Like the Wisconsinites
April in Germany has brought cold weather and truncated days to our tourism (yes we're still going) in Dresden. Which has left plenty of time for us to burn in our hotel room. It's just me Joern and Lars and we can pretty much do whatever we want because we're on a different floor. Our first day here at Holiday Inn, we were being a bit loud and Joern's dad called to tell us that someone called the front desk and complained about us being too loud. We found out later that it was just a joke, but I was extremely annoyed at the time. I wasn't annoyed because we got in trouble either, but because I thought that someone had called the desk instead of confronting us at our door. I know it's dumb to expect everyone to be like me and confront thier problems head on, but I found it unnerving that some (presumably) German people complained about us when they could have cut out a middle man and just asked us nicely to quiet down. It was just a joke, but Joern told me that similar behavior can be very typical of German people. I found this tidbit funny because being passive-aggressive and not telling people your problems is very Midwest and (in my opinion) is very unhealthy.
Sexism in Germany
Also being cooped up in our hotel room has given us plenty of time to watch some authentic (as well as dubbed American) TV shows. I find some of the German ones particularly interesting because of their attitudes towards the roles of men and women in society.
As many people know, I like to joke around and poke fun at miniscule details and things that probably aren't even sexist for fun when watching TV and what else. But when it comes down to it, I am a total die-hard Gender Equality Advocate (I find the term 'Feminist' sexist) and I really do believe that women and men should be treated as complete equals. Different, sure, but 100% equal.
Anyways, watching German TV has surprised me in the fact that it is not nearly as careful around the topic of gender as American TV is. One would think that, being a European country, Germany would be far ahead of the US in terms of gender equality, but it turns out to be quite the contrary (in my opinion). For example, we were watching this one show (don't ask why) called Frauentausch (or Wife-swap). In the US, one would (at least I would) assume that a show with a name like Wife-swap, yes, sounds sexist, but probably depicts the wives as being independant and send an empowering message to women in the end. But in Germany, apparently one can't expect television to be so progressive. In Germany, a show called Wife-swap is exactly what it sounds like: stay-at-home moms (housewives, so the Germans say [Hausfrauen], how I hate that term) being ridiculed for thier bad cooking and spending thier days cleaning, only to have a family that could care less about how hard they work. Yes, this show really got me ranting so we ended up turning it off, but I found it abhorrent that something so sexist is even allowed on TV.
I have yet to figure out if the German media is to blame for this problem, but I've been doing some reading and I've started to find out that the problem runs much deeper. From what I've found out, the problem lies with the attitude that women and men take towards themselves. For example (I've noticed this at home), Inga loves to watch midieval-themed kids soap opera shows that usually end up with some girl becoming the princess, falling in love some rich guy and having all her problems solved (I prefer Moana because who needs a man?). Rather than these shows being empowering, they have quite the opposite effect and teach kids that men do the dirty work while women sit pretty and have the babies.
I could go on and on, but my point is that watching German TV has opened my eyes to how far the US has come in terms of empowering children to be themselves and to grow up to be their own individual rather than someone's lesser or greater half.
Other Atrocites
Whew. The deep topics aside, I have also been noticing (as well as participating in) some quite peculiar oddities that the typical American would be naturally repelled by.
#1: French Fries with Forks
I find this absolutely horrible as well, I mean it makes no sense at all, like weren't french fries made to be eaten with your fingers? Nonetheless I have been (at least trying to) do it as much as I can because I am a firm believer that I am here to abosrb the culture rather than bring mine here.
#2: Pizza with Forks
This one makes a bit more sense because Italian pizza is super-thin and doesn't slice well, but it is; however, acceptable for children (I will forever be a child) to slice pizza and eat it by hand.
#3: Paying to use the bathroom
Let me just say that peeing is a right, not a privelage.
#4: Paying for water
Something everyone should know as well as not getting refills.
#5: Tatort
To an American, Tatort is the biggest atrocity of all. Let's just say that Tatort is basically Germany's attempt at a cop show. A cop show without good detectives, cool cop cars, believable bad guys and worst of all, without guns.
Still Going
It's been a long two-week vacation and I'm pretty sure everyone is ready to go back to Esslingen for some good quality non-family time. Today we went to the opera here in Dresden, which was more educational than interesting because it had real-time subtitles in German and English. They were conveniently side by side, so I could read both while trying to figure out what the heck was going on in the actual show. After 3.5 hours of solid concentration, my head exploded and we went to dinner where I got a not-only-bigger-than-your-head-but-bigger-than-everyones-at-the-table-combined sardine and caper pizza. It was very salty.
After dinner we came back to the hotel and watched Germany's Next Top Model (Lar's pick, don't ask why). I started getting frustrated because of it's shallowness (hence, the topic for this post) so I decided to put in some headphones and write.
Tomorrow we leave the former communist East Germany for Bavaria. Namely for a day trip to Nueremberg and then back home to Esslingen in Baden-Wuertenburg. Like I said it's been a long two weeks, but I'm totally ready to hard core tourist whatever Nueremberg has to offer.
Today is 20.4.2017
Nat
No comments:
Post a Comment