Stereotypes are a real time saver

It seems like in the past few weeks, I have been running into people who have strong (negative) opinions about Americans. Here are the most recent two:

On Thursday I was sitting in the staff lounge at the international school. I was working on the final paper for my online class, when the annoying IT guy entered the room and just started talking, to everyone and to no one in particular. After he got through his reflection on the week's German victories over Spanish soccer teams, he said "there aren't any Americans in here, are there?". My general annoyance won me over and I said, snippy and sarcastic, "No, not a one. Why would you want to hang out around them anyway?" Apparently me being in the room did not stop him from going on a ten minute rant about how Americans don't want to learn any foreign languages and he can't believe that they just expect to speak English everywhere they go. Once he'd finished his declaration, which I tried to ignore, he came up to me to reiterate his point, since maybe I hadn't head the first time. I explained to him that I speak fluent Spanish and increasingly conversational German even though I've been here less than two years, and that I see his point but does he understand how far you have to travel in the U.S. to get to a non-English speaking country??

Then Friday night, we met up with our Australian friend Andrew and his German-Dutch girlfriend Katja, who is a doctor. They were out with her doctor colleagues who all seemed to leave the bar right after we arrived, except for an older guy who we will call Klaus (I don't remember his name, but that seems good enough for the story). When Klaus found out that three of us in the group were American, he told us that he thinks the U.S. is a barbaric, materialistic, capitalistic place that he never wants to visit, and that Americans are too arrogant to learn anyone else's language. (Shortly afterward I had a conversation with Katja in German).

As Americans we are brought up to think that the U.S. is the best country in the world, and that everyone wants to come live there, and that they all want to have what we have. That's not true. It's also not true that we are all shallow, violent, and stupid. I don't consider myself patriotic and I think there are a lot of things that the U.S. does wrong. But it's hard not to get defensive when other people point out negative stereotypes about your country, which includes most of the people you love and all of the places that (until very recently) you've called home.

 I can see why some Germans might not like us. We did lead the charge to blowing up most of their country in WWII and then occupying it for a few decades after that. The images they have of Americans come from TV and movies, where people get shot and do drugs and drive huge cars and run around in bikinis and get shot. But they are still watching those movies, eating at Subway, and spending way too much money on Chuck Taylor high tops. 

Think of the images that Americans have of Germany - thick, bossy middle-aged women named Helga, mean, heavily-accented WWII soldiers, black turtleneck-wearing, techno-dancing effeminate men that we once saw on the Sprockets skit from Saturday Night Live, Heidi Klum and Arnold Schwarzenegger (he's Austrian but it's practically the same thing, right?). We are all allowed to make generalizations about other people. Brian and I do it about Germans all the time. We just need to know that they are not always true.
 
It's not like Brian and are constantly under fire for our nationality (see, I'm an American and I make a reference to gunfire). Most people are nice to us, and a lot of Germans have visited the U.S. and liked it. I will generalize, though, that few Europeans I've talked to understand why passing gun control laws is even an issue, why we don't have universal health coverage, and what we were thinking by electing George W. Bush.

If you want to read a German journalist's thoughts on this topic, check out this article from Der Spiegel .

And I happen to agree with our annoying IT guy, though I would never tell him that. There are not enough Americans speaking enough foreign languages. Though if they did they'd probably learn Spanish.

Locks of love

With so much on the news and on our minds about terrorism and safety and violence, it's time for a post about love. Wow, that sounds cheesy. I mean it though, I am going to tell you about locks of love.

No, this post has nothing to do with wigs or donating hair. I have not had long enough hair to do that since... ever. Though based on my experiences of getting it cut in Germany, growing it to my ankles doesn't sound like a bad idea.

This post is about padlocks. They look like this:

All over the world, people who are in love put these padlocks on bridges and throw the key in the water below, signifying that they are locked together forever. I had never seen them before we moved to Germany, but they are on five continents. Here's a list of locations.

