I have had to remind myself again and again that the way a person speaks to you does not always reflect, in your terms, how he or she is feeling toward you.
--Edward Hall
This book of interviews is the result of desire--the desire to understand other human beings and the desire to know why we often go wrong. It is about encounters that go awry, and about reactions to the "crazy" way others behave. It is about worlds that don't make sense to outsiders, and stereotypes, some positive, many negative, and the reasons for them.
"Germans are rude, humorless, closed, and very efficient." "Americans are superficial, stupid, and modern." These are stereotypes I have heard over and over again since I first began studying with Germans and Americans in 1980. I am not the only one who has noticed these stereotypes. They seem prevalent among many Germans and Americans who have come into contact with each other. [1] Why do they exist? Where do they come from? As a German I would resent the tone of the first statement. As a U.S. American I resent the second.
I think of Renate. Renate is from Würzburg and is married to Johnny whose family came from Korea. They live in the United States. I knew Renate for five of the nine years I spent in Los Angeles. And when I remember her, I remember a laughing, joking, people-loving person who would rather have fun than worry about work or the world situation. She enjoyed everyone and was very outgoing, always arranging for this person to meet that one, and developing friendships that lasted. She would maintain contact with people who had moved away by writing letters regularly.
And I think of Wolfram and Jochen, students in other colleges of the university when I was a student of German. Wolfram: the "ladies' man" who loved a good time and enjoyed being an entrepreneur. He loved to flirt and party and joke. Jochen was much quieter, still laughed, and had what one might call a "sweet essence."
And Sara. She's also quieter, but concerned about people. She is pleasant to be around, a sensitive person who does not criticize others. Then there is Martin, a very open person, who tells you what he believes and why. He laughs so easily when he sees irony or incongruities in life. He also understands that U.S. Americans might not want the same things that he believes are important, for example, the socialized health care in Germany.
Then I think of young Michael, a serious, deep, caring individual who wants to make a positive mark in the world, who enjoys deep, close friendships and plays in a band.
I think also of the people on the train who talk to you as a tourist, and find out where you're going and help you out with information. I think of the young man who, when I was a young student on vacation on a budget and at a loss in Nuremberg because I couldn't get a youth hostel pass on Sunday, helped me find a cheap hotel room I could afford, went off on his way--I never saw him again--and when I went to pay for the room three days later, was told it was paid up. I think of the older woman on the train in East Germany who sadly told me how the Cold War had affected her and how the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 had come too late for her. Or the woman on the plane who had lived in East Berlin, remarried a West Berlin citizen, moved to West Berlin, and had had to travel to Czechoslovakia to visit her children who had remained behind in the East. They, too, had to go to Czechoslovakia to visit her. I think how willing these women--strangers--were to share with me some of their deepest feelings.
So where do the stereotypes of being closed, cold, and humorless originate?
I also think of U.S. Americans I know or have known: Norma who loved to get people together for a good time, whether it was to go dancing, have a picnic, or teach our German friends to play baseball! I think of Jim and Margaret who don't know each other, but who both read the newspaper from cover to cover daily. I think of Sally who may come across as a "'glitzy' entertainer" (she's a ventriloquist), but who in her private life is a painter, whose quest is understanding "the nature of reality," and who continuously studies philosophy, art theory, and religion, among other things. I think of Sam, who tries to give people the benefit of the doubt, who thinks deeply about the personality conflicts at work before ever taking action, and who holds deep convictions about his apolitical stances. I think of several women I know who are deeply concerned about improving themselves and helping others as well, involved in organizations to help other people.
Where do the stereotypes of stupidity and superficiality originate?
The questions about this issue that I began to have in graduate school arose because of the difficulties I noticed arising between the students from the United States and those from German-speaking countries. I would often wonder why the German and American students formed, as it were, two camps. It was the beginning of asking myself questions like these: Why is it that we label some people "bad" or "rude" or "impolite" and others "good" or "nice" or "polite"? Is there some universal interpretation of the words we speak and the behaviors we perform? Is walking a certain way always bad or good? Is saying a certain thing always right or wrong?
