JSchool::Grad Students

shopping u.s. american in a german small town (i am erican sequel)

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:25:58 +0200

just as much as i can't stop looking for germany in the united states, i've been finding myself smiling when discovering the united states in germany.

the perfect blend of u.s. and german stereotypes for tongue and tummy: "bagel bavaria", a sesame bagel with pork roast with crackling/crust [Krustenbraten] and cole slaw [Krautsalat] for immediate consumption as the label promises. seen in a local edeka brand supermarket of zeitz, saxony-anhalt.

another curious combination of typical german and u.s. foodie elements: dark chocolate from an east german chocolate manufactury in weißenfels, saxony-anhalt, meets cranberry, the fruit which is probably most identified with the united states.

apropos, you can also purchase the merry berry in its almost pure form as sugared dessert in jars.

more subtle but also a reminder of a hottie of u.s. food influenced by latin american immigrants, chili in swiss lindt chocolate.

talking about hot, a lonely stack of salsa jars, medium, is the only red latin american dip offered in the kaufland supermarket branch of zeitz east. u.s. shelves would parade rows of salsa in increasing hotness.

technically an italian product by ferrero brand, nutella mysteriously always arises as the specter of german breakfast worldwide. here it's sold in a "to go" variety. coffee is not the only thing to take along anymore. maybe a certain mermaid-run shoppe needs to update its inventory.

when simple u.s. marshmallows are not enough there are still peach mallows to be had in germany.

a staple of the average u.s. diet, peanut butter [Erdnussmus above], has found a hidden home in the organic section of a cvs/pharmacy style store, here dm brand drugstore. it's accompanied by its close relative, almond butter [Mandelmus above].

brownies, but also blondies, and especially muffins in contrast seem to have become also a staple in german supermarket baking aisles.

the variety includes chocolate cherry muffins, ...

vanilla pirate muffins with "awesome stickers" as the box promises,

... apple muffins (above) and "juice" [saftige] muffins with pink icing topped by white and pink sugar hearts (below), of course only a serving suggestion.

apart from the powdery baking mixes, muffins in germany also come in...

...liquid form. as goes for pancakes. the batter is offered in so called shaking bottles [Schüttelflaschen]...

...and in ready-to-be-fried pieces (below).

ten of them per bag cost arout $1.20. of course, it's not enough to call them by their english name in a german supermarket, they have to be called "american" in addition.

after your cart is crowded with cranberries, salsa, muffins, peach mellows, and bavariarized bagels, the impulse shopping zone at the cash register gives the customer one last chance to catch u.s. style sweets. pick your smoothie candy: tropical taste or lime-lemon-cherry juice filling? either way, it's the perfect cherry (juice) on top of your u.s. shopping trip in a small town german supermarket.

german soccer ubiquity II (i am erican sequel)

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:19:19 +0200

despite the german loss against the spanish, soccer is still in the air. although the local paper called the upcoming game of germany against uruquay superfluous, germans cling on to the bitter end. the flags are still flying. here are another few examples of local soccer spirit

a smart investment in soccer gear was done by this fabric-selling store, which sells fabric. instead of the ubiquitous national colors, a refreshing green, white and black flag rooted for a more inclusive soccer style.

the kaufland supermarket bakery continued the theme concentrating on baking balls rather than cake with black, red, and yellow icing. (at least i haven't spotted on so far -- the national flag and colors on sheet cakes, muffins, and cookies are a common theme in the u.s. stores).

another u.s. item that smartly stays out of the national debates. this "gamemaker" ketchup is supposedly a win for every fan...

...just as much as these hard-boiled and neutrally black-dotted soccer eggs. note the green label advertised them as organic. i wonder what "Bio"-ingredients the black color is made off.

even more creatively this u.s. staple -- now found in great variety in german baking aisles -- has been turned into a "Halbzeit" [half time break] snack. take your pick: bacon-onion [Schinken-Zwiebel], tasmanian pepper [Tasmanischer Pfeffer], or chakalaka -- whatever that means.

if u.s. pastries combined with tasmanian chakalaka are too creative for you, here's a real basic no soccer fan can afford to miss: a german flag roughly 28 by 20 inches for just $2.45.

and as car lovers (a love which i think is shared by germans as well as americans), the mirror skins are an extra that sets you and your motorized darling apart ... from the ordinarily flagged metal box on wheels.

the night the german soccer nation fell (i am erican sequel)

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:27:10 +0200

even these supermen couldn't rescue the battle of the night against the fierce fighters in fire red uniform from iberia.

despite support from the local police...

...little cowboys in full gear with hat, flag, and vuvuzela (formerly known as a plastic horn)...

...kings with crowns and capes...

...and a strategically positioned free hanging screen for everyone's eyeballs, the soccer gladiators of the holy roman empire of the german nation didn't succeed in the african arena.

props such as wigs...

...sorcerer's hats...

...and magic pouches with whistles couldn't do the trick.

and the crowd on the bleachers in the coliseum, aka the old market in the small town of zeitz, in the east german federal state of saxony-anhalt, seemed to have an inkling that the roman empire of the german nation was already crumbling.

while wee ones still waved the flags hopefully...

...head-to-toe immersion in the right colors glowed toward victory...

...and ancient liquid food flowed freely in anticipation of a glorious celebration, defeat was already brewing in the grassy arena.

alas, realizing the loss was hard. luckily some very large black, red, and yellow colored handkerchiefs were conveniently nearby...

...to wipe away the tears that accompanied...

collective mourning.

thus ended the holy roman empire of the german soccer nation.

german soccer ubiquity (i am erican sequel)

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:27:36 +0200

cars with symmetrically positioned baby flags similar to horns are seen everywhere on german streets these days

germans show flag again. of course, it's part of the soccer madness surrounding the ongoing world cup. after leaving the unites states shortly before the yearly july 4 independence day celebration, it feels like still being there where blue, white and red colors dominated supermarkets and homes. just substitute the blue and white with black and yellow and keep the red: national pride german style.

just across where i am staying a big flag in the window signals support for our team.

some like it subtler with a festival-like chain of baby flags, also just around the corner of my temporary home.

business can't afford to lag behind. flying a flag is obligatory for good sales it seems.

and the one or other decorative soccer element at the meat counter in a supermarket pleases the (soccer) eye balls.

for germans for whom the national colors outside are not enough, m&m brand coulnd't pass up the opportunity to sell a yellow, brown, and red variety for consumption.

gummi bear fans won't have to suffer either, an appropriate snack to accompany the games is readily available. why it is called football, however, with two soccer balls even in the word is beyond me. maybe the one "o" in soccer was not enough to express suppoort [mispelling intended].

getting ready to drain the sorrow of a maybe-loss with kick&fun liqueur. the question just remains who gets kicked out of the match.

but there are plenty of soccer balls around to practice for the big finale.

whole corners in each supermarket are dedicated to turn soccer madness into cash and prepare customers for all aspects of the soccer experience.

for instance with "germany water" or...

