I just got an email with this picture. The original source is unknown but I have seen it already on several blogs. Enjoy!

Fortunately I had the chance to visit an assessment center during the weekend. However, I was not there to be assessed, instead I was one of the observers. The participants were applicants for an AIESEC traineeship. So, everybody was tested for intercultural competence.
What I didn’t know was that there are always different dimensions which are to be assessed. In our case it was tolerance, adjustability, communication skills, initiative, resilience and stamina. The day before we, as observers, were trained how to observe and how to judge. The assessment center was developed by students of business psychology. They also instructed us.
I sometimes had difficulties with the methods in the center and wondered how to assess somebody from his/her behavior taking into consideration only the given criteria. Unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to discuss this further. There was only little time and – as for my observation – the trainers were quiet sure of their AC and didn’t want to hear any sort of feedback. Somehow I cannot get rid of the thought that I had learnt more if we would have had more chances to discuss with them.
Unfortunately they also collected the material with the tasks after the AC was finished. So I cannot copy the games and tasks for my blog… ;-)

I took the picture to remember the intercultural learning seminar last sunday. It shows my group playing the native "Touyats" who soon will be visited by tourists.

Although China has a very big area and people speak a variety of dialects, they use one system of showing numbers through their fingers. For some Europeans it is fascinating that one can show ten numbers with merely 5 fingers. So it was for me first. Now I found a link where this system is explained. For further information follow here.

Once more I have to say, the different way of greetings can be an interesting experience.

Last Friday, the guests on Hai's party were quite a cultural mix. Most of them were Vietnamese, some Chinese, Thais, Yemenis, a Spanish girl, a Brazilian girl and a guy from Bavaria. I got acquainted to almost everyone. However, after some good hours, more and more people wanted to go home. Suddenly I felt insecure of how to say goodbye. And so I was watching and trying.

I don't remember exactly anymore how I said goodbye to the Vietnamese. They left as group and so it was (probably) only a waving farewell. I hugged Hai, the host, when I left.

With the Chinese I always don't know what to do. I imagine seeing a jerk in their hands as if they would want to shake hands. But in the end we always leave it with waving at maximum.

The boys from Yemen wanted to hug (and a picture with me because I am "so tall"). So did the Spanish girl: Un beso a la derecha, un beso a la izquierda.

The girl from Thailand even washed her hands before she shook mine. I insisted to wash mine, too. Although this situation was a little bit awkward.

With the Bavarian I shook hands, too. Unwashed ;)

But I encountered Germans giving hugs as well. The majority are probably German girls who over her arms. But also boys do so recently. However they are close friends then. Nevertheless, it still appears strange to me to hug Germans...

- Unfortunately the last day of the full-time seminar. It was a kind of summarizing session. And so some things became clearer to me. We practiced all the mediations parts in a more advanced level.

The first exercise was about confrontation-messages. The goal: Report the other's behaviour without reproaches, and let him know what the consequences may be for you and how you feel about it.

In other words: Complain but stay neutral and factual and name the (negative) consequences for you.

For example: When I want to go to work tomorrow and the fuel displays "empty," it is possible that I arrive at work late because I have to fuel the car first.

You can believe me it is incredible difficult to talk like this if you are involved in a conflict. Since the seminar is over I had alreadyseveral chances to practice this. But I cannot remember once that I could use it. (Ha! Yeah, I tried it once in conflict of my parents with my sis... They didn't take me serious.)

There is a distinction between "I"- and "you"-messages. The "I"-messages are more neutral and not so aggressive. With a few sentences we practiced to turn "you"-messages into factual "I"-messages. I had my problems with one of the examples in the exercise.

For me you haven't worked very constructively during the last part of the meeting. I am not sure if this will stay without consequences. I can imagine that afterwards you will be made seriously responsible for the unsuccessful meeting.

I was not the only one in the course who interpreted it as an "I"-message. But in fact it is better to say

When I see that you didn't work constructively I become angry (and wish that you will be made responsible for the unsuccessful meeting).

