Germans lacking “joy gene”?

I had to smile and frown reading a current article in Spiegel about a survey that suggests Germans are lacking a “joy gene” — too much worry, not enough fun.

Sadly, according to the study only 15 percent of Germans can recall a moment of truly being happy, even though 91 percent say being happy makes life worthwhile. Moreover, pleasure is apparently translated into the “famous” German concept of Schadenfreude, a malicious joy derived from damage done to others. Spiegel writes to achieve moments of happiness:

“Two-thirds of the respondents imagined that they might arrive at such a feeling by doing something provocative. One example? A motorcyclist reported experiencing delight when he blew exhaust fumes in the direction of a convertible driver as he accelerated at a green light.”

No comment.

I hope this is not representative.

I can relate to joy being connected to having something accomplished, as the survey also suggests, to enjoy having gotten work done. In fact, we have a word for that in German: “Feierabend.” It is hard to translate into English. But it conveys a sense of celebrating at the end of the day, to pop open a beer, sit down, chat with friends or family, watch TV. “Feier” literally means party, fiesta, fete, celebration and “abend” stands for evening. It is too bad that a word so common in the German language does not seem to be lived anymore if we want to believe the study, to live for the time that comes after work. To work to live, instead of living to only work.

It also seems odd given that from the cursory input from my young, urban friends in Germany who started working a couple of years ago, they start off with around 20 days of vacation time to enjoy their lives. Plus around 15 national holidays, depending on the state. Plus weekends.

In contrast, the United States offers only ten federal holidays, sometimes regional ones are added. That’s why most federal holidays are glued to a weekend, “observed on Monday” as it is called even if they might fall on another weekday. But these three-day weekends only help if people are close enough to visit. You can easily spend a whole day flying to get anywhere within the country (remember, the continental U.S. stretches across four time zones), even if the plane is on time. So it always makes me wonder how it is that in the U.S. many employees, especially in government and public service, start off with barely any vacation time, working to accrue vacation hour by hour, day by day. There is sick leave and overtime and other special days but Germans get those, too. It seems U.S. employees get around ten days per year, which they then juggle between Thanksgiving, Christmas, summer vacation and unforeseen events. Perhaps that’s why the might appreciate vacation more and are often perceived as more easy-going — the simple formula of dearth creates value?

So I would encourage Germans, as far as this survey might apply to them, to appreciate their many vacation days, their short distances within the country (plus a bunch of countries nearby) and the convenience of trains to enjoy life. On the other hand, several of my German friends have expressed rather working a little less to travel and enjoy life. One said she wants to get out of the city more, another one questioned if spending life only working makes sense. Two more expressed similar sentiments. Perhaps the tide is slowly turning.

Here is the entire article
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/study-finds-germans-incapable-of-enjoying-life-a-834973.html

PS: Disclosure, it was again J. who found the article about the study and who sometimes seems to be more on top of such things than I am.

Nothing more German than a Döner

Döner shop in the center of Leipzig

Very timely, on the heels of J. & my Döner discovery in Seattle, the Wall Street Journal just published a neat summary of the economic and cultural value of Döner Kebab, “seasoned meat processed into a large cylindrical loaf, roasted on a vertical spit, then thinly sliced with a long knife and wrapped in flat bread with vegetable toppings and, sometimes, a spicy sauce.”

According to the article over 720 million Döner are sold each year in Germany — a country with 82 million people, meaning each resident eats on average at least 8 1/2 Döner per year. A number I exceeded by far before moving to the U.S. I picked up a Döner about once or twice a week. Now I usually try to cram in as many visits to the Döner shops in my hometown and where ever I visit when I am in Germany — enjoying the vegetarian versions of falafel, deep-fried chick pea balls, or halloumi, a soft cheese that is also deep-fried.

"Döner macht schöner" -- "Döner makes more beautiful" in the German rhymed version

I was surprised to learn that food that was brought by the many Turkish guest workers West Germany invited to re-build Germany after the Second World War, is now being turned into a bigger industry in its new, adopted home country rather than Turkey:

“Thanks to its sheer size and an ethnic Turkish population of more than 2.5 million, Germany is the leader of a growing European döner industry, generating €3.5 billion in annual revenue and 200,000 jobs across Europe, according to the Berlin-based Association of Turkish Döner Producers in Europe. As with many goods, Germany has turned döner into an export advantage, producing about 400 tons of the meat daily and selling much of it to France, Poland and other European neighbors.”