... world cup toilet paper when soccer sweets have gotten too much.

in any case tchibo brand will keep you seated comfortably -- if you can keep from jumping up for cheering. (at least you'll land softly).

apropos cheering, of course, temporary sticky tattoos, found in a local book store, are always good for the right make-up.

for a less candy-oriented soccer diet, a local bakery offers african inspired "bafana south african corn bread", "world champion rolls", and "africans" -- a doughy cookie the size of a saucer with a chocolate or sugar coding on the bottom.

and if despite all this soccer fare is not getting you into the appropriate mood, this bakery will even bake the emotions for you!

the germanness of portland and beyond (i am erican sequel)

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:47:09 +0200

so they are true. at least the two of the three hypotheses i heard about the west coast and its northwestern emerald city, portland, oregon. maybe you remember, they included earthy colored garments, a laid-back attitude, and a europeanness to the place.

as goes for the garments, people don't strut along in business suits, ties, costumes and high heels as much. but earthy tones, i don't know. i was surprised to see some dark-clad punks with the appropriately spiky hairdos. as for the dress i was happy to take...the weather just doesn't care for showing my own west coast adjusted piece of clothing.

coming to point two, the cooler approach to life, that's a definite yes. i am still getting used to cars which don't try to chase me down like a rabbit when i cross at the white striped part of the road meant for pedestrians. they even slow down if i don't have a green signal or if there is a lack of signal at all. i am still suspicious that they just want to lull me in safety before one nastily rushes by narrowly to scare me back into dc street thinking. there, drivers are colorblind squeezing by whenever they can. twice i had to show facial disdain to machos on wheels to reign in their trespassing into my green lighted zone. at grocery stores cashiers recognize regular customers and chat about upcoming trips. one even came out of her booth to hug an old lady she knew. another information booth person called a bookstore for me to find out the address that lonely planet had screwed up. yes, west coasters are coasting rather than rushing.

point three, the european feel. i had to smile when i saw the rails on the road in portland. green streetcars fighting for space with smaller metal boxes on wheels. yes, that is a reminder of the nice local public infrastructures in germany (just as the amtrak train system connecting the smaller and bigger cities in the northwest between at least portland and seattle). my smile extended when i finally had the chance to size up the german section of the city of books i was promised.

one of the different entrances to powell's city of books in the pearl district in northeast portland, oregon.

after entering the giant labyrinthine store maps and information boards helped to guide me to the desired book heaven.

color-coded rooms divide the city into neighborhoods. my destination was in the red section which includes travel and foreign language literature. up the stairs...

besides a whole german aisle, there were extensive collections of spanish and french literature in the respective languages, you could also find mayan, hindi, arabic, norwegian, africaans, you name it.

the german aisle offered the greatest selection of german dictionaries i have seen in a u.s. books store, rows of grammar books and a selection of german and other classics and 20th century german literature. thomas mann, günter grass, bernhard schlink, but also the 2010 nobel prize winner for literature herta müller with her current book called Atemschaukel. müller's book was the most recent i could spot.

fortunately the man restocking the german aisle struck up a conversation with me when he saw me searching up and down the aisle with a list of books in my hand. alas, most of the books i was looking for were too current. he explained, partially in german which he learnt via studying in germany and in german studies in the region, most books find their way to the aisle via donors. that makes the used books, which were in very good shape, cheap. the five copies of a couple of classics and two interesting finds cost an average price of $3 to $4 [€2.40 to €3.20 as of today]. in contrast, he said, new imported hardcover books used to cost $29 [€23.25] a couple of years ago. now they go for $45 or more [€36]. indeed, herta müller's Atmenschaukel sold for $47 [€36.60].

apart from the extensive selection of german literature in the region (in seattle i found a well-stocked newsstand called bulldog news & espresso selling current Spiegel, Focus, and Neon magazines), a couple of other features reminded me of my homeland. without searching i came across german food twice in the past couple of weeks without even looking for it -- guess what i found?

even more obvious where bike lanes and recycling bins. but the first item that made me smile when i landed in emerald city were the green colored handles on the airport toilets to save water by flushing only a little [Sparspülung]!

for a split second i thought i was in germany.

bratwurst, beer, and bread -- german food in the u.s. northwest (i am erican sequel)

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:40:51 +0200

bratwurst, beer, and bread is the gustatory triumvirate of german food in the united states.

without hunting for the known flesh products my favorite u.s. american and i stumbled upon the german beacons of taste abroad twice in two weeks: omi's german deli [granny's german deli] in vancouver, washington and uli's Bierstube [uli's cozy beer house] inside pike place market in seattle, washington. the bread came in form of Vollkornbrot [whole grain bread] produced and sold by the pearl bakery in the pearl district in northeast portland, oregon.

omi, that is granny, offered sausages, schnitzel and potato salad at a booth during the saturday market in vancouver, wa, a city just north of portland, or. we had no time to try this one. the other one we did try.

my favorite u.s. american was once again my meat tester. (as a vegetarian it's hard to test the pretty one-sided meat-oriented german dishes on u.s. tables.) we chose a rather mild Thüringer Rostbratwurst [grilled sausage in Thuringian style, one of the 16 federal german states] and an andouli sausage for a spicy counterpart.

i was contend with a big pile of fries because it was accompanied by curry ketchup that reminded me of the ketchup with ate during childhood birthday parties and interesting garlic mayonnaise. without fighting to cut through the flesh i had time to admire the typical most often bavarian influenced decoration of uli's bierstube that i had seen in german eateries in the united states repeatedly.

one of the more interesting objects was what seemed to be an original german certificate proofing that uli indeed was a german master butcher.

according to my meat tester uli knows his german trade: "they taste like the bratwurst i ate in Thüringen", was the judgment. "but they are stubbier here, in Thüringen they hung outside the Brötchen [buns] on both ends." but there were no buns at uli's that day. which brings us back to the baked items.

if you look for tasty german-style bread, the pearl bakery in portland, oregon seems a good address. the quarter loaf of Vollkornbrot [whole grain bread] i bought for $5 [€4] was worth is pricy price. it was subtly sour as the fermentation would make it, dense, and sweetly crisp when toasted. pearl bakery also offers german Roggenbrot [rye bread].

but that's for another occasion.

mountain range, volcano, ocean, rain forest -- washington has it all (i am erican sequel)

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 05:05:10 +0200

if you want to visit a place with at least half a dozen different ecosystems within a few hours of driving, washington state is your place. certainly different than ohio and the dc area, this short photo essay exemplifies some of the interesting natural features of washington state.

on the oregon side of the columbia river gorge, multnomah falls plunge 188 m (620 feet) down. a bridge at about a third of the height gives a neat view between the two parts of the waterfalls. a hike to the top of the water flow is about 2 km (1.25 miles) long, quite a steep hike but doable and rewarding.

apart from the columbia river, the pacific is a great place to see. i am told there a many of these little hidden, rugged bays along the coast. this one is close to the lewis & clark interpretive center at cape disappointment. the interpretation center requires a fee (i forgot how much) but it can easily take you a couple of hours to follow the excruciatingly strenuous trail of meriwether lewis and william clark until they found the ocean at the spot where the museum is now built.

