German Movies That are Not About Nazis (or the Stasi!)

When people in the US ask me whether they should learn German, I respond with another question: "How much do you want to learn about World War II?" Because my German-learning experience felt in many respects like a six-year seminar on the Holocaust (with some Wiedervereinigung thrown in).

I'm not sure of the reasons for that--maybe they want to make sure that we never forget how sucky Germans were/are, and continue to be loyal to America--but I know that it's not the case in other countries. At the Goethe-Institut in Schwäbisch Hall, for example, one of the classes mentioned the various Nazification laws in the 1930s. Of couse, my American friend in the class, having taken five years of German class in the States, was ready to roll: she began ticking off dates, laws, and penalties as the French, Japanese, and Romanian students in the class, who had been taking German just as long, looked on in bewilderment. 

And some people really enjoy that. They study German because they're interested in the Holocaust, or in music, or in nineteenth-century philosophers, or in Romantic literature. But I'm not one of those people. I'm still not quite sure why I love studying German so much, or why I am so enthralled with Austria, but it has nothing to do with music, mountains, or Nazis. I enjoy experiencing the ways more global cultural elements take on a German / Austrian spin: for example, I read a feminist blog auf Deutsch, and I love German hip-hop.

I also love watching German movies. Unfortunately, the German movies that are well-known in America always seem to discuss the same themes. (Even the most famous "Austrian" movie of all time is half-cheerful frolic through the mountains, half-"Oh shit, the Nazis!") Some of these films are even great. But there's a lot more to German-speaking cinema than Downfall, Goodbye Lenin, and Das Leben der Anderen. Here are some of my favorites.

Learning German: die Stempelgesellschaft

The largest employer in the United States (and the world, incidentally), depending on whether you include public-sector work, is either the Department of Defense or Walmart.* The largest employer in Austria, by contrast, is the City of Vienna. This size is indeed appropriate, as Vienna accounts for 1/4 of the entire population of the country, and the city provides a vast number of services that Americans could only dream of, like a dense network of free youth centers, an on-point public transit system, and a really cool new initiative that aims to bring people together to create community charters.

But it also means that you can have experiences with bureaucracy that are quite frustrating / funny, depending on your outlook. Like, for example, registering for university. Even before I arrived in Austria, I had filled out an online registration form and submitted various documents to the Fulbright Commission, who would visit the admissions office in person to submit them. And so, I thought, with all my paperwork turned in, my matriculation papers and student ID would be waiting for me when I arrived in-country.

False.

Orientation Live Blog*

Oh, the joys of Fulbright Orientation. You wake up at an ungodly hour, traipse to the Fulbright office in Museumsquartier, and sit down to listen to nuggets of wisdom like this:

"This is Jürgen. He's one of the five nice people in Vienna."

"All in all, being occupied by the United States was a really good thing for Austria. That's really the start of the Austrian political system."

"You might not notice that many cultural differences between the US and Austria--not as many as you would if you were going to spend a year among the cannibals in Papua New Guinea who run around naked."

"Austria totally defies everything we know about neoliberalism. You'll be here for a year, so in your interactions with 'The Natives,' try to figure out if you can why Austria is so prosperous despite having high taxes and a redistributive [rolls eyes] welfare state. It makes no sense."

Americans Have No Culture

Because it's basically an ERASMUS-Heim, my dorm seems to be built on the principle of cultural exchange in a way that I've never experienced before. Sure, I had plenty of international friends at Harvard. But at Harvard, the specific countries where my friends came from were not that salient to their public identities. We talked about sex in Georgia, transportation in France, educational philosophy in Nepal, etc. whenever it came up, but because we were all trying to fit into the cosmopolitan culture of Harvardland, national identities were not a huge part of our daily reality.

Here, it's altogether different. I've already talked about how this represents the first time many of the students here have gotten the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. And part and parcel of that is a kind of "food and festivals" multiculturalism that seems to be pretty common in the Heim.

What if this wasn't just for a year?

When I told my roommate that I had already lived in Austria on two separate occasions, and was coming back for a third time, the first question she asked was, "Would you ever consider staying here long-term?"

It's a valid question, and one, I'll admit, I've given a lot of thought over the past year or so. Because I am getting into the meat of my twenties, and more and more of my friends are meeting people they could see themselves settling down with. And so the question of location takes on added importance.

Guess I Got My Swagger Back

Although I tried to maintain a positive outlook, my first few days in Austria did not go well. The problems started in the airport, when a lady asked me where the Gleis was for the S-Bahn, and I could barely get out the words for "down the steps there." When I went to pick up my roomkey from Martin's colleague, I was up to full phrases -- but only one at a time. When I tried to put together a two-phrase sentence, I ended up just trailing off halfway through. And then a girl around my age offered to help me with my baggage, but I just stared blankly at her because it took me like 30 seconds to figure out what she was saying.

Ok, I thought, I'll chalk that up to the fact that I haven't slept for 20 hours and am feeling the first stirrings of a horrific cold. But even after sleeping for ten hours, my attempt to introduce myself to my roommate auf Deutsch did not go as well as planned. Shit, I thought, have I forgotten how to speak this language? That could make things interesting.

But in the past few days, things have definitely been looking up. Finally able to get out of bed after a week-long Erkältung (cold), I've begun interacting with people, and I've found that my Deutsch skills are not as degraded as I had feared. In fact, I think I'm getting my Vienna swagger back:

Austrians are Funny #1

In the grocery store on Saturday, next to the cartons of tomato, carrot, and apple juice, I found sauerkraut juice. It's supposedly part of "Wellness für den Darm," which in English means "it gives you the runs like crazy." This is apparently a good thing.

Hey, at least it's organic!

First (Third?) Impressions

Like every child of the 1990s, I love Harry Potter. But several things about the books have always bothered me: (1) If Europe's Christians decided to make witches and wizards their bitter enemies for several hundred years, why does the (witchcraft and) wizarding world still celebrate Christmas? (2) Are Muggle-born children really ready to give up their entire culture at age 11 and never look back? (3) Dumbledore's explanation aside, isn't it immoral to not share the "technological" advances of wizards with the rest of the world? It's this last one that irks me the most, though. Not because 100 million people died from the Spanish flu, which a quick spell could have healed, but because every time I travel, I think to myself, "Damn, I really wish I could apparate."