Matisse Ticket

So, what did I see at this exhibit? In the words of the immortal Blackadder, “Utter. Crap.”

I’ve seen small children who could draw better than this guy. His portraits didn’t look anything like the folks he was purporting to portray. How do I know? In a side room, the exhibit helpfully included a row of photos of his models, and a “matching” row of photos of Matisse’s portraits. Except that they didn’t match.

We kept being told, as we paused at each picture in the main room, that Matisse was trying to capture the essence of his model. He captured no such thing. I read at one sketch that this was supposed to be a study for the painting which was hung nearby. I looked at the painting. I looked back at the study. They didn’t look like they were portraying the same model. They both looked awkward. And the painting certainly didn’t look like the photo of the model.

Utter. Crap.

Matisse ain’t my cup of tea. In German: “Matisse ist nicht mein Fall.”

But hey — it sure is fun being able to see real paintings so that I can post my opinions about them!

…Thursday evening, my next door neighbor calls asking for an extra pair of hands to help him wipe shit off his cat’s fur. Please. Right now if at all possible. The cat was confined in the kitchen so that she wouldn’t decide to clean herself on the sofa or the bed. R donned thick gloves to hold the uncooperative cat, I was given thinner gloves and a damp rag. Success. We soothed our nerves by chatting in the living room while the cat soothed her (clean) ruffled feathers somewhere else.

…Friday morning, I accept a postal delivery package for another neighbor who isn’t home at the time. Package handed over later that morning.

…Friday evening, the same neighbor kid from across the street rings my doorbell asking if he can hang out here until his mother gets home from work. The timing was excellent, as I had just 30 seconds before arrived home myself. Very polite kid. He played with a couple of puzzles, declined the offer of watching a DVD as he had already seen the ones we had, and was just a nice friendly guest until his mom arrived to pick him up an hour later.

This is a nice neighborhood that I live in. We help each other out.

On the way home I realized why they just didn’t look “right”. They were sunflower seeds. It said so right on the package. So I still don’t have any pumpkin seeds.

I don’t know why, but I just cannot keep in my mind the difference between pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. Yeah, I know that pumpkins and sunflowers don’t look anything alike. But the shelled seeds do. Sort of. A bit. And their names — they both start with — uh, they both have “seed” in their name.

Every fall I buy Hokkaido pumpkins at the local farmer’s market. I slice them in half, scoop out the seeds, and bake the flesh of the pumpkin until soft. I scoop the cooked flesh into plastic containers and store in the freezer, until it’s time to make pumpkin soup or pumpkin pie. Yummy.

I dutifully rinse the seeds, lay them out to dry, keep them in a bowl until they rot, and then I throw them away. Every year. I keep hearing that they’re so nutritious. So I feel obligated to keep them. I tried eating a couple of seeds the first year I baked my own pumpkin. They’re fibrous, to put it charitably. I refuse to go through the hassle of shelling the damned things. And I certainly can’t buy them at the store because I get them as a bonus from the pumpkins that I buy.

And now I can’t even keep the names straight when I admit defeat and try to buy the things.

There are various sources which claim that it’s a simple matter to roast the seeds. Then they’re supposed to be edible without needing to be shelled.

So now I’m trying to use up the sunflower seeds which I bought, while I gear up for another Language Fail Moment at the health food store. Can she actually come home with a package of pumpkin seeds on her next shopping trip? Or will she hold out until the Hokkaido pumpkins are in season, and try, try again to do something with the bazillions of seeds that get scooped out of the pumpkins? Sigh.

I recently found this ad in my local newspaper. It’s for a new restaurant called Megaschnitzel. It entices you with this promise:

Offer: Whoever can eat the XXL-Hamburger/Cheeseburger in 50 minutes, gets it for free!

XXL experience in food- and drink- related matters.

Be one of the first! Book a reservation!

Sigh. The Germans are importing the wrong things from America.

Amongst the many examples that the authors discuss is the warning to read the ingredients list instead of just the big print on the front of the package. The words Mit ausgewählten Zutaten (”with carefully selected ingredients”) on the front of a container of Beef Soup could, in the fine-print ingredients list, actually mean:

• that the soup is 71% wheat noodles,
• there’s more salt than beef, and
• that there is a long list of other ingredients like MSG, aroma, hydrogenated fats, maltodextrin, yeast extract and caramilized sugar.

The book asks, “Which of these are the carefully selected ingredients here?”

OK, so I know to read the ingredients list of every product that I buy, because I prefer to eat real foods instead of all the manufactured chemicals that are in so many products nowadays. My friends Andreas and Eva know this, which is why they thought that I would be interested in this book.

