Moving to NYC

After a lot of back and forth, my husband and I have decided to move back to New York. I have very much enjoyed writing this blog, and may continue to do so going forward, but in any case the blog will not continue in this form. 

I hope to write more about the reasons for the move.

choice, freedom and happiness

A friend of mine pointed me to this talk on Why are we happy? by Dan Gilbert as part of the TED series.  The gist of the talk is that people are happy regardless of external circumstances, and that we are happiest when we are stuck (although the situation may be objectively terrible).  So the person who wins the lottery, and the person who has an accident and becomes a paraplegic, are equally happy after a year!

Part of the immigrant experience is that one is constantly asking oneself: "Is this the right place for me?" I am indeed very lucky to have the choice to decide between two great places - NY and Munich - that are completely different, but charming in their own ways. But that choice makes me think, and not completely settle down in any place. 

Maybe freedom and choice really do not make people happy.

dark and beautiful

I am always amused that when I go shopping here in Munich, either the sales woman or another customer inevitably says: "Sie können doch alles tragen; Sie brauchen kein Make-up oder so was (You can wear any colour, and don't need any make-up or anything)".

In terms of skin tone, the German or generally Western idea of beauty is someone who is well tanned.  The risk of skin cancer doesn't stop tanning being a multi-billion euro industry.

In terms of skin tone in India, it is the reverse - the fairer the better.  This is one of the things that seem to be true across India.  Indian film actresses are inevitably fair on screen (regardless of how they look in candid photos).  I recall the brouhaha caused when Aishwarya Rai's skin was lightened on a magazine cover - although she is, by Indian standards, already quite fair.  Indians (mostly women) use products like Fair and Lovely, which promises power with beauty (aka fairness) - that too with each wash! Never mind the cancer risk. 

Indians don't hesitate to voice this preference for fair skin.  I recall a male classmate in graduate school in India saying to a female classmate: "Why are you hanging out in the sun? You will get all dark".  I am sure mothers discourage daughters from active sports for this reason.  One can see this even in the classifieds for arranged marriaged in India - the brides are either "fair and beautiful" or they have a "wheatish complexion".  There is no "dark and beautiful" in India. There is a whole category of movies that depict dark women as doomed to singledom and failure.

This preference for fair skin is prevalent even in Indian immigrant communities.  I recall a relative, born and brought up in the US, saying she wished her new born daughter had taken after her (and not the father) - the father had a darker skin tone.

Unfortunately, although India is modernising at a rapid pace, this prejudiced and biased attitude seems to be deeply rooted in the culture.  Here is wishing for a "dark and beautiful" future.

authencity, political correctness and crossing the line......

There are old dependables that one reads or comes back to at the end of a long day, simply to escape from the day-to-day grind.  For me a true guilty pleasure is reading quasi travel / food books disguised as mysteries.  I first came across this genre through Donna Leon's books, where 'sublime' Venice is present as a character in each book, and there are pages devoted to Italian cooking. So much so that the recipes have been collected into a cookbook of its own!

I have enjoyed the Klufti books set in Allgäu, where King Ludwig built Neuschwanstein. 

I started reading my second Rita Falk book, Dampfnudelblues, which is on the Spiegel best seller list. The book is written in the voice of Franz Eberhofer, the village constable, who has been transferred to Niederkaltenkirchen, a village in lower Bavaria, after trying to be Dirty Harry in Munich.  Franz's brother is married to a Thai girl-woman.  Franz calls his month-old niece Sushi and says that even with the Schlitzauge (chinky eyes) she is beautiful (I did find this funny though). But, upon being asked by the mayor to act as a bodyguard for a black Angolan football player, he says "Sie glauben doch nicht im Ernst, dass ich mich jedes Wochenende auf den verschissenen Fußballplatz stelle und einen Neger bewache!" (You don't seriously believe that I am going to stand in the shitty football playground each weekend and watch over a nigger).

This is the point where I stopped reading the book. 

I understand that Franz is meant to be funny in a slapsticky politically incorrect way.  If one looks at the Amazon reviews of the book, there are claims that the use of the n-word makes Franz more authentic.  Granted, one doesn't have to take the same approach as in the US, where there are bowdlerising Mark Twain's books to replace the n-word with slave. But, unless Ms. Falk meant to show that Franz was somewhat xenophobic, such sentences are simply not funny!

German Public Television - Part II (oder warum ich Schnauzen liebe)

Sunday evenings on German TV always feature a Schnulze (i.e. kitschy) film on ZDF.
I am not sure what the Indian or American equivalent would be.  A cross between Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Bold and the beautiful comes to mind, but neither comparison quite fits the bill.

These films are comforting like an old Agatha Christie novel. You know there will be a bit of drama, but everything is going to turn out alright in the end.

But what is peculiarly German about these films is that they don't usually take place in Germany (unless it in scenic Upper Bavaria), but almost always in Italy.  Goethe's words about Italy ring true even today. Thousands of German tourists flock every year to Italy, the "land where the lemons bloom".  The Sunday films are also a metaphor for this lure of the South. 

