I have been in the Teutonic Lands for a little over a month now (and am showing no signs of retreat: it'll be sausages in Berlin at Christmas, I can assure you!) and have been keeping another record of my time here. But I can assure readers of these pages that the German reputation for stolidity remains unchallenged, and the sheer order of things is refreshingly strict.
Everyone, from the punk on the U-Bahn to the doddery old couple plodding up the road to the same cafe they've had their evening cup at since the Wall came down, knows what's expected of them, and they do their level best to keep the status quo.
The jovial Prussian likes a good glass and an invasion
as much as the next fellow!
I have it on good authority that Children are of especial interest to the Public German. To wit: it is considered the absolute height of bad form for one's progeny to be roving the streets after dark. And you do not see it. Ever. Apparently people will even comment on it if some poor lout happens to be about.
In fact, commenting on things is not limited to errant youths, if people see something they don't agree with, or if someone happens to step a foot majorly out of line, the passing throng will castigate the hapless bounder - ostensibly in an attempt to bring him back into marching line with the rest of this bold and ordered society!
The fear of being cast of out the social order plagues Jerry no end. They even have a word for the embarrassment one feels when one is dolt enough to perpetuate a social howler: it's Fremdscham - literally, the shame of being foreign.
No shameful foreigners here? Right ho, carry on then chaps!
It's a strange place, very much an acquired taste, and I absolutely love it!
1 comment:
'Tis the same with the young anklebiters in Nippon: not a winkle out of them in the dark hours (except for the bleeping chorus of portable telephone messages resounding through the thin walls of my lodgings).
However, during the day they travel about alone or with pals, Huckleberry Finning with fishing rods & c down by the river, or winding their way to school in a crocodile, still heaving the same bright red leather backpacks that were all the rage before the War.
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