March 31, 1993
She was born in Texas, grew up in Huntsville from the time she was five, then went to Oldenburg in northern Germany during her senior year in high school. She returned to Texas, and studied in Huntsville. Five years later she spent a second year in Oldenburg. She's now a student in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.
In the beginning Amelia Bohne's experiences mirror those of Donna Hudson, who had such a negative reaction to Germany. Amelia Bohne was also a person in a foreign country who did not know the language and who spent a lot a time alone or with other foreigners. The first year she was in Germany, she had negative reactions because she did not understand the intentions of the people she was around and because many of her expectations were not met. She was placed as a senior with ninth graders, because she did not know German, and she had little in common with them. She spent afternoons with other foreigners learning German, people older than she and with different interests and goals from hers. She did not understand the language conventions, and had assumed, as many people would, that they would be the same as at home; so when students did not pay a lot of attention to her as an exchange student, when they did not invite her in ways to which she was accustomed, she reacted negatively. She also did not know that the German "college preparatory" high school would be so different from the American high school with the latter's extracurricular activities. So the first year for her was one of complete disappointment, and her opinions were similar to those of Donna Hudson.
But the second year was the turning point for her, the exact opposite of the first. By this time she could communicate in German, she had developed a circle of friends, and she did not have the earlier shock of having to adjust to a German school system which did not have the activities that our high schools have. Furthermore, she had been in Germany long enough to know more of the customs and norms, so that she was less disappointed by unfulfilled expectations. With the experiences of her first year to inform her, she returned from her second year thinking of Oldenburg, Germany as the best city in the world! She had, indeed, adjusted.
[I have two perspectives.] The first year I was there my view was not very good. I was not overwhelmed [with Germans]. I had not volunteered one hundred percent to be there and was not willing to put out a special effort to get involved and spent my time, at the home I was living in, in my room being depressed. And my opinion at the time was that they (the Germans) were not interested. Whether they were or not, I am not sure. The second year I was there I was with friends, with people, [and] on my own all over the city. [Now] Oldenburg is the greatest city in the world, as far as I'm concerned. It differed because of my own interactions.
During her first year she was introduced to the German school system, which is somewhat different from ours. Amelia Bohne attended the German Gymnasium (pronounced with a "hard 'g'"), the public university-preparatory high school that one-third of all German children attend, from the ages of about eleven to nineteen. At the end of this time they take a long test, and if they pass it they have done their Abitur and are allowed to attend the university, which is somewhat akin to our upper level college years and graduate school in arts and sciences. Another third of the children attend the Realschule, which several of her friends did. In this school one prepares for middle management, technical colleges, etc. The final third attend the Hauptschule, after which they become apprentices, often going to school one day a week while learning on the job during the other four. (The apprenticeship system is described more fully by Paul Masberg in his interview.)
While she attended the Gymnasium in the mornings, in the afternoons Amelia Bohne attended the Volkshochschule, which is like our adult or continuing education, in order to learn German.
Finally, Amelia Bohne learned a significant difference between the American and German school systems. While extracurricular sports and other activities are a large part of school life in the United States, they are separate from the school system in Germany. Schools may have physical education classes, but they do not have all the sports, clubs, etc. If one wants to engage in soccer, for example, one must join a distinct, separate "club," called a Verein, where children, teenagers, and adults all participate in their various age groups in town. The systems are simply different in the two countries.
I was a senior in high school, I went to a Gymnasium and was put into a ninth grade class, because I did not speak a single word of German. In going there it was understood that school starts at the end of summer, and about six weeks later I would start learning German at a Volkshochschule. A good six weeks into school I was supposed to begin classes in German! So I was with the ninth graders speaking English or not speaking at all, and just sitting around all day long while they had class and I stared at the walls. Then when school was out and they went home, I spent from 1:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon in the Volkshochschule learning German. And by that time you go home, you eat dinner, and it's dark. And I had no contact with any kids my age, and the kids I had contact with during the day were a good three years younger than I was, and I was not comfortable just hanging out with that age group. They had very different interests. I felt I was ready to go home--"let's get this over with"--because I didn't realize that I could have gotten into other groups. I did go to church on the weekends, and there was a youth group that got together in the evenings at someone's house, but I didn't ask, and if I was confronted with someone asking me how I was doing, I was not prompt in responding and saying, "Yes, I'm interested. Why don't you call me?" As far as I knew I thought they didn't want me around, because they did not come back again and again and say, "Come with us--come with us." They asked once, and they may have asked a second time, but they didn't hound me about it: "Well, come on, come on. You don't ever come."
The kids at the school whom I knew would go walking through the city on Saturdays, or the youth would gather after church at one of the other kids' houses and drink tea. It was an open invitation, but if I was not confronted personally and verbally by one of them, I felt out of place and did not go, and would go home to the family.
Maybe I just did not understand that it really was an open invitation, or that they expected input from my side as well. At the time I thought it was personal. I thought they just were not interested. They'd had exchange students there before, and they knew all about it: "It's boring now. It's not a novelty anymore." I was used to what American high school students would have done--call me up, talk for hours, and say, "Well, let's plan to do this and this and this"--to be invited constantly. And that not being done, I just felt negative.
