Made in Germany

When I first set out to study abroad last year, travel and have life experiences, the concept of gelling into the surroundings was alien to me because I'd taken for granted that it would happen seamlessly as it had all along until then and it did. My first year in Germany (along with a stint in the US) as an International Student slid over as smoothly as the first cup of coffee on a hangover morning - no complaints whatsoever. So much so, that most people (except my parents, thankfully) are persuading and pleading me to come home for a vacation after graduating.

Having been abroad for almost an year and a half to notice that there are certain aspects that most definitely fall into the purview of Culture Shock (Germany being the focus in this post) which I noticed all this while but voicing them only now.

1. Time 

The German obsession for time is famous the world over and is one of the pillars in their success story. The demanded accuracy is in minutes and late coming of any sort is utterly looked down upon as incompetence. Even TV/radio shows start at oddest time intervals - for example I have seen the 8 O'clock news on a few channels beginning at 19:52.

The accuracy of their public transport is probably tuned to the second on many occasions. There are updated printed schedules of buses and trains in every station and one often notices buses and trains pulling into the railway station at the same time if their schedules happen to coincide. With such a high degree of precision, it is not uncommon to note people tuning their wrist-watches based upon the arrival and departure of buses or trains.

Two incidents come to mind -

a) A crowd (maximum 15 people - that's what constitutes a crowd here) was assembled at a bus station in anticipation of a bus. When the bus arrived 2 minutes late, an old lady actually went and asked the driver why he was late by 2 minutes; the driver apologized for being late and assured the lady that he would make up the time in the remainder of the journey. 

b) A train was set to depart at 08:46 and an Indian acquaintance who had just landed into Deutschland and armed with the Indian Stretchable Time reached there promptly at 08:46 to see the train depart from the platform leaving him behind.

2. Beer

There is a famous joke that always does the rounds that beer and not haemoglobin runs in German blood; I`m beginning to think that there's some truth to it now. The beer obsession comes in a close second after time, anything and everything right from the your lawn being freshly mowed to getting a PhD elicits a beer. It is without doubt their favourite drink and costs cheaper than water in many places.

Beer rivalries are like football club rivalries and have fanatic following which are decades or sometimes even centuries old. What this means is that beer brewed in one city will not be consumed if sold in some other city due to the rivalry and if despite that you choose to disrespect the local beer - the least you can expect is people giving you dirty stares if not a sound thrashing. It is noteworthy to add that each football club has its own official brewery from which fans will drink during their games at stadiums, bars and pubs.

Also, don't ever bother passing off foreign beer brands as world famous to a German. The following is a reply I got from a colleague when I did - Friend, let me tell you how foreign beer is made. They make a raging bull drink Berliner (famous German beer) and when it poops - you get all the foreign beer brands, because that's all they are - a load of bull crap.

3. Cars

Home to the biggest, oldest and the most famous car makers in the world, it is no wonder that the Germans are obsessed with cars - importantly German made cars. The city I live in houses the headquarters of Volkswagen and are the locals proud of that! The popularity of German cars is too well known for their excellent performance, sleek looks and brand image. It is precisely these aspects that make a German thump his chest in pride while whizzing across the Autobahn.

It is blasphemy for a German to buy a foreign made car despite it being pocket friendly, having classier features, cheaper insurance or even better performance. Although you do see the likes of many a foreign car manufacturer plying their products on the market, they have still not been able to shake the traditional German mindset and make inroads into it. 

4. Naturism

Citizens of this country follow many well-established customs, including naturism. Their attitude toward nakedness in public places took me by surprise. Not least when I was in the changing room of the gym to which I go. 

There I was amidst people from all age-groups naked from the waist down - very naked. When I finally managed to change into the exercise-gear, there before me was a woman - a pretty woman - pushing her broom at my feet. This very real vision was the female cleaner in the male changing-room! Our eyes met. I blushed. She pushed on blithely, unconcerned. Or when I went to take a shower with no curtains, no enclosures, nothing. 

My colleagues tell me that nakedness is de rigueur. The sight of the nude body is completely normal - natural, as they put it. And, they say, being naked is nothing to do with sex. There is never a stir or a twitch of a sexual nature. To which I only manage a "hmmm".

What is your experience of a 'culture shock'?