First, there is the fact, then the feeling and finally the wish. And one has to admit it sounds much better. I only wished that in every-day-life I could and would use it more. Maybe it is only a matter of practice. I keep on trying ;-)

However, transforming "you"-messages into "I"-messages is a crucial tool for the mediator. So it would be the mediator in our example who would say then:

If I understand you right, when you see that Mr. B does not work constructively you become angry and wish that he will be made responsible.

The Stages of Mediation
We played another conflict with mediation. I was a husband who complained about his wife that she always leaves the windows open.

1. Explain mediation and get agreement

2. Listen and understand both points of view
You can ask back if something remains unclear to the mediator (and thus maybe to the conflict partner).

3. Find the personal meaning of the conflict
The real conflict is in most cases deeper than the shallow conflict on the surface. In our example with the married couple both sides brought up more and more accusations. Finally the conflict on the ground came out. The wife felt lonely because her husband is at work all day long. (To keep it simple) [I was surprised how well playing conflicts works! Pretty realistic!]

4. "From the past into the future"
"And now imagine you are in the role of the other person" the mediator says. The conflict partners have to change the perspective. (Shall create empathy I think.) I am not sure if this always helps to open both sides for other opinions. In our played situations it worked. Then, it can be spoken about how it can be in the future. A brainstorming can help. The ideas can also be over-emphasized and ridiculous. This helps to relax the situation (a bit). ["Burn down everything, get paid off by the insurance"]

5. Reconciliation
If everything went well the conflict partners reconcile. However it can take several sessions. There is no compromise but a win-win situation.

The seminar ended. -But not my interest in mediation. I don't want to become a professional mediator! No! It is not a profitable business. You can only do it because you feel like but make no money with it. (At least not in Germany.) And if you want to study mediation you even have to pay. Most mediators do voluntary work in associations throughout Germany. What I mean is that our every-day communication can be improved by keeping in mind some of the mediation rules. It will not always work of course. -Either because we are "just" humans or because the situation is not suitable for violence-free communication. The coursed has given me a lot and actually I want to encourage everyone to think about some of the issues spoken about there. I think that violence-free communication makes successful if it is in the job or in the relationship. My experience is that it is not easy to practice it but it is definitely worth it.

Actually I planned to review my notes, the handouts and the lesson directly afterwards, on the same day. But things developed different and so I am a little bit behind. Nevertheless I will try to summarize a little in short notes.

On day 1 the lesson was about expressing feelings and about winning and loosing in situations. Day 2 was about active listening. And it was different from what I thought active listening would be during the seminar.

I thought that all one has to do is to be attentive or to signalize attention to the conversation partner. Now, however, I know that active listening means actually listening and summarizing.

We made some exercises. On a handout there were beginnings of sentences which shall help to give feedback. For example:

You feel that… / In your eyes… / It seems to you… / From your standpoint… / With other words… / etc.

In mediation it is crucial to express oneself and the other’s point of view as clear as possible. A simple scheme shall help:

Observation: If I (you) see/ hear that…
Feelings: I (you) feel…
Needs: because I (you) have the need for…
Wish/plea: I (you) want from you (me) that you (I)…

In conflict situations the listener repeats everything he/she understood. When criticizing, it is important to have positive things first and THEN negative remarks. “I liked that you explained this once more, but could you please go more into detail about that.”

The listener shall give feedback however must not tell about own things or built “bridges” in conversation gaps.

I had my first mediation that day. I asked the course leader if I can do one. It was a catastrophe. In the morning I still felt quite sure that I can handle it. Then, after having talked so much about active listening, I felt unsure. We had a simulated situation with two aggressively shouting people. I tried to apply those new learned things but soon felt that the situation gets out of control. In the evaluation I heard that it actually was not and that it was quite okay for a beginner. Well, I learned a lot although I aborted the simulation in the middle. I thought my mediation would make no progress because the arguing partners didn’t want to listen neither to each other nor to me. I felt lacking of a “mediation-concept,” a general receipt where nothing can go wrong… I don’t know if something like this exists. -Probably not. Mediation is probably a matter of practice. That’s why I want to try it again. And by the way… not more than 30% of all mediations are successful anyway.

