6/15/2016

"But why?" My subjective observations of German culture

I plan to put here my observations about Germans, but not stuff like "oh how can they use this kind of packaging for cheese", as I think this is not that relevant for someone who thinks of moving here. I want to put here such kind of observations about people that was exactly what I would wish to know when I was about to move to Germany.

Reaction to unexpected


I still do not know what is the motivation of such reaction, but in Germany it happens to me really often: when I say that I do, or did, or I am going to do (especially if it is about the future) something that is not common to do (around here), people will ask me "but why? why would you do that?!". And it is not only the content of the question, at the time of asking it they seem to be really unsettled by the fact that was just revealed to them. To me it feels that they are upset that I am about to do something that is not the mainstream thing to do, and try to stop me from that - but I am aware that this is just my impression, and the real motivation, or feelings behind it could be different. At the beginning it would make me feel guilty of doing things my way, and after some time - when I realised what has just happened - it would make me really really angry at those people. In the end I understood that this was all just my own reaction to their words.. but still I wonder, how it comes to that. I have been often pondering about it, and I think that the next possible explanation to me is that many people here are afraid of unknown. But, doesn't this explanation seem a bit too naive too?

I also noticed that something similar happens when they are able to somehow explain to themselves why. I say I am going to do that and that, they have this terrified face expression, and after a second they say with smile "ah, probably because of this and that", and then they go back to what they have been doing. While saying that "no, that's not the reason", I notice that they are at all not interested whether their explanation was correct or not. It is enough that there is one. And, btw, an explanation "because I feel so" is something totally incomprensible to them.

So maybe it's some national paranoia of fear of not having consistency in facts? Of needing to have cause->result pattern in everything they do or observe? A kind of mental framework, that, sadly, forces many people to think "in the box" throughout all their lives.



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