from the point of the light house at cape disappointment you can see the ocean and how the columbia river flows into the pacific. a cloudy sky is often your companion in washington, i dubbed it the permacloud that says hello almost every morning.

from water to fire. a feature of washington geology that i have been particularly excited about is the volcanic activity. germany has a row of dormant volcanoes (as i have to admit i just learnt recently, as the saying goes you learn more about your home country being abroad) and some hot springs but i never got to see their signs. unfortunately, also the model volcano of washington, mount saint helens, has been hiding from me in fog and clouds for most of the time during my visit. but the landscape around the volcano is pockmarked by remnants of previous lava flows. this year marks the 30th anniversary of mt. st. helens latest violent outbreak which killed 57 people.

so, spiting the fog we followed the traces the volcano has been leaving us. the photo above shows where a tree used to live; it's part of the short board walk trail of two forests. the flowing lava set the stem on fire, burnt the whole tree, and turned the empty holes into what looks like wells when the lava stones cooled.

holes like these show glimpses into more horizontal lava tubes. after the lava was cooled on the surface by the air, its hot parts kept flowing inside creating tunnels of different sizes. by the way, the light green plant layer covering most of the area like a fine net is lichen [Flechten].

as for the tubes, you can even crawl in them...

...on knees and hands and in parts waddling like a duck. at snail's pace we worked our way through a few meters of tight tube.

the light of the exit was always there. in contrast...

...to the big gaping mouth of ape cave. after the entrance a succinct warning sign is the last human feature before the everlasting darkness begins.

choosing the easy trail it tooks us about an hour and a half to stumble along it. in the hope of an exit at the end we climbed down a couple of boulders, stepped into many puddles and flashlighted our way along on fist sized rocks. alas, no exit awaited us but an asymptotic like narrowing of the tube. the diagonal size ranges from a few meters to around ten meters at least. the utter darkness is only disturbed by the little lamps and glowing sticks of the tourists.

from caves to snow-capped mountains. olympic national park allows you to drive up to about 1,500 m (5200 feet) on hurricane ridge. another part of the forest around mount olymp features half a dozen glaciers, reachable after at least a dozen miles of hiking. we decided to let the car climb for now. in the morning fog filled valleys wafted around the tall and straight fir forests.

we didn't even want to reach so high. in fact it as the fault of a cul de sac at night. what we were actually after was a rain forest. it's not a tropical but a temperate rain forest but definitely a natural feature that germany doesn't have to the best of my knowledge.

the height and circumference of the trees is bigger than i have seen before. sure, there are th gigantic big sequoia trees and the redwood forest in the united states, too. but neither of them i have visited (yet). what's unique to the hoh rain forest is that everything is covered in moss, lichen, leaves, ferns, shrubs.

the bid cedar develops from a twisted root structure into about half a dozen big trunks dwarfing any human.

curtains of moss and lichen inhabit every branch...

...and object in the forest.

this was just a cursory journey through the natural riches of the other washington, the state that is. it sure is different than the groomed and urbanized coast on the east around dc and the beginning rolling hills of appalachia in south east ohio.

and there is more: the hot springs, mount saint helens itself, the pumice plain, and the columbia river gorge.

being a cilantrophobist (i am erican sequel)

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 02:35:50 +0200

until i came to ohio i didn't know that i was a cilantrophobist.

cilantro as in german "Koriander", is a green herb that looks pretty similar to the flat leafed version of parsley. but only the sight is similar. as soon as you approach the plant the fragrance will reveal the difference. parsley smells lovely fresh to me, cilantro stings my odor cells like a chemical. it smells soapy and pungent telling me to stay away.

but cilantro is a core ingredients in many foods u.s. americans love and consume without thinking. it's in salsa, it's in salads, it's in tabbouleh (a lebanese dish with bulgur, cucumber, tomatoes, and lemon juice), it's in burritos. [addendum: a friend from bangladesh pointed out i missed to mention south east asian use of the herb. of course, cilantro chutney or cilantro mint chutney is served in any indian restaurant. also my friend writes cilantro paste as a side is common in bangladesh or its use in salad.] it's everywhere. maybe just sprinkled on top for good looks. latin american and middle eastern cuisine are omnipresent in the united states. so is cilantro.

omnipresently disturbing: a few green leaves ruining the biggest dish.

but alas, even the most finely chopped tiniest amount of the evil green ruins the tasties dish for me. no wonder with my german taste buds. a new york times article of april 4, 2010 details understandably why maybe europeans especially struggle with embracing this flavor.

"The coriander plant is native to the eastern Mediterranean, and European cooks used both seeds and leaves well into medieval times. Helen Leach, an anthropologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand, has traced unflattering remarks about cilantro flavor and the bug etymology — not endorsed by modern dictionaries — back to English garden books and French farming books from around 1600, when medieval dishes had fallen out of fashion. She suggests that cilantro was disparaged as part of a general effort to define the new European table against the flavors of the old."

and it stayed like that at least in germany to this day. cilantro leaves are not part of most of what i know as german cuisine. parsley is the decorative green leave of choice. fresh chives and garden cress are other ones -- which by they way are by far not as popular in the united states as in germany.

so tasty alternatives have gotten germans off the cilantro track.

"If the flavor doesn’t fit a familiar food experience, and instead fits into a pattern that involves chemical cleaning agents and dirt, or crawly insects, then the brain highlights the mismatch and the potential threat to our safety. We react strongly and throw the offending ingredient on the floor where it belongs."

i can just repeat: where it belongs.

why hating cilantro is not your fault: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html

west coast, the final frontier (i am erican sequel)

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:30:53 +0200

west coast...the final frontier. these are the voyages of your german blogger. her continuing mission: to explore strange new u.s. worlds, to seek out new u.s. life forms and new u.s. civilizations, to boldly blog from where no german girl has blogged from before.

okay, blogging right now from the airport in phoenix, arizona, i am not quite there yet. but at least i am already on pacific time. plus with 103 degree fahrenheit/39 degree celsius (yes a 3 and a 9), it's even hotter than swampy humid dc in the hatching summer time.

before the big move west i quizzed my friends and colleagues what it is about the west coast. one said people there are wearing clothing in more earthy tones. quite fittingly my friend gave me a soft orange and brown dress of that kind to take.

another friend said the people there are more laid-back. for instance, when my friend and i strutted right to the counter of a frozen yogurt store we brushed by a few undecided people stood indecisively in the entrance area. i remarked that they must be confused not to be in line. my friend said, there you go, at the west coast lingering would be okay.

in that line of thought a colleague menionted that there is more of a work-life balance. that is there is a life after work. hard to fathom in the 24/7 news industry where breaking news get your brain going where ever you are.

yet another group of people mentioned the west might have more of a european feel. everyone told me about this wonderful green emerald city, portland, oregon: tree huggers ride on manifold bicycle lanes to shop for vegan food at their favorite organic bakery. i'll soon find out.

what i know for sure from my favorite u.s. american is that the most popular book store of emerald city is as big as a city block AND has german Duden copies sitting on its shelf. i have seen german novels and of course language learning books. but the Duden is the merriam-webster for german language, an authority, and i hadn't seen it on a u.s. book shelf before. (i am sure they exist in language departments. but the only time i saw a Duden in the u.s. was when a lovely German package arrived with the bright yellow brick-like word collection inside.)

another intelligence report from my favorite u.s. american promised a bakery close to book heaven that makes german breads upon pre-order. on the website of the bakery the german bread looks at least dark enough and shows a list of the right ingredients to be taken seriously.

only four and a half hours separate me from emerald city. upon arrival my favorite u.s. american will swoop me up to go straight to the bakery.

i'd say, make it so!

the cupcakization of germany (i am erican sequel)

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:29:05 +0200

-- or don't let mcdonald's define what your taste buds should feel

almost simultaneously i and a friend found this new york times article detailing the attempt of mcdonald's to introduce cupcakes in berlin, germany since march 30, 2010.

