Some (really lazy and insufficient) Reflections on Germany

It has now been over two weeks since I've arrived in England, and while I'm grateful that I can now easily understand people when they speak to me in shops (mostly!) and that I can shed my knee-jerk, apologetic response of "Sorry, mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut," I find myself missing Germany. I feel more comfortable here, of course, largely because I speak the language but also because there are so many pale, pale people here like me (my London-born Bubbie is right when she says I have an English complexion--despite not actually having any real English blood in me, as both of her parents were Polish immigrants). But despite all that, I find myself missing Germany's orderliness, its straightforwardness. And I've found myself needing to adjust to being here now. Even coming face to face with East London's multiculturalism, after spending two months in blond and blue-eyed Germany, has required some re-adjustment. While in Berlin, I heard mostly German, English or Turkish. Here, it's a veritable Babel, in a good way, but it has required me to re-tune my ear again.

Since from hereon out my blog will be moving on from the "Berlin" to cover the "And Beyond" part of my European adventures, I thought that now might be a good time to share some of my reflections on German society and culture, based on the tiny slice of it that I witnessed over my two months in the country.

The best place to start, I think, is with the dogs. German dogs are among the most well behaved dogs I have ever seen. First of all, only the puppies or real delinquents are ever on leashes. The vast majority of dogs trot happily alongside their masters. Or not. Sometimes I would see one fall behind, sniffing something, or go ahead a bit, hot on the trail of something else, but always, always, the dog would constantly be turning around to check on the progress of its human. And people never have to call their dogs to keep up or to stay closer. The dogs just seem to know that it's their job to keep track of where their person is and to ensure that the space between them doesn't stretch too far. It's just...how it is.

In Germany, people take their dogs inside cafes with them. Except if you don't see the dog come in, you may never notice their presence, because they just obediently lie down underneath the table or in an out-of-the-way corner and remain there, despite the tantalising presence of fresh food all around them. They won't move until they're summoned to leave. Or, if left outside a shop or cafe, they'll wait, staring dutifully at the door until their master returns. They don't need to be tied up, they ignore all distractions around them, and they won't budge until given the order to. Illustrating this point quite well is a photo I managed to snag of a dog in Hamburg, left outside a bakery by its human, who had gone inside to buy a coffee:

Not tied to anything, lots of distractions around--lots of traffic and people--but that dog's gaze never left the door of the bakery. But jeez, even if I had a very well trained dog, I think I'd always be so worried about cars that I'd never let him off-lead when on the street. Of course, that's not a problem with German dogs, because, honest to goodness, they automatically stop at every corner and sit down patiently, waiting until their owner comes along and gives them the go-ahead to cross. Seriously. This is something that we tirelessly tried to get our dog to do, but in Germany, they just do it. Mind-boggling.

I recently read this fascinating book by Anna Funder called Stasiland. It was all about the Stasi, the East German secret police, and the iron hold they had over life in the GDR. All that is secondary to my point here. Because Funder, like me, was a non-German living in Berlin and she, too, was apparently struck by the well-behaved dogs. In an off-hand passage in her book, she describes a dog she sees trotting determinedly down a street and remarks, "Somewhere a person must be lost."

I love this, and think it pretty wonderfully sums up German dogs.

For the first six weeks of my sojourn in Berlin, it was a mystery to me and my new-found American friends how these dogs could all be so well trained. It was only during our trip to Hamburg, where we met up with my old friend Lina, that we were actually able to ask a real German person about the dogs. Lina explained that in order to let your dog go off-leash in Germany, you need to take them through a rigorous obedience school. There's some kind of officially recognised certificate that your dog needs to acquire, and without it you must keep them on a leash whenever you step outside with them.

Fine, okay. But the thing is, though, all this super obedience made me feel a bit sorry for the dogs. I mean, is a dog really still a dog if it never gets into mischief, if it's so freakishly well behaved? I mean, I hardly even heard a dog bark while I was in Germany! I wonder what it signifies about German culture, this stark level of obedience that they demand from their pets. Obviously, it speaks to the desire for efficiency and order that Germans are famous for, but does it not also hint at something a little more sinister? Isn't this insistence upon obedience in their pets just part and parcel with the obedience that Germans, at least in days gone by, were expected to demonstrate in all aspects of their lives?

But that's a cynical view of it all. Mostly I just marveled at how amazing those dogs were. Amy and I tried to work out in German how to ask someone if we could pet their dog, but we were too afraid of butchering the language up, as is our wont, and accidentally saying something untoward, so instead we admired all those well-behaved dogs from afar.

So, I just ended up writing a lot about dogs. Sorry about that.

Me and the U-Bahn Berlin Bear at Alexanderplatz. Think of these bears like the moose Toronto had years ago. Each one is painted differently.

How about we change tracks slightly and talk a bit now about that famed German efficiency? I posted that picture above of me with a Berlin Bear painted with the U-Bahn map because it's true what they say: The trains really do run on time in Germany. When I was on my way back from Prague, I started to notice that the clocks at each of the stations we stopped at were, of course, perfectly synchronised, but not only that--they had it down to the minute when the train was arrived. If it was due to arrive at 9:46, you can be sure that it arrived at 9:46 and not a minute earlier or later. How they achieve this insane punctuality I haven't the faintest idea, but this efficiency extends to other aspects of German society, too.

For instance, I don't think Germans are by nature the friendliest people. And this is not because they're unfriendly, so to speak, but simply that they just don't see the point in being friendly. I'm talking about the service industry, of course--the Germans that I encountered in the stores and restaurants I went to during my stay--I know several individual German people who are of course lovely. But when it comes to public, day-to-day life, there is not much room for small talk or even smiles in Germany. You go into a bakery, you wait your turn in line. (God forbid you cut in line, even accidentally.) When it's your turn, the clerk behind the counter will look at you and beckon you by saying "Bitteschoen," which you can basically translate as "Please, it's your turn. Come up here and order, and you better know what you want." So you go, and you order, and you give exact change if you can. You say thank you and then you go. And that's the transaction, done.

On paper it's not so different from at home, but once I went into a bakery and I ordered something (probably it was a pretzel). The guy gave it to me and gave me my change, and as I was putting my change into my wallet and then stuffing my wallet back into my purse, the guy impatiently asked me if that was all or if there was something wrong--all because I was still standing by the counter. There wasn't anyone else in the bakery, or else I would have moved to the side. But even though no one else was waiting, the fact was that I shouldn't have been standing there any more, and that unnerved the guy. Move along, move along. Schnell, schnell.

...

We can talk a bit, too, about race in Germany, but that's a bit of a Pandora's box. The thing is, I have over two weeks of busy activity in the UK behind me already that I need to catch up on here on the blog, and with my sights looking forward towards all of the things I'd like to do and places I'd like to see over the next six-odd weeks, I'm finding it hard to look back on Germany with the focus it deserves. I apologise for this haphazard blog post and its incredibly summary treatment of German society. I assure you that Germany cannot be summed up solely in well-behaved dogs and punctual train service, but I'm afraid that's all I have the patience for right now. Tomorrow I'm off to Bath (!!) and I have lots of planning to do, so I'm afraid I'm just going to leave it here for now.

Also, I decided I'm going to keep a scone count while here in the UK. It's only fitting. I've already had four? Five? Stay tuned.