In my circle of friends we were in contact constantly here in the States the minute we'd get home from school: "Well, you're not doing anything? Well, I'm bored, come on over." And that would happen every night. And it did not happen in Germany.
It was three months before I understood anything, [even] enough to say, "Yes, I understood what you're saying." Somewhere in the fourth month I could talk and make sense. By that time I'd already turned a lot of people off to me, because I'd sit in the church or in the classroom and "yes" and "no" them, but [I] did not play an active part. And they just assumed, "Well, okay, she's not interested, so we just won't mess with her." So there I was, and after they had gotten themselves in the routine of [thinking,] "She's just over in the corner or on the side; don't worry about her," I was probably not realizing this, because I did not speak the language and did not understand what was going on. I probably missed a lot of the transaction. That, I'm sure, played a big part as well. [1]
I had too many expectations, as far as school was concerned. I remember the year before I left, my high school had an exchange student for probably the first time, at least during my high school days, and everyone just flipped--"Oh, there's Peter! Let's go talk to Peter." Everyone wanted to be Peter's friend. He was from Norway; and I was just thinking, they (the Germans) have got to be interested as well. And when I went over there, I expected there to be groups I could get involved with--a band, an art group, or some type of extracurricular activity I could get into--even though I did not speak the language--participate in and be accepted in, and make my own little group of friends. Then I got there, and they had nothing of the sort, then I was involved in the afternoon with all sorts of foreigners, adults who I didn't have anything to do with, either, and I just kind of missed out and was very disappointed that I did not become the "exchange student," [with people saying,] "Oh, there's the exchange student. Let's go find out where she's from." That was a very big shock.
And they didn't have the same kinds of extracurricular activities you were accustomed to having?
No, not that I'm aware.
So you were expecting them to be as interested in you as the American students were in the exchange student from Norway?
Yes. I even expected the school to be like our school. I found out they were very school-oriented--non-extracurricular activity-oriented. You've got your books, you've got your homework, and that's it, whereas in an American high school that's different: lots of play time, lots of band, theater, art, office aid--you know, any excuse you have not to be in class, that's where you are.
That was the biggest shock.
Although Donna Hudson had trouble carrying her groceries on the bus, Amelia Bohne found that her family, except for the father, did a lot on bike, and not by car. She also learned that the layout of the city was different from American cities she'd known, and she came to appreciate all the activity that takes place in the heart of a German city, all the life that "happens" there, and how people stop and meet and talk on the street if they know each other. Evidently, if someone on the street says, "How are you?" it is a signal to stop and have a short conversation, while in the States it may simply be a passing greeting as one continues on.
She liked this way of life. Typically, the English words 'inner city', when used to talk about United States cities, convey a connotation of poverty and violence. However, the German counterpart Innenstadt does not have such feelings surrounding it. The Innenstadt is often the hub of all business, shopping, and social activity in a city. It is the active, alive downtown area.
Furthermore, Amelia Bohne enjoyed Christmas in Germany. Her family was quite religious and enjoyed all the traditional celebrations, beginning about a month before with Advent, the four weeks of waiting for Christmas, during which time candles are lit on an Advent Wreath. She also enjoyed the Christmas market in the city, something which many German cities have: marketplaces with Christmas goods for sale.
Bohne's family was somewhat different from what one thinks of as the typical German family at Christmas, for her family decorated the Christmas tree about a week before Christmas. Often German parents wait until Christmas Eve to decorate and light the tree, not letting their children enter the room where the tree is, until all is decorated and aglow.
Many Germans, and many people in the United States whose ancestors came from Germany, celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve by opening gifts and attending religious services then. Celebrating both on the twenty-forth (Heiligabend) and on the twenty-fifth (Christmas) is a tradition that may date back to pre-Christian times when people timed a day from noon to noon instead of midnight to midnight, as we do. If that is so, then it would be logical that a celebration would last from the afternoon of one day into the night and morning of the next. Here is what Amelia Bohne has to say about it all.
Anything else about the first year that comes to mind?
The weather was a shock, but I guess that's to be expected. I managed to hit one of their worst winters. We had six months of snow on the ground. And we're in the north, it's flat country, and I was given a bike my first day there. And that was my transportation, regardless of where I was going or what the weather was like, and with six months of snow lying on the ground, on the bike paths, everywhere, it was six months of horror for me, because you're riding along tense, afraid to move; one slight jar and you slip on the ice and you're down. And I'd had a car previously and was very spoiled. That was hard to get used to.
Everyone I knew rode bikes. The whole family I lived with--they had one car for a family of five. And the father drove the car to work in the mornings and home from work in the afternoons, and everyone else, if they had to go anywhere, it was on the bike. The mother worked as well, but she went to work and went home, and went shopping on the bike. It was very typical, from what I saw.
Anything else that first year?
