humor – Page 2 – understand-culture

Rhode Island

Comments:

“As a telephony engineer, I feel for Nathan. Too many times in the office, I’m locked in and focusing on work and then someone comes with a drive-by question that totally breaks my concentration and flow. Some times it can take 10-15 minutes to get back in the groove of what you’re doing. Huge time waster.”

“”Do you have a second?” “Wait 5 minutes; in the middle of something.” Solves a lot of problems.”

“Perusing has two definitions in the dictionary that are contradictory in nature. Perusing also is defined as to skim in Meriam dictionary. Both meanings have been in use over 400 yrs.”

“That little interruption costs 30 minutes of context switching, but feels like 2 hours of stress. So in an 8 hour day, he will have to work 8.5 hours to finish the same work, but it will feel like 10 hours. It’s like slamming on the breaks in a car.”

“She is falling for him bc he doesn’t care.”

“Well, that was complete shit.”

Berliners respond to the question “Are we Germans direct?”:

And one of the comments from a German: “When I was in high school, I can remember, another student gave a poorly-prepared presentation. Directly thereafter the teacher simply looked at him and said in English: “Well, that was complete shit.”

Still too direct

“Germans, in general, can often be more direct and straightforward than Americans, and to be honest even after living here for eight years, that directness is still sometimes a little shocking for me, a little bit too much, or even sometimes has made me cry!”

A German comment: “Just your example about some shop assistent telling you that the piece of clothing does not fit you at all: I’m always more suspicious about a shop assistent telling me how good it fits keeping in mind he or she just wants their merchandise sold. So I tend more to appreciate an honest, though maybe direct answer.”

Another German comment: “I’m always irritated how well the Americans can hide the truth of what they are thinking behind compliments and smiles. In Germany If you are getting an honest critique, then the person likes you, thinks said critique can improve you and is interested that you do better. So its a good thing 😉 “

Oh, here’s a good one: “As a German, i feel like lying when i am asked about my opinion and i would try to let it sound “nicer”. Everyone is honest and tells what they think about everything. I tried for a while the way that is used in the staates and i gat really that awfull feeling of lying and i konstantly had to think about how i say things and not what i like to say.

In my opinion germans are just used to that honesty and fee unconfortable to alter the opinion just to sound nicer. The other way around, when i meet people from the staates, i have allways that feeling they are sneaky and false, they try to hide their thoughts behind words. I was never sure how they really are and think.”

Listen to the Nightingales

Here’s a lighthearted, lovely, friendly example of German unsolicited advice.

https://twitter.com/doberah/status/1388123619746852864

Are Americans dumber?

Spend any time in Germany, and perhaps in other countries, and you will hear directly or indirectly how poorly informed (aka dumb) Americans are.

Keep in mind, however, that Germans consider themselves to be intelligent. And they are. Many of them consider themselves to be more intelligent than Americans. And they are. On average. Perhaps.

Supermarket checkout

At the supermarket check out somewhere in Germany. Cashier to customers: “28,35 Euro”. The customers silently passes the 50 Euro bill to the cashier. “21,65 is your change”. The customer packs up his groceries and leaves the store.

This type of limited conversation at the supermarket check out is not a rarity. Until a couple of years ago this was a common interaction. Nowadays, you will get a “good day” or “have a nice day” from the cashier before he puts the groceries in your shopping cart to make space for the next customer.

However, the cashier would never ask the flour- and sugar-buying customer if they are going to bake today. Furthermore, if a customer buys cereal and milk the cashier would never ask, with a winky face, if they are someone that likes breakfast for dinner. The cashier would also not say how much he likes cookies if someone was buying some. The check out is a place where you pay, not for small talk.

Ways to say No in German

Nein, it’s a very popular word in Germany. The Germans use it all the time. So much so, that they have all sorts of nuanced ways to say it.

“No problem“

Cultures which work closely together, at some point, come up with insider jokes about each other. An insider joke is one which just about everyone in the one culture immediately understands. Hopefully, the spirit of these jokes is friendly and good-natured. The Americans have theirs about the Germans. And the Germans have theirs about the Americans.

“No problem” isn’t even a joke, it’s a phrase. More is not necessary, for every German who has experience working with Americans knows what another German means when they speak it: That Americans are often quite naive about a problem, about its seriousness, impact, complexity (from the German perspective).

So when Americans substitute the term ‘opportunity’ for the word ‘problem’, Germans can become a bit nervous. For many problems offer little to no opportunities. They are simply problems. And they need to be dealt with.

Swabian Hausfrau

“One should have just asked a Swabian housewife,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel when asked about the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008.

In Germany, the traditional image of a housewife in the region of Swabia has typically been a positive one: a woman who is wise with her family’s money. Yet is there anything behind that stereotype?

A funny comment in YouTube: “I’d like to see a Swabian and a Scotsman plan a holiday together. I can only imagine the depths of destitution they would stoop to.”

Mr. German man loves insurance

An American woman. Married to a German man. About how her husband, and his friends, are enthusiastic about insurance. And about how shocked they were to hear that she, and her American friends, never even heard of such kinds of insurance.

Begin watching at minute 5:00.

Warning ! This woman is a youtuber. And an American on top. So, she is more than a bit animated. And frankly, she could have made her points in about two minutes instead of seven and a half.