Monday, October 31, 2011

The serious business of holidays

Tomorrow, November 1st, is All Saints Day. What's that? If you're American, chances are you don't even know. I would bet that if you took a random selection of Americans, from both rural and urban areas, that more than half of them couldn't tell you when and what All Saints Day is. I only found out about it because apparently it's the Anglo equivalent of Dio de Los Muertos, which is celebrated in San Francisco, where I used to live.
Well, all Germans sure do know about All Saints Day. Why? Because it's on the long roster of national holidays! That's right: make sure you go grocery shopping on October 31st (which, incidentally is not Halloween as that doesn't really exist here), because ain't nothin' open on November 1st.

And November isn't the only month which has a national holiday on its first day, May 1st is also a holiday. I don't even know what it's called, but it's about celebrating workers by not working. In fact, May is the month which holds the most of these one-day wonders. I'm too lazy (and Babu will wake up from his nap too soon) to look it up, but there are something like 4 or 5 one-day holidays in May. They all fall on Mondays and Thursdays. The school where I teach even offers students whose regular lessons happen on Mondays or Thursdays an extra free Saturday workshop in May to make up for all the classes they miss due to these holidays. Most of these one day holidays are Catholic or Christian, days that in America only nuns and cardinals observe. That's why I can't even translate the German names into English because they're days I'm not even aware of in English.

On the subject of holidays and translations, German has a word which doesn't exist in English, simply because we don't have the need since we don't have all these holidays: Brückentag. It means, literally, bridge day, and it's the Friday between one of those Thursday holidays and the weekend....or, as the case with tomorrow's holiday which falls on a Tuesday, the Monday which bridges the day off to the weekend. Lots of people use one of their given days off from work  on a Brückentag to make a four day weekend.

Which brings me to the next related point: German employees get 30 paid days off per year. That's six work weeks per year. In addition to all these one-day holidays (I think there are around 10-12 of those, depending on the state). So that means the average German works 10 out of 12 months per year, so to speak. This is one aspect of European (it's not just German) culture I can really get behind! In fact, it's one of the reasons I would be reluctant to move back to America. Americans get, on average, 10 paid days off per year. If they're lucky. Many can not or do not actually get to take these days, and if I'm not mistaken in most states there's no law guaranteeing they get them. It's not unusual for an American to go years without a holiday. That would never, ever happen here. Not only is it forbidden by law, but it's so deeply ingrained in the culture that it would be unthinkable to either willingly or by force miss out on your holidays. Germans gasp at the idea of only 2 weeks paid vacation per year. As well they should! Not only do Americans get cheated on paid vacations, but these Christian holidays (like All Saints Day) are not days off ~well, besides Christmas and Easter Monday. Sure, they have Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and July 4th ~none of which exist here~ but in comparison to Europe, Americans have a serious lack of vacations.

One might be tempted to believe Americans, since they work far more hours per week and days per year than Europeans, are hard workers. Alas, this is not the case. My theory goes that since Americans are expected to work long weeks, often with unpaid overtime (in Germany the average workweek is 38 hours and overtime is, by law, always paid, very often in, you guessed it: days off!), they get their revenge by slacking off and not working all that hard. Whereas Germans, to whom holidays are an entitlement just like food, shelter and water, are some of the most hard-working and efficient folks on this planet (yes, another true stereotype!).  Germans take their work very seriously, but they also take their leisure time just as seriously. (Count on the Germans to make fun a serious endeavor!). Here's a beautiful German word that has no English equivalent: Feierabend. Feier means celebration and Abend means evening. Feierabend means when you get off work and then have the evening to do with what you please. It's the time of day when you arrive home, have a drink and plan your next holiday. I love that Germans honor this feeling: "Yay! Work is over for today!" with its very own word.

