So we have an exchange student with us from Germany for the next two weeks, and in a few months, my kid will be spending 2 weeks with her family in Germany. While some of the cultural differences are a bit surprising, what’s more surprising is the things both students were told about the other country.
For example, this German girl said she was told that here in the US, instead of Celsius, we measure temperature in Kelvin.
And that we only go shopping on Sundays.
And for our part, a representative from the exchange program told us that no one in Germany drinks plain water, only “sparkling” or carbonated water. Our student had no idea where that idea came from, either, and has happily been drinking water here.
So anyone else had similar experiences? I’m curious what big differences my daughter can expect when she gets to Germany, but also what kinds of things people were led to believe about another country that turned out to be false.
My living in Germany days was 20 something years ago so things can be different. I think this comes from the fact that in restaurants you don’t automatically get served water like in most sit down American restaurants. And if you order water the default was carbonated. This was before the proliferation of bottled carbonated water. We were told if we wanted no bubbles to order tafelwasser. It certainly doesn’t mean that Germans never drink the non-bubbly stuff.
While on a job in Sofia, Bulgaria in the early 90s, one of the local embassy employees told me that when she was growing up they were taught that everybody in the US got high on Coca-Cola, which contained a narcotic. They were shown film clips of young people drinking Coke, laughing and being hyperactive.
In both directions, true facts ingested, misunderstood and regurgitated as nonsense.
“US measures temperature not in Celsius but in one of the other scales” (true) -> “US measures temperature in Kelvin” (NB Kelvin is the scale German students learn second, with Réaumur and Fahrenheit being historical oddities, so it’s plausible that when someone tries to remember a temperature scale, not Celsius, they hit on Kelvin. )
“Americans can shop on Sundays” (true, and exotic to Germans) -> “Americans shop on Sundays only”
“Germans, when ordering water in a restaurant, order mineral water” (true, and said mineral water available in more, less and not at all carbonated varieties) -> “Germans only drink carbonated water”.
The Germans make much better wine than we United Statesians are given to believe. So if your kid plans to get a buzz on, s/he’s got more options than just beer and schnapps.
Their beer really IS the best in the world, though.
Luckily for me, my daughter has zero interest in getting drunk.
Our student was quite mystified at the electronic “walk / don’t walk” sign at the intersection near our house, but that may just be because she’s from what I take to be a relatively rural part of Germany (judging by the photos of her neighborhood). She’d also never seen a tire swing before.
If they’ll be doing any highway driving, or even riding as a passenger, passing people of their right side is a notable difference. In the U.S., it’s pretty commonplace; if you’re going a little faster than a guy in a lane to your left, just keep going and you’ll be ahead of him in a little while. In Germany (and most of the rest of Europe, I gather) that sort of thing will get you in big trouble.
Upon returning to the States, I had to relearn that part of driving. In Europe, you could change lanes from the left to the right lane without even bothering to look over your shoulder. Nobody dreamed of passing on the right.
Are you saying that if there’s a two lane highway, and the car in the left is going way under the speed limit, you can’t pass him in the right lane? You just have to go as slow as he is, even though there’s an easy way around him?
Yes, but the drivers there know the rules and the slower vehicle isn’t supposed to stay in the left lane. If he does, the faster car behind him will flash his headlights; that’s the signal to move right and get out of the way.
I have no idea where the idea of Kelvin came from (and looking at the numbers would quickly show that it’s wrong–room temperature would be around 293 K), but I think I understand the shopping one. It is more common in Germany (and the rest of Europe) to go shopping for small amounts of groceries multiple times a week, especially since there tends to be less storage space. The fairly common American behavior of loading up a grocery cart once a week won’t work as well in lots of Europe, especially if you don’t have a car readily available to carry it all home.
I’m sure she’s probably gotten a lot of these sorts of “daily living in Germany” type things already, but one that always caught me out a bit was dates and times. Times weren’t so bad, as I was already used to thinking in 24 hour time, but I still have to stop and think to parse the European date format when it’s not immediately obvious.
If she spends any time on the Autobahns, and is anything like me, your daughter is going to wonder where the city of Ausfart is and why it needs so many exits off the highway?
It’s against the law to hang in the passing lane and against the law to pass in the right lane. That’s why it’s called a ‘passing’ lane. You are expected to stay out of the way of faster vehicles. You can be turned in for refusing to move and be ticketed by mail. You can also be ticketed for rude behavior towards another driver (repeatedly tapping your head in a “you’re an idiot” gesture is very offensive). I remember driving into Brussels on Friday afternoon from the eastern part of Belgium. There was a line of cars in the right lane stretching into the distance, all going the speed limit, and nobody in the left lane just cruising.
The German exchange students sure did; especially the daily Pledge of Allegiance. This was also after 9/11 to the patriotism was even more over-the-top than normal. They also found military recruiters showing up to campus weird (despite Germany still having conscription at the time).
I was going to start a thread asking for clarification of a story a German housemate told me a while back, about how her mother had been “pulled over by the police, who asked if she wanted to sue another driver who had made a bad motion at her.” She demonstrated the idiot head tap as you describe.
