How to be German

I sometimes follow, and now have added to the bloglist (at the top right of this page) a blog called "German Joys." A large part of our daily conversation is the cultural differences that we notice between Americans and Germans. The blogger of German Joys is, I think, some kind of professor in Berlin. Here is an excerpt from his recent post on his evaluation of the degree of cultural integration of a Ghanian cab driver he recently encountered on holiday in Duesseldorf:

A case in point is the cab driver who took me back from the airport after a holiday visit. I fly into Duesseldorf, and to my delight, I find that it's well below freezing, and there's virginal snow everywhere. But that's exactly what's pissing off Joseph, my tall Ghanaian cabdriver. "I hate the snow," he explains in excellent German. "You clean your car, and then 5 minutes after you start driving, it's completely covered in dirt again." On the successful-integration scale, score that +7 for bitching, +5 for daily car maintenance.

But Joseph wasn't done bitching -- not by a long shot! Further targets included "morons" who don't know how to drive in the cold, and "blind" tram drivers who cut you off without even realizing it. Score +10 for yet more bitching. But then he worked himself into a real lather reminding himself of something that happened at breakfast, taken in the form of a sausage on a roll eaten at a roadside stand (+3). A car drove by and "purposely swerved into a puddle, just to cover me in dirty water!" At this point, Joseph became truly outraged: "Imagine that! He went out of his way just to splash me! What is this world coming to?"

But then Joseph did something that, however delightful, dented his integration score: He literally raised his fist and began shaking it, repeating over and over: "May God punish him! May God punish that man!" My analysis: cursing general depravity of fellow citizens, general decay of public morals: +5, but shaking fist: -5, apparent belief in Supreme Being: -5, and mentioning same to stranger: -5.

Oh well, I say we let him stay anyway.