Finally I had the chance to meet a real mediator. At the moment there is a seminar at the Medienanstalt Sachsen-Anhalt. I attend there in order to get to know more about mediation.

The participants are three women, a girl and me. Five. This is way too small the course leader said. The ideal group would be seven till ten. However, I like smaller groups better. It is easier to get in touch with the people and to open oneself.

The mediator said he is in a foundation. I suspect that it may be the same the newspaper article is about. But I am not sure. I will ask him occasionally. He is very friendly and maybe I can stay in touch with him even beyond this seminar and suggest cooperation between him and the university. He already said that he had supervised a group of pedagogic students once.

Today, everybody had to fill out several sheets with personal questions to conflicts and our behaviour. We also discussed the aspect of winner and looser in conflicts. The result was that also the winner is a looser because he/she has to defend his/her victory against others.

Every conflict shall cause from a problem. Logical. And every conflict shall be caused because of a lack in personal needs. Interesting. And when we speak about conflicts it is always about a relationship (or else it would be a “problem” for instance). Values and dealing with those values have to be in accordance or else a conflict would result (might be also a personal conflict: driving without ticket in the tram – can be okay or not okay to you).

We trained judgement-free speaking and should become aware that interpretations (of words, gestures etc.) are only possibilities among a variety.

All in all it seems to be very complex to understand even inner-cultural communication. I wonder how it shall be in “intercultural” situations then! It would be interesting to meet an intercultural mediator one day.

Finally we were asked to read one of our conflict examples. Everybody hesitated, so I thought it would be okay to give the example. We analysed it. Two participants then played the roles and the professional mediator did his job (“on the moving staircase” as he called it because of the rapidity):

I once had a little argument with one of the other tenants in a house where I just moved to. He blamed me for twice not having switched off the lights in the stairway and basement. I felt innocent (I ALWAYS switch them off! Plus, I am SELDOMLY there!) and in the end was frustrated.

I am curious to see what we will do tomorrow.

So long!

An article found in the local newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung on September 25^th on page 21.
So far I didn't know that there exists an association in Halle which offers mediation (although more in family contexts). In the article there is also information for contacting them. Maybe inviting one of the mediators can be seen as an inspiration for further seminars (?). www.mediation-halle.de

Ha! This time I really felt remembered to Pictures in the Head and the caricature. Almost the same situation occurred as how I proposed to interpret the caricature with two white people sitting shivering on a bench when a black man appears.



Last Tuesday I was at the “Ausländerbehörde” (Foreigners Department) to apply for a residence permit for S. It is the only day they have opened for longer (from 9 until 18) and some people were waiting there. The majority were blacks. But also a girl from China, who is working for an import-export company near Halle as she told us, wanted to renew her residence permit.

Two counters were opened that day, each in a different room. At the first time when I was in the foreigners department I was quite surprised how unfriendly the room with the counter is. After you passed the door you can only make one step into the room and then you reach a wooden counter which is as high as my chest and from there until the ceiling continues as glass window. There are no chairs in the “guest’s” room. The officer of course has much more space and lives a lot more convenient there. Although at that time I could imagine why it is how it is, I found it actually absurd.

On Tuesday then I understood quite better. At the same time S. and I were called in, there was in the neighbour room a client who let his emotions out. Already in the waiting room his desperation and excitement could be seen. But now he could be heard. -His voice as well as his hand beating on the glass window. The officer said dry to me what I thought in the same moment: “Now you know why we have those glass windows here.”