Little things. The entire year, the "inner city" (downtown), or the pedestrian zone, was something I wished that we had.[2] I would have a free hour in between certain classes at the school, where I'd have nothing to do, and the school was situated right across the street from the "inner city," and I'd go window shopping and do nothing, hang around, go to a cafe and get something to drink, tea or hot chocolate--and you can't even compare it to a mall. That's the closest thing we have, but it does not compare.
They were so relaxed, even though they were always doing something. They had their schedule. Every night they had different activities to do, but they seemed in everything that they were on their way to do, they were on their way with a relaxed attitude. On their way somewhere, they'd see a friend, they'd stop and talk for ten minutes: "How are you doing? What's been going on? Have you seen so-and-so?" The numbers of people that walk through the inner city doing nothing but walking, making the rounds, the numbers of people sitting in the cafes, just sitting there and watching, not necessarily even eating or drinking anything, just sitting there--just the sense of: "I'm on vacation." I loved it.
...And pigeons. Lots of pigeons.
But you had the feeling that although they had things to do, they still had time to sit--that we don't have?
We may have it. We may use our time in a different way, though. We stay home, and we turn the TV on, and you can spend a good five hours a night in front of the TV. And I remember their little daily plan of what classes they go to, and this little book all the kids in my classes would have, where they'd write notes to each other and pass them, and in them, they'd have Monday through Friday. You know, Monday night they have piano classes, and Tuesday night they go sing in some special choir, Wednesday night they meet at so-and-so's house to drink tea. [3] Every spare minute of the day they seemed to have something planned. It may be fun; they may go somewhere to watch TV--I'm not saying that they didn't watch TV--but they were active in their free time, whereas we are more likely to "vege" out on the couch and not necessarily go anywhere or invite anyone over. That's the frame of mind.
Anything else in the first year?
Christmas. I had a lot of fun Christmas time, because it was so drawn out in my family. I don't know if it was a common practice or not, but our family--every evening throughout December when everyone was home together, which was a good three or four nights a week, our mother would make tea and chop up fruits, make a fruit salad or cookies, or breads, and we'd get together, we'd sing Christmas songs, we'd read a Christmas story, and we'd spend a good hour or hour and a half sitting in the living room doing nothing but being together. It was wonderful spreading out Christmas, and you'd just think "Christmas" all month long and be happy all month long. And the whole Advent thing in church every Sunday. We lit a new candle; [we'd hear] the special Christmas choir presentations. The Christmas market in the city. There was always something that was very festive to be doing, especially within the home.
Advent, and the Christmas tree with the candles on it. Real candles on it. It even fell over once, and nothing burned. About a week before Christmas the tree went up--a live tree. The decorations on the Christmas tree were wrapped foil chocolates that you'd get to eat when you take down the Christmas tree or whenever you could sneak them out. It was very homey, very cozy throughout December. And Christmas just explodes when you have the presents. And we had the Christmas Day service, the twenty-sixth day service and the day after in church. It just seemed to last forever. I think we had Christmas Eve service in the church, and then had presents in the evening, and then Christmas Day we had another service. So it was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
They were Evangelists--within the Baptist circle, whatever they were called over there.
Amelia Bohne was placed with a family that had similar values to hers and her family's. Thus, since she was a churchgoer, a churchgoing family was found for her. Her perspective represents the segment of German society that attends and is involved in church activities, although in certain regions of the United States, church activities comprise many more types of social activities than they tend to do in Germany.
There is a range of beliefs and behaviors regarding religion in Germany, just as there is in the United States. Michael Schwarz is a non-believer, Amelia Bohne's family seemed traditional Protestant, Paul Masberg is quite involved in church, and Sara Johnson represents non-churchgoing German Christians. While most Germans belong to the Evangelical (Protestant) or Catholic religions, it is difficult to find anything in Germany resembling the "Bible Belt" of the United States, where proselytizing one's religion and discussing one's faith or church comes up in everyday conversation.
Now, these people were involved in church. Do you think they were typical or atypical?
I don't exactly know. I'd say percentage-wise it's bound to be the same. Three-fourths of Americans don't go to church, whether they're religious or not. Over there they're bound to have the same problems. My group of friends was almost wholly centered on church involvement, because the weekends were my only free time, and those were the only people I saw and personally knew, and they all went to church. My family went to church, the neighbors went to church. And that was pretty much all I was involved in, so I'm not sure I can say either way. It seemed to me that the majority [of people I knew] went to church.[4]
You said you liked it much better the second year. Tell me about that.
The second year I was older. The first year I went I was seventeen turning eighteen. The second year I went I was older, did not have any type of restrictions regarding what time to be home, [and] was not in school as such. I did attend the university and picked out a couple of classes that interested me. I'd go to my classes, then go visit friends. And almost every night I was with someone, doing something: sitting around in their houses or apartments, the majority of the time playing games, playing cards, sitting around talking, drinking tea, and on the weekends I'd go out. There weren't as many restrictions, and because of that, and because I was already fluent in the language, I became more involved in the college group at the church, became one of their helpers with the youth. We'd decide what topics we wanted to discuss with the youth, and so became friends with all of the youth group and had a tremendous circle of friends--a good fifty people whom at any time I could go visit or call up. So there were no limits on what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go.
