Kultur 2 - Deutsch-Interaktionen

I would like to start by saying Die Wahrheit ist in Übertreibung gefunden (or truth is found in exaggeration). In my undergrad, Meine italien Professorin (who was also the Gender Studies Professorin), kommt aus Deutschland. She often griped about the differences between our two cultures and a lot of this floated back into my memory upon reading the articles online. The article that resounded most with me was "Brutally Honest". Meine Professorin often said, "You Americans ask how we are doing like you are saying Hello" (which is true), "In Germany if you asked someone how they are doing, you better wait for the answer." Other things she would mention is smiling at strangers, apparently, at least wehre she was fun, Germans find this particularly unnerving and will often think they have something on their face, rather than accept it as a friendly gesture.

From my personal experience, when working the front desk of a hotel chain, a German guest came into the lobby and saw the news on the Television. He then proceeded to give me his unsolicited opinion on everyone of the current events that popped onto the screen, from politics to arts and advertisements. I was at first a little taken aback to be receiving so many opinions from someone whose name I could barely pronounce, but in the end I found it.. refreshing.

I wonder perhaps if we could learn something from the abrupt honesty, if perhaps instead of spewing all our little white lies, that we just told the truth, would relationships be better?

However this "German Honesty" apparently hits a lot of people in a hard way, a search on those exact terms brings up a bunch of different articles about how Germans voice their opinions and that it might be jarring to someone not from their culture. Regardless, perhaps we should try being a bit more direct with one another as a social experiment, and see perhaps what happens.

Das ist alles Völker!