World Cup 2014 - Soccer Fever in Germany

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Easter

 

Last weekend was Easter which meant Friday and Monday off. Friday was "Karfreitag" (= good Friday) which is the day when Christians celebrate the killing of Jesus. Ok, "commemorate" is probably the more fitting expression. Sunday and Monday are Easter Sunday respectively Easter Monday. This is the time when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. We are not Christians, but having Friday and Monday off is enough reason to celebrate (especially at my current Job). I don't know many Easter traditions, but the one I like is of course giving out Easter candies - chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, etc. And this year we were able to revive another tradition - hiding the Easter candies to have the children search for them. This tradition was never dead of course, but without children it is not so much fun. And this year we had children - our son and his cousin. So my sister hid the Easter candies in our parents' garden, and then the kids went wild. I don't know what was more fun for the Kids - searching for the candies or eating them.

 



 

 

Another important Easter tradition in Germany - basically every little village comes  together to light a big bonfire - the Easter fire.

As with many Christian Holidays also many of the Easter traditions are not purely of Christian origin. Many of these traditions or at least parts of them have their origin in the pre-Christian times. When for example the Germanic tribes believed in all these more exciting gods like Wotan, Odin, Thor (who apparently leads a double life as a superhero).

Germany Is Not ....

... as clean and Germans are not as environmentally friendly as many people (like in Taiwn) believe and Germans often claim themselves. I don't know if that has changed since I grew up here, but nowadays you see garbage along the road everywhere. Not just little things like paper cups, McDonald bags, beer cans, etc. but also bigger items like on this picture a toilette seat or an ironing board.

Also almost every day, when I cycle to work, I can observe a roughly 10 km long traffic jam on the highway I pass, because people just really want to drive their car to work, despite the discussions about having to cut down on fossil fules, and despite the fact that gas is like 1.50 Euro/60 NTD per Liter (of course public transportation is quite expensive here).

Another thing people say about Germans and Germany that all is very orderly, people respect the laws etc. I believe they usually are just afraid of punishments and heavy fines. If they think they can get away with it, they break the rules like everyone else. All the trainstations are smoking free areas (sometimes with a designated smoking area), but no one cares, and people  just light their cigarette, whenever they feel like.
It is against the law to talk on the phone while driving a car, but all the time you see people driving their car with one hand, while holding their mobile phone with the other hand (and in a few occasions almost run me over).
And then there is the traffic - Westerners scoff about the traffic in Taiwan, and it can be horrid. But now I start to think the difference between a city like Taipei and the area I live in, Stuttgart, is the space (OK and the much higher number of scooters in Taiwan).  My experience here has been that the people in Stuttgart drive super aggressively, and try to bend the rules as much as possible. It always looks like as if everybody wants to be Michael Schuhmacher, while everbody else on the road is an idiot. OK people say that Stuttgart is a "car city" because after all this is the city of Porsche and Mercedes Benz, so perhaps people are extra "competitive."

The one difference I noticed between the traffic in Germany and in Taiwan - people in Germany actually stop at the crosswalk.

Spring Has Arrived

After months of temperatures of around 0 degrees it seems like spring has finally arrived. Especially here around Stuttgart the weather has been nice, sometimes temperatures even reached almost 20 degrees, and everywhere you can see the trees and flowers blossoming

Part of my way to work:

A picture taken from our bedroom window:

In front of our apartment building:

Time to put some plants on our balcony:

Yes, we are trying to get a small balcony garden going, with strawberries and tomatos for the beginning.

These Asians ... A Daily Dose of Racism

When long time ago a friend of mine told us about him being asked "can you speak Asian?" while he was getting ready to move to Taiwan it was funny. Now I am in the situation where I hear "Asian" every day and is increasingly less funny. "We still have to call the Asians!", "Is this package from the Asians?" are some of the harmless examples I hear every day. It was annoying when people in Taiwan would generalize "Foreigners'" behavior, like "this is how foreigners do it", but here it often has an offensive, degrading tone. "The Asians screwed up again!","Why are these Asians doing this?", "Again these Asians". Or like a recent comment from my boss: "You know, how the Asians are." "hm, do you mean the Indians, the Afghans, or the Japanese? Or are you talking about the Chinese?" And the funny thing is, our company only exists because two Asians are investing millions in it.
Racism is alive.

German (Organization)s are very well organized - a MYTH?

While living in Taiwan one thing I often heard about the Germans being very well organized, very efficient, and always on time. On the other hand I often heard Germans complaining about the inefficiency of Taiwanese companies.
And after almost one year in Germany I can say - it is a myth.
First - governmental organizations
STORY A: a little bit more than a year ago I applied for my son's passport through the German office in Taipei. My son got his passport, and is apparently registered as a German citizen, so far so good. Then just before Christmas I got an email from the German office in Taipei saying there is an application for some kind of German birth certificate for my son waiting in my former hometown in Germany. When I  called the city government there they told me that "sorry, the application has been here since March, but I just couldn't find the time to work on it. There are a couple of questions, but since you live in another city now, we will transfer the application to that city".
So a couple days later i get in touch with the city government here, and they have no clue. OK it is just before Christmas and everybody is in Christmas mode and mood. So I tell them, I will get back to them later. To give them some time I call them again in the second week of January, and "yes, there is something, but we haven't looked at it yet.Please give us a couple of days, we get back to you." So i give them two weeks, I call them again and "hm i can't find anything, please let me talk to my supervisor, who is in a meeting, and then we get back to you." And lo and behold, only two days later, they really call me: "I haven't looked at it carefully yet, but I noticed we still need  the original birth certificate from Taiwan." I complain that I provided all the documents the German office in Taipei requested, and her reply: "but that is how we do it here in Waiblingen. I don't know how other cities in Germany do it, but that is the way we have always done it here. And by the way - it will cost you 100 Euro." Hm, do I get a discount for having to wait a year?