As I said, I am in full favor of this aspect of German / European culture. I would miss it very sorely if I ever moved back to the US. However, there are two down sides: if you are a freelancer, none of this applies to you. My hubby is a freelancer, and I was for many years. Freelancers do not get any paid holidays. Of course they get the national holidays off, but they're unpaid. It's kind of expected that they, too, will take those precious 30 days off throughout the year, so they do "get" them, so to speak. But they're not paid. There are many aspects of the German / European system which are a "you work for us, we work for you" kind of policy. And, according to this socialist-ic-y view, freelancers are not part of the system because *gasp!* they are working for themselves and not society. I'll never forget how my late good friend (and fellow freelancer) Ian used to say: "They only recently stopped burning freelancers at the stake in Germany". Haha, miss you Ian!
The other down side to this holiday madness is if you happen to be the employer. I am not an employer, but my son does attend daycare and although it's private and the daycare provider is, I believe, freelance, she still gets those 6 weeks a year off. Paid. That means we pay for six weeks of daycare we don't get. Not to mention all these other days off, also paid. By us. Gah! I know this contradicts what I just said about freelancers not getting paid days off, but since there is a severe lack of daycare places in Germany (another topic for another day), daycare providers can easily give themselves six paid weeks off per year and no one will complain, since we're just happy to have found decent daycare at all! At this time Babu hasn't even been in daycare six months, and already she has had two two week periods closed, in addition to about six individual national holidays. From my perspective this has been an expensive pain in the ass.

But I have to keep it all in the bigger picture here. It's worth it to have what seems like part-time daycare and pay for full-time, if it means I live amongst people who hold their free time very dear. Germans may be imbalanced in other ways, but they definitely have a balanced view of work and free time.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Gender Benders

Ah, the ladies of Germany. Where to begin? Why not with some of their names. Now, most German girls these days have pretty "normal" by English-speaking standards names: among the top 20 in 2010 were Emily, Anna, Lily, Marie, Sarah and Sophie. But go back about 50 or 60 years and you find some pretty outrageous (to us Anglos) sounding clunker-of-a-name names: Dagmar, Gudrun, Irmgard, Ute, Baerbel, Reinhilde, Jutta, Doerte, Hildegard, Ingeborg, Traudel, Edeltraut, Sigrid, and Heidrun. And then there are all the names ending with "-ke", which apparently used to be a diminuitive way back when: Heike, Wiebke, Imke, Silke, Ulrike, Elke und Frauke to name just a few. I have encountered most of these names either through my work as an English teacher or in my very own German family. I'm always amazed to learn yet another of these old-fashioned and very brute sounding German names.

And yet somehow, these harsh names suit the women of Germany. Yes, for better or worse the stereotype is true: German women tend to be masculine. In fact, it happens to me I would guess about once a week that I see a woman out there in the city and have to do a "gender check" if it's a man or a woman. Or, I see someone I at first believe to be a man, and then as they get closer or on second inspection they turn out to be a woman. But those are the more extreme cases. Your average run-of-the-mill German woman is clearly a woman ~just not a very soft and typically feminine woman. Many if not most have short hair. But that alone is not enough to make a woman seem masculine. It's the facial expressions, the way they walk and carry their bodies, the way they dress and their no-bullshit attitude. Again, I feel like I'm getting into tricky territory here using the word "they" and lumping all German women into one category. Of course there are plenty of perfectly soft and feminine German women out there. But after observing the womenfolk of this land for years now I can say with certainty that there is an abundance of masculine energy in a far higher percentage of the women here than you see in America. Put it this way: there are loads of German women out there who, if you saw them in any American city you'd immediately think: "dyke"....but no, not here. By now I just think "Yup, German". I really wonder what the actual dykes of Germany do. It must be really frustrating for them because so many more women seem like lesbians than actually are. It would take a very finely tuned gaydar to detect a real dyke around here!

