4 ms·

Can you please elaborate in a few sentences that about the German culture?

by nedsma 10y ago

thesimon 10y ago
As a German I would say some of the negative aspects are: * Always afraid of innovation * Contactless credit cards are regarded as very dangerous * Even debit card payments are bad because they cost the seller money and the government might see where you bought stuff * McDonalds EasyOrder kiosks are mostly empty and people prefer to queue for ages to order "the normal way" * "Only my lifestyle is the right one and others are just wrong"-mindset * Restricting opening hours because you could just shop earlier or on a Saturday just like they do
- paganel 10y ago
  I regard the bullet points you listed under "Always afraid of innovation" as features, not bugs. If it matters am Romanian, but I never really fully understood why people would willingly make public their most personal details, which is what happens when you purchase everything by CC: someone, somewhere, knows if you're a man or a woman, if you eat kosher food or not, if you're in a stable relationship, if you're depressed, if you're an alcoholic, if you have eating disorders etc etc.
  - thesimon 10y ago
    The funny thing is Germans love loyalty programs tracking their exact purchases but don't want their bank to know the purchase amount.
- dvtv75 10y ago
  > * "Only my lifestyle is the right one and others are just wrong"-mindset This is surprisingly common. A few years ago, I was working "night" shift (mid-afternoon through to 11pm), and I had a number of people get quite crappy with me because I wasn't getting up at 6am. I had a job, I should be up at the same time as everybody else who works a (day) job.
_nalply 10y ago
Swiss and Germans are similar. They are perfectionists, hard workers and appreciate timeliness. They aren't as flexible, innovative and jovial as the Americans. Compared to the Germans Swiss are more polite and don't say what they think. Germans tend to shout if they are angry about something, while it's typical for the Swiss to start a complaint with «Sorry». The language (Swiss German) is also different. Germans don't understand the Swiss if they talk Swiss German. They find the Swiss accent in the Standard German cute. The French and Italian speaking Swiss yet are another story. Source: I am half Swiss and half German and have family in both countries. I live in Switzerland.
smnscu 10y ago
OK, I'll try to come up with an overview, since you asked nicely. As a point of reference I'm Romanian and have lived in the UK, the Netherlands, and Israel (and traveled to many more places). Things I didn't like about Germany: * they seem to like dogs more than they like children e.g.: random old man screamed at my wife on the street because my 2yo son was crying; the neighbours below us harassed us for a year until we moved, because of the noise my old son made walking around the house (never outside 8am-7pm, mind you); at most 10% of the people will smile at a baby on the street or interact with kids * closed-mindedness; I can't describe very well what I mean by this, sorry, but it seems like there is this weird underlying mentality, that I haven't seen before yet I could consistently identify; in old people it's somewhat evident, but I was surprised to find this even in younger friends after I got to know them better * generally, mean people – this is subjective, but I've never seen as many random acts of passive or outright aggression as I did in Germany; my short trip to (German) Switzerland sort of confirmed the rumours I heard, that Swiss people can be even meaner; looking back I realise this can be correlated to social status – most of my bad experiences happened in posh neighbourhoods * companies will fuck you over at any chance they get – in Germany nobody seems to realise that 2 year contracts that you can't get out of are not normal; also I've been overcharged or plainly scammed by reputable utility companies; as an expat you have to be extremely careful not to get into a bad contract, and not to be taken advantage of; even my first landlord scammed me out of my deposit money Things I did like in Germany: * social system – each year we got a couple of thousand euros in tax refunds; I received a substantial amount of assistance when my startup failed; we had a baby in Germany, everything was covered by my insurance, and there was plenty of financial support for the new mum; setting up as a freelancer was extremely easy, and the taxes much lower – additionally it's easy to deduct a lot of the costs; public kindergartens are very good and very cheap; TL;DR "socialism" is awesome * roads – hands down best road system, highways, and drivers I've seen * parks, many of them with animals, farms where kids can interact with the animals, indoor playgrounds etc. – overall endless options for children, and either free or very accessible; additionally, the two areas I've been mainly in, NRW and Bavaria, were insanely beautiful with perhaps hundreds of places to visit and explore * people follow the rules religiously a majority of the time – huge relief for someone who hates chaos * there is a genuine care about social issues like privacy, refugees, ecology, etc. – I find this funny in contrast to the pettiness I've observed; in Munich people were welcoming refugees at the airport (as opposed to weird-ass stuff like this https://goo.gl/OEAkDW https://goo.gl/OEAkDW ) * good public transport, good infrastructure, hospitals, etc. * the public healthcare is much better than the NHS and very cheap – contributions scale with your income and top out at about €700 (your employer pays half) * great police – several instances where they were tremendously helpful, and overall very nice and trustworthy * living costs – my conclusion is that Germany is one of the cheapest countries to have a decent standard of living; for reference I'm now back in Romania and overall things are much more expensive (example – huge markups on electronics, baby diapers, etc.) I understand that I can't have an accurate picture of the whole 80+ million nation in my 2.5 years in Germany, and I might've been particularly unlucky. But overall my conclusion is that Germany is a great country, but it's not for me – and that's what I meant by my original comment.

