An American Among Strangers: April 2009

Contrary to Earlier Experience, Spring Does Come to Germany
Botanical Gardens (München)

As I sat in a darkened theater in Josephstadt to watch the story of the (lengthy) downfall of a merchant family in Lübeck, I was surprised to see a good-natured lampooning of those friendly Germans from the south, the Bayerisch. As I watched the pointed references to lederhosen, alpenhorns, and beer, I though back to how I spent part of my Spring break there and wondered, how accurate can this be? The answer I’m proud to say, is quite.

Now there are doubtlessly those among you that would wonder, do four days spent in München [Munich] qualify me to adequately describe the true nature of Bavarian culture? Probably no, but does it qualify me to make stereotypical over-generalizations about it? Yes indeed! That said, let the poorly qualified analysis begin.

I've Seen This Building ergo I Know München
The Frauenkirche

The best way to think about Bayern (Bavaria to the English speaking world) is to take into account the fact that it was an independent kingdom for the better part of a thousand years. Folks, Texas was independent for about ten and look what happened to it. Now magnify that by a lot (namely 100), give it a royal family, a separate religion (Catholicism) from most of the rest of Germany, a different dialect, and remove any sort of ethnic diversity from the picture. You’ve now got a pretty good idea of Germany’s largest province.

An American Enjoys a Traditional Beverage Responsibly
Beergarden

The best part is, you probably never even had to do that, chances are that your idea of Germany (if you are American) is probably actually Munich. Blond folks, large pretzels, oom-pa-pa music, lederhosen, yodeling, beer, Wurst, the Alps, BMWs, you name it, it is probably either a Bayerisch specialty, or in the case of particular reactionary political movements from the middle of the twentieth century, just originated there. Remember, this was “our sector” which means we, of course, tend to confuse it with all of Germany. All of these things are in fact there. There is of course also an incredible economic machine as well as a vibrant cultural scene (groups like The Blue Rider emerged here) but tourists tend to forget this as they order another liter (because anything less is just an embarrassment, unless, of course, you are a woman) of beer.

It's good to be Max
The Maximilianeum

But this just leads the rest of the country to look at the province as being debatably part of Germany. This is apparent in part because over time it took most of artistic cues from Italy (as can be seen by its Southern Gothic and Baroque architecture), remained staunchly Catholic during such traumatic moments as the Thirty Years War, and even got promoted to a kingship by Napoleon. More relevant to the present, the stereotype of the overweight (and incredibly wealthy) pretzel-wielding Bayerisch man along with his 2+ blond children and physically perfect wife, still seems to persist both domestically and abroad (If you want a good characterization of this go see “Go Trabi Go”) despite the fact that fitness appears to be the religion of choice in the region. This is of course in contrast to the stereotypical portrait of the perfectly punctual, normally black clad, eternally solemn, protestant northerner.

Surfing
The English Garden

Although neither picture is actually true, the latter unfortuntately taking cues from British wartime views of “the Prussian menace,” northerners do look vaguely crestfallen when tourists seem to think that Hamburg will be filled with Tuba players in Tyrolean hats. All of this means, it has an independent streak that would make any Texan jealous, and most of the rest of the country is ok with that. It even has its own branch of the conservative party!

The Chinese Tower

If You've Been To München You Know What This Is

Munich itself is what you’d expect for a city that took the brunt of World War Two (Note: being called the “Birthplace of the Movement” by previously alluded to reactionary parties did not help long term historical preservation). But like most of the country it rebuilt itself in surprising speed, retooled its image, hosted the Olympics, made the leap to high technology, and hosts one heck of a soccer team. All the while it remained small in feel (natives refer to it as “a town with a million people” or the millionendorf) and a tourist hot-spot for its ability to stay close to its traditional culture [note: most Americans pronounce this as: Beer]. That said, whether they speak real German or not however, remains debatable.

Spacey Architecture
The Olympic Stadium

Coming Home

Subway in the 13th

Things I miss about America:

24-hour stores
Things being open on Sunday
English
J-walking
People knowing where New Jersey is
The Ocean
The fact that diversity means more than Eastern Europeans
Cheap and greasy Burrito Joints
“Sup”
ATMs that give out twenty-dollar bills rather than hundred euro notes
Decent Pizza
SVO word order
An unshakable belief in the transformative power of creative destruction, that somehow despite all of the hardships before us progress, even when we succeed.
Tall buildings
Driving around in cars at odd hours of the night
The way people say good-morning even if they don’t know you
The way no one does that in New York
The ability to refer to a girl as a friend without making it seem like she is your girlfriend (can’t do it in German)
Level floors
Sensible opening hours
Delis
Drying Machines (but only sometimes).
Green Money
A healthy appreciation for sarcasm
Art-Deco buildings
Small Colleges
NPR
Having more than one big city in your country
Having more than three TV stations
The fact that there never were dukes, kings, or knights.
The man who stood in front of the UPenn stadium last summer and preached to the commuters every day last Summer.
Making fun of Canadians

You