in most other cultures.  (Coincidentally Faux pas translates to false step... made me chuckle)  In Germany this seems to be a common theme. 

There is the other aspect to German culture, however, which greatly intrigues me.  That is the apparent openness of the general public to very private matters.  In the last chapter, the articles talked about the openness to nudism that most Deutscher displayed.  This seems to go completely against that cold, closed off attitude found in the first aspect of German culture.  It can be seen in this chapter when reading the article on "German Erotica".  The Germans are very open about their sexuality.  I both read this and have heard conversations on this in person.  My friend from Austria brought up the question of contraception one night during dinner.  He said that once a girl hit 16 in Austria, a good mother would immediately have her on some kind of contraception.  This was brought up in front of a very strict Catholic mother which made for a pretty funny conversation.  I find the difference in both German and American culture, and the split in German culture very interesting.

The Teutonic Knights

One of my major interests as far as I can remember is that of Medieval History.  I have always loved the romanticism that goes along with the Chivalric Code of the medieval knights and the tales of great honor and deeds.  I have a strong connection  to this myself because of a long family history with knighthood.  I am myself actually a living breathing knight.  Not the same kind of Chivalric Order once formed to go on Crusades to the Holy Land, but one that is based on the other aspect of knighthood, protecting and helping those in need.  If you have never heard of the Knights of Columbus, I would suggest exploring who they are and what they mean.

There were once hundreds of different orders during the medieval period that would go on different Crusades all over Europe and the Middle East.  These include Orders such as the Knights Templar, the Hospitallers, and Teutonic Knights.  The Teutonic Knights are to me one of the most interesting Chivalric Orders created.

Back in the day, many of the knights spoke only the romantic languages, z.B. French, Italian, Spanish.  This was fine for those leaders that were from these different countries, because even if you second in command didn't come from where you were, at least you could kinda get the point across.  This however became a very big problem when the Deutsch Ritter finally entered the fight.  Battles were fought with half the army not having a clue what the plan was.  This needed to be changed.

At the end of the 12th Century, the Pope decided that he needed a Holy Order for the Germanic speaking knights.  In 1190 AD, the Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, or more simply, the Teutonic Knights were born.  These Catholic Knights fought in many conflicts ranging from the Holy Land to the Baltic.  They acted as both holy warriors and battle field hospitals during these different campaigns. 

Not Funny!!!

I have recently started looking into the website that Hartmut has posted onto the Deutschkurs page.  Nichtlustig.de, or Not Funny in English, is based off a series of comics made by Carlsen.  It is a comic series that reminds me of the Far Side comics produced here in America by Gary Larson.  The comics take a decidedly German twist with subject matter that includes a lot of dark jokes about death, injury, and bad luck.  Death seems to be one of the websites main themes with such merchandise as the Tasche des Todes, or bag of Death.  I spent a lot of time going through the website looking at the different merchandise.  It is sometimes hard to go through and read the product description when I am not close to that level of German yet, but the experience in trying to read the different entries is a good one. 

http://www.nichtlustig-shop.de/product_info.php?info=p287_Tasche-des-Todes.html&cat=c92_Taschen---Mappen.html

I find a lot of the darker humor to be pretty funny.  To go along with the death theme, Nichtlustig features a lot of Lemming memorabilia, which of course are famous for their habit of jumping off cliffs.  Some of the shirts feature other forms of Lemming suicide.  Some of my favorite shirts include these:

This translates to: "Respect the Food Chain"

The ever popular, iTod.

"Inside I'm already dead"

And the "Duck, Vampire Duck"

These shirts only cover a small amount merchandise that the website has.  Along with shirts, the website also has games, coffee mugs, books, and a whole lot more.  The prices aren't too bad, but the shipping is kind of a hassle.  When I do finally make it over to Germany I plan on picking up at least some of the cool stuff shown here.   I am also debating on getting some of these shirts and starting a Hartmutesk collection.