What is also striking is that the films always play out in a background of incredible wealth.  And that in this most egalitarian and democratic of countries, where the rich are unpopular!

Thinking through it maybe the German films have more in common with Bollywood films than one realises.  If one sets aside the song and dance, Bollywood films do take place in exotic locales and feature well-to-do families.  I am sure Hindi films would be big hits in Germany.  But till that tíme there is always the ZDFSonntagsfilm.  So enjoy!

Update: As SK points out, Bollywood films, especially Shah Rukh Khan's are, in fact, popular in Germany.  A point confirmed by my finding a trove of DVDs of Bollywood films in the Munich public library.

German Public Television - Part I

I looked at my husband from the couch where I was comfortably ensconced in a snuggy, and said "ich liebe diese Schnauze. Die ist so lustig".  He promply burst out laughing. What I meant to say, of course, was that I loved the Schnulze, which means "a kitschy or schmaltzy film".  Schnauze in German means snout (like of a dog!).

The embarassing moment aside German public television is unique.  My Sunday evenings (like those of many others) are devoted to either a Tatort  or to a kitschy film on ZDF (sometimes to both, thanks to everything being available on the internet). 

America has its Law & Order, which has been around for nearly 20 years.  Tatort is also a detective series, but it has been around for nearly four decades and is ingrained into German pop culture.  Each German state has its own version of Tatort (which literally means the scene of the crime); so there is a Munster Tatort, a Munich Tatort, a Berlin Tatort and even a Viennese Tatort.

The charm of each series is its local colour.  I have learnt to recognise regional accents and regional foods from the various Tatorts.  For example, the Cologne detectives always stop after each Tatort at their favourite stand for curry wurst and beer, as is, I am told, typical for the Rhineland. The ones from Munich often has the murder taking place in a Biergarten.

Different Tatorts tackle different themes. Some Tatorts like the one from Munster are slapsticky, others like the one from Hamburg featuring Turkish detective Cenk Batu are reminiscent of a Bourne movie. Yet others are intended to be educational (and not just entertaining), like the ones from Bodensee often featuring environmental cases and the ones from Berlin featuring issues relating to immigration and corruption.

All Germans have a favourite Tatort detective - and they sometimes discuss who their favourite Tatort detective is, the way Indians discuss cricket players or Bollywood actors.  Funnily enough almost all the Tatort detectives are either in failed relationships, single parents or otherwise lone wolves.  The Tatorts also feature their (usually failed) relationships; I am always surprised how much sex and nudity there is on German public TV at 8:15 on a Sunday!

Spring is in the air...

I love spring time in Munich.

I grew up in India in a city with a tropical climate - there were only two seasons - rainy and not rainy.  In NYC, the transition is really quick - there is practically one week of spring, and then it is hot and humid.

I love the gradual transition in Munich, and all the things that one can do with the good weather.

These are some of my favourite things (pics from last year):

1. Planting my balcony

2. Going hiking

3. Swimming in the Bavarian lakes

4. and going to the Beer Gardens of course!

Being Indian in Germany

It's been a long time since I wrote anything.

It's been nearly 1.5 years since the move to Munich, and I feel I am still acclimatizing.  The language is not a problem anymore - I have reached a stage of what I call "functional fluency", where I can understand everything and can say everything that I want (although sometimes incorrectly).

What is still incredibly hard is the culture shock. This article in the NY Times "Being Back at Stuyvesant High" definitely struck a chord.

The article describes the experiences of a black student at one of NYC's elite public high schools, where the majority are either Asian or White.  A guidance counsellor says in the article - "There’s something very isolating, about being one of the very few.”

I am always recognised whereever I go, and I never ever forget my racial identity. I wonder if other non-white Germans feel this as acutely as I do as well. Or whether I feel this more being a foreigner.

Gelegenheitsmutter

Long time since the last post.

A week ago I read this article in the FAZ society pages on Sunday.  It was an article about Carla Bruni's baby (Giulia as we know now).  The byline was whether Bruni would be "an Italienische Mamma oder emanzipierte französische Gelegenheitsmutter" (i.e. whether an Italian Mamma or an emancipated French Gelegenheitsmutter).

I am not sure whether anyone else found the term "Gelegenheitsmutter" offensive.  There is no good translation of Gelegenheitsmutter in English.  Gelegenheit means opportunity / chance (as in could you call me when you have the chance?).  So a Gelegenheitsmutter is someone who is a mother only "bei Gelegenheit" or when opportune.

Sometimes I am quite taken back as I realise how strong the prejudice against working mothers is in Germany.  Often people are asked: "Why do you have children if you can't take care of them?"  Women of course buy into this mindset, and feel pushed to settle - for not working, for part time jobs, for jobs that are beneath their qualifications. 

Conservative Bavaria....

As someone who belongs to one of the "regulierte Berufe" (regulated professions) in Germany, I've been trying to figure out the requirements to have my qualifications recognised here. This being Germany, there is a whole host of rules and regulations relating to this (the German lawyers think all this makes it clearer - but that is a whole another post altogether).