One explanation is that the custom comes from the Italian Novel I Want You, which was later turned into a film. The explanation I like better is this:

In Serbia just before WWII, a young school teacher named Nada fell in love with an officer named Relja. After they committed to each other Relja went to war in Greece where he fell in love with a local woman from Corfu. As a consequence, Relja and Nada broke off their engagement. Nada never recovered from that devastating blow, and after some time she died due to heartbreak from her unfortunate love. As young girls from Nada's town wanted to protect their own loves, they started writing down their names, together with the names of their loved ones, on padlocks and affixing them to the railings of the bridge where Nada and Relja used to meet.

I got that story from Wikipedia, so it must be true.

Hannover's locks are at the park behind our Rathaus (above) and at the Maschsee, the big lake that I talk about sometimes. I am sure that the monstrous and scary fish that live in the Maschsee eat the keys and have bellies full of metal. That will make them even heavier and more capable of dragging me down to the bottom when I do the Maschsee triathlon this year.

Remember these guys?

No, Brian and I have not engraved a padlock and stuck it on a bridge for all time. We have no plans to do so. It's cheesy. Besides, Brian thinks Greek women are swarthy so I don't have much to worry about.

As you'll see from the photos of the padlocks, Spring has arrived in Hannover.
Sorry, my dear Midwesterners. Your winter will end some day. Until then, I will be riding my bike and gloating just a little... ok maybe a lot, but I'll feel guilty about it. And beneath my helmet, my hair will be quickly approaching ponytail length, but wig-making length is going to take a while.

Foreign and language

I realized today that much of my life lately is about language - learning words, teaching words, searching for the right words - and not in a literary or creative sense but in the very basic way of how can I get people to understand me and not stare blankly.

I got plenty of blank stares from 7th graders this week. I took that as a good sign, though, because at least they were looking at me and maybe trying to pay attention. I've been covering Spanish classes at the school while the husband-wife pair of Spanish teachers takes the 8th grade students on an exchange to Spain. So the 7th graders stared blankly, while the 6th graders were generally squirmy. They aren't misbehaving exactly, they just constantly make nonsense noises or bounce in their chairs or poke each other...until they get to play with their computers. Then they are mesmerized, silent, and still. The 9th and 10th graders nodded a lot when I spoke to them in Spanish, which is what I do when someone is talking to me in German and I don't really understand but don't want to admit it. However, they did answer some questions correctly so maybe they were not totally faking it.

It was my turn to be the student in German class.
Topics we discussed this week include: mother tongues (also known as native languages) and how many of them you can really have, organ donation, both legal and illegal including use of plastic eyeballs, discrimination against immigrants, what Mohammad should do about his sore back, what happens if you call in sick to work too much, how to use the correct forms of "therefore", "because of", and the other word that also means "therefore", which language is the prettiest, ugliest, and makes the best lyrics in a pop song.

Today I saw my conversation partner Helga for the first time in a while. I told her about the 8th graders doing the exchange in Spain with students who are learning English, and she shook her head and said that the Spanish really don't learn German much in school. My immediate thought (which I did not express) was "why should they?". Unless they want to work at a resort in Mallorca, they probably should be learning English, or maybe French, or better yet, Chinese. Helga is not doing so well. She and her husband of 40+ years have decided to separate (even though they don't live together now - I don't really understand the difference but don't think it's my place to ask). She is kind of distracted and sad but wants to keep meeting anyway. We talked more about how to use "therefore" in a sentence and discussed Margaret Thatcher's death, in English. As I was about to leave she started to cry. I am not sure I am equipped for this, especially in another language.

I keep thinking that the language part of my brain must be getting in good shape from all this exercise. Of course, there are other parts of it that are probably going through atrophy, like the driving a car part, the talking to strangers part, gardening part, and the being somebody's boss part. Here I feel more often like I am not running things so much as running them through Google Translate and hoping I didn't miss anything important in the translation. Therefore, it's a good thing I don't hate foreign languages, because blank stare doesn't get you very far. An eager but vacant smile with a head nod is a much better.