So when you went back the second time, most of your friends were in the youth group or the church?
Yes. We spent a lot of time being somewhere, walking through the city. There was a cafe that was pretty much our own hangout. We'd meet there. Friday nights it was just a known fact that the youth group and whatever college kids would like to come along--you'd meet at the cafe. Six o'clock, and you'd just start walking in the door. And the whole place was filled with our group. That was my crowd.
There were a handful of kids who were in my ninth grade class that first year who had now just finished Abitur, and the age difference doesn't matter as much when they're twenty and you're twenty-three. So I would meet them as well on other occasions. And a handful of kids--students that I'd met at the university. But a good ninety percent of my involvement was with the church people.
Okay. What kinds of games would you play?
Games that I grew up playing. So they're bound to have been American games. A lot of cards. [Also,] difficult games that I had not learned here. If they do exist here, I had not heard of them. And the typical games that I grew up playing as a child, well, as an adult take on new meaning or become harder. Or mind games. There's a game called Civilization that we spent eight hours playing one time--you build civilizations, and have all of these cards. Some of them are crops, and you trade--games that, before having played them with these people, I couldn't have imagined ever going and buying: a game that would take me at least an hour to comprehend and then require total concentration and consider that fun. But like I said before, we didn't get together somewhere and sit down in front of the TV. I watched maybe a total of twenty hours the year I was there. So we were more intellectually involved in things that we did. Movies occasionally, but we pretty much relied on ourselves to entertain each other: conversations--you know, meet at someone's house and do nothing but talk for hours on end. The topics varied tremendously, compared to my friends' here in the States where we'd get together: "What did you watch last night?" Or "Let's go to the mall." Or "So-and-so is dating so-and-so." I just had not encountered the intellectual maturity that I did over there.[5]
What kinds of topics would come up?
Religious topics, whether it was something someone had read or a sermon we'd heard. Because of the fact that I was American, a lot of times America would come up, and we'd get into differences or similarities. Or someone would complain: "Well, you know, [President] Reagan was such a jerk" or: "This guy's good. This guy's bad" or "What's going on in Los Angeles?"[6] I was over there then. Major topics, I would think. They didn't center their ideas on what was going on in their city. Even the news was something that I thought was unique. When I'd see the news, they'd spend five minutes talking about something that had gone on in the city, then they'd go on to German news, and then to what happened that day in France or Switzerland or Italy. And then you almost always heard something about America or Russia or China. It was very global. And here when you click on the news, it's what's happening in Arlington and Dallas.
Space-wise Texas is bigger than Germany, but I don't think size is the rule. I just think they're more interested in what is going on than a lot of us are. [7]
Why do you think that is?
I had never throughout my high school days sat down to watch the news or read a newspaper--or even ask what was going on. It did not interest me. It did not occur that something was going on to interest me. There was enough going on with my friends or in my surroundings that I could concern myself with. And over there everyone seemed to be aware. In any of these discussions that would come up, if I were sitting with a friend talking about something, another one of our friends who just happened to be passing by would hear us talking and instantly join the conversation, whether that be the recycling problems that we have regarding getting a recycling type of organization together [or something else]. Everyone always seemed to know something to say, whether they were brilliant about it or not. They had an opinion. I found more people to be informed.
Were these people from a variety of educational backgrounds?
These were the kids from the church, I'd say, anywhere from sixth grade on through college. A lot of them went to the Realschule and maybe a handful to the Gymnasium. Several had already started into some kind of apprenticeship. They weren't all Gymnasium students. They weren't all straight-"A"-type students. Maybe they got it at home from their parents, or from watching the news.
She liked her family. She, like Donna Hudson, perceived a certain cohesiveness to family life that they did not experience in their own families, growing up in the late sixties and seventies. Amelia Bohne's German family ate together during the main meal of the day, which was at noon, in the 1980's, just as Mary Schmidt had described it in the 1950's. In fact, a family sitting down together at the main meal in the United States (which would be the evening meal) is something that one thinks of in past generations, perhaps in the 1950's and early 1960's. The author remembers daily family meals while growing up in middle class, midwestern America of that era. Certainly many middle class families do not eat together today.
Anything else you can think of right now?
The families always seemed to play very important roles. Like I said, they got their information from home. It would seem to me that they were talking at home. When they're at home, they do have conversations over the dinner table.
And they actually do sit down to dinner. These are things that I did not grow up with. My best friend did not grow up with it, either. I hate to say, "All Americans are this way," or "All Germans are that way", but in my circle of friends, those in the States led more individual lives. The kids did what they wanted to do, and the parents did what they wanted to--whereas in Germany, when you're in the home, the family's involved. The brothers and sisters in my family were always coming home and saying, "Well, this happened in school today; and this teacher said this and this," and we'd discuss what happened during that class period in school and have our own discussion, conflicting views or not. Everyone was always interested in the other parts of the others' lives that did not happen in the home. There seemed to be more connections--not necessarily stronger connections--but more between the family members.