Perhaps there are some universals of behavior. I can think of killing, abuse, and torture as possible examples, although there are very few societies that do not practice some kind of killing, abuse, or torture. That is not what I'm referring to here. I have learned that there are people who go about doing normal things, behaving and talking in ways that seem acceptable to them, and yet they are judged by others as completely unacceptable. I may perform a perfectly acceptable behavior that I was brought up to read as "polite." A person with a different background may view my behavior as unacceptable and therefore may regard me with disdain. Am I a bad person? I certainly don't think I am. Is the other a bad person? She certainly doesn't think so. Misunderstandings have arisen, and we are not aware of what they are:
Most of us never think about the possibility that our definitions of suitable behavior may be culturally based, and that had we grown up in a different culture, our definitions of acceptable language and behavior might be very different from, even diametrically opposed to, what we consider appropriate and inappropriate today. This book addresses that problem by attempting to get behind and beyond what people say to what they mean--to the differences in approved behavior that cause people to misread each other. While a point of view--a perspective, the way we react to others--is individual, it is also based on a way our parents, teachers, religious and political leaders told us we should view the world. Often we were told that our point of view was the only valid one, and that anyone who deviates in word, thought or deed from that point of view is somehow morally suspect. Our point of view encompasses how we think others should behave, talk, act and react emotionally to themselves, others in their lives, to us, and to situations in the routine of living. Whenever others deviate from this expected behavior, whenever they do something that is inappropriate in our eyes, we label them as offensive: rude, impolite, superficial, uncaring, or even evil.
This is the basis of intercultural conflict, or cultural barriers: "Two people socialized to different cultures may react to a situation differently because of differences in internalized conceptions of the content of the situation, of what is normal, what is appropriate, and so on...."[3]
Similarly and simultaneously, when others deviate in a positive sense from the behavior we expect of them, when they do something we consider good that is beyond our normal expectations of behavior in day-to-day living, we make it a point to label them in positive ways: extra good, polite, honest, caring, deep.
One would think smooth communication would depend on words alone--what a person says--but it does not. Rather, it depends on situations, interpretations and intentions, factors not so tangible as words. Learning a foreign language often allows us to think that "for every word that you know in English, there's another one like it in German." Unfortunately, this not the case. For every word one knows in English, there are situations in which it may acceptably be used, and those in which it may not; and although the words may translate into German, the situations are not necessarily the same. Intercultural miscommunication often results because of, for example, different definitions of politeness and different uses of words to express that politeness.[4]
Consider, for instance, the fact that many Americans think it polite and friendly for a supermarket clerk to say "Hi, how are you?" and Germans consider it polite and respectful to say Guten Tag ('Good day'), reserving the literal translation of "Hi, how are you?" for people they know or have met. Since Germans would never think of saying "Hi, how are you?" to strangers, when they hear cashiers say it in the United States, they invariably think that the Americans are interested in them individually, or, conversely, that Americans are quite superficial and insincere in their dealings with people, when in reality all the cashiers are doing is beginning a transaction.
In fact, scholars have a term for some of the language that causes such problems: routine formulae. These are expressions which have specific functions in certain kinds of situations, and include "such language as greeting, leave-taking, ...introducing, etc...." which "are highly predictable"--in their use and meaning within a culture.[5] Examples include: "Hi, how are you?" "You're welcome," "I'd like you to meet...," "Bye, bye," and "Have a nice day." They are sometimes also called "gambits," as in, "Let's get together sometime," "It was nice meeting you," "That's a pretty blouse/dress," or "It's been nice talking to you," the latter of which, for example, signals, "I want to leave the conversational group."[6]
Between cultures, however, there is often a lack of equivalence, or there is only partial equivalence, as in the example of "Hi, how are you?" where it can be used in both cultures to ask friends how they are, but where it can also be appropriately used only in the American culture to greet someone in a service encounter, such as that described above. On the other hand, some German routine formulae, translated, include 'Good Day,' 'Good-bye,' 'Good Morning,' as well as the use of last names, titles, and the formal form of you, all of which come across as fairly formal to many U.S. Americans and are used somewhat differently in the German culture. More informal routine formulae include 'hi' (grüß dich), 'chow,' and 'bye' (tschüß).
From such simple language as greetings grave misunderstandings begin, and from there they escalate. Some of the examples of misinterpretation of polite behavior seem almost "trivial," like the example of table manners and where people should put their hands while eating. If, like many Americans, a person had learned that putting one hand in the lap while eating is polite, and that putting elbows or both hands on the table is a sign of impoliteness or barbarity, that person might react negatively to someone who did those "impolite, improper" behaviors. If, on the other hand, like many Germans one had been told that keeping both hands on the table is polite and hiding hands "improper" or "barbarian," then that person might react very negatively to an American's behavior.
