Kultur 6 - Tabloids, Privacy and Recycling

The first article regarding das Bild Zeitung did not surprise me a lot. Tabloids and newspapers exist everywhere. In fact, in Greece, there is one newspaper (called Espresso) dealing with all the "shocking scandals" but you would not call it a tabloid. It provides information but at the same time functions as a tabloid that reveals every shocking aspect of our society. The Daily Mirror functions in a similar way, and I do not see why we could not find something similar in Germany. I believe that people get more interested in this kind of subjects than in the usual news that's posted every day.

Regarding closed doors, it is something I have dealt with in the past, and even if open doors are something common, they are not that common back home. I always remember myself at a young age being told to knock the door and walk in after permission is given. I find it funny (maybe simply typical German) that when you walk in a door you have to seem confident. I always saw closed doors as a privacy issue, nothing more, nothing less, so I do not understand this necessity to seem confident apart from just knocking the door to be let inside the room. As far as I understand the article, it is possible that Germans tend to keep the doors closed at all times. It matches all the stereotypical German characteristics, so locked doors are also not a surprise for me.

When I read the article regarding recycling, for once more I told to myself what a country Germany is and they seem to prove why they are considered the top country of Europe right now at every single aspect. The fact that people care so much about recycling and want to do it as neat and clean as they can impresses me. I honestly would not expect to see that from any other place and the fact that Germans keep the recycling process complex, but always follow it carefully, shows me one more reason that Germany is the most organized country in Europe.

Sex, German Privacy, and Garbage Division

(What an awkward collection of titles...)

Hallo!

This week's set of articles were a rather eclectic collection. I was somewhere between amused and disturbed by Bild, as that is not my preferred reading material. (Which is to say, news is generally depressing, and mixing smut with news with something somewhat like the Enquirer sounds vaguely horrifying to me.) Fortunately, upon elucidation, Bild doesn't sound quite so horrifying.

The article "German Privacy" on the other hand, didn't phase me much. I have four brothers, and before I had a lock put on my door, that was general family policy, to my chagrin- it happens. It isn't something I necessarily like, but it's something that you would become used to fairly rapidly.

As for the article Division Hell, I have two mindsets on that. On one hand, it is a good idea to have the recycling options readily available, and it does greatly help the environment, and is significantly more efficient, to recycle- having the options infront of you does improve the odds of that endeavor being successful. On the other hand, I can't say i'm particularly fond of sorting my trash out, and it is terribly inconvenient. Regardless, "thems the business."

Auf Wiedersehen, Kultur!

The first article was "Sex, Smut and Shock." This discusses the Bild, a magazine that uses scandalistic stories about people around the world. It ends with the editor looking down apon the British Sun, for publishing a picture of Germany's chancelor Angela Merkel naked.
The next article "German Privacy" is quite interesting because to me it is natural to knock and either wait till someone comes to the door or someone says to come in, I'm not so sure if I would be comfortable with just barging into an office for fear of interupting, as the article said.
The final article about the high IQ's in Germany, especially when it comes to the garbage. It is really cool that they are so environmental. I was unsure when it said they divide it all up but that the garbage trucks don't seperate them, does that mean that the garbage ends up all together anyway? And finally I found it kinda entertaining that you can only sort your garbage during the week.

Willkommen!!

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We will be using this blog throughout the semester for two kinds of assignments:

1. Once per chapter, the homework plan will direct you to post a response to the culture readings for the chapter on the blog.

2. Roughly every other week, the homework plan will direct you to post here for your Abenteuer mit Deutsch (AMD) assignment. First you do a fun activity that involves German, then you post about it. You should spend an hour total on this (maybe 45-55 minutes doing something, 5-15 minutes posting about it). See Was ist ein AMD, AMD Ideen and Beispiele for ideas. This should get you excited about the kinds of things you can do!

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