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More German than many Germans

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Re: More German than many Germans

#311

Post by rglullis »

sveme wrote: post #309
rglullis wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we split between second-generation (i.e, both parents born in Germany) as "native" and everyone else (i.e, anyone with at least one parent not born in Germany) as "immigrants", I'd guess that number would skew heavily towards "immigrants" in all major cities. I could be wrong, but I haven't found a way to reliably check the data.

Doubtful, honestly, though from what you described with Berlin, this feels like more of a problem of Berlin being a very transient city. A lot of people never fully settling there, especially so called expats, despite living there for decades. A lot of people being part of the cosmopolity, moving from one hype city, one startup, to the other. That’s okay, but it doesn’t work for everyone.

Your view of current immigrants is not that different from the Germans in the 70s who thought that the Turks and Vietnamese looking for jobs in Germany would go back to their homes after a while. Some of them did, but enough of them stayed to become a substantial part of the population.

Anyway, like I said there is a good chance I am wrong about it Germany in general. But I'd argue that in Berlin that is pretty much the case, regardless of how large the "transient" people are compared to "longer-term settlers". Once people start having kids they stop hopping around, so I'd guess that the amount of "non-native" children that dominate the schools have immigrant parents who are mostly settled.

Re: More German than many Germans

#313

Post by alphabeta3r56 »

bspinner wrote: post #214
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.

Would like to hear your thoughts on why that is the case.

Not the OP but to give you an example. Spines on books in German are written one way along the spine. While generally in English books it's the other way round.

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1n5booe/do_all_ger...

Both have their trade-offs and most cultures are chill about it, but a lot of Germans will swear by the way it is done in Germany being the logical method. It is a vrry homogenizing culture that way.

It also goes for most things in life like sentence case vs title case for headings. Pairing of flavors in dishes (although that is changing).

All in all, it gives you the idea of "there's a german way to do things which is the correct way, please adjust."

To be clear, there are some German ways which I think have much more far reaching consequences, and one about should argue about them, like attitude toward labor laws or LGBT stance. (And whichever way you feel about it, you can agree that the stance has far reaching consequences). And Germans will club all of the different level of seriousness together at the same level with whether you have a accent in your German, for example, when considering how integrated you are.

And that is incredibly frustrating and makes one feel left out. And it is not just immigrants. I know people who moved from Hamburg to Erlangen who felt more left out than me who moved from India to Erlangen (mostly because I had a German girlfriend at that point.)

Re: More German than many Germans

#314

Post by aix1 »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #235
mr_mitm wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, a German, went to Switzerland for vacation once. I talked to a Swiss guy about how I like Switzerland and all that. I told him how impressed I was with how organized everything is and how well everything works. The train system and public transport in general is wonderful compared to the one we have in Germany, for example. To my surprise, he said something along the line of "yeah well, it only looks like that fro…

Do you know, that by now Switzerland frequently refuses German trains to enter the country, because of delays? They don't want Deutsche Bahn mismanagement and delays to affect their own train network. Very reasonable to put a stop to this.

What they do is very interesting, though IMO "refuse to enter the country" sounds harsher than it actually is.

If an inbound German train is late to Basel by more than 20 minutes, the Swiss run their own substitute train from Basel (they keep rolling stock on standby). The replacement train runs to the original timetable so that local passengers are unaffected. The late train is then pulled out of service at Basel (there are frequent onward connections).

They do something similar at Schaffhausen.

Trains that are late into St. Margrethen are made to queue behind local traffic.

Re: More German than many Germans

#315

Post by Hrun0 »

shevy-java wrote: post #162

> I believe in social democracy, and this is a country that calls itself one and mostly behaves like it. Meanwhile in Turkey itself, Erdogan abolished the secular separation and transitioned into a de-facto dictatorship, where religion plays a much stronger role than before. This presents a huge problem because such a Turkey simply does not fit into Europe. It fits a lot more to arabic and persian culture, though Tur…

Your comment relies on a racist double standard. A person should not be judged by their country of origin or held personally responsible for the actions of that country.

> He speaks perfect German, though.