Because I signed up for this

When you try to make a living in a country whose guts practically half of Europe hates and have no choice but to suck up to because it keeps them from collapsing - 90 out of a 100 times you will find yourself in Germany looking for a job opening. Also, being an international student in a country that doesn't necessarily have a predominantly English speaking business culture and voila, you have yourself a nice soup Rindersuppe.

The job applications began with all the 'wise-men' lecturing me every few days on (and I'm paraphrasing) Why I couldn't be like others and simply take up campus placements like normal people but had to go to some foreign land where people use paper to clean their hind. Amid all these advices began my hunt for a job.

The first step involved the preparation of a CV and a cover letter which was a whole different ballgame in itself bereft with abbreviated descriptions of the numerous comedies that had been a part of my experience since school, college and during my masters. I cannot not help but stifle a smile which when let loose would inevitably develop into a fit of uncontrollable laughter when I look at the last few lines of any online application portal - I hereby declare that all that I have stated and achieved so far to the best of my ability, knowledge and memory is true. 

The next step involved scouting company career sites to see what they had on offer and surprise surprise most German companies had a line in their long list of requirements which more or less said - English skills necessary albeit in German. I began spraying my application in all conceivable coordinates - Polar, Cartesian, Cylindrical and Imaginary as well, if you will.

The most taxing and frustrating part of the process came next - The Wait. So I waited and waited and waited some more and there was no response despite having sent out enough and more feelers. 

I got a call one evening asking for a Herr Bandit(!). You have to believe me when I say that that is what the person referred to me initially, that's when it struck me that he was calling for me after having gone through the application I had sent for the position he had advertised for. Suffice to say the telephone interview went in a blitz and was completely in German after which I was invited to a personal interview which was also more or less completely in German and the rest as they say is history.

Make way for der Künstler has entered the corporate world.

The House-Hunt Circus

Travel and migration have been and will be salient points of reference while narrating the tale of human kind to future generations. Humans have moved from place to place from time immemorial mostly in search of better livelihood, food and favourable living conditions. The world today is no different from that a thousand years ago; today we move across localities, towns, cities, states, countries, continents and by the looks of it - very soon planets as well for the very same reasons. The first item on a long check-list of any individual making a move is to ensure the presence a roof above his/her head and therein lies the house-hunt circus.

Having had a part to play in this mad circus when I had to move from my initial base in Germany from Hannover to Wolfsburg after I landed up a job there, I imagined it would be comparatively easier to score a place to stay in a country where the population is hardly a fraction of what it is back home. I was probably as mistaken in making that assumption as the Khap leader in Haryana who blamed fast food for the rising number of rapes in his state. So let me break down my experience of house hunting for you in this post.

Having landed in this new city looking for a roof over my head, firstly lead to an onlooker giving me a dirty stare for gaping my mouth so wide open on reading the rent numbers for the different localities. Brushing that aside, I had already made initial contact and fixed up a few appointments for the purposes of 'house seeing' akin to 'bride seeing', probably only more frustrating and cumbersome. Confident that people had asked me to come over to their houses to inspect the said room(s) on offer gave me the hope that my current state of homelessness was about to meet its speedy end. Off I went to inspect the first room - surprise, surprise - I found that I only had to wait in line before 20 other people who were there for the very same room.

After a start like that - the next step was making an impression with owners or leasers of different shapes, sizes and dimensions with varied preferences, likes, expectations from a potential tenant. To compare their expectations from a potential tenant to an intelligence agency scrutinizing an enemy spy for critical information would be a grave travesty.

They wanted to know it all - what I ate, when I ate, when I would use the toilet in the morning, when I would bathe or if I would bathe at all, if I watched porn, if I smoked or drank or did drugs, what my belief system was or if I was an atheist, if I partied or sodomized. The questions were unending and trying to answer them was similar to a scenario of bomb disposal - one wrong snip on the wrong wire and everything was bound to go boom.

The process was all the more overwhelming and confusing at the same time because each experience of inspecting and talking to the owner seemed to be sending out different signals about what the average home owner was expecting in a potential tenant. That compounded with the fact that I was soon to be homeless accelerated the desperation quotient in landing a place to stay even more; after all how long does one stay in a hotel paying through one's nose?

Thankfully after a tortuous fortnight of scanning the internet, browsing the city map, walking the streets, hopping on and off buses, regional trains and underground trams I did find a place to stay and funnily enough the landlord asked me just one question - "Are you from India?" The rest as they say is history - I moved in and have a roof over my head and a place to finally call home.

What is your crazy house-hunting story?