Kapitel 7 Kultur

After reading all of the Kapitel 7 Kultur texts, I became more cultivated in German culture. All of the readings were informative and added to my understanding and prospective of German culture.

The first link was to a website titled "USA kulinarisch" (http://www.usa-kulinarisch.de/). After browsing through and reading (or at least attempting to read) the articles, I recognized a common theme amongst them. All of the posts were about American holidays--Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween-- or about treats that are common in the US. Most of the text within the articles consisted of how to prepare certain meals or foods. I am actually surprised that Germans want to learn how to cook and prepare American foods in the first place. In the US we do not really go out of our way to make cuisines that are not already part of our culture (for instance: beer, sausages, breads, pretzels, etc). Overall, I found these articles to be very enlightening (and it's a good practice for reading German).

The next link was to an article titled "What Discipline? Of German Lines and Pythons." Reading this article really help me grasp an important part of German culture. Who knew that lines could be such a big issue in Germany. The article makes everyone in Germany seem like they are incredibly impatient as it explains how people creep up in lines and cut ahead or how they take the opportunity to go when you are not paying attention. The article states "Finally, keep in mind that Germans have grown up with such non-lines and you need to watch out for everybody. While the worst offenders tend to be impatient middle-aged men, you also have to watch out for old ladies who can be quite shameless in their queue-jumping." I can only assume that the urge to get ahead in lines is part of the German culture, which is reasonable. I mean, who really likes waiting in lines?

The last part of the assignment was to read some sections from the book 365 Dinge. Some of them were interesting and fun, while others seem like a waste of time. For instance, skydiving and paintballing seem rather fun, while listening to underwater music seems like a complete waste of time. But although some of the ideas seem a bit absurd, the book is a fun read overall.