Moreover, the article does a good job of linking the Döner with its cultural and political meaning — as Germany is still finding and negotiating its identity as an immigration nation. Unfortunately a recent neo-Nazi murder series was dubbed “Döner murders” because nine of the victims had migration backgrounds and two of them sold the ubiquitous street snack. The word was elected to be the “un-word” of the year in January 2012 as it signaled an ignorance toward the political dimension and hate-crime background of the crime. The English-language website about German news, the Local, translated the decision:

“‘This term supported the assumption that the motive behind the murders lay in a criminal milieu surrounding protection money or drug selling,’ wrote Nina Janich, the spokeswoman for the Unwort des Jahres (Non-Word of the Year) judging panel in a written statement. ‘With the factually inaccurate, folkloric-stereotypical labeling of a series of right-wing terrorist murders, entire populations are marginalized and the victims themselves discriminated against to the highest degree.’”

Germany’s biggest public broadcaster, ARD, dedicated one of their great one-hour radio feature stories to the investigation and discrimination surrounding the “Döner-Killer” in April 2011.

With the 50th anniversary of the Turkish guest workers arriving in Germany celebrated in 2011, the Döner should rather serve as a symbol for a success story of integration, immigration, and intercultural living together because despite ongoing struggles, as the WSJ so aptly puts it in its headline: “There’s Nothing More German Than a Big, Fat Juice Döner Kebab.”

The whole article:
Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2012, by James Angelos:
There’s Nothing More German Than a Big, Fat Juice Döner Kebab

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304432704577350194262835880.html?mod=WSJ_hp_editorsPicks_4

Two routes after German high school: vocational & academic systems

It was one of these wonderful moments. I bicycled to campus in the fresh spring morning air. I listened to WAMU/NPR Morning Edition. And a jolt of recognition hit me. They aired a piece on the German education system after high school, comparing it to the U.S. system.

NPR calls it the dual system and that catches the gist of it. While in the U.S. everyone seems to go to college, if you become a barber, doctor, carpenter, lawyer, doctor or nurse, in Germany different professions are either following an academic route or a vocational path.

That’s not to say you can’t switch, some people start with one and then do the other. But you can only enter the university if you have finished 12 years of school, Gymnasium that is, while vocational school already starts after 9 or 10 years of high school. The high school system is more complicated that way but linked to the two paths afterward.

Another crucial difference is that going the vocational route you already earn money, so no tuition, and going the academic route you don’t earn money but also don’t pay tuition but only your living expenses. Being a student or vocational student, Azubi, also comes with mostly free public transportation in your city or even state, tied to your student status as well as no fee for public media and other student prices.

Before I let you listen to the very nicely done NPR piece by Eric Westervelt from April 4, 2012, here are some examples of which professions follow which path in Germany:

Vocational training with schooling:
Nurses, optometrists (hence my perpetual confusion that here they have doctoral degrees), barbers, hairdressers, kindergarten teachers, bakers, butchers, tax accountants

Academic, university program:
Teachers for everything after kindergarten, doctors, lawyers, engineers and journalists (a more recent trend after the Second World War)

URL: But listen in to “The Secret To Germany’s Low Youth Unemployment” for 4 1/2 minutes or read the full NPR story who details the training of German teenager Robin Dittmar who is becoming an aircraft mechanic via paid Lufthansa training:

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149927290/the-secret-to-germanys-low-youth-unemployment

Eating Döner in Seattle — with Mango!

Spring break. To break the myth of college students going down south during spring break, I can give you at least one example of a student going north. Me. (And to further debunk the myth a lot of students I know just stay on campus and work or recover from work.) Up north we went. But food-wise it seems we went around the world.

First I enjoyed Scottish waffles and portabella mushroom ravioli in the Twilight realm of Forks, WA, then reliably yummy pad thai and delicious Tiramisu ice cream in Victoria, Canada and after interesting breakfast casseroles about which many opinions existed we faced some disappointing poutine. Curious to try the Canadian signature dish, eating local, we were served soggy french fries with soft pieces of cheese drowning in a brown sauce. Certainly an experience. A bit bruised by the latter, we decided to look for some food online.

So J. dug out this Döner shop in Seattle. Something I haven’t seen before like that in the U.S. Sure, there are what is called in the U.S. “gyro” shops (and I think I posted photos of that before) but nothing labeled as Döner, let alone with using the German umlaut “ö” in the name. Plus, it claimed to be somehow from Berlin. And luckily, it was right downtown near Underground Seattle which we wanted to visit in any case. Said and done. After a great 90-minute tour, we were hungry for a special treat we had anticipated all day long.

Here it is Berliner Döner Kebab:

It was truly trying to bridge the German-American culture in a cute, entertaining display, explaining to customers what a Döner is. Indeed, I should use this photo every time when in need to explain this most popular snack food for all Germans (really not just me, it’s pervasive in Germany) to American friends.

