Going Native

(From the Archive, June 2010)


I was emailing a Canadian friend in Berlin the other day and she asked whether I wanted to meet up for a drink or if I had "gone native" and therefore don't hang out with expats anymore.

Going native. I'm sure most of my friends here will already have the answer worked out as to whether I have gone native. I hadn't thought about this much until that point, strangely, but I think I know the answer as well. I have gone native.

But what does that mean? On a superficial level that would mean learning the local language and becoming fluent in it. Check. That would meaning spending most of one's time with the natives. Check. That would mean having a great fondness for the people and the culture.

...
......

Well. Then I started thinking about it. To say check in that case would actually not be going native, because let's look at it.

- Germans tend to be suspicious of people they don't know
- Germans don't seem to be particularly proud of Germany, in fact they tend to be instructed in school (probably after history class) to not be proud to be German. People who are get looked at strangely, and often quickly judged as nationalistic.
- Germans bark at you if you are doing something wrong.

Nobody can be proud of that. Nobody can be fond of that. Not even my German friends. Maybe I have become German. It goes further.

When I'm on the train I hope for and expect a quiet, peaceful ride to wherever I'm going. Last night on the train back from Potsdam (where I was informed that people checking up on your 'correctness' is far worse than in Berlin) there was a group of drunken Poles (and other random exchange students), making a good amount of noise, and laughing. Laughing. Can you believe that? They were laughing. Have they no respect for others and their right to peace and quiet? Can you believe people laugh? And what made them even more embarrassing, they were laughing from the belly. One of those laughs that people say you can start crying or wetting your pants, it's that funny. No, how rude. Nothing can be that funny. Laughing like that doesn't exist here, the people must have a screw loose. Can't they control themselves, that's outrageous!

When people tell me they'll come 'round at a certain time and they don't... what a lack of respect. How can people be late? That's just hard to fathom.

When someone tells me they'll do me a favour then completely forget, or never really meant it, meanwhile I'm planning my whole week around it. Have they no shame?

When somebody tells me "nice to see you" and yet during the whole evening they don't find a minute to chat. How nice is it to see me? Just to see me, or also to talk?

Have I gone native? The answer lies in the statement: "Stephen, we don't know if you complained like this before you got here, but you're pretty much the most German non-German we've ever met."

Well you don't have to add insult to injury!

xD (i tried to blur the line between sarcasm and reality as much as possible here...)