German Superstitions

After my last post, I started thinking about all the humorous superstitions that I have come across during my time in Germany. I would like to point out that I am no doctor and don’t actually know if any of these are valid or not. I just think they are funny. Also, I’m not trying to rip on Germans here. As an American, I can think of an equally long list of ridiculous superstitions and behaviors that are stereotypically American. This is meant to be funny.

1) A draft is detrimental to one’s health.

I’m not sure what the reasoning or background to this one is, but I see it all the time. If I am sitting in a train in the summer and the temperature is approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit (see below for superstition about air conditioning), I might think it is a good idea to open the tiny little window that would allow a tiny bit of airflow into the passenger compartment. Every time I have attempted this or seen it attempted by some other unknowing tourist, the idea has been shot down either by a) an old lady that will give the evil eye, stand up, march over to the window, make a big fuss and slam the window closed as hard as possible and yell “ES ZIEHT!!!” (English: There’s a draft!), march back over to her seat, sit down and glare at the offender for about a half an hour to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. b) The conductor will come by and lock all the windows as soon as the train starts moving to make sure that we don’t ever get into situation a.

2) Stale air.

This one isn’t really so unreasonable, but it is still quite funny to witness. Every German has to open every window in every room of the house for at least 20 minutes per day. It makes sense of course to air out each room. It helps avoid mold problems and such and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a German use an air freshener because of this habit. What is hilarious is when this requirement somehow conflicts with the first superstition about a draft. The problem is that if you open two windows on opposite sides of an apartment, there will be a nice breeze that flows through the apartment. This may never happen. You must first open the windows on one side of the house and after closing them you can open windows on the other side of the house. You could also open them all at once, but you must make sure that every single door is closed to ensure that no air actually moves. If you plan on leaving the room you are in, you should close the window first before opening the door, otherwise you might create a temporary draft and the door will slam behind you. Every person has their own morning ritual about airing out the apartment. It is pretty standard and all windows and balcony doors in Germany have three modes: closed, swinging open and tilting open. The “tilting open” mode is usually the only one used for airing out a room as that minimizes the draft.

3) Air Conditioning is bad for you.

I’m not sure if it is because it is “artificial air”, or because the air is dry, or what the deal is with air conditioning, but Germans are deathly afraid of it. At a minimum it will give you a cold, but it could very easily disrupt your Kreislauf (English: blood circulation). I’ve never seen an apartment or house anywhere in Munich with air conditioning. I’ve seen fewer than 10% of businesses use air conditioning in the summer, and it seems that only in recent years is it becoming standard equipment on cars, although I’m pretty sure this also only applies to imports. In the US you can’t buy a BMW without air conditioning. Here, you have to pay extra for it, since only a fool would use it anyway. The few times I’ve seen air conditioning in use here, the temperature is just 2 or 3 degrees below the outside sweltering heat, so it is pretty much useless anyway. At my office, only the server room is air conditioned. I used to keep it at 16 degrees Celsius, and I enjoyed going in there during the summer. My boss told me it would be fine to raise the temperature up to 20 degrees. Yesterday I was showing the new sysadmin the server room and he was shocked that we are running at 20 degrees instead of 25, which would be plenty cool. I think mostly they are afraid of abrupt changes in temperature.

4) Abrupt changes in temperature.

I had a German ask my advice about traveling through Death Valley once. I told him not to worry too much, since all rental cars these days have air conditioning and Death Valley is pretty cool. You drive around comfortably, stop and get out for a bit while being amazed at how ridiculously hot it is, look around, get back in the car with the A/C on full blast and drive home. He said he was pretty sure that that would severely affect his Kreislauf and was considering skipping the trip altogether.  Recently it has been quite cold here in Munich. Way below freezing a couple of days. I’ve heard complaints that the regional trains use heaters in the passenger compartments, because while it is nice and comfortable during your hour long commute, once you get to your final destination, you are pretty much doomed to instant death as soon as you step off the train into the cold outside.

5) No swimming after eating.