I loooove cornflakes for breakfast. I prefer to add a half-teaspoon of sugar myself to the bowl, along with ground flaxseed (Leinsamen) and almonds (Mandeln). I have been looking for another variety since my favorite brand is no longer being produced by the manufacturer.

A couple of weeks ago I bought this box of cornflakes from my friendly neighborhood health-food store. You can read clearly in two places on the front of this package the words Ohne Zuckerzusatz (”without added sugar”). They brag three times on the front that the product is Bio — this implies that the corn was grown without pesticides and other nasty unhealthy ingredients. A stamp from the Öko-Test organization (Öko is short for “ecological”) gives it a sehr gut (”very good”) rating — and you just know that an organization with a name like that wouldn’t lead you astray. Unless you believe the book I mentioned above, which thinks that the Öko-Test people are more interested in whether the ingredients have pesticides, and not concerned enough about whether the product itself is any good. But anyway, the front of the package implies that you can trust that you’re getting real, healthy ingredients.

This morning, after having eaten half the box (over several mornings, not all at once!!!), I happened to look at the fine print on the side of the box:

The German ingredient list starts off with ohne Kristallzucker (”without crystalline sugar”). The English list says very specifically “no added sugar”. Then, when you get to the actual list itself, you notice that the second ingredient is Maissirup (”corn syrup“). Um, since when did corn syrup become not sugar? Here’s a German list of various names for sugar, and an English list. Maissirup (corn sugar) is clearly on the list. It’s sugar.

Yeah, yeah, I know that the white crystalline sugar that I add myself is basically the same thing. But it’s different when I do it.

I was misled and deceived. I, who thought I was so clever and educated. I, who forgot to read the list of ingredients before I bought the product. I forgot to pay attention to the very warnings from the book that I listed above: that what is pictured and bragged about on the front of the package may mislead and deceive me about what’s actually inside the package.

Thank you, Andreas and Eva. I’ll re-read the book. I’m sure that there are other things in there that I need to be reminded of.

One recent post raised my hackles and put me into Rant Mode. She complains that “Professor Zombie,” a colleague at an American University, wears a bitter, sour face every day and she wishes he’d put a bag over his head or kill himself in order to spare her the agony of having to look at him. I don’t know if Professor Zombie spews venom at everyone around him while he’s frowning. Redzilla doesn’t say. She seems mainly to resent the fact that he scowls and doesn’t join in the daily frivolity that is expected when one is in the company of another American.

Can you guess where this Rant is going? In the 12 years that I have lived in Germany, not one person has come up to me and said “Smile, things can’t be that bad!” No German friend has informed me that the expression on my face is unacceptable. No German stranger has instructed me to change the look of my face.

“Smile, things can’t be that bad!” I would be standing in line at an American grocery store, waiting to pay for my purchases, and the person behind the counter would say that to me. I would be lost in my own thoughts waiting for an acquaintance to show up for a date, and their greeting was “Smile, things can’t be that bad!”

It used to really piss me off. I guess it still does.

Redzilla, I’d like to meet this Professor Zombie. I’ll bet he acquired his permanent scowl because you and every other American he has ever met greeted him with “Smile, things can’t be that bad!” I’ll bet he has some interesting things to talk about. Have you ever asked him what’s going on in his life? Have you ever asked him about his hobbies or his pets or his favorite television show or his opinions on politics? Have you ever asked him if things are ok in his life? Do you give a shit about him?

No, it’s pretty obvious from your blog post that you don’t.

Americans want other people to be pleasant and wear a smile at all times. If they don’t, we get a scowl on our face and say unpleasant things about (and often to) them. No one is allowed to insult us to our face. But we insult other people with glee behind their backs. This, dear, is called hypocrisy. It pisses me off. It’s unkind. It cuts off any possibility of real communication. It means that we will never be friends, because we will never get to know each other.

It’s just one more reason why I’m glad I’m living in Germany.

[Addendum:] OK, in the interests of fairness and “it’s different when I do it” and “the things that piss me off in other people are usually the things I don’t want to admit in myself”, I’m admitting that I make fun of certain people instead of — uh — what? accepting them as valuable human beings? But, when I make fun of them, they really are bozos, but when you make fun of them you’re not being fair. Yeah.

Hummel’s list of the things I can do for her:

1) Pay attention to her either at 4:00 in the morning while I’m trying to sleep or at 1:00 in the afternoon while I am in the middle of trying to do some work on the computer so that I am so beguiled by her purring that I will:

2) Get up from bed or computer chair and drag an old shoelace through the house so that she can pretend to stalk a mouse until she gets tired of that and then I can:

3) Put cat food into her bowl and admire her hearty appetite.

