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More German than many Germans

mertbulan.com

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Re: More German than many Germans

#291

Post by kome »

nbr42 wrote: post #220

What struck me most is how the author seems to confuse a very protected version of Germany with Germany itself. He landed in a relatively rare bubble: an international tech company, an English-speaking workplace, and a professional profile the system values. That experience is valid, but it is hardly representative. Even this bubble is shrinking as companies cut local roles and move more work to lower-cost locations.…

fully agree with this. class is a huge component, and i feel class in germany can be brutal. it starts with the education tracking system that, in practice, decides very early in life what your place in society will be. this creates a system where "social mobility in germany is lower than in most other developed economies" https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/new-evidence-social-mobility-... or https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-social-mobility-among-poorest...

the article is just sharing his positive personal experience... it’s not a sociological treatise. but i agree with you, he’s clearly talking from within a bubble.

Re: More German than many Germans

#292

Post by suslik »

mlrtime wrote: post #233
suslik wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your point is that the absurdity goes all the way down, I won't disagree.

The absurdity [as I see it] is that people like you think you know what is or isn't other peoples problem. You only get to say that when you live on an island.

> you think you know what is or isn't other peoples problem.

I don’t think that at all. All I said was that if I absolve the driver of whatever responsibility he believes he has for me, then if something happens as I step out, it is indeed should not be his problem, legally speaking. He might not like it, of course - which is not my problem, to be honest.

edit: this is all linguistics, however. The initial issue was that the driver is unable to open the door even if we both assess the risk as negligible. Sure, he might not want me to suicide jump from his bus onto a highway - even if I believe I have the theoretical right to do that - but that is not the situation we're in. The point was that I should be able to say it's ok, looks safe, I accept the risk if something happens.

Re: More German than many Germans

#293

Post by eska »

rglullis wrote: post #249
akie wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a foreigner in Berlin, and my guess is twofold: 1. Their German isn't good enough, which limits the pool of people you can connect to 2. They only or mostly hang out in the expat-scene, which limits the pool of people you can connect to

1) I am certified C1 German - studied in high school for 6 years. Granted, I don't like speaking German and will use English when possible, but it's not a matter of not being able to connect with them. 2) Shortly after moving in, I started dating a German woman. Lasted close to a whole year. That was more than enough time to meet a lot of her friends, I got to meet her family, etc. That was more than enough time and…

You don’t know Germany, you know Berlin.

You don’t have insight into German lifestyle, you have insight into that one woman’s family’s lifestyle (and only less than a year, you’re not a family member at that point).

Re: More German than many Germans

#294

Post by fluxflexer »

rmoriz wrote: post #118
glimshe wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like better understand the German engineering culture. Why was it special in the past? What about today? As a kid in the 80s, I had some things from Germany and their quality was astounding. Fast forward to present time, our Volkswagen car made in Germany is the worst car I've ever had in terms of reliability. PS: an honest question getting downvotes?

There is no incentive to build a reliable product that can‘t compete in price. People are trained to consume and throw away. People are getting used to throw away cloths and household appliances after 1-3 years. Miele once built washing machines that outlast 30 years. They offered spare parts and regional service hubs. But the market decided to just buy the 50% cheaper ones every 5 years.

They still do. But as you said,most people go for the 300€ product and not Miles 900€ one. I had the chance to tour their electronics production lines in Gütersloh, Germany a few years ago which were top notch, almost automotive standard, and they told me, that they plan, develop and manufacture for 18 yrs lifetime. Not sure how long the cheaper products last, any experience?

Re: More German than many Germans

#295

Post by apflkx »

> I don't think most of those votes are about hating foreigners. Some people believe the story they get every day, that the country is broken and that immigrants are the problem. You find that story almost everywhere. The rest are angry that certain problems here have not been solved for years by the existing parties, so they look for an alternative.

I came to Germany with my parents in the 1990s. Both of them had university degrees, but those qualifications did not really help them much when they arrived. They ended up working in low-paying jobs in Germany's Niedriglohnsektor, which was heavily expanded through reforms under the Social Democratic Party.