Just because I didn't sit with my family at home at dinner time and have our little conversations, does not mean that they were not necessarily interested or did not hear what was going on occasionally: "I'm doing badly in that class" or "I'm dating so-and-so now instead of the other guy." They were involved, but not to the [same] extent. They may have known what was going on, but not necessarily how it came about or my opinion on what I felt about it. It seemed the German family I was with spent more time discussing their feelings about those events and not just the events themselves.
I don't know that ties were necessarily stronger. I feel the German family was more involved with each other. [When I grew up] Father was at work all day, he'd plop himself in front of TV. Mother worked, and afternoons she had her duties to do. And the kids, my brother and I, when we'd get home, would go our separate ways with friends. We all seemed to know where the other one was, or what the other one was doing, but we did not have the same interest in what the other thought. We did not ask, "Are we eating together?" because it was understood we weren't.
Were their meals the stereotypical meals?
In our family lunch was the only time of the day we ate together. The father worked during the day, the mother at night. Breakfast was on our own. It was always the breads[8] with whatever you decided to put on them, and we'd go off to school at different times, so we didn't necessarily see each other in the morning. Lunch was always a big meal: potatoes at every meal--and I love potatoes, so that's not negative. They're always just plain, ordinary cooked potatoes--boiled potatoes. No sauces. Vegetables: cauliflower or spinach, some type of vegetable with it. And usually a meat, not necessarily sausages all the time, either. That wasn't typical for our family. Some type of fish maybe--often fish, or some type of cutlet, pork chop, some type of beef. Evenings you'd come in and make yourself something on a piece of bread if you were hungry. The parents didn't ever seem to be hungry in the evening, so I seemed to be the only one eating at night. My dinner when I ate at home, when I was not with someone out in the city, was my breakfast--the same types of food (bread, cold cuts, but in the evening probably with the addition of pickles and tomatoes, like open-faced sandwiches).
Oldenburg is big enough to be wonderful, small enough to feel safe in, and its system of public transportation was great for the young person.
Why did you think Oldenburg was so great?
I love Oldenburg. It's got 140,000 people, so it is not a dinky little small town, but it's not some great metropolis [either]. It's big enough to have a great variety of things to do. We'd go bowling. We'd go dancing at a club. We'd go to cafes, restaurants, walking through the "inner city." We had our own theater, should we ever have enough money to [go]. There was the occasional movie. There were enough things to do, but you weren't afraid to walk in the dark through the streets to get home when it was over. Anywhere I went I had my bike with me. As the year progressed, so did the times I was out at night, and I'd be coming home at two or three in the morning after we'd spent a good six or eight hours together. From my best friend's to my house it was a thirty-minute bike ride. It was from his side of the city through the "inner city" to my side. Most of the time you didn't pass anyone, but when you'd get to the "inner city," there could have been those people lurking in corners to attack you. And I never seemed to be afraid. So I was really glad that it was big enough to have things to do, but not so big where I'd be afraid of who is where or the drug scene. We weren't quite big enough to have a drug scene, or a major problem with skinheads or any such type of group. I did not question anything. I never felt threatened. [9]
When I get in my car and go somewhere here, I always have the feeling: "Lock your door." I grew up with my mom saying that. You hear [about] more here: drive-by shootings, guns in the high schools, the drug problems. You just know there are things out there. Whether they're here or not, you're not sure. But I'm warier here--whether it be Dallas or Houston or San Antonio--than I was over there.
I spent a month traveling all by myself through Germany. I'd hop on a train, go somewhere, I'd be in Hamburg for a couple of days, in Berlin for a week, Frankfurt, Stuttgart. And wherever I went, once I was off the train, I had to walk, because I didn't have the money to waste on the cabs or necessarily spend every single mark[10] I had on a bus. So I'd walk a lot, and it was often late nights as well. And because I felt so reassured in Oldenburg I seemed to in the other places as well. And Hamburg has a very bad drug problem, but it never seemed to occur to me that something would happen. It's my own frame of mind, and not necessarily representative, but I just never seemed to feel threatened.
Did you like the public transportation?
Yes! In the north the driving age is first at eighteen. All my friends rode bikes everywhere they went. Even those who were older had not bothered to get their license, because they couldn't afford a car. Or there's not room for cars there. They don't have massive parking lots like we do. So when they would leave the city, it was on a train. There was always one going to where you wanted to go. In the bigger cities you'd have the subway systems, which I think are magnificent. I had so much fun on subways! The buses reach every corner of the city. It just seemed easy to deal with. You don't have the expense of a car or the problems of maintaining a car. It was impressive enough to think: Gosh, I wish we had buses that went everywhere. Or subways. Transportation made it a lot easier, especially during the month that I went traveling. I could not have seen anything without their transportation. I wouldn't have had the money to rent a car for a month. [11]
Like Barnett and Schwarz, she liked the pubs, the clubs, the Kneipen, where you could go "hang out" with your friends. She also noticed that "dating," in the American sense of the word, didn't exist in her group. Couples did not pair off or separate from their group of friends. As already noted in the interview with Schwarz, teenagers tend to have a circle of friends that they enjoy doing things with. Amelia Bohne discusses this circle here, termed a "clique" in German, which is not necessarily a group that keeps people out, but rather includes people who are friends. (See Monika Roubach's interview for similar perspectives on, and expanded descriptions of, male/female relationships in Germany.)
