Bush Galore

Oh, Currents readers, I promise you, there has been no shortage of "Bush"-related stories as of late. From a German public figure who accused the Turks in Germany of being" "neither willing to be integrated nor capable of doing so," and said that "they have no productive function, other than in the fruit and vegetable trade". . .


to a white investigative journalist who goes undercover, Borat-style, as an African immigrant to experience what it's like to be black in Germany. . .yes, he gets his face painted black(see video above). . .

the integration/race/we-have-issues-with-multiculturalism biz has been a booming over here in Germany. Especially with these two extreme examples: the politically incorrect politician who has had enough (and said what many think but are afraid to say) to the well meaning but perhaps, short-sighted attempt of a journalist to show Germans a mirror of their worst selves, (but I won't say much as I haven't yet seen the film).

I'm afraid I just haven't had the time to properly rant about it all because my big-ass book deadline is approaching.

Stay-tuned for my review of the film, Schwarz auf Weiss, which came out yesterday.

For some background information in the meantime, do check out the above-linked articles in English.

Until then, peace and have a great weekend!

Flammable Schlammable (Part 2)

If you remember back when I first started this blog, I was amazed (and shocked) by the German tradition of real candles on the Christmas tree and children whizzing past in fleece sweaters. I'm over that, sort of. But the flammable issue came up again recently because my son just started attending a German-American school.

Today he told me that they're learning what to do in a fire drill situation. I breathed a sigh of relief when I recognized the fire is dangerous culture taught in his school.

Since I've been in Germany, I have watched seven year-olds allowed to light matches, four year-olds stand two feet away from a bonfire and even ten year-olds light firecrackers. I can't help it, my American fear of fire makes me freak out in each of these situations and my husband simply shakes his head at me. "Stop being so paranoid."

So I was feeling pretty reassured after this conversation with my son, thrilled that the American relation to fire is being heard outside of our house.

Well, later this evening, we pulled out a book given to us by our German babysitter and then we saw this:




Um, hello? What are those kids doing that close to the fire without any adult supervision? Why is that picture in a children's book? Are there no German children who have been burned and needed a skin graph? (for some reason, where I grew up, you could always find someone who knew of or heard about such a case).

I guess I'm not quite over it yet.


Illustration by Annegert Fuchshuber

Grumpy-land

So I'm at a crowded event with my kids one weekend and the twins want to sit up on a ledge but they can't get up the steep ramp. I hoist one child up with my knee and, with some effort, I get him on the ledge. As I try to get the second child up, this old guy who has been watching us the whole time starts barking orders at me, "You have to hold his butt higher, no, not like that! That's not gonna work!"

Then the old guy grabs onto my son's leg without telling him and yanks him up from behind. My son, of course, is freaked out by a stranger touching him. The old man starts wiping his brow from the exhaustion and then says to me, "You better watch them, I'm not gonna do it!"

WTFF? Did anyone ask his tired ass to lift my child on the ledge? Did I ask him to babysit?

I give him a dirty look but refrain from saying anything. He is, after all, an elder.

The next day, all three of my children are with me at the grocery store and they see a display for Halloween salami. (I know, gross). Anyway, the kids push the cart away to get closer to the display and the cart glides a few inches, one foot maximum, away from where I'm standing. An older man with a cane says, "Hey, watch out for your kids! They almost pushed the cart into me!" Then he glares down at them.

Even the woman behind the display exchanges a look with me like, "What's up with him?"

Ok, so whatever happened to older people saying, "Cute kids! How old are they? I have grandchildren that age!" (ok, that does happen sometimes when people are fascinated by the twins)

I kept thinking to myself, "Don't they remember what it was like? How hard it is to have so many small children?"

But the reality is, you'll run into lots of older people in Germany who don't have any kids. This country has had a low, unsustainable birthrate for nearly forty years. Although you trip over kids in some streets, you can go to some areas in Germany where it's a child ghost town.

I was always taught to respect elderly people, not to talk back or argue with them. But it's hard when I live in a place where I feel like they don't respect my children, either.

Photo:flickr