There are tons of other examples - getting a kindergarten place takes forever. Or when they transferred my tax information (tax bracket,etc.) from one city to the other they made a mistake, and i had to show and prove to them that they made a mistake.
Of course we all know that governmental organizations are different than regular companies or organizations.

But how about the military - they should be efficient, right? There was a report recently that the German military is loosing 90 million Euros a year - because they are lending equipment to other organizations (for example research institutions), and then they forget who they gave it to.

I also have some observations from the Deutsche Bahn (the German Railway System), but these observations will go into a seperate blog entry.

How about the regular companies - so far my feeling is that everybody thinks German companies are well organized because they have so many rules. So they must be well organized, right? This is what i have experienced so far:
- I sent stuff to a big German bike company, and though we can track that the package has been received by their staff they cannot find the package.
- Then in another case I get a message from this company that I still owe them around 10 batteries (for e-bikes). I tell them that i send them these batteries like a couple of weeks ago, but they say, "no, these are different batteries." So I spend half a day to find these other batteries (or documentation), when the get back to me and say "oh, sorry. These 10 batteries were the batteries we were looking for."
- Recently anoter bike company sent me a bike from one of their dealers to check. Because I  had a question I contacted the bike dealer directly, and the dealer said that the had sent the bike to the bike company about half a year ago.

And there are tons of other examples. These examples are from the bike industry though, which has the image of being quite chaotic. So at the moment I am applying for jobs at big companies in other industries. If i get lucky and get a job in a big company outside the bike industry i will share my observations about their efficiency.

I don't mind being inefficient, because I know these are all humans. And not that it is better in Taiwan, but what I don't like though is the arrogance with which the Germans often blame the "Asians" if something goes wrong or not according to their plan. Or when they tell me "your fellow country men screwed up again".
So "Asians", take it with a grain of salt the next time someone is talking about Germans' efficiency.

Christmas

Christmas - a time for the family to get together. And so we did. It had been a couple of years since I and my siblings were in Germany to celebrate Christmas together. So it was a special feeling this year and the special feeling was emphasized by having two little kids running around the Christmas tree - our son and our niece (3.5 years). Our son has already fully grasped the spirit of Christmas. He was watching a cute cartoon with teddy bears and cute baby teddy bear got a ride in Santa Claus teddy bear's sleigh when our son noticed that the sleigh was empty and he asked: "Where are the presents?" I am so proud of him.

Here are some impressions of our Christmas - a nice Christmas tree, a lot of food and presents.

One could say -

before ...

...and after

Christmas Market Tour

The Christmas markets are a very important part of the Christmas season in Germany. Christmas market - that means toys, bratwurst, candied almonds and hot spiced wine (Glühwein) - at least for me. some of the Christmas markets in Germany are famous tourist attractions. Here are some impressions from our visits to some Christmas markets in our area. 



The Christmas market in Stuttgart

The Christmas market in Stuttgartt has about 280 stalls and about 4 million visitors

The Christmas market in Waiblingen

- much smaller of course, but also much cozier.

Probably the most famous one in our region - the Christmas market in Esslingen. One section has a medieval flair, and it is probably very cool - if you go on a weekday. We went there on a Sunday afternoon, and we had hardly room to move. So we just passed through, got some almonds, took some photos and left.

Getting Equipped for Cycling in the Snow

The temperatures are going down (already below 0 C/below 32 F) and the weather forecast says snow pretty soon. So I got myself a couple of things to make myself ready for cycling in the snow/on frozen roads and in low temperatures.

All I can say is KACHING.

Winter tires = tires with 265 metal Spikes

Gloves:

Shoe covers (for pulling over the shoes to keep the feet warm):

Here a couple of impressions from my current route (so far only a little bit of snow/ice):

 Early morning

Late afternoon

The hardest part so far ...

 ... has been to have less time for our son. This has of course nothing to do with living in Germany, but with having a new, regular (8-5 Job). In Taipei I was working for Radio Taiwan International  was born and had a much more flexible working schedule. So for the first one and a half years after our son was born I was able to be at home a lot during the day. So he was used to see me in the mornings, and especially when he was able to get out of his bed himself he would run to my study and look for me. We also were able to go out together quite often. Be it only downstairs, walk around the lake nearby, get food, or even "explore" the city.
Now, most of the time, I am already gone when he wakes up, and I come home only around 6 PM. So there is not much time I can spend with him. So sometimes he tells me: "Papa, don't go to work".

I dearly miss the times when I was able to spend more time with him. It is not very likely that this kind of job will come around again, so I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to work for the radio back in Taipei.