"Although they are a staple of bake sales and birthday parties across America, cupcakes were all but unknown in Germany until recently."

so what's the secret recipe behind this new u.s. american oven product dumped on the german market? in fact, there is none. or more precisely, there are as many recipes as there are cakes and pies as the collection in the photo below illustrates.

these trays are lined up in a shop in washington dc solely dedicted to proliferating the baby cakes.

at e street and 7th street in northwest washington dc, the red velvet cupcakery offers you a slice of individuality in a paper cup. actually a friend made the connection of the often hailed u.s. american individuality and this bakery item. with a piece of their own special choice everyone feels special. a type of personal pizza (the size of a saucer), or baby bundt cake or a finger food to be dumped into the hungry mouth almost all at once. more of the same, individuality brand name usa.

in fact, you can really individualize your cup cake before a chain lures you with commercially produced overprized faux symbols of individuality. asking an old friend and community cook book conributor for advice on home-made cup cakes the answer is as simple as it gets:

"You can put the batter from any cake recipe into the paper cups in a muffin tin, even a cake mix, just fill the little paper cup about 2/3 full, bake 18-22 minutes at 350 degrees [Fahrenheit]. Then cool them and frost with any frosting you wish to use. Easy!"

Easy!

why most u.s. americans don't like soccer (i am erican sequel)

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:51:13 +0200

a rare species: a soccer fan rooting for the u.s. team at the dupont circle public viewing area in washington dc

maybe it's been a riddle to you. or on the contrary, you never thought about it. fact is, most u.s. americans don't like or don't care about soccer. washington dc being an exception with its international minded mini-population from all corners of the earth.

for the first time for a soccer world cup, dc set up public screens - rather small ones however

i know little to nothing about the german national soccer league, the Bundesliga, which is maybe somewhat of an equivalent to the national football league in the united states. but i do get enthusiastic about the soccer world cup. germans have won it three times before and these days are hunting for the fourth victory. never mind they screwed losing 0:1 against serbia after the hubris following the 4:0 dream game against australia.

but soccer is an odd thing in the united states. at the start of the world cup several voices arose to psychoanalyze the u.s. american relationship with the game.

stephen colbert tried in his show on june 11, 2010 to which he invited two guests, one dissing, one defending soccer. but first he set the tone the debate:

"Speaking of crimes against humanity: soccer. ... As an American, I don't care about soccer. Soccer is just one more thing the rest of the world is trying to jam down our throats like the metric system and the Geneva Convention. Here to viciously confirm my prejudice, please welcome Washington Post columnists and noted soccer ball-buster Marc Fisher. Okay, Marc, first question: the rest of the world loves soccer. Why is the rest of the world wrong?"

apart from the fact that colbert in his typical style lets neither fisher nor his opponent, veteran newsweek contribute and global post contributor mike starr, finish their sentences, the arguments on the con side are rather weak.

fisher says soccer is un-american because it’s too simplistic. it’s for little kids running around on a field, he says, getting their cardio in. "they go there, eat cookies. then they grow up and crave complexity". (think four hour-long baseball matches with nothing happening but sunflower seed munching, think american football with the ball buried under a pile of plastic-protected flesh and muscles while the people in the bleachers stuffs itself with baked potatoes). just because it's popular it doesn't make it right, fisher adds. aha, suddenly there is popularity.

that's where sports columnist for nation magazine david zirin comes in. he gave a more economically and culturally founded analysis for the u.s. soccer aversion in an interview on al jazeera english at the eve of the games. he says there's been a bit of a miss about it. soccer is the most popular sport among girls in the united states

. and with the unites states growing more multicultural soccer is still gaining popularity. but it’s not highlighted by mainstream media such as bis sports channel ESPN. they do the world cup, zirin says, but soccer is not highlighted at other times.

plus, he says, there’s an old stereotype about the foreignness of soccer. there’s an american myth that baseball was invented in the united states, zirin says, which it wasn’t and that football started in the united states, which actually came from rugby. so soccer has maintained it’s foreignness, he says, so we have our own sports culture which is overladen with a lack of right-wing politics and official media saying it’s foreign. ultimately, he says, it has a lot to do with nationalism and culture.

picking up a similar line is an article in the atlantic monthly of june 11, 2010.

"But here, the culture of soccer has become a badge of liberal cosmopolitanism. When you consider the timing of this trend, perhaps the adoption of soccer was a rejection of Bush/Cheney 2000s provincialism. If Karl Rove kept the I-4 corridor Nascar red in 2004, why then young Beltway wonks, Brooklyn MFA candidates, and Bread Loaf novelists, instead of moving to Europe (like they said they would) would adopt the red of Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal. Fine, but for me, soccer was always about inclusiveness; I'd kick a ball with anyone, talk about it with anyone. I was only too glad. With these "thinking fans"—or nouveau fans, as I like to call them—it feels exclusive, a networking tool for the elite."

but atlantic blogger for the world cup michael agovino admits that soccer does offer hope precisely because if its cosmopolitanism. maybe one day kids will pick up an atlas to find out where the strange people playing the strange game and scoring high come from.

a friend says the solution to the riddle is easy. it's because u.s. americans never win. so maybe it's all just about being sore losers? the famously cited example from way back in 1950 with the unites states losing 0:1 against its former colonial owner england was made up at least partially with the 1:1 tie this year. baby steps.

the future of soccer in the unites states is not here yet as another atlantic article of june 25, 2010, predicts.