As we came out to the waiting room again, the noisemaker was still in there. The waiting people shook their heads and commented the sounds from inside with sighs. Probably nobody of them had wanted the loud guy from inside to sit next to them when he comes out. The same scene like on the caricature could have happened and everybody had shivered, no matter which skin colour the sitting people or the person approaching have.

I haven’t been blogging for some weeks now. To excuse myself, I was on a conference or a meeting about America and religion. And hence, among us German students and professors a few Americans of both types were present, too. Maybe the time of the conference was too short as that I could experience numerous cultural differences. But one thing was there which I want to record here though.

Although Americans have to suffer from numerous stereotypes (being “superficial” and always small-talking are only a few of them), I experienced them as very polite and friendly. A big difference to the German participants was visible during discussions and lectures. First of all, the way to present was dissimilar. The German lecturers were reading from their manuscripts while their American colleagues seemed to be extemporizing and reacted pretty open to questions from the audience. For example, I had not the feeling that the answering professors were trying to override different opinions from the audience.

Second, in contrast to the Germans, every American member of the audience who has a question would first thank the lecturer for the presentation and then ask his or her question. The American lecturer would then thank for the question and answer it.

This is different when Germans ask and answer questions. The German audience would go into the question directly and maybe introduce it with “you said that…”. The German lecturer would answer it (maybe briefly) without thanking for the question.

One of the organizers was the lady responsible for cultural affairs at the American embassy in Berlin. During the whole conference she was present too. One evening, having a glass of whine, we spoke about those observations. She told me that many American lecturers have problems with German audiences and that she sometimes even has to prepare them for the German way of “politeness”.

During the past Germans learnt a lot from Americans. If I started with examples now I wouldn’t know where to end. But at the moment, the trend is to be more critical with American “exports” (material things, moral values, politics and so on). On the other hand, there are some things which, in my eyes, the Americans at the conference proofed to have in advance: their way of academic politeness.

“Where are they?” one might ask. While in the last entry I mentioned about children in other cultures and some problems I would have, I want to write something about children in Germany now. But it is not always easy to find them here. Unless there is a special celebration for children I hardly see them. But perhaps this has nothing to do especially with Germany. Many other countries (particularly in the fist world) suffer from the same problem, the over-ageing of society.

But what could draw attention is how children look like here, or in other words what their parents make out of them. Unlike in many other countries, childhood in Germany is very long. Actually I can also understand why nobody really wants to become adult. Children here don’t have to work, they can have everything though, they are protected by the law and the state provides them with health- and social care. However, children in Germany are dressed like young adults.

My foreign guest, S. from the Republic of China, noticed about that. Since then I had an eye on it, too. Amazing how many four-year-old girls wear earrings and how many little girls, below the age of puberty, are dressed up with clothes (in kids size though) which usually adult women or girls would wear, if you know what I mean. In my childhood I wore Mickey Mouse and Goofy on many things (yea, we can argue about taste…) but nowadays I would only read famous brands on kids clothing (despite the fact that many of those are faked). For boys you can even buy mini-suits with lacquer shoes and everything. But of course it does not count what you can buy but what you see on the streets. And so it is more the hip-hop children (not teenagers!) who come into my mind.

Another thing, don’t be surprised when you come into a German village and the kids greet you there. They don’t want candy but are educated to be nice and friendly, even to foreigners. But a change can be observed also there. Children can be mean, and even to adults. For example they take two seats in the bus and reject to give one to another passenger when being asked or at least make a face. (This did not only happen to S. but also to me for many times.) So, dear tourist, don’t be shocked ;-)

Like I said, as a German I would perhaps have problems with children in different cultures. But I am sure that people from different cultures would have problems with our children too.

And so we met for the last time. Next week there are vacations and no classes anymore. But it is also the time of final exams, assignments and meetings with professors to discuss research paper topics.

Unfortunately I had to be in such a meeting and therefore missed the beginning of the final class. I tumbled into the middle of an exercise. I didn’t know either the task of the exercise or the topic of class. So I peeped at my neighbour’s. But I only could catch the headline: “Mediation”. We had already a lesson about it and I was not sure if it was the note sheet for this lesson. Without thinking more about it I asked about the task.