I was even more surprised to read the menu. It clearly had a lot of Döner! And what kinds! And with such names! A “fiery Kreuzberg” (a multikulti neighborhood in Berlin) with banana peppers, cilantro and chili sauce. Or the “Manadarin sweet & spicy” and “Veggie Berliner” with pressed seasoned tofu, spinach and feta.

The mango Döner clearly dazzled all of us. And it also came in a vegetarian version. Resisting the temptation to wallow in the known, good ‘ole Döner taste, which I love anytime, I decided to try this rare incarnation. Of course without the cilantro! I had to make a show out of this and loudly proclaim that cilantro is clearly not German, nobody ever puts cilantro on Döner in Germany. Anyone who ever had cilantro on a German Döner — Koriander — please shout out!

The Döner was quite a bit smaller than what passes for a proper one in Germany, albeit there you can also be out of luck sometimes. And in comparison more expensive for the shrunken size. I soaked up my Döner with big juicy mango pieces, pleasant curry sauce and tofu in no time. By the way, as a background Döner originally is Turkish, Germany’s biggest minority so it’s quite odd that the “Berliner” Döner here is represented in blue-and-white Bavarian inspired napkin. When does the marketing of Germany via Bavarian imagery ever end? At least big photos of Berlin were on the walls inside the shop, including the famous television tower, the seems to parallel Seattle’s space needle as a city symbol.

We also ordered a “classic” Döner with meat from the spit, red shredded cabbage, onions and garlic sauce. I took a bite from a piece without meat and it was quite like home. Except for one big nuisance. Who would think of using pita bread with caraway seeds (Kümmel — iihh!! or in English yuck!!). Well, that can only be the American influence, where rye bread also thinks it needs to be c
“carawayed” in order to pass for proper rye.

We were really ready to go a second round. But thought a sequel could not make up for the first pleasure. And it clearly was a pleasure, all three of us were happy. With and without cilantro, depending on who you ask.

So if you ever land in Seattle, check out Berliner Döner Kebab for your fix of German snack food — classic or exotic. It’s worth the money and your taste buds will sing a big “Danke schön!”

Chomsky on campus

It was passing mouth-to-mouth rather than being highly promoted, the visit of Noam Chomsky to the linguistics department of the University of Maryland during the first week of spring semester. But plenty people found their way to the two public lectures he held: for each one long queues piled up with people fighting for access.

On Thursday, January 26, he talked about “Language, Body and Mind,” reminding the scientific community about the limits of science.

The event started with people cramming into the rather small ballroom. At some point doors were closed and some people had to leave. It left some in the audience wondering why not a bigger room was booked, sure with Chomsky speaking large crowds could have been expected.

People lined the walks in multiple rows until an adjacent room was opened to solve the problem over over-capacity and potential shut-down of the event by some fire marshal. Finally, a bit late the lecture started.

Noam Chomsky was poised among the hubbub and the audience appreciated that no long introduction wasted time before he got to the podium.

While Thursday, he focused more on the big revolutionary changes and challenges in science and the rise of linguistics as a modern science, on Friday Chomsky offered his thoughts on the warped financial markets, the “non-debates” of a party that has given up all pretense of being a party, in his words, and thus apart from catering to the super rich has to flock to fringe and extreme constituencies in order to secure votes.

ADDENDUM: I almost forgot to include a little anecdote. While standing in line for the Friday lecture — it was even longer than the one on Thursday — I was joined by two friends. One of them saw a car slowly drive by and stop for a minute. Who was sitting in it? Right, Chomsky himself. We started waving at him and smiling and saying “Hi, Mr. Chomsky” and he waved back and smiled, too.

In his Friday lecture he also criticized Obama for giving away the huge public mandate, to a great part based on a promise for health care reform, that carried him into office for nothing. Ditto with the public option. Chomsky repeatedly emphasized the failure of markets to solve economic problems in society. And while the promise to bail out big banks used to include to also bail out the victims of the banks, the promise to the victims was broken, he said, while the banks’ worries were taken care off.

He called the State of the Union address “boilerplate,” emphasizing its predictability and little potential to actually turn in to action.

After about an hour of his talk, audience questions were allowed. Most strikingly after about four or five the moderator said it’s time for a final question — as the event ran about half hour late. Someone from the audience yelled, it’s been only men asking so far, to let a woman ask.

Chomsky responded along the lines of finding it odd that nobody ever asked why there hasn’t been a woman for U.S. president yet. He got back to another person’s question about what to do to change the system, by saying that unlike in other countries it’s pretty easy to get organized in the U.S., to freely speak, publish and get together. Just do it.

He also used the occasion to remind of the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s decision for the U.S. to attack South Vietnam with air raids, napalm and bombs, the over 150,ooo dead from that action and the achievements of the women’s movement since the 1960s. He said back then only white old men sat in university “and now it looks like this” pointing at the audience made up of men and women, and many international students.

