In pursuit of finding decent food in Germany, my family and I tried out two of the three Korean restaurants in Leipzig during a visit to the city last week. It is a high risk undertaking to try a Korean restaurant in Germany as it can be very hit or miss, with a high probability of a miss. I have had traumatizing experiences in Heidelberg and bearable ones in Frankfurt and Duesseldorf. READ MORE »
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Leipzig for Beginners
The St. Thomas Boys Choir of Leipzig is celebrating its 800th anniversary this year. It made me realize that I know little to nothing about Leipzig itself. And with a newly elected German President also from the former East, it seemed like an appropriate time to look eastward. It didn’t take long for me to dive in and learn a bit more about this eastern German city. READ MORE »
Losing Language
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 »
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 »
Some R&R for German Mothers
I have a confession. This might not come as a surprise to some of you, but it’s actually been tough being a mother to three children under the age of five. Especially in the last few months as my youngest has become more sensitive to noise and light, and as I’ve had to try to maintain perfect nap conditions for him while containing two energetic preschoolers in our one-story house, I’ve felt more like the ringmaster of a three-ring circus. In other words, I have felt like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
German cuisine: a comforting constant
One of the small things that charmed me about our San Diego neighborhood when I first visited it, was the presence of a small, independent used cookbook store. I’d manage to only wander in once during my first year here. Sadly, it’s closing this Christmas. The owner explained to me that she can make more money working less hours by selling rarer cookbooks from home on the internet in four hours than working full-time running her shop. That’s what’s happening in America right now.
Sad as it is to lose another bookstore, let alone an independent one specializing in one of my favorite pastimes, I’ve managed to make up for lost time by visiting frequently and taking advantage of the sell-out prices. I picked up four vegetarian cookbooks for the price of $13. My German husband was not as enthusiastic as I was about these particular meatless bargain purchases. The next time I stopped by to browse, I couldn’t resist a 70s relic of a fondue and chafing dish cookbook. And last week, while I was waiting for my children to finish their music class around the corner, I wandered back in and succumbed to making some more unessential yet irresistible purchases: two German cookbooks. There was a third one but even I had to admit at that point that a third would have been excessive. Especially as I realized, the main point of this post, that the culinary styles of all three books were all the same. The same despite the fact that one was published in the 60s, another in the 70s and the last in the 80s. On two of the covers: meat, sauce, veggies. Exotically, at least I think to an American crowd, one of the veggies is fennel.
“Almanya” in San Diego
San Diego kicked off its first German Film Festival last month. It seemed to be a long time coming considering that there are an estimated 100,000 Germans living in the San Diego metro area and Orange County.
The festival opened with the screening of “Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland,” a movie written by two Turkish German sisters, Yasemin and Nesrin Şamdereli, about a Turkish immigrant family’s literal and figurative trip back to Turkey. The family immigrated during the big Gastarbeiter movement in the 60s when the patriarch left his hometown in a village near Anatolia to earn big money working in a factory which he sent back to his family. Initially unplanned, the whole family, made up of three children and later four, eventually moved to their new home in Berlin. READ MORE »
Strengthening my German Core
One of my earliest challenges of post-partum life in America was searching for an equivalent of “Rückbildungsgymnastik” here in America or post-partum pelvic floor training. (There’s no easy translation.) The likes of Stroller Strides and specialized pre- and post-natal personal trainers who could help burn all of that baby fat were easy enough to find, and while I wouldn’t mind losing the 3-month bulge which might raise an eyebrow of “is she or isn’t she” to a stranger, the only similarity that these exercises share to Rückbildungsgymnastik is the post-partum descriptor. READ MORE »
Finding Childcare in Germany
I mentioned in my previous post that spending the first year of baby’s life with him or her at home is common and expected in Germany, at least in the west. On the other hand, it isn’t so easy to go back to work within the first year or before age three because of the limited childcare options. While finding a Kindergarten (KIGA) in your neighborhood should be possible, finding one with a Kindertagesstätte (KITA), translated to day care center, or Kinderkrippe is harder. Even if you were able to get a spot for your three-year old at the KIGA walking distance down the street, if it doesn’t have a KITA, you might have to drive your one-year old across town to a Kindertagesstätte or two, that is if you got a spot and that is, if your town, city or village is big enough to have a KITA. READ MORE »
The First Twelve Months
I’ve been enjoying getting to know my new baby during these first three months of his life. I organized a Mommy & Me Yoga/Baby Massage class at our local yoga studio here in San Diego to give myself that regular undistracted one-on-one time with baby Lenny. During the massage portion, I enjoy warm memories of taking a baby massage class with my first born while we were still living in southern Germany.
One of the side benefits to taking a baby class is getting to know some of the other mothers. After each class we find ourselves at the local cafe exchanging stories about our same aged babies and getting to know each other better. This aspect of motherhood is pretty critical to my own well-being as a mother. On one of these recent occasions, I was enjoying the conversation of one of these fellow mothers and was suddenly struck with a pang of guilt as I thought of a mutual friend of ours who would be going back to work soon, three-months postpartum. It was a new feeling, a new world feeling. READ MORE »
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