"How will we know that the soccer future has arrived? A key plot point in The Secret in their Eyes, this year's Academy Award-winning film from Argentina, turns on the police grasping the significance of a suspect's encyclopedic knowledge of the annual rosters of a local professional soccer club. When the same thing can happen in an American film, we will have the answer. If it ever can."

thinking of my first train ride in the u.s. (i am erican sequel)

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:51:01 +0200

a lovely little train station sits in sleepy small town kelso, washington. you can see it from the distance: a tall modern clock tower with single short stubby strokes where the numbers of the clock would show hovers high above a little red brick station. it tells the accurate time. 9.46am.

the swing doors open up to a spacey hall with wooden waiting benches. a big old-fashioned round clock with roman numbers dominates the inside. in the middle of the hall sits a dainty little girl in bronze on a traveling chest waiting for her train to come. national geographic and the daily news offer themselves for reading. brochures on kelso, longview, mount st. helens, portland, and seattle lay on the window sill to lure the visitor to sights in the region. a warm friendly glow is in the air.

at the far end of the hall behind wooden windows with old-fashioned gray metal bars sit an elderly man and an elderly woman in an office. their name tags read "depot volunteers". they both have silvery gray hair; he has a mustache; she wears glasses. when a fresh train rolls into the station the man announces its arrival and direction. he misspeaks but apologizes over the station microphone: "pardon, going south".

then he hurries toward the door out on the station platform. in passing he asks if i still tickets are bought best online, there are discounts for students and seniors, maybe also for round trips. need to catch this train. no, for now i am just cherishing the atmosphere of the little station and the thought of my first train ride in the united states.

the brochure from amtrak -- which is the passenger train line in the united states -- tells me it's about an hour to portland, oregon (in the south) and two hours and 45 minutes to seattle, washington (in the north). the friendly man says train fares depend on the day of the week and the time of the day -- unlike in germany, where there is a fixed price for each distance (at least until prices go up) is tell him with an interest in the different details. but i am not telling him anything knew. "i know, i was in leipzig about five years ago", he says. the united states, he adds, tried to model their system after the german one.

a round-trip from kelso to portland should cost between $30 to $40 (€24.50 to €32.50 as of today), he says. only on labor day a single trip costs outrageous $52 (€42.30) -- one way.the amtrak cascades, as the regional train is called, is a nice train, the elderly lady adds.

kelso-portland would be a bit as if i would be going from my small german home town of zeitz to medium-sized leipzig with its stores, restaurants, museums, universities, and markets. it reminds me of the day trips i took with girlfriends in teenage days. we would ride the train to go breath big town air, buy tops at our favorite h&m store and others, and to eat out fancily. wild rice with fish filet at the nordsee restaurant. back on the train riding home with full bags we would marvel at our new treasures bought.

how fun to do it all over again, maybe already tomorrow? on the nice train.

"the real world sucks" -- an anonymous reflection on real life (i am erican sequel)

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:20:06 +0200

always trying to learn about the societal rituals and behavior that make up the u.s. people an interesting document was played into my hands. the source wants to remain anonymous. the document is a collection of thoughts collected by a young urban u.s. early twenty-something who has been trying to make a living in the real world after graduating from a distinguished school. except for typos, consistent punctuation, and deleting some repetitions, nothing was changed.

Pearls of Wisdom: Lessons that I Have Learned, Am Learning, and Need to Learn in the Past Two Years Since Graduation

by an anonymous recent Georgetown University, DC, graduate

The world is not your oyster.
Not yet at least. The real world sucks.

It's okay to not to have a job immediately after graduation.
You're not a complete failure. Just tell yourself. It's not me, it's the economy. Unemployment isn't going to kill you. It's okay to be a temp or waitress with a Georgetown degree. If others judge you, they're not worth your time and remember that they're probably miserable at their white collar job.

There is two year grace period after graduation.
If you find yourself underemployed, go do something crazy. Travel the world. Be a "community organizer." Join a tea party. Litter the world with fliers and brochures as a Greenpeace activist. Work on a beet farm. Unicycle across the country while renovating bird's nests along the way. Now is the time to do it. It'll make a good grad school application essay. Besides anything you do now can be whitewashed into a heartfelt anecdote for a future stump speech.

A job isn't an internship.
You have real responsibilities now. If you fuck up, you can't really use inexperience as an excuse. No one is going to swoop in and cover your ass.

The office is a hierarchy. Welcome to the bottom!
Don't overstep your bounds. Don't go over your immediate supervisor. You're not president of (insert name of resume padding college student organization here) anymore. Fear not young sapling, there's nowhere to go but up. You will be used and abused at work.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
If you don't know what it means. Google it. See below

If you don't know Google/Wikipedia/Dictionary.com/IMDB it.
All the "smart" people do it. That's why they seem smarter than you. Never cite it, always fact check.

You will hate your first job.
You will wish you that were back in college by the first week.

You will hate your boss.
Hate may be a strong word or not strong enough. Your boss will frustrate you the majority of the time. They're not your professor. You are not their first priority. (The client is.) They aren't paid to "nurture your young mind." They're not going to grade you or give you feed back on every completed task. You won't be getting an A on that Power Point presentation. Your performance is based on how well your boss looks to his boss and the client and how you help them with that. The only times your work will likely be acknowledged is if you mess up.

Qualities that move you up the ladder aren't the same ones that make a good boss.
It's rare to find a nurturing mentor in a boss, take advantage of the opportunity. If you have a shitty boss, take the opportunity to learn what not to do.
Tomorrow no one will remember today's fuck ups.
Don't get too hung up over forgetting the e-mail to the client or the one misspelled memo.
Brush up on sports by reading the headlines.
Male bonding still occurs over sports.

Don't put anything online that you wouldn't want your employers or future children to see.
On-line information is better preserved than an ancient Egyptian stele.

Properly punctuate and know your grammar.
Read Strunk & White, if you haven't. Memorize Strunk & White, if you have.

Don't take it personally if someone blows up at you.
They'll forget about it long before you will. In this case, it really isn't you, it's them.

Your boss isn't your friend.
You're paid to scratch his back. He may or may not scratch yours.

You aren't beholden to anyone.
It isn't 1980's Japan or 1950's America. You are not a "company man." Loyalty to your company doesn't yield dividends. Your boss isn't your patriarch. If you find somewhere better, go there. If you want a vacation, take it.

It's okay to quit your job without having something lined up.
To quote a Gay Talese article quoting someone quoting e.e. cummings "There is some shit I shall not eat."

Sacrifice and work really hard at the start but it's okay to slack off the longer you're there.
By the time the new people come, you can totally slack off.

You need to be an underling to learn how to effectively use your future underlings.
Suck it up.

Google Reader numbs your boredom at work and also looks like you're doing something productive.

Be nice to EVERYONE.
Security guards, receptionists, IT people, housekeepers, dog walkers, waiters, doormen.

Rejections are vitamins.
Tough to swallow at first but make you stronger.

Over-achievers are over-compensating for something.
Don't be jealous of the Rhodes Scholars, Olympic champions, 24 year-old multimillionaires, multi-hyphenate ingenue-model-actress-musician-singer-humanitarians.

Don't compare yourself (or your job) to your peers; contrast yourself to them.
It really is apples to oranges. Do what you need to do to get to your goal. It's okay to wait tables, if that pays for you audition head shots. Who cares if your banking friends are making more money than you? They probably wish they had the guts to follow their passions. (No offense to the bankers and consultants. Props for trying to pay off the student loans A.S.A.P.)

Behind every great person there's an exploited, resentful underling.
DC runs on interns. The real world runs on over-worked assistants.

Don't be too wide eyed and over eager.
Trying too hard reeks like cheap perfume. Learn the subtle art of suck up.

Try to avoid office drama.
There's always drama in the office. Don't take sides.

You aren't infallible.
You make mistakes. It's okay to be wrong. You don't have to know everything. Just chalk it up to a learning experience. In fact it may be better to admit you "don't know but will find out immediately." Makes you look like an honest go-getter.

