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!

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).

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?!!!