Kapital 11 Kultur, Yuntao Chen

For this week's Kultur, I read through several interesting articles. The first one was the Wikipedia page of "Ostalgie", which refers to nostalgia for East Germany. I found this very interesting, because this also happens in my country, China. Nowadays the old communism era is fading away from people's lives, but certain parts of it is gradually finding its way back to the pop culture. You can easily get souvenirs, T-shirts, and mugs that commemorate the old time. I think this has more to do with the mysterious nature of fashion than with people actually longing for the past.

I then read an article about the differences between Southern and Northern Germany. Since Germany does not cover a very large land mass, I was not expecting such a huge difference in terms of customs and languages between to two parts of Germany. I heard from my German friends before about the south-north division in Germany. This article just confirmed these "rumors". It was funny that some people would joke about these differences -- "had the allied power decided to divide Germany North-South, the Berlin wall would probably still stand today."

The last article I read was about the influences of the reunification on today's German society. The article talked about the differences in mentality of people from the east and west. I was very surprised to know that even today such differences are till present, and today the states in west Germany are still paying a large sum to the states in the east. However, I think the benefits of a unified Germany probably still largely outweigh these drawbacks. After all, the German National football team now has one less opponent in the FIFA world cup!

Kapitel 11 Kulture Blog

Der Gegenstand "Breaking Down the Wall in Head" war sehr interessant. Ich will wie gleich das Mauer in Kopf ist noch wissen. "Nostalgie" war auch interessant. Es müsste schwer zu Übergang von Ost zu West Alltagspraktiken. Nummer 293 "Ausflug nach Rheinsberg" ist eine schöne Idee. Zyankali Bar würde sehr spaß zu besucht. Museum der Dinge mit DDR und Nazi-Deutshland Dinge werden toll sehen. Ich liebe Sonnenblumen! Der Sonnenblumen-Labyrinth würdet sehr spaß! 300 Jahre Medizin ist seltsam aber ich will gehen. Durch die Berlins Unterwelten wandert, würde sehr toll zu explorieren. Der Berliner Dom sieht sehr schön! Stars For Free klingt gleich ein gut Zeit!

Kultur 6, Kapitel 11, Emily Maggioncalda

Ich bin erstaunt, dass Ost und West Deutschland immer noch uneinig sind, aber die USA hat immer noch Nord und Süd Konflikt, und der Zivilkrieg war vor langer Zeit. Leute in Nord denken, dass Leute in Süd dumm und "Rednecks" sind, und Leute in Süd denken, dass Leute in Nord "wusses" und "Yankees" sind. Die Ost/West Konflikt ist ähnlich. Deutschland hat auch Nord/Süd Konflikt. Es hört die Gleiche von die USA Nord/Süd Klagen. Ich verstehe Ostalgie, aber ich denke, dass Demokratie besser ist. Die Ost-Ampelmännchen ist schlau.

Leipzig und Dresden hört sehr schön. Ich möchte beide besuchen. Ich denke, dass ich die Architektur sehen möchte. Der Zwinger in Dresend ist sehr schön in das Bild in der Buch.

Ich will zu Flohmarkt am Mauerpark gehen. Auch will ich zum Naturkundemuseum. Ich liebe Naturgesichte. 

Willkommen!!

Welcome to our class blog!

We will be using this blog throughout the semester for two kinds of assignments:

1. Once per chapter, the homework plan will direct you to post a response to the culture readings for the chapter on the blog.

2. Roughly every other week, the homework plan will direct you to post here for your Abenteuer mit Deutsch (AMD) assignment. First you do a fun activity that involves German, then you post about it. You should spend an hour total on this (maybe 45-55 minutes doing something, 5-15 minutes posting about it). See Was ist ein AMD, AMD Ideen and Beispiele for ideas. This should get you excited about the kinds of things you can do!

Whenever you post something, please include your name and the name of the assignment (e.g. AMD2, Kultur5) as labels. See "Blog: How To" for more details!