She also noticed a difference in dress in Germany, something that Paul Masberg and Monika Roubach also discussed in their interviews which follow. Are Germans more casual in their dress? Are they more classic? Does it depend on the situation? After reading everyone's opinion, it is up to the reader to decide for him- or herself.
You said you went to the clubs with some people? Were they different from clubs here?
Yes. My comparison is a bit funny. Huntsville has three clubs, but only one of them worth going to, because the others are country. They are the typical alternative rock group, the people that wear the leather, that wear all black, that do the make-up to extremes: a "looks-are-everything" kind of group. When I'd go to a club here [in the States] with my friend--it is natural for her to do that--she'd always have to fix me up. "What am I supposed to wear?" "Well, here, wear this and this and this."
And over there I went to a number of clubs, and it was always--dress comfortably, jeans, tennis shoes, a T-shirt. You're going to be dancing and sweating. Why dress up for it? The Germans without the makeup was not a problem, because they weren't expected to [wear it]. There were those who were in the extreme group: "Yes, we do want to look like Hollywood people, and we do wear all the makeup." But the majority of the people were very comfortable.
The music was awful. It all seemed to be seventies' rock music. I never found a club that played what would be our top forty or our progressive rock-type of music. It all seemed to be dated to me. But, you know, after a year you get used to that. You deal with it as well. But the dress and the music were the differences that I noticed--not hard to get used to.
And in other ways they seemed similar?
No, because like I said the looks are important here [in the U.S.]. The people that I know that go to clubs are the people who are out to look good. "Let's go to the club," because they want to look good, or they want to get drunk, or they want to meet so-and-so, or they want to see who's available, or are going to pick up someone--that type of thing, whereas over there I always went with my group of friends. We'd be out already, deciding, "Well, what'll we do?" If we didn't know, well, "Let's go dancing." And the group of us would go--men and women. We'd go as we were, regardless of what we looked like. And we pretty much stayed a group the entire night. We'd dance together, we'd go sit down together. No one was out trolling the bar to see who's winking at who, or claiming, "Well, isn't she sexy?" or this type of thing. It was a more--you know--friendly get-together than a hunt for someone. It was more fun. A fun activity, no objective to it. [12]
And several of our group were going with people. And the date might come along, but the boyfriend or girlfriend might not. Of my five closest friends over there, four of them had significant others, you know, somewhere, who were not necessarily church members, but who we would meet evenings when we would get together. And we would meet as a group, and they would bring their dates along. I didn't seem to see this: "Every night, well, I'm going on a date with so-and-so. I can't do anything else." They'd bring them along, or if they didn't want to, they'd leave their date at home. And my friends would come with my group. And here [in the U.S.] you seem to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and the two of you would go off, go to a movie, go to dinner, go, you know, wherever it is they decide to go, and it would be the two of them, secluded. That was something that stuck out in my mind.
So they don't have to be with their date all the time.
Right. We were in Germany; we were very group oriented. We had the same small group within all of the youth that seemed to do everything together. And should the boyfriend or the girlfriend of someone in that group want to come along, they were always welcome, but they didn't always want to come. And if the boyfriend or the girlfriend did not want to come, the other didn't say, "Oh, well, I'm sorry, I can't come either." They were always along with us. I can't think of one example here where my friends in Huntsville would have had something planned, and if a boyfriend said, "No, I don't want to," the girlfriend would still have come along. That has never happened to me here. Of course, it never occurred to me until I got to Germany and had so many in the group that had the boyfriends/girlfriends who joined us.
I don't know why it is that way. I think it's great that they can do that--that they don't necessarily have the jealousy: "Well, if I stay home, he's gonna be looking at so-and-so, or this one or that one," that they're open enough to accept the fact, "Yes, he has more friends than myself. I don't mind that he goes out with his friends," and be willing to let him go, and not complain, "Well, I don't wanna do that. Why don't you just stay home with me?" So we had a very close group of friends, and we just really seemed to be together constantly, and the others would join us more often than we would split apart.
So it was a pretty cohesive group?
Yes.
The German language tends to use two words to denote people one knows. A Freund (fem. Freundin), translated 'friend' is a person whom Americans might call a "good friend." It can also mean 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend.' A Bekannte (masc. Bekannter), translated 'acquaintance,' is a person Americans would call a "friend" or "people I know," depending on the circumstances. The word 'acquaintance' is not used as frequently in American English as its German counterpart is in German. Instead the other designations as described here are used. These are not hard, fast rules, yet middle class Germans' connotations of 'friend' and 'acquaintance' tend to be somewhat different from middle class Americans'--not that Germans have more or fewer, deeper or shallower friends than Americans do, but that they designate them differently.