Things like this

It's Tuesday morning and I am just learning about the Boston Marathon bombings. Normally world events don't stick with me emotionally, but I can't seem to get past this one today.

 And the bombers waited until the most people were finishing, wandering around happy and sweaty and disoriented after the race, cheered on by their families and onlookers while reporters captured everything on film... There was no government or military operation there, no materialistic Western culture being exported, no corporate greed. It was a marathon.

Things like this happen in other places. Over the weekend, 8 people died when a bomb exploded on a bus in Pakistan. It was an act of terrorism. I feel a little guilty for not being so concerned about that incident when this one has me down. After all, the Pakistani victims were mostly women and children going somewhere on a bus.

But things like this never happened in the U.S. until just over a decade ago, and they have never happened at such a pure sort of a place as the finish line of a marathon, run every year on Patriots' Day. The bombs exploded right behind a row of flags from countries all over the world. 

As an American in Europe I don't know whether this news is taken differently here. Are Europeans also shaken up by the bombing? Or do they see it as just another incident of violence in the U.S.? I will talk to some about it, but not today.

Today I will just be a little more quiet, a little more serious, a little more sorry about what happened. I will wonder if there is a way we could ever be really safe at a public event, or if at some point we stop worrying because there's no way to be totally secure.
And to think that yesterday I was worried about my bike tire.

I promise you more light-hearted posts in the near future. Until then, I will think about those runners who laced up their shoes yesterday, for the last time.

The day to day

I have not forgotten you, my readers, but I have not had anything too exciting to report. No trips to Italy, no huge cultural misunderstandings, and no calls to the fire department.
Writing this blog, however is an exercise in discussing the things that aren't really discussion-worthy. So here are a few things that happened this week:

In German class I learned that the word for the Milky Way is Milchstrasse, meaning Milk Street. This got a discussion started among my classmates about the name of the galaxy in various languages, and they all have to do with milk and ways. I find this silly and cute. It may be my new favorite German word.

Also in German class this week I learned the word for dwarf. Then on my way home, I saw one riding a bike. What does this mean? I am not sure but it seems to significant to pass up.

On Friday after I was done subbing at the school, I went swimming. At the end of my workout, I saw an older man with his hairy back get out of the pool. He wore a light green speedo with yellow dots. Then he started to walk away and I saw that it was a thong. I stuck my face in the water so that he would not hear me laughing out loud. He probably thought I was just blowing bubbles like a toddler learning to swim.

When I came out of the pool, I found that my new - old bike had a flat tire. I can change a flat pretty well on the road bike but this old beater bike is beyond my expertise. Tomorrow I'll bring my wheel over to the bike shop to admit my incompetence.

And this weekend has been pretty quiet too. The biggest news is that the weather is improving and it's feeling like spring. It might not warm enough for a thong speedo swimsuit perhaps, but you can just wear those indoors.

Baring it all in Hannover

Hannover has a visitor in town, and he's stirring things up. Vladimir Putin is here for the annual industrial convention. I think I've mentioned in the past that Hannover has a huge convention center that hosts fairs for everything from computer technology to poultry farming. The industrial fair is one of the biggest - it is a combination of eleven international trade shows representing different kinds of industry. Every year, a partner country is represented. Last year it was China and this year it's Russia.

So Vladimir Putin has paid us a visit, and Angela Merkel is here to show him around. This morning they stopped at a cemetery right behind the International School, where about 400 forced laborers and prisoners of war from WWII are buried. Many of them were Russian. I went there, hoping to see the world leaders in my own backyard, but more excited about seeing the protests that were supposed to happen. I guess the protesters decided to sit that one out, because all I saw was the motorcade pulling away.

I did read that Putin is staying at the Grand Hotel, which is where my classmate Mohammad works in housekeeping. Maybe he cleaned Putin's room or something. I'll have to ask tomorrow in class. If so, I hope he got a tip.

