Kultur 2

I found reading these articles about elements of German social culture that seem unusual to Americans to be highly entertaining because during my senior year of high school i went to German for a few weeks and for part of that time I lived with a German family, and during that time I encountered basically everyone fo the things that the articles talked. The first article which discussed German's tendency toward complaining  was one of the things that I noticed the least while I was there. That's not to say that it went unnoticed though. When I was talking to my host family I often found them asking about things that i didn't like in America, and I found myself wondering, "Don't you want to know what's good about it too?"

The staring that was discussed in the second article was probably the thing that disconcerted me the most while I was there. The first time I rode on a train there I found myself stuck in starring contests with 2-3 different complete strangers. And I kept thinking can they tell that I'm a foreigner without me even speaking. Also I found it very funny that people will not like if you cross streets at the wrong time in Munich because I was actually staying in Munich and I crossed the street at a red light and some old man started yelling at me.

The brutal honesty that is discussed in the 3rd article is not something that I particularly noticed while I was there but I guess just didn't get into any conversations where I thought people said anything to me that would be considered rude in America. However, I think I would prefer this societal convention to what we have in America cause I have always found myself wondering why can people just say what they really think rather than hiding it behind polite language that is open to varied interpretation.

Finally the fascination with statistics was another thing that I did notice to some extent while I was there as well. When I first arrived my host family kept asking me many questions about America and Chicago,
similar to what is in the article. I noticed that my host family was always eager and willing to provide statistics about their city, Munich whenever given the slightest prompting.
-Mike Flinn