Amelia Bohne defends herself. She does have friends, she insists, although Michael Schwarz and Paul Masberg (next interview) had trouble with friendship definitions in America.
Did you get a feel for the differences that Germans and Americans have with this friendship business? You know, we have "friends" and "good friends" and "people I know" and they have Freunde, Bekannte.
I tried to understand their words as such. To me everyone is a friend. Even in the German definition of Freund. As soon as I meet them and become involved with them, we go to drink tea or something, to me they are a friend of mine, I'm willing to discuss anything with them, you know, ask them, should I need advice, discuss things with them, more likely than I think native Germans would with other Germans. [Example:] They've just met someone. After a week of seeing them occasionally they go up and tell them, "Boy, you know, I really feel homesick or really have this problem. What do you think I should do?"--this type of thing. I don't think they would do that. And I think the only reason I would is because I think we in America are freer about that, as far as saying what we feel inclined to say, regardless.
But I did notice among them the differences between acquaintances and friends in their behavior. I don't know if I can give you an example of it, but within our group at the church we were all very close as a group, but we all still had our little cliques. And not that we would exclude someone in another clique, because we all seemed to be very--well, I want to say friends, but not necessarily Freunde. You know, you were friends with that person when you would see them, you'd get together for the church events and have a blast, but they weren't necessarily the ones you'd call and say, "Let's go to a movie" or "Let's go dancing"--that type of thing. And where I would normally not care, "Oh, come on, let's everybody go do this or that," they really did seem to specify who from which clique is involved.
[For example,] the birthday parties. When we'd get together for birthday parties--my best friend was also my age, we were both twenty-two, and the people that showed up at the party, even though it was pretty much an open party--come who will--there were those in our clique from the church, the college group from the church, those very close friends from the youth [group], and her other friends from the university. And the younger ones or the ones who were not necessarily Freunde from the youth group, they did not come. They understood apparently: "We're not that close a friend." That is the only example I can think of in their behavior.
So you think there is some kind of difference somewhere.
I think somewhere there is a difference, but I don't understand it the way they do, because at least as far as I know, we don't have that. I either have people I've met, but I don't know, but once I know them, to me they are a friend of mine and we are involved, and I try to involve them with me. Even if I don't see them for awhile, once I see them again, we do something together--go to a movie, whatever. Whereas they have more people they see a lot, and all those acquaintances, but they're not involved. And to me if I see them a lot I'm involved with them. So it was different for me.
Some Germans when they react to the American culture say they don't see that Americans have a difference between acquaintances and friendships in their terms.
I'm not sure we do. It's like I said, an acquaintance to me is someone I know. I don't define an acquaintance as someone I've been introduced to. I'm not exactly sure here. I'm confusing myself even. You know, I have my very close friends, and I have my friends who I may not necessarily see as often, but I consider them to be close friends, and I think they would be more likely to categorize those friends whom they don't see as often as only acquaintances. And an acquaintance to me is not the same. An acquaintance to me is someone who I'm not involved with. I may know their name and be able to recognize their face if I don't know their name, but I don't ever interact with them.
So there might be a difference in the use of the words.
I think so.
Some have said that they don't see Americans involved in deep friendships, where they would discuss deeper, more private issues or politics.
Well, personally, I have to disagree, because with my relationships, once I have them, they become deep involved friendships, and I discuss with my friends here everything that I would discuss with my friends in Germany. I don't know if it's a typical American high school thing to have hundreds of friends, but only one best friend you discuss everything with, because here in America I have always had a very small circle of friends, two or three people I do everything with, and who know everything about me. So of course I have very intimate friendships with them. It may be I'm not necessarily the typical American to give an answer to that, but as far as I'm concerned, that's not true.
Do you have any idea why they perceive that?
I don't know if they're getting that while they're over here, or from Americans who visit Germany and seem to be very superficial: "Hi, how are you doing? How's the weather?" because that's how we work our way into a conversation--with the small talk, and their not being used to that, they might automatically think, well, Americans don't have deep friendships. So I don't know.[13]
And you were talking about cliques.
'Clique' to me is not a negative thing, not in what I was speaking about as far as our smaller groups. It was just a more defined circle of friends. The only way I can think of 'clique' being used here [in the U.S.] is a group that is more snobbish to another group, and that's not what I mean at all.
Do women shave their body hair in Germany? They didn't used to, they do more so today. In 1994 a German acquaintance who is about twenty said she does not know anyone who does not shave. Amelia Bohne was in Germany in the 1980's. Some shaved, she said; some did not. Be that as it may, the attitude toward body hair has been somewhat different, many Germans finding body hair on women just as natural as on men. Interviewee Ingeborg Brown still does not shave today. In fact, most of the world's women probably do not shave. Yet many Americans find that fact difficult to deal with.
