Cultural differences
This should become a new thread about cultural differences.
This should not become a discussion whether something is right or wrong ,
but rather a discussion designated to point out on these differences, for a better understanding.
As an example, I begin.
The U.S. „Nipplegate“ scandal was for us Germans unbelievable. I mean, to make a scndal of a natural body part is incredible here in Germany. It was as if „they“ made a scandal out of the incident that someone had put off aglove from his/her hand.
This is different in the point of view whether body part are offensive or not.
Of course people re not allowed to run around naked in publicity; I think that is quite „normaL2 (what is „normality“ anyway ?) , but putting off the upper clothes in the heat of a summer’s day on a lawn is not considered offensive. And I mean both women and men. Of course some people find it rather „offensive“ than others, especiallyolder ones, but the overall border is relatively low.
This has a decent historical development . In the late 80s (I think), TV was privatised. The priivate, commercial TV stations / companied showed rather „erotic“ movies in late night sections, something the non-private TV stations hadn’t done before. Personally, I believe that this led to an erosion of the above mentioned „border“, leading to a society that isn’t felt offensive as much as before.
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I once read an article in a newspaperwhich absolutely shocked me. That was 10 or more years ago, but I still get angry about that. Another cultural difference.
It was about a person who shot an asian student. As it appeared in the article, the student had asked for something, going towards the door of a house. A man (inhabitant or owner of that house) appeared, with a gun in his hand. He suspected an anfriendly studend, and shouted „freeze!“. The studend did not understand, stepped towards the house, and was shot.
What made me angry (and makesme angry right now) was the fact that this man was NOT punished. He defended himself by saying that he suspected an attack or something, and got free.
The article wrote the theory that the student might have unserstood „please ?“ instead of „freeze !“ , so that he stepped further towards the house to explain what he had in mind.
What me as a German strikes me, are several points
- a man was shooting a person and was not punished
- he was allowed to openly carry a weapon
- he felt he should or could defend himself by shooting.
To make clear what’s so „offensicve“ about it, I’ll explain :
- In Germany, people are [b9not[/b] allowed tro openly wear weapons !
- people are not allowed to defend themelves by shooting, except in *extreme* cases
- people who are allowed to wear weapons are - compared to the whole public - a selected few.
This number of „selected few“ needs further explanation : These are :
- policepersons
- security people (sometimes)
- deer-hunters
- in general people ho have a special license to wear a weapon.
Unlike the U.S. it is not generally allowed to have a weapon in possession. To do so, you must go to the police and ask for a license, a special document - kind of a passport - giving you the right to wear a weapon.
The implicite result of this is : Everyone who wears a weapon is a criminal.. Or at least has a weapon illegally in possession, which can be punished, too.
So, from a German point of view, the man from the news article was either
- a criminal
- had the wepon illegally
- was crazy
- this was pure, unpunished murder.
That’s just the German point of view of this incident.
The Massacre of Erfurt was uch a great tragedy, because people are not allowed to bear wepons - and escpecially not pupils. Because of that, the person who did the massacre had his wepon(s) illegally, and thus the massacre was not allowed, technically speaking. For a society not use to violence as a means to „solve problems“, such a masacre is s double heavy tragedy.
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Compared to other countries, Germans are rather „cold“, „the country of poets and thinkers“, where the amount of „thinkers“ is rather high. Germans are - at least from myoverall point of view - rather thinking, logical, rational, materialistic. Express of emotions is not widely known, compared to e.g. Italy.
Children are treated in a different way than I’ve heard it from Italy, for example. When a couple is together, they rather tend to consider a child as a matter of cost than to the enrichment of life that it really is. That is just my impression, and I’m not sure whether my impression iscorrect or not, but I recently saw a caricature in a local newspaper expressing just that.
I suspect that the German treatment of children could be fairly offensive to people from e.g. Italy, because many (especially older) people (mainly in towns, guess) consider children as noise-making, dirt-making, cause of trouble, unfriendly, etc. . I have read of people being unfriendly themselves towards children just because of that. This might appear as offensive towards members of different cultures where children are simply loved because they are children (simple as that). Children are different , imho, not to compare with adults.
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Okay, now I’ve written down what I (personally) see as differences between Germany and „therest of the world“.
Now you are the ones to post !
Alrik.