I grew up in a poor neighborhood and most of the racism I experienced happened during my school years. What was interesting to me is that things changed quite a lot when I moved to a better school to get my Abitur. After I started university, I basically stopped experiencing racism. People were more open, easier to talk to, and seemed less focused on judging others based on where they came from or what they look like.

Today I work in tech. There are days when I do not speak German at all, because at work and in my private life I mostly speak English or my native language. My daily life is very different from when I was growing up.

This has made me wonder whether interpersonal racism is less about people being hard-core nazis but instead connected to people's life circumstances. I am not talking about institutional racism, which is a different issue, but about everyday interactions between regular people. In my experience, I encountered more hostility in environments with more poverty and fewer opportunities, while people I met later in education and professional life were generally much more open-minded.

Re: More German than many Germans

#296

Post by rglullis »

sveme wrote: post #290
rglullis wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pithy description of it all. If I hadn't met my (Greek) wife in 2015, I've probably would have left long ago. And to come of think of it, I think there is another aspect that influences this: Germans are not having as many kids as the immigrants, so the overwhelming majority of the kids in the kitas and schools are from immigrant families or immigrant/native mixed parents. This means that (at this stage in l…

That's a very Berlin-centric observation. Berlin is special; it's hard to extrapolate to the rest of the country.

Maybe, but a quick AI-assisted research says that Bremen has an even higher rate of births from non-German mothers than Berlin, and the data does not make the distinction between citizenship and immigration status.

Re: More German than many Germans

#297

Post by Havoc »

Author seems to adjust well. It gets tricky when high trust and low trust cultures mix and that is seen as an opportunity to be exploited. ie not paying train fares because nobody checks. That breaks the high trust model

Re: More German than many Germans

#298

Post by rglullis »

eska wrote: post #293
rglullis wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I am certified C1 German - studied in high school for 6 years. Granted, I don't like speaking German and will use English when possible, but it's not a matter of not being able to connect with them. 2) Shortly after moving in, I started dating a German woman. Lasted close to a whole year. That was more than enough time to meet a lot of her friends, I got to meet her family, etc. That was more than enough time and…

You don’t know Germany, you know Berlin. You don’t have insight into German lifestyle, you have insight into that one woman’s family’s lifestyle (and only less than a year, you’re not a family member at that point).

I'm not claiming that I know all of Germany or all Germans, I am just refuting GP's guesses.

Also, she wasn't the only German that I've met and it wasn't the case that I only met native Germans through her personal network. I also worked at Deutsche Telekom and Mercedes Benz. I've had the opportunity to interact with lots of people outside of the work environment.

Re: More German than many Germans

#299

Post by roysting »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #231
roysting wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I just copied the term from the parent post of my earlier post. In German I would have chosen "Auslaenderfeindlichkeit", which might fit a bit better. And yes, it can be irrational. I still do believe, that most people coming to Germany actually want to work for a better life. Just the problem being, that it is hard to make that happen, with Germany's failing integration and assimilation policies.

[flagged]

Re: More German than many Germans

#300

Post by arethuza »

dathinab wrote: post #242
rglullis wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm living in Berlin for 13/45 of my life, but I don't think I will ever feel integrated. As much as I tried to get around and adapt to the local culture, I quickly found myself only connecting with non-Germans, most of them from Southern Europe, and on a smaller scale from Poland and the Balkans.

I have been living in Berlin since my birth and your experience is one _many Germans have in Berlin, too_. Berlin is it's own thing, both in good and bad, I would not treat it as representative for Germany at all. 1. Berlin is the _least_ German Germany city, by far. 2. around ~20% of people living in Berlin aren't from Germany, I can't find the numbers but I think another 30-40% where not born in Berlin and likely w…

"Berlin is the _least_ German Germany city, by far."

Isn't that a common complaint in the lot of countries - people complain about London in the UK in a very similar fashion?

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