The topic of public nudity is another area where there are different perceptions in the United States and Germany. Amelia Bohne describes the differences in attitude below.
Since you were involved with younger people--Americans have a horrendous reaction to women not shaving. Is it changing?
They still do not shave. I think, though, we should be a little more open. We're probably one of the only countries who do shave our armpits or our legs, even, and aren't used to hair, and are probably the only ones who react like that. Being over there for a couple of weeks, and seeing that in the summer when they're wearing their tank tops, you're not as likely to get used to that on a vacation as you would having lived there. It did bother me when I first got there, and I was very uncomfortable. When I'd see someone, that would be what I'd see. That's automatically where my eyes would go. Or I'd look at their legs and just notice, "Well, how hairy are her legs?" You know? But you get used to it, and after the second year, you don't notice it--Well, you always seem to notice it, because it's so set in your mind, but it doesn't seem to bother you. But it is still like that. They don't shave their legs, unless--I've known a couple of occasions where they'd be going to the theater and had a really nice formal gown that was strapless or above the knee, and yes, they'd shave for the occasion. But not shaving is still typical.[14]
And did you notice any differences in showering or bathing habits?
They're clean people. I even discussed that today with high school kids here. They all say they stink. And they seemed to have the impression that the Germans were dirty. But from what I've figured out, Germans have the habit of wearing the same outfit a couple of days in a row, but even in between, they do shower, they do bathe, they do use deodorant.
Antiperspirant is very hard to find over there. I had to have my mother ship me antiperspirant, because I couldn't find it. So the deodorant they do use smells nice in the morning, but by the end of the day it's lost its scent, and you're starting to smell the body odor again. And of course, after a couple of days of wearing the same shirt, the shirt's going to smell, regardless of whether the person is clean or not. And I think that's where people do get their bad impressions from. And if that were explained to them, they may think, well, okay, I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's fine, if that's the way they want to be.
But I don't think of them as dirty. No, not at all. I think of them more as immaculate, and more immaculate than we are, not necessarily in clothes, but in cleanliness--their houses, their cars, the streets, the cities--everything is very clean to me.
So just maybe a different way of approaching cleanliness?
Right.
Can I ask you one more quick question? Did you notice any more nudity on the beaches than here?
Not on the beaches. We have several pools in the city, and my "family" owned a lake house. And the first year I was there, in the first couple of weeks, my two "brothers" and some of their friends and I went on a day trip to a recreation park, and on the way home stopped by our lake house to go swimming. And we're all out--we didn't have a key, we didn't unlock the house, we were out in the backyard, and they all started changing to go swimming, you know, boys and girls right in front of me, just all started stripping down and changing into their swimsuits. And I'm in shock, going, "Oh, my word, what do I do?" And they all went swimming. No big deal. And I figured, well, maybe they're just real good friends, and I don't know how to explain that kind of thing.
And a couple of months later, we're in the city, and my brothers and I go to the public pool, and sure enough, there's bathrooms, there's showers, but they walk over in the grass, over on one side of the pool, strip down, put on their swimsuits. No thought about it, all kinds of strangers around. So it's nothing that has to do with close friends. And it's just a way they're brought up, I guess, that the body's not necessarily something disgusting. It's just nature, and everyone has the same body, so what's the big deal. They didn't seem to think twice about it--just a normal, everyday thing. But it was a shock. It's an experience.
She continued her studies in German, going on to graduate school in the United States and passing a difficult language test given by a German institute. From not knowing a word of German, and being plunged into a new environment, she has come a long way, in her understanding and appreciation of both the language and the people of another culture.
Perhaps for this reason Germans seem to "know" a lot more. As noted elsewhere, it is important to be perceived as knowledgeable, and it is a positive characteristic to be deemed "an impressive intellect committed to [a] cause" (Heidi Byrnes, "Interactional Style in German and American Conversations," Text 6,2 [1986]: 195). Byrnes states further that "in German style there is greater emphasis on the information-conveying function of language, as compared with its social bonding function." In fact, "[p]erhaps in its own way, it [the information-conveying function] becomes a form of social bonding for those who customarily engage in it" (201).
Germans have a variety of breads to choose from. They are not in agreement, however, on the number of kinds of bread that exist. When asked how many varieties of bread there are, northern Germans answered 10, 10, 15, 16, 8-16, 20, 20, 30, 30-40, and 200! They seem to have (or think they have) more than their eastern German counterparts, however, who answered that they could get 5, 5-10, 6, 6-8, 7, 8-12, 10, 15, 15-20 kinds from their bakery.
Of twenty-one Germans questioned, seven of ten eastern Germans have cars (or parents have a car), and six of eleven northern Germans have them; that is, thirteen of twenty-one have cars. 143,000,000 passenger cars are in use in the U.S. (population 260,714,000), while 35.5 million are in use in Germany (population 81,088,000). (All statistics are from pages 769 and 833 of Robert Famighetti, ed., The World Almanac and Book of Facts: 1995. Mahwah, NJ: Funk & Wagnalls [1994].)