Good Neighbours

Tuesday, 21 March 2023 Rebecca Michelle Leave a comment

My weekly German lessons follow a textbook, the current chapter of which is “Nebenan und Nachbarschaft”, or “Next Door and Neighbourhood”. Truth be told, much of my German lesson time is spent just chatting with my teacher and hearing a lot about life in the DDR (German Democratic Republic, or East Germany). I get a lot of practice listening, and learn about German society and history in the process. Last week, however, a discussion prompt in the textbook led to a discussion of German attitudes towards neighbours in comparison to American attitudes. Two points in particular were striking.

Moving

In Germany, people usually stay relatively close to where they grew up. My friends here live in the towns where they were raised, or a short drive (we’re talking minutes, not hours) away. When people move, they make a home for themselves in the new place, but are often already familiar with the area and have networks of people around, either in the new place or close by. This is quite different to the situation in the US, where the touted cultural expectation is often that young people will leave and start their own lives somewhere else, somewhere far away. (Interestingly, though the data do not bear this out, the cultural interest remains.)

Perhaps, my German teacher suggested during our discussion of an audio recording we heard during the lesson, it is this movement between places that has led to connections among neighbours. In my experiences living in the US, people make an effort to get to know each other, they have regular social gatherings, and it is not uncommon to knock on a new neighbour’s door to drop off baked goods and introduce oneself. Whenever I visit my parents, I am stunned by the number of people my mum greets by name when out walking the dog. (A brief anecdote about who they are in the neighbourhood usually follows.)

Although greeting a new neighbour with baked goods is utterly unheard of in Germany, I have found my neighbours to be quite friendly. I know a few names and greet the others around town when I see them. It is common for German neighbours to collect deliveries for each other, and I gave my neighbours the keys once to let in a repair person during the day, another perfectly common interaction. People water each other’s plants, but a social gathering would likely be out of the question, and possibly seen as an affront on much-desired privacy.

Perhaps a different environment is borne from being new to a place, from the need to learn more about the local school district, for example, and find a mechanic as soon as one settles in. German neighbours live side-by-side and are respectful of one another’s space; American neighbours might be looking for community, which Germans already have elsewhere.

Levels of relationships

The search (or not) for community upon arriving in a place might help create different levels of relationships among people. When you’re alone in a place, you need people, whether for social contact, general assistance moving house, or getting to know the area. Perhaps this creates closer bonds from the outset than in environments where people already have social networks, and perhaps cultural expectations about the relationships people have with their neighbours make it easier (or more difficult) to get to know them in some places rather than others.

For example, a friend in Denver has sent me photos of his neighbourhood spaghetti dinners, and a Canadian born-and-raised friend whose mother tongue is Swiss-German lamented how hard it was to make friends during a decade in Switzerland as an adult because people moved in the same circles they had since grade school. Many of the people I’ve met in Germany have known each other since their own school time, and even if they’re no longer close, they greet each other in the street. Perhaps when people have so many connections that stretch back so far, they don’t have the same need to look for new ones.

A phenomenon that I really like here in Germany is that of Mehrgenerationenhäuser, or “multiple generation houses”. This is the idea that people of all ages live in the same house (apartment building) with the intention of interacting with and helping each other. Older residents might provide childcare for the children of working residents, while those working-age residents might help older residents with household tasks. This is a commitment to knowing one’s neighbours in a society where people already have strong social bonds, perhaps indicating that strong relationships between neighbours would not otherwise evolve.

It was an interesting conversation to have during my German lesson, an interesting look into societal differences that tell us something about culture and attitudes. These are differences that might not be obvious from the beginning, but become increasingly so the more one looks around. And like many aspects of society, this demonstrates that there are many ways of being, and that one way is not better or worse than another. Rather, these ways of being create the culture and environment of a place, and it is to this that people adapt when moving across borders.

Germany

Work-Life Balance

Thursday, 9 March 2023 Rebecca Michelle 2 Comments

One of the reasons I left Asia for Europe was for a better work-life balance, but I admit to uncertainty over what that actually meant. I knew I was looking for something, but I couldn’t articulate precisely what it was. Nevertheless, stating this as a reason for moving in job interviews always led to vigorous nods. Clearly, the work-life balance in Europe was better – but what would that actually look like?