Now, I’ve heard this one in the US as well. I should probably submit it to Mythbusters for a final confirmation, but from what I understand, if you eat a full meal and then immediately go swimming afterward, your body will tend to cramp up, making swimming and breathing difficult and there is a possibility of drowning if you are in a deep area and unsupervised. That sounds perfectly reasonable and whether it is true or not, I can accept that and don’t plan on sneaking off to an abandoned pool right after eating a 7 course meal and jumping straight into a deep end. However the way I’ve seen German interpret this “guideline” about eating and swimming is along the lines of if you ingest anything regardless of how minute, and within precisely 30 minutes happen to submerge any part of your body in water deeper than a small puddle, not only will every muscle in your body cramp up immediately, your Kreislauf will go into shock and you’ll be dead within minutes. True story. I vividly remember when I was a child of about 11 years old, there was an outdoor swimming pool nearby and during summer vacation it was great to get a bunch of friends together and two or three of the moms would come along to supervise and we’d all go to the outdoor pool for an afternoon. The moms would usually just gossip and sunbathe and all of us kids would go swimming. There was a small water slide and a few diving boards. There was a big grassy area to just lounge around and sunbathe and hang out and there was even a small concession stand. Well, after swimming for a bit and just enjoying the afternoon, it was time for a break, so I headed back to where the moms and the towels were. Two of my friends were sitting there, one of them enjoying a popsicle and the other was eating a small basket of fries with ketchup. As is the social norm whenever you see your friend eating fries, I went ahead and reached over and grabbed one and popped it in my mouth. About 5 minutes later I decided that it was boring there and got up to go lounge with my feet in the pool in the shallow area where all the toddlers hung out. Well my foot almost got to the water when I was swept up by my friend’s mom, who was frantically screaming and rushing me back to where everyone else was and was yelling at me along the lines of “I can’t believe how foolish you are! Have your parents taught you nothing?!? You almost died just now!!!!”. Completely confused by this, I asked what miserable fate I had barely escaped thanks to her watchful eye over me. The response was “Don’t you know that you have to wait 30 minutes after eating?!? I saw you eat that french fry and I want you to sit down here for 30 minutes before you even think about going back to the pool!”.

6) Kreislauf

The German language has a neat way of turning concepts into neat little nouns that can be put into the singular very easily. In English it is more difficult to refer to ones blood circulation, because you aren’t talking about the blood itself, but rather the motion of it throughout your body through veins and arteries. Anyway in German this whole concept is known as “Kreislauf” and apparently this is the sole determinant of your current condition and you can feel the most minute changes. Now, I’m no doctor and just because I have never been able to actually *feel* the blood pumping through my body outside of my feeling my pulse, I can’t really say they are wrong about this. I just think it is funny that pretty much every German I’ve met has this at the top of their worry-list and I’ve never even heard of anything close from Americans. When conversing with Germans, it is normal to ask how things are going, how are the kids, how is the Kreislauf, etc. Pretty much everything in life can affect your Kreislauf and it is of utmost importance to not disturb it. For instance the reasoning for not eating a heavy meal in the evening is because it is bad for your Kreislauf. When a German has just returned from a trip abroad and had a long flight, you always have to ask how the flight was and the answer will almost always be “well, it was a good flight, but I can always feel it in my Kreislauf when I fly for so long”. Every aspect of a German’s life is to appease the Kreislauf. The only reason for working out, eating healthy, getting exercise, sleeping the proper amount of time each night and going to bed and getting up at the same time every day is for the Kreislauf. It is also the only reason that Germans have to have 6 weeks of vacation per year, and the only reason to go hiking in the mountains. It is to recover the Kreislauf. By law every German gets at least 4 weeks of vacation per year and most people get 5 or 6, and by law you have to use it all the year you get it, because if you don’t, your Kreislauf suffers from it. The way that Germans know when they’ve had enough to drink is because they can start to feel it in their Kreislauf. As consequence to drinking too much, Americans get hangovers. Germans get hangovers too, but don’t care about them. The real problem is the almost irreparable damage to the Kreislauf. It actually goes so far that you can go to any doctor in Germany and say that your Kreislauf just isn’t feeling like it should and he’ll immediately prescribe you two weeks off from work. You can call your boss any day and just tell him that something isn’t right with your Kreislauf and you will be sympathetically told to stay home with pay and try to relax so that you can recover.

6) Sore throat? Wear a scarf!