My list of the things I can do for her:

4) Adopt a 6-year-old cat from the Tierheim (animal shelter) where they say that she has “a few health issues” that need attending to. Hear that she was rescued from a private animal rescue farm. Learn that the neighbors noticed that the owners of this animal rescue farm had disappeared a few days earlier, and the animals had to be rescued from the rescuers and given food and health care before they improved enough to be adoptable. Hummel was singled out because she wasn’t doing well among all the other cats and dogs and horses who were rescued from the animal rescue center, so she was sent to the animal shelter near us. They kept her for two weeks tending to her health and emotional issues before they even put an ad in the local paper announcing that she was available for adoption. They name her Hummel (Bumblebee). We return home with cat, where we:

5) Watch her freak out looking for all the hiding places in our house just big enough for a cat because she thinks she’s going to be hurt again. Try to speak softly to her and gain her trust and encourage her to come out and be petted. Feel our hearts break because she’s so frightened. After two weeks, just when she’s beginning to think that we might be people she can trust, we:

6) Grab her and stuff her into a pet carrier and take her on another taxi ride to the Tierärzten (veterinarian) for the follow-up health checkup to the one she received while she was in the care of the local animal shelter. Hang on to a terrified cat, who is doing everything in her power to escape from our clutches and damage as many pieces of skin that she finds on her way out. In spite of all this mayhem we are able to determine that she has a major gum infection that is causing her teeth to rot and her breath to smell like shit. She also has black ear mites and fungus covering the insides of her ears. Gather up cat and antibiotic pills in bloody arms, return cat to cat carrier and return in taxi to house, where:

7) Two experienced cat owners attempt to insert antibiotic pills in panicked cat. Ahahahaha! What fun! Watch the fur and blood fly! Ok. Let’s try I’ll hold the cat and you pop the pills into her mouth. Manage to get most of the pills into her over the next few days. Try to convince the cat that her lot in life really is improved by staying with us. She begins training us to observe items 1, 2 and 3 above. Just as she’s beginning to think that we really might be nice people and not ogres, it’s time to:

8) Grab cat and stuff her into pet carrier and return to the vet. This time no human blood is shed while the vet determines that the ears need stronger medicine and she still needs antibiotics. Right. Gather up cat, ear mite medicine and more antibiotic pills, return cat to cat carrier and return in taxi to house, where:

9) Two experienced cat owners use the skills they recently learned to hold cat down while antibiotic pills are inserted in her mouth and antifungal fluid is squirted in her ears. Two experienced cat owners give up after 6 days because cat is terrified and is having difficulty trusting the good intentions of cat owners. Two experienced cat owners are torn between logical knowledge that antibiotics are improving her physical health and emotional knowledge that administering the antibiotics are damaging her mental health. Slowly cat begins again to trust cat owners and remind them of items 1, 2 and 3 above until it’s time to:

10) Grab cat and stuff her into pet carrier and return to the vet, where cat is put to sleep while vet pulls two rotten teeth. Cat is now renamed Snaggletooth. Return sleepy cat to cat carrier and return in taxi to house, where:

11) Two experienced cat owners use their expert skills to insert more antibiotic pills into cat, giving up after day 6 because one of the experienced cat owners leaves for a bicycle tour of the Gorges du Verdon, and the remaining experienced cat owner is not about to administer pills to cat without an accomplice. Before the bicyclist returns from France, it’s time to:

12) Grab cat and stuff her into pet carrier and return to the vet to see how the gums are healing. By this time, the cat is resigned to her fate and realizes that this is just a piss-poor way to spend a morning, and not a threat to her very existence. No medicines are prescribed. Experienced cat owners breath a sigh of relief.

Experienced cat owners are willing to invest the time and energy and blood and money to bring cat back to the pink of health. Because little Hummel is a furry sweety who brings joy to her new owners by practicing items 1, 2 and 3 above.

One of the things I noticed when I was first learning the German language was that Germans tend to prefer using just the right word to express something. They want their meaning to be clear and they want to be sure that they understand what someone else is conveying. Germans frequently give me puzzled looks when I try to discuss various topics, and they propose words to clarify what I’m trying to convey. Uh, the real problem here is that I need a lot more practice using my German, in order that my spoken vocabulary becomes large enough for sharing information. But my German friends seem to like me anyway. And their patient tolerance of my inadequate usage of their language is one of the reasons I like them, too!

Americans tend to prefer imprecise language, I think because they are more interested in creating an emotional “bonding experience” and less interested in conveying actual content. This is a gross exaggeration, of course, as there are lots of Americans who do care about conveying content. And, of course, Germans are quite capable of using “empty” small-talk to create a pleasant social experience. To stereotype and oversimplify cultural differences, it seems to me that Germans care about the factual details. Americans care about the social atmosphere.

