Sharing Culture in New Places with Fresh Faces
At first glance, the people look the same. There isn’t much of a difference in the airport, most signs are still written in English. But soon the differences become apparent to the innocent eye: in replacement of the “$” dollar sign is the “€” Euro sign, people look the same but speak a different tongue, dogs are roaming around everywhere as if this airport is equally theirs as the humans who they seem to follow. Now, these differences were not really that unexpected: as a Plus 3 student, I was told to read up on the differences in culture, so there were no big surprises anywhere, but it was important to note the cultural differences. With more glances towards the differences between American and Germany, it became apparent throughout the entire day that no matter where you went, the average German seemed to be better-dressed than the average American: more formally and also more conservatively dressed.
The town square of Augsburg was filled with people crowding a stage as people passed out different flyers and freebies bearing yellow stars across backgrounds of navy blue. A political party was holding a rally, much like the Democratic or Republican conventions we have at home, but of course, as an ignorant student tourist, I had no idea what this party represented or what their speakers were announcing. Besides Chancellor Angela Merkel, I could tell a German very little about his or her country’s politics and political leaders. As we sat down to dinner with a couple of German students at Ratskeller (the most famous restaurant in town, as we learned from my friend Tom, whose uncle is an Augsburg resident), we realized that the German students had not much more of an understanding of the United States, besides the recent election and now President Barack Obama. We all shared the problems of the current economic downturn, but this is, of course, a problem shared globally.
What was significant about the dinner with the German students was not what we were ignorant about, but what we realized we could share. Many of the German students knew the pop music artists of the United States, and we were more familiar with Bavarian cuisine than they had expected. And overall, we shared our common human experiences, even during a short period of time. When learning about a different culture, I find it important to be respectful – but it is not necessary to know everything about a country to be professional or to show utmost respect. Part of the experience is sharing and learning with one another, and I hope to there are experiences to come where I learn about more of these cultural differences.