The only real reason to wear a scarf in Germany is to help heal a sore throat. I actually don’t see too many men wearing scarves in cold weather when they are healthy, but as soon as you start to get a cold or a sore throat, you put on a scarf and don’t take it off for a couple of weeks. Germans will wear a scarf in bed if they have a sore throat. I’ve confronted Germans about this before, like when walking into a friend’s house in mid-August and it is sweltering heat outside and inside and my friend comes to the door wearing shorts, t-shirt and a scarf. “What’s with the scarf?” – “Oh, I have a sore throat”. Perfectly logical. After asking what the scarf does for the sore throat, I just get a blank stare and something like “everybody knows that when you have a sore throat you have to wear a scarf. It is the only cure!” This is so deep in the culture and it is quite hilarious. It is so standard that all you have to do is start wearing a scarf indoors and the first person you see will offer you some tea and give you a “I hope you get well soon!” without even having to ask if you are sick. It is just a direct correlation. All people that have sore throats always wear scarves and all people wearing scarves indoors must have a sore throat. I’ll point out that there are also some gay and metrosexual men that will wear scarves indoors as a part of their outfit even when they don’t have a sore throat, but you can usually tell by the kind of scarf it is.

7) Others.

There are many other superstitions that come up from time to time, but I’ll stop here for now and I’ll update this post with more as I think of them. There are also some smaller ones, like “women who sit on concrete surfaces will become sterile” and “when riding on the subway, you have to sit facing the direction of travel”, but they aren’t u

6122 Days…

That is how many days I have waited, looked forward to, and thought yesterday would never come. I still clearly remember my very first day of school. I entered the 1st grade at Riemerling Grundschule in the outskirts of Munich, Germany on September 11th, 1990 at the ripe young age of 6 years old. Every single day for 6122 days between now and yesterday, I looked forward to that day, in which I could finally say I am done. 6122 days of dreading the grueling torture that is school.

I have struggled through math class, learned to write perfect handwriting with an ink fountain pen, learned, forgot, and re-learned the rules of grammar in English and mastered the German language, as well as gained a solid grasp on the basics and fundamentals of the Russian language, made and lost many good friends, moved many times and attended 8 different schools between 1st and 12th grade, attended college for 6 years, at two separate colleges through 5 different majors, accumulated over 300 college credits and finally, finally walked across the stage yesterday as a diploma was handed to me in front of my father, mother, stepfather, uncle, grandmother, some very close friends, and most importantly, my girlfriend, Karen, who has conquered my heart. Indeed yesterday can count to one of the greatest days of my life. No longer will I be dreading class tomorrow or the essay due next week. I have finally achieved a status in my life that I have been longing for for 6122 days. What comes next?

Tomorrow morning I will leave what has been my home for the past 11 years and embrace what has been my home for many years before that. I will be flying into Munich after a long flight and jump right into work. I am overwhelmed with sadness and joy at the same time. Joy for finally finishing something of significance in my life. Joy for going back to my favorite place on earth, for getting to see my little sister, and my brother and some close friends. Sadness for leaving behind my mom and some other close friends, and most importantly, my girlfriend, with whom I have fallen in love with.

It has definitely been an adventure, and for the first time in 6122 days I feel that I am truly free and the world is just another adventure waiting to be explored. There is nothing holding me back from pursuing my dreams and my future. I have succeeded. I have graduated. I am done. I am now Alumni. However, if the University thinks I am going to join their Alumni Association and give them even more money, they are definitely mistaken. I am already in the possession of the most expensive piece of paper I have ever seen, I don’t need another.

Fare Dodger

Today, in one of my German classes, we watched a short film and then wrote an essay on it. I thought the movie was great and found that it had made it’s way onto youtube. There is a slight idiomatic play on words in the title, as it is called “Schwarzfahrer“, which literally means “Black Rider”, but really is referring to a fare dodger, just as “Schwarzarbeiter” (black worker) refers to someone who “works under the table” or dodges income taxes.

The film is about 10 minutes long, but the end makes it worth every second of built-up anger that one feels towards that woman.

Tongue Twister

I heard a German tongue twister today that I thought was pretty funny. Try to say this ten times fast:
“Junge Burschen, die vor einem Schokoladenladen Laden laden, laden Schokoladenladen-Mädchen gerne zum tanzen ein.”

Ironically my Russian professor taught it to me. Here’s the English translation: “Young boys that are loading boxes in front of a chocolate store, gladly invite chocolate store girls to go dancing.”

Not quite as funny in English. Thanks, Dr. Samuel!

Oot

Okay.  Seriously.  What is the pronunciation rule here?  “Boot” rhymes with “Loot” and “Soot” rhymes with “Foot”.  So is there some rule that says that double vowels that follow certain consonants get pronounced different than others?  Or is this just completely random? Please explain.

