Learning German: der Ampelmann

Picture this: You've just been dropped onto a street corner in the middle of some world-class city at three in the morning. You're standing outside some trendy club, and various artsy / "anti-establishment" people are milling around, speaking various languages with various accents. Other than that, the city is quiet -- no cars are to be seen or heard. You could be anywhere. But you will know within 60 seconds whether or not you're in a German-speaking country. Just wait and see whether anyone crosses the street.

Germans and Austrians do not jaywalk. They wait patiently to cross the street (at the crosswalk) -- even at three in the morning, even when the Straßenbahn they need to catch is going to drive off as soon as the light changes (read: me every morning), even when no cars are in sight -- until the Ampelmann tells them it's safe to do so.

Everyone's favorite Wegbegleiter

I, too, have learned to wait for the Ampelmann. Two nights ago, after meeting up with my work colleagues from last summer for dinner (Austrian-style, which meant it lasted five hours), I walked home with some of them. And one person didn't see the Ampelmann, I guess, because he started across the street. "Whoa, it's red," the other three of us all said at the same time, almost automatically, a protest rising up from somewhere in our subconscious. But because we were already halfway across the street (or really, a cobblestone alley that might be able to fit tiny European cars, but would struggle to function as a street in the United States), we continued across. And I felt so -- well, it's hard to describe. A ball of guilt, maybe, in the pit of my stomach, a physical and psychic reaction as my entire body told me that what I was doing was wrong.

And that, my friends, is a social norm. A social norm that has become so second-nature to me, that even when I was in Hungary two weekends ago with some other Fulbrighters, I waited for the Ampelmann. "You've been in Austria too long," said David, a historian of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on a Fulbright sabbatical this year who was kind enough to take us around Budapest. It's to me the clearest example of my cultural adaption -- "going native" in the pejorative sense, but also just what you need to do to fit in in a new society. 

In Boston, I darted across four-lane drag strips without a second thought -- the cars will stop for me, I assumed, and if not, well, then I can sue. But that was the American Keri -- the loud-talking, fork only-using, smiling and thank you-saying Keri. The Austrian Keri speaks softly (although she sometimes exaggerates it and speaks so quietly you can't hear her -- it's a process), uses both knife and fork to get her food onto her plate (which includes cutting her meat with her right hand -- Austrian etiquette is not very left-hander-friendly), and will stare you down without shame on the Straßenbahn. And yes, she waits for the Ampelmann.