In groups of three people we got two sheets of paper with a short description of an intercultural conflict situation on each. I felt like the third wheel on the wagon in the group (well, actually I should say like the “forth” wheel because there were already three). The task in my group was solved already and I only had a short glance at the descriptions before the evaluation followed. Now, at home, I can look them up again in the ded-folder (p.41ff).

For example one of the descriptions was:

You are sitting in a restaurant for dinner. At the neighbour table you see how a boy, who is going from table to table, is getting the bones from another guest’s plate. Now he comes to you.

The task was to exchange spontaneous reactions if this would happen to someone in the group; then to discuss about as many reasons as possible for the behaviour of the other person (in this example the boy); and finally to speak about how you would react in this situation and solve the problem.

I decided to describe this example because it is the one where I would have the most problems with. The first thing which would make me feel uneasy is the confrontation of poor and rich. My first association to that picture is that the boy must be hungry and collects the bones hoping to find meat rests on them. Of course there are other possibilities. He might be a waiter who is only removing the leftovers from the plates of the guests. But my first thoughts are gliding into the poor-rich corner.

Second, what makes the situation even worse is that a child who has to beg or to work is involved. Something like this is not liked to be seen in Germany/Europe. Probably this has something to do with our “humanistic education” here, I wonder. In other cultures it might be normal for children to work and they wouldn’t even complain. Maybe everybody at the neighbour tables would give something to the child but for me it would be strange though. In some real-life situations I found that I have a strange way of “justice”-thinking (but I know that I am not the only European with that problem):

“If I help one, I have to help all; but I can not help all.” -> Conclusion: “So I help none.”

And this “conclusion” then is like a blockade. I wouldn’t give bones to the boy. On the other hand, the “group pressure” could have an effect on me too. Then I would give the bones to the boy because everybody does.

A girl in the course said the example reminds her on show cleaners. And I could pretty well empathize with her. In several countries children offer this service for little money (for us “little money”) but support their family with it. I never had my shoes cleaned because (like she said) I couldn’t accept the fact that a child is working for me.

But on the other side one shouldn’t think too much. First, maybe the native children wouldn’t expect tourists to understand this behaviour and wouldn’t expect to get bones from them anyway. Second, native residents don’t behave always the same way either. Although in other countries there are shoe cleaners and begging children, I have also seen natives sending them away. Probably one has to find the golden path oneself. It is normal to feel insecure at first but when dealing with poverty more often one would get a “feeling” for it (I hope).

I have not had many personal experiences with poverty and children so far. But one problem is that sometimes I feel scared. Or, in other words, I wonder how they see me: the big rich man from the West? I think the only way to find out is to talk with them. But this is not so easy. I am biased and also wonder if they are biased. A huge barrier has to be overcome, especially when being not familiar with how to communication with the other culture.

Another factor might be the age of the children. I don’t know if it is maybe easier to talk to smaller children. At least I don’t imply them ulterior thoughts but suppose everything is honest.

No matter how, it is always better to have somebody who is familiar with country and people around. Thus, contact to people can be established much easier and misunderstandings, misinterpretations or biases be avoided.

Incredible how funny the world is. -And incredible that there even exists a study about the funniest jokes in the world which is not meant as a joke.

Over years researchers of the University of Herfordshire have collected jokes sent via email from all over the world. At the end they knew the most frequently told joke in each country. If you want to read some of them go to the official webpage of the project: www.laughlab.co.uk

And if you have £4.79 plus some money for the shipping left, you can even order the book at amazon.

Finally there was a lesson which can be titled like this. We were playing for almost the whole time. Christin had developed a simple dice game. To play it, our course was split into a few groups with one member per group having the game instruction. It was not allowed to talk. The game leader of each group read the instructions aloud. Then the game started. Unfortunately she read pretty fast, or maybe my brain is just too slow that I didn’t understand completely how the game has to be played. I only knew that each player in my group has three tries and then has to pass the two dices on. The game leader took notes of the player’s scores. After some time the course leader picked out some people in the groups who had to interchange with other groups. I was among them.