Foreign Language

I stumbled upon a quote the other day that I thought was very interesting:

“Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

via Jacob Huber

They’re language, its effecting me, two!

If you didn’t notice anything wrong with the title of this post, please quit your job, drop out of college, stop whatever you are doing, go find your 3rd grade teacher, and smack them for failing miserably. Seriously. Why is it that I see these mistakes over and over again? I’m not perfect either, but I do pride myself on at least getting most of my mother tongue written down correctly. I have some comma mistakes here and there. Every now and again, I make some small grammatical error. But there are some words out there, that I believe it is extremely important to know the meaning and correct spelling of. Even though everyone that reads it, will still know what you’re trying to say, it is that much more important, that people learn the correct way, so that the incorrect way doesn’t become even more mainstream. So here we go:

• Their – Possessive. As in: That is their house. That is their car. The house and the car belong to them. Clear?
• They’re – In the english language, apostrophes usually denote a missing letter and/or a combination of two words. They are. Period.
• There – Over there. Not here. There. Alright?

Round two:

• To – “I sent this letter to her.” “Let’s go to the store.”
• Too – Pretty much a synonym for “also”. “I wanna go, too!” Notice how it always has a comma preceding it in this context? It is also used for extremeties like “I am too tired”.
• Two – Whoever made up the English language even went to the extra trouble of adding a silent ‘w’ to this word, so that you wouldn’t get it mixed up. This is only used for the number 2.

Round three (this is probably the hardest to remember, therefore the most important):

• Its – Possessive. Belonging to it. “Its hat.” The hat belongs to it.
• It’s – Combination of ‘it’ and ‘is’ or ‘has’. “It’s a long way to the top.” or “It’s been a long time since we’ve been there”

Round 4:

• Effect – This is a noun. Don’t try to use it as a verb. It doesn’t make any sense. “What kind of effect does this have on me?”
• Affect – This is a verb. “How does this affect me?”

Okay. I hope you all can see that the similarity in pronunciation of these words makes it that much more important to learn the difference between them. Or else pretty soon everyone would be using these words interchangeably in any written context. Oh wait. That already happens. I’m not pointing fingers at individuals that make these mistakes. I am more disgusted at how many teachers didn’t correct them, and how many subsequent high school and college teachers continue to let their students make these mistakes. Am I the only one that had a decent 3rd grade teacher? I see college students make these kinds of mistakes and they don’t get corrected. Just because someone makes a grammar mistake in a Computer Science class, doesn’t mean it isn’t the instructor’s responsibility to correct it. Language isn’t just something for English class. It’s used by everyone everywhere.

Update: Okay, apparantly, everybody doesn’t read my blog, because I just saw another one that hurts… so here is Round 5:

• Then – This is a time reference. “Now and then”, “Back then”, etc..
• Than – This is used in comparative statements. “I have more money than you.” “I’m cooler than you!”

I know it’s just one letter difference… but… it’s only one letter… so it shouldn’t be too hard to memorize, okay?

Urlaub in Oberbayern

Yes, that is correct. Vacation in upper Bavaria. I just bought my plane ticket to Germany for next month. I’ll be leaving from Portland International bright and early on Wednesday the 6th of September, and I’m not coming back until the 22nd (Sorry, Zach, I won’t see you there, but I’ll see you before you leave). I’ll be flying into Frankfurt, perhaps tour around Baden-Württemberg for a few days and visit some good friends that I have made over the last year. After that, I’ll be heading over to my home town of Munich to see my dad and stepmom and the best little sister a guy could have. I’ll be spending a few days in the Czech Republic to see my brother. And of course, one can’t forget that the largest beer festival of all time just happens to be in Munich starting on the 16th. That’s right, everyone. Have fun going to your little parties next month, because I will be drinking the best beer in the world with six million other people, in the greatest city in the world. O-zapft is’! Not to mention, I’ll be eating the best food for two weeks: Döner Kebab, Wiener Schnitzel, real Italian Pizza, etc.