Similarly, the use of the knife and fork is somewhat different in the cultures. Americans often cut meat with the knife in the right hand, then switch the fork to the right hand, prongs up, to pick up the food and put it in their mouth. Germans leave the fork in the right hand, and go directly to their mouth, prongs down. I have heard Germans and Americans alike become upset with the behavior of the others, trivial and silly though it might seem. The Americans who do not like the German way think it looks "barbaric," whereas the Germans perceive the American way to be awkward and cumbersome. Such simple behaviors cause emotions to run high, and people become incensed by the behavior of the others.
At the core of many German-American differences in the definition of verbal politeness, however, are the issues of what one might call "directness" and "indirectness" in certain situations involving greetings, farewells, compliments or negative observations, or appropriateness of subject matter. (I have put these words and several that follow in quotations, because they can mean different things to different people. I use them advisedly here.[7]) In the situations described below "directness" perceived positively is called "honesty." However, if it is negatively perceived it quickly becomes "rudeness." "Indirectness," too, can have positive or negative connotations. Positive indirectness in certain situations can be perceived as "politeness" or "friendliness," whereas "indirectness" perceived negatively is called "superficiality" or "insincerity." (See Table 1.) In both cultures honesty and politeness are considered virtues. However, there are many situations in which one must decide whether to be "honest" or "polite." It is my assertion that in some situations Germans have more of a tendency towards directness (or "honesty") where Americans tend towards indirectness (or "friendliness as politeness").
Table 1. Positive and Negative Values for "In/directness".
Positive Negative
Perceptions Perceptions
Directness Honesty Rudeness
Indirectness Politeness Insincerity
In the interviews there are many examples of such differences. A German speaker may have more of a tendency to tell a friend about negative aspects of her appearance, reasoning that it is more helpful to be truthful ("Your hair really looked better yesterday"), whereas a middle class American may find it rude to say anything negative about another person's appearance; only compliments are acceptable ("Nice dress"). Thus, it seems in the German speaker's mind honesty is the overriding factor, whereas in the American speaker's view showing friendliness is more important in these particular situations. American speakers tend to become angry about a German speaker's "rudeness" in such a situation, while a German speaker becomes angry about the "excessive friendliness" or the "wishy-washy attitude" the American speaker is trying to express.
An added cause of miscommunication is that Americans often show "politeness" through behaviors and language perceived as "friendliness," and Germans show it through what they might label "respect." Examples demonstrating the different definitions of these terms are shown below. In middle class American society the behaviors listed in Table 2 are often part of a politeness repertoire of many Americans' "friendliness" routines. In middle class German-speaking society a sample politeness repertoire of "respect" routines might include the language behavior delineated in Table 3.
Table 2. Politeness: American Friendliness.
Table 3. Politeness: German Respect.
Problems occur, however, when Germans and Americans meet, for Germans often interpret American "friendliness" behaviors as the beginning of deeper friendships, which the Americans may not be intending at all. Americans, even if unconsciously, tend to know these distinctions exist. They know when friendliness is meant, and they know when a different relationship--a deeper, more enduring friendship is developing. More than once the German-speaking interviewees in this book talked about their first reactions to Americans' statements like "Hi, how are you?" and "Let's get together sometime," which the Germans took literally. They were quite disappointed when the Americans looked shocked at their detailed explanations about how they were, or when they never did "get together" with them.
Conversely, Americans can interpret German "respect" as distance or aloofness, or negative honest assessment as rudeness. If a supermarket clerk were not to say anything to many Americans upon reaching the cashier, it would be perceived as a problem, most probably unfriendliness. Similarly, telling a friend how bad she looks would also be construed as rude.
The American and German behaviors may be interpreted within the framework of Helga Kotthoff's hypotheses that Germans stress "honesty" in such encounters, while Americans wish to maintain an agreeable attitude and do not want to "disappoint" their interlocutors.[8]
Thus, when they meet, if they are expecting behavior from the others that they find in their own cultures, Americans and Germans often do not have their expectations met, and they become disappointed in the members of the other culture.
Sometimes the stories are funny; at other times they are disturbing, when interviewees have had experiences that depressed, angered, or enraged them. German readings of Americans and vice versa cause many of us to have the following negative and positive opinions of each other, aptly summarized by Hall and Hall:
Germans often describe Americans as being overly familiar, intrusive, historically and politically naive, poorly educated, narrow in viewpoint, undisciplined, lacking in taste, profligate, unmindful of the proper care of property, vacillating in decision making, shallow, boastful, and overly self-confident ....