You're not as ingenious as you think you are.
Who ever had your job last probably had the same "brilliant idea."

You're replaceable.
Contrary to what your helicopter parents have led you to believe. You're not special. There are at least 100 people who would do the job that you hate for cheaper. The organization functioned fine before you came, it'll function just fine after you leave.

Be nice to your interns.
You never know who their daddy or mommy is.

Separate spheres -- the modern version.
Distinguish between work and personal. Keep your private life private. Do you really care about your supervisor's toddler's nursery school admissions process? No one really needs and cares to hear about last Saturday's interpretative dance-off kegger.

Incompetency is the general standard.
Everyone is just treading water, trying to get by. People rarely go above and beyond.

Network is your net worth.
Cannot emphasis this enough. It's who you know not what you know. The world would be a better place if it was the other way around.

Fake it til you make it.
The "most successful people" all are the best BS-ers.

Everyone who's anyone is on GCHAT between 9-5.
Avoid being that creeper hiding under the invisibility cloak.

Beware of the "Ivy chip."
It doesn't matter where you went to school. The people who say it does are either 1) the ones who were rejected and still have the "ivy chip" on their shoulder -the elite schools hang up or 2) the insecure ones who cling on the the past to validate their present self. Some people will not like you for going to Georgetown. Don't be a Jane Hoya, and look down on people for not going to a Top 20.

Know your place.
Where you sit matters in the meeting room. Everyone has a designated spot. You'll probably be regulated to Antarctica (end of table or standing at the sideline since there's no room for you). Always bring a pen and notebook. Doodling kills time and makes you seem like a busy worker bee. Nod occasionally. Blackberry on silent or vibrate. Don't check your blackberry more often than the senior people in the room. They get more messages than you
Everyone knows you're not that important, and it will just look like you're bored.

Follow the leader.
In the beginning, observe how your boss acts and do so accordingly. Pick up buzz words and parrot them.

Cultivate a professional voice.
Speak slowly, lower your voice. It's sad but you need to in order to be taken more seriously. No one trusts anyone who sounds like their tween daughter.

Don't volunteer to get coffee but don't be above getting it when asked.

It's okay to look for other jobs while at your current job.
Everyone does it. Yes, even your boss. Actually, she's probably looking at real estate porn.

Learn how to take criticism.
A simple "thank you" will suffice.

Learn how to take compliments.
Simple "Thank you" will suffice.

Always have a legitimate reason for saying "I'm sorry"
Never apologize for speaking or having an opinion. Never preface a sentence with "I'm sorry, but ..."

Remind yourself every day that there's always grad school.
In your first few years, you won't resolve the Mideast conflict, end poverty, or stop misogyny.
You don't start off as a Barack Obama, Christiane Amanpour, Meryl Streep, Warren Buffet, etc. You most probably won't be one by the age of 30. I'm not saying you should renounce your dreams. Be more practical with your "lofty aspirations." Baby steps.

THE END
Every Georgetown girl needs a quality strand of pearls. Take these "pearls of wisdom" with a grain of salt, since they're coming from an extremely jaded twenty-something. You don't want to end up like me.

Kindertag! Children's Day! (i am erican sequel)

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:09:11 +0200

i got chocolate and candy, little toys, maybe a book. car dealerships in your city might put up bouncing castles [Hüpfburgen], smaller communities gather for food and games, libraries offer readings for kids.

june 2 seems to be the perfect day to celebrate the children on both sides of the atlantic.

yesterday, june 1 was traditional children's day in germany. tomorrow, june 3 was the first national children's day declared by a u.s. president. that was in 2001. subsequently the rule was established that every first sunday in june is supposed to be dedicated to the wee ones. never mind this doesn't seem to be followed in a noticeable way.

but to the best of my knowledge children's day is not a highly celebrated day in the united states. maybe because it is one of these shifting holidays that are pinned on a first day of something in the month of so and so as many of the u.s. holidays. maybe because people are still in recovery from their memorial weekend. germans, you remember -- again this shifting principle -- the last weekend in may is when in the united states the summer season is officially greeted with bbqs, the opening of pools, and the beginning of motorcycle season. talking of which i learnt that the biker meeting in dc, dubbed rolling thunder, even dwarfs the classical meeting of bikers in sturgis. around 40,000 bikes are waiting for around six hours to file in line to get to go on a half hour convoy showing of their chrome and leather.

you get the idea; there are many distractions from the children's day. indeed, the u.s. calender is at least of for 2010. instead of the first sunday in june, the second is chosen according to a national children's day website set up by an organization in illinois.

in bold big letters the website is begging for national children's day to "gain city/state/national recognition". well, president bush's declaration back in 2001 doesn't seem have gone far.

in germany, children's day even appeared in most popular newscast the other day. that was thanks to a study by the Christian aid organization World Vision in which researchers asked ca. 2,500 german children how they like their lives (the link leads to an English-language website from Deutsche Welle, the German pendan of Voice of America). participating children were between six and eleven years old. four out of five are "content with their life and well-being", the study found. In a nutshell:

"The study found that happiness is somewhat tied to material possessions, but not nearly to the extent that many might expect. Most important, it said, is that the children feel they are treated with respect. Education researcher Sabine Andresen said it was important for parents to find a balance between placing value on their children's opinions and enforcing rules that establish order in their daily lives."

if next or the next after sunday, i'll watch out for candy at eye height in stores and word about the status of the kids in america. i'm afraid, however, i won't see and hear much.

The Demise of the German Übermensch - A Soccer Primer for the World Cup Season (i am erican sequel)

Mon, 31 May 2010 14:58:41 +0200

Global soccer season is rolling right around the corner. But as this May 31, 2010 article in the Wall Street Journal neatly summarizes, the Germans are not what they used to be when it comes to putting the round thing into the square thing.

Written by a woman, Gabriele Marcotti, the article takes up the stereotypes that seasonal soccer fans pull out of their back pockets every four years to understand national dynamics playing out during the World Cup.

"Germany is no exception. It is disciplined, brawny, team-oriented and rarely disappoints in terms of results and is as dull as it is efficient. So much so that former England striker Gary Lineker—who was on the receiving end of German "efficiency" on more than one occasion—famously quipped that "football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a round ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans win."
All these German clichés are as misguided as the previous ones but they appear particularly off-base in South Africa. Far from being the paragon of solidity and efficiency, there are plenty of cracks in Joachim Löw's team, some stemming from injury, others from personality conflicts and, still others, from the simple fact that the game—and the types of players the country produces—has changed over the years.
Four years ago, Germany reached the semifinal with a young team that rode a wave of national pride, one that prompted plenty of sociological musings about how the country had come to terms with its past and shed its reluctance and unease at celebrating its own colors in public. Two years later, it reached the final of the 2008 European championships, losing to Spain. Maintaining that forward progress will be difficult."

Indeed it will be. The article continues to detail what's wrong with the German team. And there is plenty including a missing first choice captain, a suicide, and a potential player who defected to Ghana. If you want to read one primer on German chances to win the World Cup, here's my suggestion.