I hope everyone doesn’t get too jealous. Seriously, though, I am going to be having more fun than anyone else. Sorry. But I am in need of a vacation. I haven’t taken any time off for a year, and I have accomplished a lot this year. I’ve improved my grade point average at school. I have received two promotions at work. I’ve been taking summer classes, and I’ve been working hard on finishing my degrees, and I sold my car. So this vacation is very much needed. And two days after I return, I have to jump right back into school, taking an even larger load of classes. Besides, it isn’t all fun and games. Going to Germany will give me a good chance to work on losing my American accent that somehow crept up on me in recent years. Since I am a German major at the university, I see this as an academic experience. Alright, it’s back to work for me for now. You’ll be hearing from me from the other side of the big pond in about a month!

Oops, Microsoft

I am a user of open source software. I love it. Unfortunately, I do use a few pieces of closed source software from time to time. But if I have to pay for it, I tend to go without. Since with the software world, nothing is guaranteed, I don’t like paying for something that probably has problems. Well, I do still have the original copy of Windows on my notebook computer, even though I never use it, since I have Linux on it also. And things just tend to work better…

My notebook was purchased in Germany and thus has Windows XP Professional in German. This is pretty cool. It is interesting, seeing what kind of words Germans use for computer stuff. One would be surprised how many English words are used in a German fashion. Anyway, my point is, I kind of have a problem with Microsoft, since it is soooo expensive to buy a copy of Windows, yet there are always stupid security updates that make you restart your computer. If I have to pay for an OS, I want it to be fixed before I get it, and not have them tell me 4 years after it was released that there is yet another security flaw that needs fixed and then they make me restart my computer. But that is neither here nor there. I’m sure you can find about 10 million other people that rant about Microsoft daily. But, here’s what really ticked me off recently. If one has to pay for an operating system, from a commercial company, in fact the ‘leader’ in the market, one would think that if nothing else (and seriously nothing else), they would at least get their grammar right.

I recently plugged a piece of hardware into my computer that wasn’t recognized by windows (same piece of hardware worked right away without another thought under Linux), and here is what I got:

Yep. My German Professor would be angry at this. Its the choo choo train. And Microsoft, while rolling in all of their money, didn’t even take the time to double check this one. The word ‘Mal’ is a neuter noun, therefore ‘Das Mal’. According to my German Professor’s choo choo train theory, ‘dies’ goes to ‘dieses’ when used with a neuter noun. See? They got it right on the next line. ‘Jedes Mal’ is correct, but why didn’t they fix the ‘diese Mal’? This kind of bugs me. Because you know that they probably know about this, and they aren’t going to fix it. Because who wants to receive an automatic update that changes one word, and requires a restart. Why couldn’t they just fix it right when they translated it the first time? I can’t imagine someone didn’t get paid a lot of money to translate Windows into German. Or any other language for that matter. I mean, I use Suse Linux on my desktop machine, which is a distro based out of Germany, and in the English version I find grammatical mistakes from time to time, but then again, I didn’t pay for it. And my guess is, that whoever translated it, probably didn’t get paid much either, if anything at all. So its fine. Plus, I don’t have to buy a bunch of third-party software, just to make sure that my machine is “safe”…

Germanisms

My German Professor always corrects me when I am using an “americanism” in my German speech. For instance, in English, if we were to talk about something that happened in a certain year, we would say “In 1999, …”. In German, we would say, “In the year 1999, …”, or “1999, …”, but never “In 1999, …”, even though, the word “in” has the same meaning in English and German. Since Germans tend to use a lot of American phrases, and one would indeed hear this incorrect German from time to time, it is known as an “americanism”. These are getting more and more common in colloquial German lately. I have come up with a few Germanisms, to go the other way. This just gets funny.

Let us take some English words, “eventually”, “actual”, and “to mean something”. The equivalent words in German are, “irgendwann, endlich”, “eigentlich”, and “meinen”. Nothing special, although, the word “meinen” in German, can mean two different things in English. “to mean something”, i.e. “I said this, but I meant that”, but it can also mean “to say something”, i.e. “I said that”. Then there are two other German words, “eventuell”, and “aktuell”. These mean “possibly”, and “new” or “up-to-date”, respectively. So here it is, hold on to your seats:

German: “Er meinte, wir müssten eventuell unsere Software aktualisieren.”

English translation: “He said, we possibly need to update our software.”

Germanism (incorrectly translating the German words into the English words that sound the same):

“He meant, we eventually have to actualize our software.”

hahahahahhaha

Seriously, that is funny. This is so funny. I want to hear someone say this to me. Unfortunately, most German exchange students that come here every year have already mastered the English language, so I don’t get this kind of amusement. Well, that was my Germanism. Hope you liked it.