I always wonder where this came from and how they got like that. It's easy to think that the two major world wars had something to do with it, and I'm sure it had. But I feel there is something deeper to it as well. I'd be willing to bet that the Germanic women centuries ago were also tough and no-nonsense. Who knows. I'm sure someone wrote their sociology thesis on it and I'd be interested to read it. All I know is: some of the women in this country are nearly men and it's provided an endless parade of great people watching for me as I go about my business out there.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Muscle Men

I saw this faceless guy on the tram the other day (I blurred out his face because I just think it's better to use anonymous people for my examples, especially when I think how horrified I'd be if I saw my picture being used as an example on someone's blog):



and it reminded me of one of those things I do NOT miss about America: muscle men. Now, this guy in the picture is not even the type of guy I'm referring to ~I'm just giving you an insight into my thought process here. That guy is definitely someone who works out (hence the gym bag and bicep bulging out of his arm), but it's not something you would even notice necessarily. I'm referring to those guys who spend all their free time at the gym, pumping iron and their egos, who end up looking like someone shoved an air hose up their ass. This general body type looks kinda like this faceless fellow:








Don't get me wrong, I am all for people going to the gym and keeping fit, and taking a keen interest in that as a hobby. But let's be honest here: some guys (and gals, but in a very different way) are just a little too interested in their own bodies. It's a form of narcissism. I tend to believe that many if not most of these fellows have, deep down underneath all those muscles, a real sense of insecurity. Same with the idiots who cruise around in souped-up cars (or any cars) real loud driving way too fast (reminds me: souped-up cars and monster trucks are another aspect of American culture I do not miss one bit!). A really secure man who feels naturally self-confident just doesn't need to do that. Again: I'm sure lots of secure, self-confident and kind, sensitive men are also into bodybuilding, and driving fast. But there's a fine line between being fit ~or even buff~ and being just too into yourself and too puffed-out with the muscles.

In any case, one seldom sees such bodies walking around the streets of Germany, thank god. I even considered waiting until I could get a better example than the guy pictured above whom I saw on the tram yesterday, but the truth is it could take up to a year to see one of those overly-buff muscle guys out there. They really are just that rare.

I had to ask myself: why is that? I'm really not sure, but my first thought was about German men in general. They tend to be, well, I can't think of a better word: weak. I don't mean physically puny ~the fact that the elevator at my local train stop is permanently broken and I need to ask someone to help me carry the stroller down and up the stairs every time we go to the city proves that. I mean that German men are somehow lacking in that strong, masculine, forward-moving initiative that is one of the many defining characteristics of being male. I don't mean the "mama's boy" variety of male weakness either. It's a very special quality the German men tend to have, something that brings to mind a fuzzy grey area where a "real man" should be moving about in clearly defined bold hues. Man almighty I don't feel qualified to open the can of worms squirming about right now. This is the kind of thing to be discussed in a Gender Studies or Anthropology course. I have no freaking idea why the gender roles in this country are so askew. (I'm also preparing a post about the German women ~lookout!). But somehow, they are. And I believe that may have some influence on the way German men shy away from bodybuilding like a cat avoids water.

There is, however, another side to this story (as always). I have to give credit to my German husband for letting me in on this as I asked him his view on this matter. There is also a way in which the menfolk of this land simply don't need to "prove" their manliness through their muscles. I already touched on the way muscle men are actually insecure under all the macho muscles. The muscles are only a way of proving to themselves and everyone else how manly and strong they are, when in reality they feel like helpless little kittens inside. German men would (and do) laugh at that. It's just a show. It's not real. It's superficial. One thing Germans are not is superficial (superficiality is in fact the #1 quality Germans criticize about Americans). A German man is more likely to prove his prowess through intellectual, spiritual, or creative means. And I love that! I love that the whole macho trip doesn't fly here.

One more thing: apparently there is a bodybuilding community out there. And the store they all go to for supplies, guess what it's called?



Yep, that's right: The American Fitness Shop. See the All-American, puffed out muscle mannequin standing outside the store?

Just one way American culture has seeped into Germany. But, luckily, not too much.