Anway, one of the requirements to get my degrees recognised is that I be a EU citizen. So HK (my husband) and I went to the Ausländerbehörde (the Department for Foreigners) to talk about citizenship requirements.  Long story short, there is a fast track process for spouses of German citizens to take German citizenship.

BUT..... for the German spouse to prove his German citizenship he has to prove a "chain of citizenship" in Bavaria all the way back to 1938 - this means that he has to provide a list of documents including birth certificates of parents and paternal grandparents and their marriage certificates.

When you thinks about it, someone who is the son of a naturalised citizen (a Turkish Gästarbeiter for example) would not be able to meet the citizenship requirement even if they were a citizen from birth! And the weirdest thing is that only Bavaria traces it back to 1938; it looks as if the son of the Turkish Gästarbeiter would only need to show his passport in Berlin.

This is so inexplicable. The clerk at the Ausländerbehörde (who had a Slavic surname and probably would not have met the test) even said it was like a Aryan test!

I think it is easy to cry racism (and who knows that may be the main reason), but at a minimum it is also provincialism.  There is always a political hullabaloo when someone says something like "Germany is not an immigration country", but I think this shows that that is true.

What is odd about all this is that, in fact, the German process for spouses to get citizenship is quicker and less cumbersome than in many other countries (India and in the US for sure and maybe Britain as well).

Learning a foreign language

After the one course at Goethe in October, I've been learning German on my own for the last 6 months - until today that is.  I decided to take classes again (since my firm offered to pay for it).

I consider myself proficient in German these days - I understand people, can read and can communicate (read and write).   My German is, for example, way better than my Hindi.  I couldn't read a book or write an email in Hindi.  But today's lesson made me think about how long it takes to be "fluent" in a language (especially one like German).

I think what is so difficult with German is the Grammar.  Learning the vocabulary is in comparison so easy! For instance, in English to say that something holds true for all of a country, it is either "for all of India" and, sometimes, "for all of THE US or UK".  So there are at the most two variations. 

German has several variations depending on the country.  So there is:

- für ganz Deutschland,
- für DIE ganzE Schweiz,
- für DIE ganzEN USA,
- für DEN ganzEN Iran and so on.

I keep thinking that there should be some way to learn the language quickly.  But accreting this sort of information is so slow and painful.  There is a certain logic to these changes, but one has to apply so many different rules simultaneously to get this correct.  It is probably going to take years of being in the country before I can consider myself fluent. 

Me and the Colonel

I've been watching this old 50s movie about a Polish jew escaping from Paris along with (of all unlikely partners) an anti-semitic colonel - http://youtu.be/HLa7VoqMZ0U

This is the only comic take I've seen on the Nazis.  Here are some funny lines from the movie:

German officer: The efficiency of our army takes all the joy out of life.

German officer: We can't help our militarism (even if we lose).  But we always almost win!

Colonel from time to time:  In the cathedral of my heart, a candle was always burning for you.
Jacobowsky: That must be the best-lit cathedral in Europe.

Jacobowsky to Colonel:  There is no doubt that you have one of the best minds of the twelfth century.


A jewish friend once told me that the two Rs that are the essence of the Jewish spririt are resignation and resourcefulness.  The film shows this wonderfully. 

FAZ talks about managers' affairs

The lead article in the Economy section of the Sunday paper talks about how affairs at work (or messy personal lives) affect managers' careers:  Wenn Affären der Karriere schaden

This is really the sort of fluff used to fill newspapers on a slow news day (never mind that it was the first thing I read in the Sunday paper :)). 

But the article sheds light on German attitudes to work and play.  The thrust of the article seems to be that managers' personal lives (in particular with "cliched platinum blondes focussed on shopping") are relevant mainly because of internal office politics. 

What is interesting is what is omitted from the article. No difference is made between an affair with a subordinate and with someone out of the office! And, no mention is made of the bad judgment such behavious shows. Does this show the higher tolerance to such behaviour in Germany?

Schwäbische Sparsamkeit!

Every other NY Times article on Germany makes sure to mention that Germans are "thrifty" and that they are great "comparison shoppers". German aversion to debt is so steeped in the culture. When one realises that the word for debt and for guilt are the same (Schuld), that tells you all about German attitute to debt.

Came across something that threw this into sharp contrast a few weeks ago. Was 25 cents short of cash when buying at the cheese shop where we buy every week. The shop owner said that we could pay them next week, but we could see that they were not happy about it. So once we got home, we went back to the shop to pay the remaining 50 cents, and they were surprised and happy! And then the shop owner said: "Ist es nicht schön ohne Schuld in das Wochenende zu gehen?" - i.e. isn't it great to go debt free into the weekend?!!!

Here is Munich!

"On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy." So begins E.B. White's classic Here is New York. The description of New York still holds true after all these years.

Six months into the move. It's a beautiful spring day in Munich. Am at work having a slow day and musing about all what is so special about Munich.... .