I have often found it hard to judge the amount of “work” I do in the different contexts in which I have taught, not only in terms of the country or age group of students, but also in terms of my career experience. I remember individual lessons taking hours to plan when I was a new teacher, a time commitment that decreased sharply with each lesson under my belt, but twelve years in, I still consistently find that marking a single essay takes about fifteen minutes. As it has been throughout my career, sometimes it is necessary to work late or at home, and sometimes this is a choice. I am juggling arguably more hats now than ever before, but also finding myself less bogged down by minutiae. And after a dozen years in this profession, I continue getting to school early enough to have 40 minutes of prep time before the students arrive – time to drink my coffee, read over my notes, clear my head, and time just in case.

So while I cannot say that my work habits have changed in this search for a better work-life balance, I have sensed a difference in how time is treated. Working in Singapore, the (un)spoken expectation was that people were busy all the time, including on the weekends. In Germany, despite how busy one might be during the week, weekends are a different time and they are meant to be enjoyed. This is not only clear from conversations with colleagues, but also through interactions with students. Rather than asking me if I’ll be available via email over school holidays, my current students ask if they can email me as questions arise and hurry to clarify that they are not expecting answers. I was profoundly touched the first time a student said, “It’s your holiday, too.”

Recently I’ve been talking with a friend about how people in German and American cultures spend leisure time. My American friends often refer to “being productive” or “adulting” (a term I loathe) and my German friends tend to speak in snapshots of specific moments rather than painting a general picture. Unlike when I lived in New York and felt under constant (and unaffordable) pressure to always do something, preferably something new, living in Germany has taught me that all days have something to enjoy, whether they are work days or weekend days. After all, the park is always pretty, even when cycling to work in the rain.

Something I’ve really noticed, however, might have more to do with living in a small town than living in Europe, though I’ve not lived in small towns elsewhere and this is my first time living in Europe. My work-life balance is doubtless better because it only takes me seven minutes to get to work by bike. A trip to the grocery store after school puts me in reach of all other stores I might want to visit, and I’m only five minutes from home. The minimization of commuting time is doubtless significant and provides much more flexibility during the day than I have previously experienced. I do miss certain aspects of life in a big city, but not enough to want to move back to one.

Before moving to Germany, I had a highly romanticized vision of living in Europe in mind: Sitting in the town square and drinking coffee, strolling along cobblestone streets, travelling by train and staring out the window at a green, rolling landscape. After over a year and a half here, I’ve learned that the picture wasn’t too far from accurate: We have cobblestone streets and four town squares, and I have spent time in all of them, sometimes with a coffee; travelling by train is indeed an opportunity to experience a lovely landscape, but also an exercise in patience with delays and missed connections; our park has featured much more in my life that I would have thought before moving here, and just as much as I knew it would upon seeing it for the first time.

While there are certain measurable differences in my daily life now compared to living in Asia, I think there is mostly a different feeling. The expectation of society is not that one works all the time, and the amount of work one does is not a measure of worth, whether self-imposed or through public pressure. This change in attitude has given me space to breathe, to rest, to relax. This is deemed normal, expected, and an important aspect of one’s life rather than a luxury or “waste of time”. There’s balance rather than constant motion, moderation rather than extremity. And perhaps this is what my interviewers with their vigorous nods knew about living in Europe – that I would not find just a work-life balance, but rather a different way of looking at life itself.

Schwarzwald (Black Forest) – February 2023

Travel Guide

Travel Guide: Bad Herrenalb

Monday, 20 February 2023 Rebecca Michelle 2 Comments

When I told the people closest to me that I was going to the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) in search of fairies, no one batted an eyelash, neither at the plan to spend a few days alone hiking, nor upon hearing that I was looking for the creatures of stories.

Perhaps it’s telling that I received an illustrated book of the complete Grimm’s fairytales in the original German as a gift for Weihnachten*, a gift that was both surprising and touching. Perhaps it’s not just me who’s willing to entertain the possibility of fairies. And really, why not?