Can you please elaborate in a few sentences that about the German culture?

by nedsma 10y ago

Can you please elaborate in a few sentences that about the German culture?

As a German I would say some of the negative aspects are: * Always afraid of innovation * Contactless credit cards are regarded as very dangerous * Even debit card payments are bad because they cost the seller money and the government might see where you bought stuff * McDonalds EasyOrder kiosks are mostly empty and people prefer to queue for ages to order "the normal way" * "Only my lifestyle is the right one and others are just wrong"-mindset * Restricting opening hours because you could just shop earlier or on a Saturday just like they do

paganel 10y ago
I regard the bullet points you listed under "Always afraid of innovation" as features, not bugs. If it matters am Romanian, but I never really fully understood why people would willingly make public their most personal details, which is what happens when you purchase everything by CC: someone, somewhere, knows if you're a man or a woman, if you eat kosher food or not, if you're in a stable relationship, if you're depressed, if you're an alcoholic, if you have eating disorders etc etc.
- thesimon 10y ago
  The funny thing is Germans love loyalty programs tracking their exact purchases but don't want their bank to know the purchase amount.
dvtv75 10y ago
> * "Only my lifestyle is the right one and others are just wrong"-mindset This is surprisingly common. A few years ago, I was working "night" shift (mid-afternoon through to 11pm), and I had a number of people get quite crappy with me because I wasn't getting up at 6am. I had a job, I should be up at the same time as everybody else who works a (day) job.

_nalply 10y ago

Swiss and Germans are similar. They are perfectionists, hard workers and appreciate timeliness. They aren't as flexible, innovative and jovial as the Americans. Compared to the Germans Swiss are more polite and don't say what they think. Germans tend to shout if they are angry about something, while it's typical for the Swiss to start a complaint with «Sorry». The language (Swiss German) is also different. Germans don't understand the Swiss if they talk Swiss German. They find the Swiss accent in the Standard German cute. The French and Italian speaking Swiss yet are another story. Source: I am half Swiss and half German and have family in both countries. I live in Switzerland.

smnscu 10y ago

OK, I'll try to come up with an overview, since you asked nicely. As a point of reference I'm Romanian and have lived in the UK, the Netherlands, and Israel (and traveled to many more places). Things I didn't like about Germany: * they seem to like dogs more than they like children e.g.: random old man screamed at my wife on the street because my 2yo son was crying; the neighbours below us harassed us for a year until we moved, because of the noise my old son made walking around the house (never outside 8am-7pm, mind you); at most 10% of the people will smile at a baby on the street or interact with kids * closed-mindedness; I can't describe very well what I mean by this, sorry, but it seems like there is this weird underlying mentality, that I haven't seen before yet I could consistently identify; in old people it's somewhat evident, but I was surprised to find this even in younger friends after I got to know them better * generally, mean people – this is subjective, but I've never seen as many random acts of passive or outright aggression as I did in Germany; my short trip to (German) Switzerland sort of confirmed the rumours I heard, that Swiss people can be even meaner; looking back I realise this can be correlated to social status – most of my bad experiences happened in posh neighbourhoods * companies will fuck you over at any chance they get – in Germany nobody seems to realise that 2 year contracts that you can't get out of are not normal; also I've been overcharged or plainly scammed by reputable utility companies; as an expat you have to be extremely careful not to get into a bad contract, and not to be taken advantage of; even my first landlord scammed me out of my deposit money Things I did like in Germany: * social system – each year we got a couple of thousand euros in tax refunds; I received a substantial amount of assistance when my startup failed; we had a baby in Germany, everything was covered by my insurance, and there was plenty of financial support for the new mum; setting up as a freelancer was extremely easy, and the taxes much lower – additionally it's easy to deduct a lot of the costs; public kindergartens are very good and very cheap; TL;DR "socialism" is awesome * roads – hands down best road system, highways, and drivers I've seen * parks, many of them with animals, farms where kids can interact with the animals, indoor playgrounds etc. – overall endless options for children, and either free or very accessible; additionally, the two areas I've been mainly in, NRW and Bavaria, were insanely beautiful with perhaps hundreds of places to visit and explore * people follow the rules religiously a majority of the time – huge relief for someone who hates chaos * there is a genuine care about social issues like privacy, refugees, ecology, etc. – I find this funny in contrast to the pettiness I've observed; in Munich people were welcoming refugees at the airport (as opposed to weird-ass stuff like this https://goo.gl/OEAkDW https://goo.gl/OEAkDW ) * good public transport, good infrastructure, hospitals, etc. * the public healthcare is much better than the NHS and very cheap – contributions scale with your income and top out at about €700 (your employer pays half) * great police – several instances where they were tremendously helpful, and overall very nice and trustworthy * living costs – my conclusion is that Germany is one of the cheapest countries to have a decent standard of living; for reference I'm now back in Romania and overall things are much more expensive (example – huge markups on electronics, baby diapers, etc.) I understand that I can't have an accurate picture of the whole 80+ million nation in my 2.5 years in Germany, and I might've been particularly unlucky. But overall my conclusion is that Germany is a great country, but it's not for me – and that's what I meant by my original comment.