[Americans find Germans] highly disciplined, well educated, neat and orderly, ... systematic, well organized, meticulous, ... efficient .... Some Americans find them hard to get to know--not unfriendly, but reserved. On the negative side, ... Germans are pushy in service lines ... and often insensitive to the feelings of others.10
The above discussion provides evidence that culture conflict can lead to prejudice and stereotyping, occurring "whenever the available information is ambiguous, incomplete, conflicting, equivocal or inconsistent in nature" [11]--or the information is interpreted according to one's own cultural rules, conventions, or codes, which indeed differ from culture to culture. The interviews demonstrate many of these feelings that Americans and Germans have toward each other--manifestations of those different definitions of appropriate behavior interpreted according to the rules of the home culture, i.e., through their own rose-colored cultural glasses.
Lest one think that all Americans find all Germans rude on every occasion, let me say that there is ample anecdotal evidence that many Americans find Germans extremely helpful and friendly. Cases in point include the young man who helped me in Nuremberg, as well as a couple of additional anecdotes I would like to relate. Joseph was in Southern Germany with his three daughters recently. They sat down in a restaurant around noon, and after awhile began talking with a nice older German in English about "this, that, and the other." They spent a great deal of time talking, since Joseph and his girls were interested in Germans and Germany, and the German gentleman was interested in the United States. The beer flowed freely between the men, everyone had a good meal, and finally after a while the man got up and left. When Joseph asked the waitress about the bill, she said that it had already been taken care of. The man with whom they had visited had paid the bill, which totaled more than one hundred dollars. In a similar vein, William and his wife visited Germany many times, and every time they were over there, some German would also go out of his or her way to help them when they were lost, to the point of showing them a route by actually accompanying them to the place they wished to go.
Thus, the reactions of the Americans seem contradictory. Are these Germans "rude," or are they "friendly?" The answer seems to be according to American definitions of what is "rude" and "friendly," which vary depending on the situation Shopkeepers, wait people, and people on the street or in the elevator normally do not speak to strangers as frequently and as long as their American counterparts might--thus, the American perception of rudeness. However, when giving directions to Americans, helping American tourists who are lost, or sitting down with Americans in restaurants, many Germans tend to go out of their way to speak with Americans, practice their English, or in general to have a good time with us--thus, the American interpretation of friendliness. In those situations, they often are quite willing to talk and be "friendly" and "helpful." Furthermore, some of the behaviors may be regional as well as situational; yet they do indeed occur. It is hoped that some of these nuances of meaning and behavior will become clear as the reader is introduced to the interviewees.
On the pages that follow, Germans who have had contact with Americans present their perceptions of them, and, similarly, Americans who have had contact with Germans provide their perceptions of the latter group. All the individuals in this book present points of view based on actual experiences they have had with members of the other culture, and the opinions may be due to biased or stereotypical responses, but they are perspectives that come from honest, often emotional, reactions to particular behavior of the people from the other culture.
Thus, the interviews show people from two cultures meeting and reacting to each other. But they do more. They also show the logic behind their reacting the way they do. The speakers' own stories--what they actually experienced--are insightful and enlightening. They push beyond the stereotypes to the reasons why the speakers have the reactions they do. The speakers' logic becomes clear, and even plausible. Through these stories, then, perhaps Americans and Germans can see the reasoning behind the reactions of the other group and understand each other better.
Each interview is prefaced in various sections with explanations of points of view. However, it is important to read more than one interview. One point of view presents one bias and, indeed, stereotyping. Several perspectives lead one to a broader view and, finally, to understanding the reasons groups produce stereotypes of other groups: they judge behaviors based on their "home" cultural rules. An American who thinks women who go topless in public are immoral might very well transfer that opinion to German people who sunbathe topless in public, at swimming pools and beaches, where it is considered by Germans acceptable to do so, and not immoral at all. Reading a variety of interviews will make many of the opinions more comprehensible as one understands the underlying interpretations of language and behavior by the other group.
