by Virginia Mc Veigh

Created on: July 06, 2008   Last Updated: July 08, 2008

Living in Germany

I have lived in Germany longer than in my native Ireland. I think Germany is a country you have to get used to. Of course this is true of any country, but I think it is especially true of Germany. It takes time to understand the mentality of the people here. In the North, which is where I live, ( Hamburg) they have a reputation of being aloof and impersonal and you can easily get the impression that this is true, until you become more acquainted with their way of thinking. The Northerners even say this about themselves it is called "hanseatische Zurckhaltung" = hanseatic reservation. People in the Southern areas, such as Bavaria, tend to be more open and forthcoming, making it easier to make initial contact. Making it easy to start a conversation and make friends. Friends in a more casual sense . In other words , perhaps not to be taken too seriously. In the German language their are two very distinct meanings to the words "Bekannte" and" Freund" the one meaning "someone I know" and the other meaning, as I'm sure you have gathered, "a friend". And the difference is to be taken very seriously. On the other hand there is a saying here in the North that if you make a friend here, it is a friend for life. These observations or cliches do not really apply to young people. They would be,if at all, more typical for older people. No discrimination intended to older people! Also I find that people have changed a lot from my early years here. Then I was part of the younger generation myself whereas now I have progressed to one of the, let me say... mature citizens.

In my early days in Germany I remember trying to strike up a casual conversation with an elderly lady while waiting for a bus and she looked at me as if she suspected I had just escaped from some institution for the mentally instable. No discrimination intended to the mentally instable. Irish people tend to swing to the Bavarian way as opposed to the hanseatic way common to the natives in this habitat

In Ireland, if you happen to sit next to someone on a bus, even for a short journey , you could very easily get off knowing more about that person's family tree (including births, deaths, marriages and divorces in the last 10 years) as well as every gory detail of their medical history present and past. And of course you will be expected to reciprocate. Now do we really want to get that friendly? I don' t think so. I think I ll be content to live here with the not so communicative sort.

Maybe "hanseatic reservation" is just another term for "minding your own buisness"

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