I have lived for many years in both America and Germany, and I believe that these generalizations have a fair amount of validity.

Verbs are a case in point. In American English, we simply put things somewhere. In German, people expect more information about how those things are put into position. In the following examples, the German verb is in blue and the corresponding English verb is in red.

I put the baby in the crib.
Ich lege das Baby auf das Kinderbett. (legen = to lay something horizontally on a surface)

I put the pillow on the sofa.
Ich setze das Kissen auf das Sofa. (setzen = to set (sit) something on a surface)

I put the sports trophy on the shelf.
Ich stehe das Siegeszeichen auf das Regalbrett. (stehen = to stand something vertically on a surface)

I put the turkey into the oven.
Ich stecke den Truthan in den Ofen. (stecken = to stick something into a container)

The closest you can come to an all purpose word for put is stellen. But generally, you try to be precise about your German putting. You lay (legen) horizontal things like books and babies on surfaces. You stand (stehen) vertical things like lamps and sports trophies on surfaces. You set (setzen) things on chairs, even when those things are not people. You stick (stecken) things into boxes and ovens. Obviously these verbs exist in English, since I have just used them, but in America we tend to pride ourselves on being vague. One verb fits all. Put.

For another example, in America, we simply go places. Germans want to know how you are going to get there.

I’m going to the bus stop.
Ich gehe zur Bushaltestelle. (gehen = to walk)

I’m going to Hamburg.
Ich fahre nach Hamburg. (fahren = to drive or ride in a vehicle)

I’m going to France.
Ich reise nach Frankreich. (reisen = to travel some distance for a period of time)

I’m going to Australia.
Ich fliege nach Australien. (fliegen = to fly on an airplane)

The correct verb conveys useful information. Americans who are just learning German tend to assume that they can use gehen whenever they mean to go. But if you say “ich gehe nach Hamburg” (I’m going to Hamburg) when you live 30 kilometers from that downtown, your German friend will try to imagine you walking there and, knowing what a couch potato* you are, they will laugh.

It seems to me that if you strive for precision in your communication, you can, if you wish, include a lot of other things along with it, such as feelings, humor, etc. If you leave out the precision, then an important part of the communication is missing. You are saying that the details are not important: let’s not deal with ideas that we can argue about or learn from or disagree with, let’s keep things vague enough so that we can concentrate on comradery.

Consequently, Germans tend to be uncomfortable with American communications (verbal and written) — “don’t they realize that they aren’t saying anything?” Americans tend to be uncomfortable with German communications — “don’t they realize that they’re being rude?”

To return to Thomas’ original question, I don’t think that the structures of the languages themselves are responsible for this cultural difference in communication styles. Germans are quite capable of using their language for expressing humor and emotion and sarcasm and meaningless small-talk. Americans can express very precise meanings and subtlety and abstract analyses in English. It’s just that, culturally, Americans seem to pride themselves on fuzzy expressions with lack of content, and, culturally, Germans pride themselves on delivering information.

I heard frequently in America, from childhood on, that I was using “big words”. This was never meant as a compliment. Even in professional work environments, I learned that no one was interested in listening to me search for just the right word to convey my precise meaning. They made it quite clear that they didn’t care. No one ever called me a pedant** to my face, because most people wouldn’t have even known what the word meant (it’s considered a “big word”). But I did care about the things that a pedant would care about. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I feel more at home here in Germany than I did in America.

Small-talk is important, but so is the sharing of ideas. My current German vocabulary is woefully inadequate to convey all that I would like to contribute to a conversation, but the fact that my German conversation-mates do care about content is an incentive for me to work harder on increasing my speaking vocabulary.

*couch potato: MSN Encarta: lazy television viewer: an inactive person who spends too much time sitting watching television

**pedant: MSN Encarta: 1. somebody too concerned with rules and details: somebody who unduly emphasizes unimportant details and rules; 2. somebody who shows off knowledge: somebody who displays his or her knowledge ostentatiously

(Original German sentence:)
Der erst im Juli wegen eines Kurzschlusses vorübergehend vom Netz genommene schwedische Atomreaktor Forsmark 1 muss aus Sicherheitsgründen wieder abgeschaltet werden.

(Literal English translation:)
The most recently in July due to a short circuit temporarily from the network removed Swedish atomic reactor Forsmark 1 must for safety reasons again (be) turned off.

(Better English:)
The Swedish atomic reactor, Forsmark 1, which was removed temporarily from the network most recently in July due to a short circuit, must be turned off again for safety reasons.