It was inevitable. Our German was bound to get worse upon departure. The first year, mine seemed to remain intact. I was still feeling pretty German, and I spoke German almost daily with our German preschool teachers, with other German-speaking parents, with our German babysitter, with other German friends. Sometimes even with my German husband. We’re in the second year though, and after spending the Christmas holidays with my non-German speaking family, I finally felt that the Yanks had won. Throw on top of that, a struggle to integrate a third language (Korean), and the quality of Deutsch in this house has worsened. READ MORE »
Monthly archives for February, 2012
Are German Parents as Superior as French Parents?
The Wall Street Journal published another provocative piece on one certain “ethnic” parenting style superior than the American one. I put ethnic in quotes as I refer first to the Tiger parenting style written and described by Amy Chua early last year. Chua talked about the hardline, rather Spartan style which Chinese parents in particular use to raise their children in her book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” She ceded that other ethnicities may adopt this same style, but in Chua’s essay for the Wall Street Journal, she uses the term Chinese mothers to describe the implementers of this take-no-prisoner approach.
Chua posits that the soft approach of Western parents is for wusses. But this month, Pamela Druckerman maintains in this Wall Street Journal excerpt from her book, “Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting” that French parents can also take a firm stance, and it’s the Americans who are getting run over by their kids.
Druckerman refers to a few anecdotes that seemed familiar. And as her comparisons continued between French and American parenting styles, some of the themes and observations were familiar ones that I have made during my recent repatriation from Germany to the US. READ MORE »
The Naked Truth
There was one very significant event that I happened to omit from my last blog, regarding my recent trip to Davos. In truth, I just wasn’t quite ready to talk about it yet. The incident was somewhat traumatizing, or at least severely uncomfortable, and it left me feeling as though all of the acclimatizing and adapting I had accomplished over the last five years in Europe, was for nothing. Deep breath: I will now go ahead and tell you the tale of three young Canadian women who attempted to spend an afternoon . . . at a Swiss wellness center!
Grocery Culture
There I was on Saturday morning at the grocery store, my cart full, hastily putting my items on the checkout band. I sent two parties ahead of me to the cashier, knowing I would need a little extra time; my weekly groceries still filled the cart and my attempts to organize the checkout band for efficient packing were consuming precious seconds. The people behind me began to move closer, although I hadn’t moved forward an inch. Someone sighed loudly from farther back in line. And I began to sweat.
Finally, my groceries all lined up in perfect order on the checkout band, I proceeded to the cashier, who began her rapid-fire process of scanning and piling them for me to place back in the cart. I wasn’t fast enough, she dumped things in for me to speed things up. Desperate to keep up, I was of course unable to pack things in the cart in the order I had planned while placing them on the band. The heavy things were on top, the eggs near the bottom, and the potatoes just got dumped on top of the yogurt. Eager to end the transaction, I paid (with my debit card, which wasn’t possible just a few years ago!) and made my way to the car, where I again packed the groceries, this time at my leisure and in the order I preferred, into the reusable bags waiting in my car.
Whew. Grocery shopping culture here is so different. READ MORE »
Mark Twain in Berlin: Back a book!
Mark Twain traveled the world and wrote about it in several of his books. When I went to Hawaii, I learned that Twain had long ago beat me to it, back when the Hawaiian Islands were still better known as the Sandwich Islands. I also knew he had been to Europe and Germany, but I didn’t really know about his time in Berlin, along with his family.
Recently I wrote a review of a book about the Berlin Wall produced by Eva Schweitzer’s Berlinica publishing house. Now Dr. Schweitzer has announced a new book about an interesting but little known topic: Mark Twain in Berlin in the early 1890s. In an unusual twist for publishing, she is inviting potential readers to help fund the book, with an intended publication date of June 2012.
But first, let’s look at a bit of obscure history concerning America’s most famous humorist author. READ MORE »
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