I had relatively few stereotypes of Germany before moving here, but one was certainly the Black Forest, a place devoid of light and full of mystery, a place that held secrets that could not be known from outside. As I would come to learn over three and a half days hiking from my base in Bad Herrenalb, the Schwarzwald is not only full of light, but indeed also full of mystery. And while I found the answers to some questions throughout my walks in the woods, the woods kept quiet in a way that has already called me to listen again.

Walking through the trees, I couldn’t stop smiling. There was a peace that came over me, a sense of getting lost in the sounds of leaves and water, so much water, that flowed through the forest.

Already struck by the fading light and the mist rising over the hills surrounding the valley, I watched the patterns the sun made on the forest floor and in the surrounding trees. And in the mornings, I watched the sun creep up and wake the very same forest. It is no surprise that these woods are at the centre of so many stories and dreams.

Every day, all day, I could not stop thinking how glad I was to be there, to bear witness to the majesty that is nature. I remember how I felt the first time someone told me they like to imagine how the forest looked 500 years ago. And imagine I did.

Walking along the west side of the valley, I spent the day almost entirely in the snow. There had been hints of snow throughout, but here I experienced the forest in a whole new way.

I have a great love for signs when following trails. You can learn so much about places and about how people choose to define a place. The guidebook I received from the owner of my pension explained how to follow the trails in the Schwarzwald, but said nothing about how the markers on trees are occasionally hard to find, and can be somewhat ambiguous. The amount of signage is, after all, no indication of the visitor’s ability to follow the signs. I backtracked once a day, even changing course entirely one afternoon, and a particular decision to stray from the obvious path turned out to be my favourite part of a walk.

I enjoyed the Schwarzwald because it was designed to be explored. There is clearly a long tradition of resting in the woods, of taking a moment to just be. I photographed relatively few benches, rested on even fewer, but was glad that they were there. They made the forest a place to spend time in rather than a place to revere from afar.

I didn’t encounter many people along the way, but I can only say nice things about those I did meet. Everyone said hello and we shared smiles about the beauty around us. One elderly man called directions to me from across a field, a woman in a bakery struck up a conversation comparing Germany and Canada, the guests at my pension wished one another a good day upon leaving the breakfast room. And most memorable of all, a man I met while waiting for the S-Bahn in front of Karlsruhe train station sent me a postcard at the pension to thank me for the chat and wish me a good trip. I sent him a postcard in return when I got home to Weimar, thanking him for his note and his tips for where to walk. Unbeknownst to me, I had entered a community, and that could be seen in the forest, too. There are huts dotted across the Schwarzwald, closed for the winter but maintained. I passed many, photographed few, and was glad for the feeling of woods explored and alive.

I often go hiking with the goal of reaching the highest point or finding the best view. While there were these moments, I didn’t walk in the Schwarzwald with any sort of goal. I just wanted to be there, and there I was.

I am always fascinated with wood. With its colour, with its forms, and with how it is all around us all the time. And in the forest, I was ever more aware of not only how much we depend on this resource, but how precious it truly is.

Having chosen to spend a few days alone in the forest to clear my head, to breathe new air, to watch the world with new eyes, it made sense to look carefully. It made sense to look thoughtfully, not just at the big picture, but rather at all the individual parts.

Germans say, “Wie man in den Wald hineinruft, so schallt es heraus.” This literally translates to, “The way you shout into the forest, so it echoes back out.” In English we might say instead, “What goes around, comes around.” A similar concept is, of course, karma. I like the emphasis on the forest, on being part of a greater ecosystem and environment. I like the idea of echoes, of sounds coming back to us, perhaps in ways we had never intended. We walk into the world, we treat others well, and this impact on the world around us arcs back in some way.

I went for a walk in the woods to find fairies, and here I must be fully honest: I was too captivated by how the forest welcomed me, how its lights and colours and sounds drew me in, to go looking for something that was hidden. The forest deserves its secrets; I am privileged enough for being let into its greatness and returning home feeling more connected to the world around me. I don’t need evidence of fairies to know that there’s magic out there.

*Weihnachten is the German name for Christmas. As I’ve learned over the past two years and celebrations, this time of the year has a rather different connotation than the North American event, which is why I prefer the word for this context.

By Rebecca Michelle