The big excitement, though came when Merkel and Putin visited the convention center. There were demonstrators there yesterday, protesting Russia's crackdown on NGOs operating within the country, the arrest of an outspoken punk band last year, and what they regard as general political repression. Yesterday those protesters wore clothes. Today, they went topless.

Four women, who are members of a feminist political group, bared it all and caught a lot of attention. Across their chests and backs they had written "f-- dictator" and other well informed political commentaries. It caught Putin's eye, in a way that only film can capture. Check out this photo of the event:

The expressions on all of their faces are priceless.

Putin was not ashamed to say what he thought of the incident at a press conference:

"Regarding this performance, I liked it. You should be grateful to the girls. They are helping you make the fair more popular."

"I did not catch what they were shouting, I did not even see if they were blondes, brunettes or chestnut-haired..." Of course, his eyes were not on their hair.
"But it's better not to upset the order. If someone wants to have a discussion on some political issues then it's better to do it while you are dressed, and not take your clothes off."
He added: "You should take your clothes off in other places like nude beaches."


This is some sound advice to follow, especially if you are a world leader.
I also liked that he did not alienate nudity-loving Germans and members of the FKK (remember the naked lake?) by saying that it's NEVER ok to be naked in public. That would probably spark another round of protests, and who knows what those people would, or would not, be wearing.


So while Obama sticks his foot in his mouth because he called an attorney general good-looking, Putin is oogling topless protesters. And Merkel is understandably disapproving. Putin may have a point, though. This is probably more press than Hannover has gotten since long before the cookie monster incident. Maybe it will draw more visitors to the forest and wood management fair in May.

Italy photos

Here are few from our trip:

Pisa

Pisa

Pisa

Pisa

Beach in Tirrenia

Our hotel in Tirrenia

Beach in Tirrenia

Italia

Brian came back from Orlando on Sunday night, and Monday morning we got on another plane (he'd already taken 3, so why not keep them coming?) to Italy. Most people go to Italy to see the Colosseum in Rome or to ride a gondola in Venice. We went to watch baseball in Tirrenia.

Tirrenia is a small beach town past its prime on the Mediterranean, outside of Pisa. It is also home to a sports facility where the Italian national baseball team plays. This Easter week that field is the site of a tournament for all the European baseball teams. Our baseball scout friends, Tom and Andy, were coming to work and suggested we come to hang out and watch a few games. There are 20 MLB teams represented here by their international scouts. It's a bunch of middle aged guys in khaki pants with radar guns, watching teenage boys play a game on the outskirts of a small town in Italy. A little bizarre, but interesting.

The ballpark is part of a national sports training facility, complete with housing so the kids can train every day and go to school in the nearest town. The sports facility is much like the rest of Tirrenia. At one time, someone invested a lot of money in it and it was really, really nice. Since then, the colors on the track have faded, there is rust on the bleachers, and the weight rooms are dusty. Our hotel is a little like that too. It was furnished around 1972 and it was the best place in town. The hotel must have been so great that nothing has really been updated in 40 years.

The whole area has character. There are several abandoned buildings around, a few half-finished hotels, and lots of peeling paint. It's like the Florida Panhandle of Italy. But things move slowly here, the food is good, and the people are nice, so we like it. The place is really only busy in the summer, so now there are just baseball people, a few families, and a handful of elderly German tourists in our hotel.

Yesterday all the games got rained out (this area has gotten record amounts of rainfall this year), so we went to Pisa with Tom to see the leaning tower. We ended up parking on the opposite side of town, so we had a nice wander as we went toward the cathedral and the tower. I promise to post some photos when we get home. I tried to get one of Brian pushing the tower up straight, but somehow he was not into that idea.

Today the sun is shining. We went to watch some baseball, had lunch, then went to the beach (not to swim, just to sit). There are no gondolas or Roman ruins here, but you can hear the waves from our hotel room and it's a pleasant, easy place to be.