The talks brought back memories for Noam Chomsky’s talk at the Gewandhaus, the prestigious concert hall in the heart of Leipzig, as part of a controversial lecture series of the University of Leipzig. Back then I was working for the American Studies newsletter Twin Peaks (special greetings to Katja here), and we attended the even as press, participating in the press conference. Check out our report from summer 2005. Scroll to pages 14-15 for an intro to the tumultuous event when protestors attempted to prevent the talk about Palestine, Israel and Germany as Chomsky was already on stage. Here is an excerpt:

“Utter hatred and boundless admiration: Noam Chomsky sparks both depending on who you ask. For some, he is “the most important intellectual alive” (New York Times), others declare him “the anti-Zionist” per s e ( B ü n d n i s g e g e n Antisemitismus – Alliance against AntiSemitism). Besides these opinions, here are a few facts about Chomsky: b o r n 7 D e c e m b e r 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and thus 76 years old, highly popular Professor of Linguistics at the Boston Massachusetts Institute of Technoloy and author of over 30 bo[o]ks on politics, among them many bestsellers.”

Continue with pages 16-20 to read an excerpt from the press conference.

Firecrackers! Sparkling Wine! Berliner! — Silvester in Hamburg

I set out in Zeitz to gather some proper Silvester, meaning New Year’s Eve in German, utensils. I just had to find the right store. Luckily they opened up before I started my trip. The name “Loud & Cheap” sums it up: Here you can buy small rockets, bigger rockets, firecrackers, sparklers — everything a proper Silvester fireworks in front of your door steps requires.

But only for three days out of the whole year.

I decided to buy some “indoors fireworks” — the funny looking chimney sweeps pop open when lighting a fuse on the side spraying paper strips and little plastic symbols of luck such as a four-leaf clover, fly agaric or pink piggy. I also got some sparklers and a game called “Pouring Lead” but more about that later.

First arriving in Hamburg for our Silvester my friends served me very yummy home-made hazelnut cookies. Turns out we had home-made food for the whole Silvester celebration. Because they had invited friends from Italy, my friends who are a German-Mexican couple decided to prepare some Mexican food. I was delighted to learn the secret of Mexican tortillas and eager to help.

Next was making Mexican quesadillas, first preparing the tortilla shells with a true Mexican tortilla press. I was told that I am a bit of gifted to make the dough balls into filled tortilla pockets, with mushrooms and cheese.

Pozole was another course of our Silvester meal. Made from a big white corn species imported from Mexico, pozole soup also includes chicken broth and added right before serving small-cut lettuce and radishes plus oregano. For a vegetarian version just don’t use the chicken but stick with the special corn and fresh vegetables and herbs. Delicioso!

Our Italian friends brought dessert: home-made Italian crullers. They were similar to Berliners but I would say softer inside and not as sweet. They were utterly seductive and I couldn’t help but to eat two in a row.

Back to the lead or what J. calls “German magic lead drops”. Indeed for the game, which is only played on Silvester, you melt the lead bits in a spoon over a candle. Then quickly you pour the silvery liquid into a bowl of cold water. From the shape of the hardened metal you’re supposed to divine the future for the next year. A guide at the back of the packaging offers wise interpretations such as a mule means money, a bed means you’ll be awake. Fun!

We got  only one result. For some reason two lead bits wouldn’t melt even after ten minutes of increasingly painful holding of the spoon over the candle. The bit we got looked like a bean or tear drop or bumble bee. Any interpretations?






Ready for the midnight stroke: We got the Berliners out, a German doughnut-like sweet, and the sparkling wine to do our Prosts, or cheers, with  the glasses at the right moment.

If you want to keep with the tradition, you need to order a special batch of Berliner. Such a batch contains Berliners with the proper raspberry jam filling except for one with mustard inside. Nobody will know who gets the mustard Berliner — unless you heartily bite into it.

Long before the countdown on television was started, crackers and fireworks were high in the sky. Sometimes it was so loud that you can’t understand your own word. We watched the fireworks in our street from the balcony. For about an hour bright yellows, reds, oranges and fainter greens and blues illuminated the sky left and right. Smaller fountains of light sparkled in the street. If you wouldn’t know it better for the joyous atmosphere, hugs and phone calls you’d think it is war. Only after a couple of hours the happy blows and light bursts die down. In the morning red paper wrappers and firework packaging litter the street. But on January 2 when New Years’ Day is over most happy trash is cleared up quickly for a fresh start to do it all again in another 364 days.

Happy new year! Auf ein gutes neues Jahr!

My German Christmas

After a few years of great Christmas times in the United States I got the chance to spend Christmas again in Germany. Please enjoy my German Christmas slide show and travel with me to my home town Zeitz and my old university town Leipzig.

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