No, Özdemir doesn’t speak perfect German. He speaks German with a heavy Swabian accent, which sounds very rural to the average German.

Re: More German than many Germans

#316

Post by rsynnott »

arethuza wrote: post #300
dathinab wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's a very common complaint in countries where one city is disproportionately dominant (London for the UK or Dublin for Ireland, say). It's arguably a bit more surprising for Berlin, because Berlin isn't so disproportionately huge (Berlin's metro area is 6 million out of 80 million, versus London's 15 million out of 70 million or Dublin's 2 million out of 5 million), and because Germany has other comparably sized cities (Hamburg's metro area population is about 5 million). You'd expect it to be a bit less of its own place just on that basis.

Re: More German than many Germans

#317

Post by rsynnott »

bambax wrote: post #13

The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like…

Huh. I'm Irish; it would never occur to me to try this. Buses will sometimes delay departure if someone is visibly running for the stop, but that's as far as it goes.

I think maybe France might be an outlier there. Honestly, opening the door in random places seems kind of unsafe.

EDIT: As people are doing stories of public transport in different countries, here's mine. I was getting the BART in San Francisco carrying luggage. The driver _leaned out the window_ to warn me that this one wasn't going to the airport. As it happened, that was what I was going for; I was going elsewhere and then on to the airport later. But it was nice of her to check (and very unusual; don't think I've been anywhere else where train drivers interact with the public at all). Always think about that when I hear people complaining about San Francisco.

Re: More German than many Germans

#318

Post by Propelloni »

asdf88990 wrote: post #260
Propelloni wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said the same when Japanese car makers were trashing European and US manufacturers in the 1980s. Yet they adapted. Then they said the same when the South Koreans trashed them, yet they adapted. Now they say the same about the Chinese. Sure, past performance is no indicator of future performance, but all the doom-saying and hysterics are just that, fear of the unknown.

They adopted in the sense of surviving. Considering their head start and massive government support for the industry, their market share compared to Japanese and Korean cars is a joke, with the Chinese it will get even worst because this time they will be pushed out of their home market too. This comes from a die hard bmw fan. Facts over feelings.

I'm not a car fan of any kind or shape. I'm talking about things that happened. I say let's wait and see. You say you know the future. You tell me "facts over feelings".

I accept your negative outlook and respect your right to hold that opinion. But, and I'm saying this in the most respectful way possible, let's have a little intellectual honesty here, please. Your statement is more speculation than mine.

Re: More German than many Germans

#319

Post by rsynnott »

14u2c wrote: post #124
beeforpork wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The driver is not allowed to open the door anywhere but at a bus stop, the company running the bus forbids it. Quite strictly, actually. I think it is mainly because of insurance things. It is the same in a traffic jam when you are on the bus and the next bus stop is just a few meters away, and the bus is stuck and nothing moves -- impatient people will get angry because they want to leave the bus, but the driver is…

Is it typical for a company to run the busses? Somewhat interesting as that's one thing in the US that is rarely privatized. The driver, etc. will be a direct employees of the municipality.

It will often be a company owned by the state.

In Ireland, most buses are run by CIE, a state company. In Dublin, for the last couple of decades, some routes have been run by GoAhead, a private company (Dublin Bus (part of CIE) and GoAhead tender for the routes). It's been a fascinating experiment in privatisation; the buses all use TFI livery, so the only way to tell whether your route is run by Dublin Bus or GoAhead, besides looking it up, is that if it's Dublin Bus, it'll just be late; if it's GoAhead it won't show up at all. For all that people complain about public sector inefficiency, private companies turn out to be very, very bad at competing with the public sector.

Re: More German than many Germans

#320

Post by rsynnott »

inatreecrown2 wrote: post #54
bambax wrote: post #13

The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like…

This was such an unusual thing for me coming from Germany to Italy. The Bus driver would stop at seemingly random places to pick up or drop people off. Once he stopped at the cafe to pick up his newspaper!

Was this a comparable environment (big city vs big city, or rural vs rural)? This is a thing for rural services in Ireland (one type of service does this officially; you can ask them to pick you up at your house!), but very much not one for urban services, say.
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