Again signing off...

Sieben Zwerge

Last night I was thinking about what I could do this AMD on.  I decided to try my luck at a German movie on Netflix.  I was looking through all the titles and noticed that there weren't many comedic movies listed.  I decided to watch one called the "7 Dwarfs" or "7 Zwerge" auf Deutsche.  The background is the basic snow white and seven dwarfs story with some crazy twists and ridiculous comedy scenes.  For those of you who have met Hartmut, its seems as if he wrote it, directed it, and then was the star character, because it is just like his sense of humor.

The dwarfs are not really dwarfs at all, they are just men that have been hurt by women and live out in the woods.  There names are Brummboss, Bubi, Sunny, Cloudy, Tschakko, Cookie, and Speedy.  Each one, like in the Disney movie, had their own personality.  Brummboss was the leader and original "dwarf".  Bubi as his name implies was an out and out boob.  Sunny was cheerful, while Cloudy was a very typical pessimistic German.  Tschakko, was the violent dwarf, who was very adept in the use of swords and explosives.  Speedy had a very slow personality, and Cookie was the cook that just needed to add wieners to make his food bearable.

The movie was actually hilarious.  I found myself laughing in the middle of a busy public library while watching.  It was provided with subtitles, but I tried to understand as much as I could without using them as a crutch.  There where many words that I could pick up on and even a lot of the sentence structure made sense.  I even found myself correcting the subtitles on occasion.

All in all, I would say it was a good movie to watch, being German slapstick comedy.  If you have Netflix, and have the time to watch a full length movie, I would suggest watching "7 Zwerge".

And as always I will leave a little clip...

 

The German Chef, "PORK PORK PORK"

One of my favorite television shows, is "No Reservations, with Anthony Bourdain".  It tells about his no nonsense travels around the world, and his staying away from the tourist traps and other clean places of the different cultures he visits.  Anthony Bourdain is a man after my own heart, he is cynical, has a love for travel, and most of all loves pork.  I am a fan of the bacon, being the salty, crunchy, beautiful part of life.  Although he is French (I know that puts some major points against him), his love for all things pork levels him out in my eyes. 

When reading "German Fast Food", I realized that both he and I were born into the wrong culture.  The word "pork" appears in almost every fast food named in the article.  HEAVEN!!!!  How could a country be so good?  When looking at American food culture, it is often seen that Fast-Food need only be one of those two words... fast.  It seems that Americans have forgotten the big picture when in comes to the culinary ideal.  Food should not only be fast, but should contain both the heart and soul of the chef, and the history given through food culture.  What the Germans have done with even their fast cuisine should be reciprocated around the world. 

Oh and just in case you didn't know what the title came from... it is a little play off the Swedish Chef of the Muppets.

Musik AMD1

The last few weeks I have found myself gravitating more and more toward German music.  That isn't to say classical music, such as Bach or Mozart, but some of the newer bands like Rammstein or Nena.  The way the German language rolls off the tongue when sung gives it many unique characteristics.  I find it very interesting hearing a uvular r in the middle of a chorus or verse.  These characteristics also display themselves in different ways depending on the style of music.  In Rammstein tracks,  the uvular r is very direct and held for a longer time than in pop music like Nena.

I find that many of the music styles vary depending on their location in Germany or the surrounding German speaking areas.  Western Germany and the Austria have many more of the Pop bands such as Nena or Falco, while toward Eastern Germany you get heavier sounding music like Rammstein or Dark Fortress.  I am not sure if this is because of the conditions of East Germany under the Soviets.   Whatever the case, the East German music seems to be darker and more heavy when compared to the lighter Pop tones of the West.

Germany also has one of the biggest techno cultures of Europe.  Popular artists both in Germany and America include Zombie Nation, Kraftwerk, and Tangerine Dream.  It is also the country of origin for "Trance Techno".

Oh and one of my favorite artists, Falco.

Although he is Austrian.