URL:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703703704575276363215790620.html?mod=rss_Lifestyle

the benefits of blogging -- a study relating to the cause of blogging (i am erican sequel)

Fri, 21 May 2010 18:42:20 +0200

as often, scientific american translates it best: a study published in february 2008 in the oncologist report studied blogging cancer patients. in plain words, with more below, blogging seems to have a positive effect on brains and bodies.

"Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery."

this is not new, as the article was already published in the june 2008 scientific american article "blogging -- it's good for you". but thanks to an alert reader i now heard of it. with happy social media addicts taking over the next generation on one hand and a backlash on the other from irritated, confused and overwhelmed everyone else, i thought it's worth defending blogging in the deluge of new expressions.

i wonder if there might be any medical benefits to facebooking, youtubing, tweeting, and what else is in the tubes.

ostpakete -- care packages from the east (i am erican sequel)

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 04:43:27 +0200

one of the benefits of living abroad is the joyous feeling regularly induced by packages on the doorstep.

it must be similar to how people felt in the former german democratic republic (gdr) when they got a Westpaket, a care package from relatives or friends on the Western side of the iron curtain.

we never got any of these packages for a lack of knowing people on in the West.

but oh joy! when rare items arrive wherever that maybe. i can buy some of my favorite german products in specialty stores, which has become a hobby horse to locate. but not everything to my desire shows up there.

see the big golden package on the right of the photo labelled Zetti and Knusperflocken? well, they are a staple sweet for me. yet, as an eastern product (manufactured in my hometown) the crispy chocolate flakes never make it across the ocean in a commercial way. the same goes for the dark chocolate version seen in the middle of the photo. or Bambina chocolate bars. or Herzstärke, a sugary pink-white colored peppermint flavored fudge.

other items that are most frequently sent in my Ostpaket include bread and Kinderschokolade, which some u.s. americans around me have developed a liking to. nutella used to be a staple but i think i finally got the message across that nutella is pretty wide-spread in the united states. also hollow chocolate items were a standard until most of them arrived in sad shards. sometimes small books and clippings from my home town paper are among the contents, post cards of familiar places, brochures of local sights. whatever an Ostpaket brings, it makes me think again in german immediately.

as people around me frequently ask what else i miss in terms of food or products, here's a run down of items that are harder to find (or to ship):

pudding powder (Ruf brand only)
Rote Grütze with Sago (a kind of red jello with tapioca pearls)
scharfer Senf (hot mustard) and herb mustard
organic vegetarian Apfel-Zwiebel-Schmalz (a kind of apple-onion bread spread)
Milchreis (rice to be boiled with milk and served with sugar and cinnamon or a chunky fruity sauce of cherries or raspberries)
Salzgurken (salty cucumber pickles)
Senfgurken (mustardy cucumber pickles)
Quark (a kind of Greek yoghurt)
Back-Camembert with Preiselbeeren (pre-deep fried breaded baked Camembert cheese with lingonberry sauce)
Kloßmasse (potato dumpling dough)
kohlrabi (similar to a big turnip or radish, coming in purple and green)
celery root for soups
Pflaumenmus (dark plum marmelade)
Sonja and Marina (a margerine for baking)

well, the longer i think about it, the more i will find.

at one place or another i ran into almost all of them or items that come pretty close. and i have found allies. my favorite u.s. american has joined my hunt for german things; he proudly presents new discoveries and comes up with creative solutions to diminish my yearnings.

indeed, he located a german Kühne brand mustard at big lots a few days ago, has cooked pudding from scratch and found out that old pickles are in fact german salty pickled cucumbers. his home-made potato dumplings beat my pitiful dumpling attempts by far and are probably better than using pre-prepared german potato dumpling dough anyway. he long has learned to say Krumpel -- say krrroom-pell --, the small cube of toasted bread fried in butter and salt that is pressed into the center of each dumpling. and was a favorite snack of mine as a child to be snatched away in the kitchen of my grandmother.

because when it comes to homeyness, you just want exactly the thing you ate before, not a substitute, not something similar. at least sometimes. my care packages from the east, my Ostpakete, send a dose of home, of memory, i guess, in some way even of identification.

the hardest part: preserving the precious products instead of giving in to greedy hunger. after all, Ostpakete don't come every day.

reversed immigration -- "zur strafe ab nach deutschland" (i am erican sequel)

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:27:21 +0200

-- the story of two americans at heart who got deported to germany, their official home

gary is brave and you can't help liking him by the end of this half-hour documentary produced by the german public station hessischer rundfunk.

but before rousing your interest, be aware, the documentary is only in german. so i apologize to my english readers beforehand. yet, i wanted to share this interesting slice of immigration tales which affects 150 people caught between the united states and germany every year according to the report.

as children brought into the united states by german mothers, gary and alexander never formally became u.s. citizens. now gary in his twenties and alexander who is married in his forties offended u.s. law and got kicked out.

gary stole a couple of pairs of boots, alexander dealt with drugs. any criminal offense, the documentary tells, that warrants more than one year in a u.s. jail results in deportation for anyone who is illegally in the united states. both never bothered to apply for regular citizenship because they had permanent residency, meaning, they could do what every u.s. citizens can do except to vote.

now they are banned from returning to the united states where they lived since early childhood for ten years. they were forced back to germany, their official home country feeling as a friend of alexander likens it as if they landed on the moon.

while the drug offender alexander doesn't speak german and struggles heavily to use the subway system in frankfurt, where both of them live, gary picked up his mother tongue again and copes as best as possible to start a new life.

both arrived with nothing more than the clothes on their back.

and it is the rather big optimistic gary that arouses great sympathy with the viewer. he works as a janitor in a home for disabled children, keeps up hope to find an apartment to escape the bureaucratically assigned dormitory even after the eighth rejection, and hunts for his older brother given up for adoption in germany before gary was born.

the documentary reminded me of a key issue for any immigrant: being allowed to be where you are. it sounds strange and simple. but your legal status is like a twin sister or brother. it is with you and be better in lock-step with where you are any time. it often has an expiration date or deadline to be aware of and planned for. also, being allowed to reside in a country state doesn't mean you can leave and re-enter it at whim.

but traveling is no option for alexander in the documentary at the moment anyway. he is fighting to even visit back in his u.s. american home at the pacific coast in case his mother dies during his ten-year absence. she is fighting cancer having gone through five surgeries already. maybe a visitation permit for humanitarian reasons can be successful, recommend lawyers without borders. but as the city is a maze for alexander, so is u.s. immigration law. after all, he lived in the u.s. since age two.

but, before spoiling the complete story for my german-understanding readers, see for yourself the curious case of two american-germans caught between transatlantic bureaucracy. by the way, at present overall about 400,000 people are detained in u.s. prisons destined for deportation.