This book is intended for those who study German language and culture (teachers, students, and scholars), for those who wish to deal with Germans for other reasons as well (business people or travelers), and for those who simply have an interest in these matters. Native and non-native teachers and students alike may be unaware of the specific differences in perspective that members of the other culture bring to their behavior and use of language, and thus may find the responses revealing. Similarly, business people may find these interviews helpful, for while excellent descriptions of German and American business behavior and perspectives exist, this book provides additional insights, in speakers' own words, into some of the reasoning that motivates their behaviors and beliefs, and specific ways in which they misunderstand and are misunderstood by people from the other culture.[12]
Today I'm a professor in a department of foreign languages in northeast Texas. I come into contact with many native speakers of German. Some of them show up in my own upper division or graduate German classes. Others are friends of some of my German students or students in other schools in the university. Still others are relatives of people I know or friends of friends of friends. In such a large area as the Dallas-Ft. Worth "Metroplex", as we call it here, there is ample opportunity to meet Germans in Texas and Texas residents who have been to Germany. So that's where I have found the interviewees whose thoughts grace the pages of this book.
It is true that one cannot say all Americans are alike. We have regional differences, speech pattern differences, socioeconomic differences, and ethnic background differences. Similarly, Germany is also not homogenous. "...Germany has always been a collection of states. ...There is ... a widespread belief (on the part of most Germans themselves) that northern and southern Germans differ in everything from temperament to taste and that eastern and western Germans have scarcely more in common than their language...."[13] Indeed, the separation of former East and West Germany (the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany) for forty years has contributed to differences between those groups as well.
Yet there are certain patterns of language or behavior that exist in one culture that do not exist in the other. There are things that one can say or do in the United States which are not considered appropriate in Germany. The reverse situation holds true.
Two examples of differing language behavior have already been cited. One can hear a cashier in the United States say "Hi, how are you?" While this greeting may not be used everywhere in the United States, or even by all people within a certain region, it is, however, used, whereas it is a greeting that is pretty much unknown and non-existent in Germany. On the other hand, a language pattern that is acceptable in Germany, but rarely appropriate in the United States is to tell a friend that s/he is not wearing something that suits him/her, a language act that one might easily hear in Germany from friends, long-time neighbors, or parents.
I will also cite two examples of differences in patterns of behavior in the two countries. One will find TV evangelists in the United States. Although many Americans pay no heed to them, or may not be in a region of the country where they are prominent, such a behavioral phenomenon will come across to Germans as completely foreign, unknown, and surprising. In addition, the places where one will find nudity in the United States and Germany also differ. It would be much rarer for a United States' citizen to have had the experience, within the United States, of going to a coed sauna in the nude, especially a public one. I am not sure that coed public saunas even exist, except perhaps at some health resorts; and I doubt that most would be nude saunas. In Germany, however, there will be cases of people who go to the sauna weekly, see the same couples in the nude week after week, year after year, and think nothing of it.
Therefore, although the interviews are local, i.e., done with people who live in northeast Texas, and while some of the phenomena described might be regional, they nevertheless point out patterns of behavior different from those found in Germany. Furthermore, many of the topics addressed by Germans do concern patterns of language and behavior that are at least known in most parts of this country by middle class citizens.
I am qualifying the group to which I am referring as "middle class citizens", in order not to have to address the fact that there may indeed be areas of the United States that are completely different cross-sections of population in terms of language and behavior patterns. Since the participants in the interviews were all college students or graduates, they were not the working poor or the welfare poor, nor were any of the interviewees independently wealthy. I have chosen to make this qualification, since it makes a description easier. One must study the speech and behavior patterns of those other groups in order to make a statement about them. Furthermore, I have retained the anonymity of all interviewees by giving them pseudonyms.
Those from the German-speaking cultures are men and women whose first language was German or a dialect version of it. All are from the western part of Germany, the former Federal Republic of Germany ("West Germany"). Thus, their views are those of only part of the population. The Germans all came to the United States at different ages, some as young as twelve, others as old as forty-three, and stayed for as short a time as seven weeks, or as long as forty years. At the time they were interviewed their ages ranged from nineteen to fifty-two, and represented all the other decades in between. Some love it here, some hate it, and others feel they take the best of both cultures into their daily lives. Many of those who have been here longer tend to accept it better, while many who have just arrived are still suffering from the shock of a new land, a new city, a new way of talking, behaving, and doing things--a common occurrence according to scholars.[14] They have little in common in terms of their ages and the amount of time spent in the States. But they have an overriding commonalty: their European, specifically Germanic, cultural heritage, which colors their emotions and their reactions to these United States. They see this country, its people, their use of language, behavior and values from German eyes, and interpret them in ways that show they don't see things as we do, but in ways which anger us, amuse us, amaze us, and, finally, open our eyes, too.
