Monday, January 02, 2006
To complain or not to complain?
In our ‘German for foreigners’ class break, Liana, a sarcastic British lass, Kristy, an Au Pair from the States, and I retire to the usual local cafe. Liana is a tad stressed today, her lovely, sweet, understanding (‘he’s just like a woman really’) German boyfriend has ever so tactfully suggested that he ‘might not be making enough money’ to support them both and pay off her ‘debts from England’ and perhaps she ‘might need to get a job’. Not speaking the language is ever the barrier to employment but his friends have ‘heard about a call centre that employs English speakers’.
‘Oh I want to die, I want to die’ Liana moans into her coffee. After a string of unstimulating jobs she has been enjoying learning German and her new Hausfrau status.
Just last night Bruno and I were talking about something, the substance of which now escapes me, that resulted in him also moaning ‘oh I want to die’.
This statement, not meant to be taken literaly, still shocks me. Ok I now accept it as an exaggeration to, shall we say, ‘put things in perspective’ but it is a therapeutic technic with which I am unfamiliar. I’ve heard these depressing exaggerations a few times since being in Germany and I have put it down to being a ‘German thing’, but perhaps it is a ‘European thing’. Well a British and German thing.
It reminds me of a scene from the movie Notting Hill, when Hugh Grant and his friends are having a dinner party and each is competing to see whose life is the crapest. A very funny scene, which Bruno informs me he often plays out with his nearest and dearest.
A British friend in Melbourne used to tell me that on moving to Perth when people would ask her: ‘how are you?’ She would give the standard British response: ‘alright’. This was considered grossly inadequate by the ever chirpy locals who naturally assumed that because things weren’t ‘fantastic’ or ‘great’ something must be seriously wrong. ‘There’s nothing wrong with alright’ an exasperated Sorcha would say ‘alright's alright’.
Yesterday Tanya (a German from the English conversation group) was telling me about her experiences as a German exchange student in Florida. (Sadly I have developed an unhealthy interest in cultural stereotypes – something I had always rejected as a non-traveller). ‘Yea I found the Americans friendly. On the surface. But they don’t tell you about their problems, they don’t let you know what is wrong with their lives. Whereas we Germans always complain. Maybe too much’.
Bruno has his own theory on this: ‘I think Germans complain because they want to show they know things could be better’. Hmm, I suppose a country couldn’t have produced BMWs without being able to see faults in a perfectly good Holden.
My own theory is based around a quote I read somewhere: ‘the happiest people, like the happiest nations have no history’. Or maybe (and I am looking at you Australia) that should read ‘deny their history’. Of course my theory has many holes and I don’t think overt displays of cultural cheeriness and suppression of negativity is necassarily a good thing. On the contrary.
So what is the shock for me? I think it comes down to the unofficial Australian motto: ‘She’ll be right, mate’ which roughly translates as ‘everything will work out, I don’t want to hear your problems so please stop whining and have another beer’. This motto might be explained in European terms as ‘the opiate of the people’. Yea, sure I have taken a bit of poetic licence but you get the picture.