"zur strafe ab nach deutschland"

-- eine reportage von götz schauder (hessischer rundfunk)
http://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/servlet/content/3517136?documentId=4161916

politically second class -- east germans and a discrimination law suit (i am erican sequel)

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:26:11 +0200

browsing the english website of the german spiegel magazine -- one of the most important political weekly publications in the country -- i bumped into an interesting article concerning the distinction still being made between east germans and west germans. people who know me know that this a topic i like to follow.

here's the gist of the article published by spiegel online on friday, april 16, 2010:

"A Stuttgart labor-court ruled on Thursday that former East Germans -- often disparagingly nicknamed "Ossis" -- are not an ethnic group in a case involving a woman who claims she was turned down for a job because she came from the former sate. German commentators on Friday warn about the prevalance of negative stereotypes about people from the formerly communist state."

read the entire article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,689403,00.html

the article reminded me of an experience i had in a political science class i attended at ohio university. dividing the world into sections, the teacher insisted that still as of today, only west germans belong to the highest category of individuals in the world i.e. white western citizens. i reminded her of the twenty years that had passed since the german reunification. nevertheless, the teacher insisted. in the political hierarchy of the world east germans are not on top of the olympe but live a notch lower thanks to their communist history.

the fact that west and east germans are still paid differently working in the same jobs is a common place. one of my friends decided to become a teacher in west german rather than east germany partially because of that. higher unemployment, more troubles with right-wing groups, more exodus of young people are other topics in the catalogue of east west comparisons.

but overall, i think my generation of twenty-somethings (well, in the upper echelons of the twenties anyway) are the last generation to remember a distinction. the sister of a former acquaintances now in her early twenties once replied ten years ago already that she didn't know if she was an east or west german child.

my german friends come from east and west. traces of two different socializations still linger on. a couple of friends migrating west for jobs have told me that when they settled in their new home town they felt a more common understanding with other "ossis" or even eastern european immigrants before making friends with west germans.

in the united states there is little awareness overall between east and west germany. generally most u.s. americans i meet have visited west german towns because they were army brats, know someone stationed there or wanted to see the pretty rhine and southern regions. it remains an exception that people do know dresden or leipzig through a personal visit or a even a longer time of living there. in fact i just met one, a professor of german language, who knew what i was talking about when it came to east german culture.

so when people ask me where i come from i have developed a standard answer: from germany. so far so good. for the follow up of where exactly in germany it has boiled down to: geographically from the middle, politically from the east. whatever that means to different people.

America -- Happiness Is Home: A guest post by Hoyt Anderson reviewing Eric Weiner's Geography of Bliss (part 1 of 2) (i am erican sequel)

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:03:41 +0200

One of these rare and fortunate opportunities to post a guest contribution has arisen again. A very dear and inspiring person to me, Hoyt Anderson, wrote a paper on The Pursuit of Happiness. The very American concept spelled out right in the beginning of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. As part of his paper he reviewed The Geography of Bliss, a book authored by National Public Radio's (NPR) veteran foreign correspondent Eric Weiner. For the book, Weiner roamed the globe to find out how happiness looks outside home. For his paper Hoyt Anderson captured the highlights of Weiner's view of how Americans perceive happiness.

AMERICA* – Happiness Is Home

Erik Weiner lives in Miami which is associated with happiness if not paradise itself. He tells of a billboard there advertising a yellow convertible V.W. Beetle with these words “Woe isn’t you. Dare to be happy”. American happiness isn’t left to the gods or to fortune, as was the case for most of human history. No, happiness is there for the taking . All we need is enough will power to summon it, enough gumption to try it in the first place, and, of course, enough cash to afford a convertible V. W. Beetle.

America’s place on the happiness spectrum is not as high as you might think, given our superpower status. We are not by any means the happiest nation on earth. One study by Adrian White at the University of Leicester in [Great] Britain ranked the United States as twenty-third happiest nation on earth behind Costa Rica, Malta and Malaysia . It is safe to say that the United States is not as happy as it is wealthy. Since 1960, the divorce rate has doubled, the teen suicide rate has tripled, the violent crime rate has quadrupled. There are increases in rates of depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. What about all that money? Basic survival is not an issue for most Americans. Wealthy Americans are only slightly happier than poorer ones. As a nation we are three times richer than we were in 1950 yet no happier.

One dynamic are rising expectations. We compare ourselves not to the America of 1950 but to the America of today. And more specifically, to our neighbors of today. We give lip service to the notion that money can’t buy happiness but act as if it does. When asked what would improve the quality of their lives, Americans' number one answer was money, according to a University of Michigan study. By telling us that happiness lives inside us the self help industry hasn’t helped us because it focuses us inward when we should be looking outward to other people, to community and human bonds –- not to money. We are able to acquire many of the things that we think will make us happy and therefore suffer confusion and disappointment when they don’t.

America is a profoundly optimistic nation. Two thirds of Americans say they are optimistic about the future.

No other nation’s founding document so prominently celebrates happiness. But The Declaration Of Independence only enshrines the right to the pursuit of happiness. It’s up to us to catch it.

One way Americans pursue happiness is by physically moving. Ours is a nation founded on restlessness. Even the Pilgrims were hedonic refugees searching for happiness somewhere else. Our much heralded frontier spirit is simply a yearning for a happier place. The ability to choose where we live is, in the scheme of human history, a very recent phenomenon. Historically most people live where they were planted.

The mobility of Americans makes many of them hedonistic floaters whose perpetual search for a happier place prevents them from making permanent commitments and this can be a dangerous thing. We can’t love a place or a person if we always have one foot out the door. This calls to mind an Icelander’s observation that you can identify your true home by answering the simple question, “Where do you want to die?”

To illustrate the kinds of considerations –- the “calculations“ –- that are involved in finding “the right place” he follows the decision process of his friend Cynthia. She didn’t want anyplace flat, either topographically or culturally. She wanted four seasons but a temperate environment. Low humidity gives her headaches so that eliminated places like Arizona and New Mexico. Food was important too. She needed regular access to not only feta cheese but “a variety of feta cheeses”. She is a nature photographer so she needed to be close to the natural world. She needed an arts scene and live music and other signs of cultural life. She wanted a peaceful place of “human size” -- not a large city with crime and traffic problems. With all of these considerations in mind her decision was more intuitive than rational. She selected Asheville, North Carolina and she moved there. Weiner asked her if she was happy in her new home. “Yes”, she says. She likes the fact that she can get anywhere in fifteen minutes. She likes the mountains, so close and embracing. She likes the fact that she can see an opera or a theater performance. It doesn’t meet all of her criteria. It isn’t near any large body of water and there is no major airport -- but even paradise requires some compromises.

Weiner asked Cynthia if Asheville was home. She hesitated briefly. Then with a lack of commitment she said: “I’ve lived here for twenty years so I guess this is home. All the parts I care about are here.”

The problem with finding paradise is that others might find it too. And that is what’s happening with Asheville. Word is out that this is a great place to live. Asheville is on the cusp. It could go the way other places have gone –- from quiet village to “greedy, uptight anywhere.” Paradise is a moving target.

*The term "America" was introduced and used by Weiner in his book when referring to the United States; Hoyt Anderson uses it interchangeably with the term United States.

Switzerland -- Happiness is Boredom: A guest post by Hoyt Anderson reviewing Eric Weiner's Geography of Bliss (part 2 of 2)