Analogously, the Americans in these interviews are men and women who have grown up in the United States. They now live in Texas; some grew up there, others are "transplants". They all differ from many Americans, for they have had close personal contact with people and things German. They have spent time in a German-speaking country, bumping into its culture and its people, sometimes repelled, sometimes warmly accepting and accepted. They may even be or have been students of German. While they are different from each other in age, time spent with Germans, and in state of origin, they, too, have a commonalty of middle class American culture that often perceives with American eyes, and interprets with American values, which behavior is right and proper, appropriate and not, polite and disgusting.
Thus while it is true that there is a multitude of subcultures and differences within each of the greater German-speaking and American cultures, in many cases it is clear that Americans and Germans have more similarities in the interpretation of language and behavior within their own language group than they have with members of the other group.
I conducted more than fifty interviews over a four-year period, between 1990 and 1994, of which I am using fourteen full interviews here. So that the opinions of the interviewees might be placed within their proper historical context, I provide the date of the interview under each interviewee's name. The fourteen interviews I use in the book include a variety of topics, as well as comprise a distribution of Americans and Germans, male and female. I did not include all interviews, not only because fifty interviews would make too long a book, but because many speakers had similar opinions. So those I chose tend to be representative of all. What interviewing fifty people did was to pinpoint these areas of similarity among Germans and among Americans, as well as differences between the two groups. I am grateful to all interviewees for giving of themselves and their time.
The interviews themselves were conducted in German or English, the language with which the particular interviewee was most comfortable. They were simultaneously recorded and then later transcribed.[15] As the interview progressed, notes were taken on topics which seemed to warrant further clarification, in order not to disturb the speaker's train of thought at the time. The German interviews were translated into English, in a style that attempted to reflect the tone of the German used in the interview.
The interviews are, for the most part, open-ended and done somewhat in the styles of ethnography used in the social sciences or the oral history used in historical fields.[16] The interviewees were first asked a general question: to describe the members of the other culture, or, to describe how it feels to be a German or American in the other culture. They answered as they pleased, chose the topics that reflected their experiences, and answered in ways that showed they had reacted positively or negatively to American or German language or behavior. As they talked, requests for clarification were made so a deeper understanding could take place.
The topics ranged from specific phrases that bothered or impressed them to nonverbal behaviors, like carrying cash or standing in line, to general ideas and concepts, such as those mentioned above. Other topics delved into sensitive areas such as religious behaviors, male/female relationships, and those behaviors surrounding nudity and the body and the differing interpretations of belief, value, and intentions that people from different cultures assign such matters. Sometimes an opinion might be requested regarding a topic that another interviewee had addressed, in order to ascertain whether the attitude toward a concept might be idiosyncratic or whether there might be a common thread of agreement. Therefore, some of the topics overlap, whether because the speakers brought them up or because additional information was requested regarding them.
The tape recorder itself is a wonderful instrument. Although, as Studs Terkel says, it can be used to misuse others, it can also record "the feeling tone," and can put flesh on facts.[17] It can increase our understanding of the individual's reasons for doing something. Unlike a statistical formulation, an individual's words ring true for him or her and his or her particular situation in life. If the interviewer can facilitate a speaker's reaching beyond the expected answer, the compliant answer, the "public" face we are expected to present, and instead present the truth, the speaker's own truth, then he or she will fill in the details, the reasons, the individual experiences that led him or her to feel and believe the way s/he does.
The person who feels free to "pour out her soul" is the person one gets to know as a human being and to like, although one might never have anything to do with such a person in daily life. One might never have a prostitute as a friend, but reading Terkel's interview with Roberta Victor helps her to be seen as an individual, a person of dimension, and of feelings that approximate one's own, rather than a cold statistic, a one-sided "bad girl."[18]
So, too, in these interviews, the Germans and Americans who spoke were willing to be honest, and to tell their stories. They were willing to tell of their individual experiences which led them to their conclusions. Hearing these stories, one can more readily understand why Monika has shocked reactions to TV evangelists, why Sara gets exasperated at cashiers and carry-out people at the local supermarket, why Michael thinks Americans are an impoverished people; or, on the other hand, why Arnold thinks the Germans are overly orderly, and why Anne got mad at her host family for discussing her country in the manner in which they did. All can be labeled stereotypes, until one knows what happened to them to make them think the way they did, and until one understands how they were brought up to view things differently from the people in the "other" culture.