My first idea was that the game instructions must be different from group to group. – Or else, what sense shall the game make? So I knew that there was something different in the other group but I didn’t know what. I took a seat and it was already my turn. I only had a brief glimpse at my neighbour’s and her way to dice. She did it only for once – the first difference maybe. So I did it also only for once. (In the back of my mind I thought: “What if the rules are that only every second player must dice for once?!”) The other difference was that the dices were passed on counter clockwise. Other differences I did not find but was uncertain if this really was all. (In my family we sometimes played with dices too and then from time to time we argued in which direction to pass the dice on. So I didn’t take it as a necessarily specific change in the rules, but only as something incidentally.)

The game continued and it seems I was not so wrong with guessing the rules. In the end I even won a round. The next round we couldn’t finish (unfortunately) because our prof asked us to go back to our initial position. Just as (not without pride) I told my dicing result to a friend, the teacher called me up to give my assessment of the exercise. I was a little bit surprised and had not evaluated it for myself yet. Therefore I probably gave an unsatisfying answer…

Of course this exercise was transferred to intercultural situations. What happens when you come into a new surrounding where you don’t understand the rules? And what do the others think about a “stranger” in their rows? Is the “stranger” disturbing or will they help him to integrate?

The change between my groups was not that strong I think. But others had more problems with understanding the “new” rules. And this also led to misinterpretations. There was for example a girl who cheated because all the others in her group diced a six. So she thought she would be out if she has no six. Others tried to explain the rules to their new member through gestures.

All in all I think this game helped to get aware of social and psychological processes in intercultural contexts. The only difference is that real intercultural situations are far more complex. Maybe it is even impossible to find out all the new rules in the other culture. And perhaps we will only familiarize with a small part of them. And because of this complexity it will be impossible to prepare for those new rules or all possible eventualities.

After this exercise we should hear a text, actually a letter, about a German development assistant in the Sahel. At the end of the read out we should finish the story from the perspective of one of the characters in the text. The German development assistant should help growing plants in a village. He has an interpreter of English to the African dialect who shall help him to negotiate with the elder of the village. One day there are goats on his plantation and eat all the small plants. He gets very angry and becomes loud in front of the elder of the village who seems not to understand him. [See the full text in the ded-folder.]

I needed several minutes to think about which perspective to choose. Probably the prof would expect us to show empathy for one of the African characters. But I didn’t. I took the guy the letter was addressed to. My story ended with that the German guy in the Sahel has vanished and his German friend (the letter recipient) decides to find him. At the end of the lesson we only compared our story-endings.

Somehow I was glad being out of that room. It was very hot and there are no air-conditions in our university. But it shall become slightly cooler. Maybe it will be next week when there is the last class for this semester.

When you are a German, the article introduced here, from the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, has something to do with empathy and changing one's perspective, too. (If you want to read it some knowledge of Spanish is of advantage...) They list several things which for many Germans are indeed already "given".
For example that even in public toilets men have sit. (I was surprised about that, haven't seen it myself yet and only know it from home *g*) Or..., people here even clean their garbage. For example if you had yoghurt, don't just throw the carton away but first wash it up! Another speciality mentioned are those endless German words: "Fussballweltmeisterschaftsschiedrichterpfeifenreinigungstuch", "Fussballweltmeisterschaftseröffnungsspliel" (just to name a few). Okay, the Spanish would probably use every single word and link them with de (Partido de apertura del Mundial de fútbol; ...de...de...de...de... ;-)

Fort more differences between Germany and Spain check out the page.

...And so I start my second part. I think in future I should publish an own posting on each remarkable event or experience. Well, now I have my computer back and writing / posting things will be easier again. And thats also the reason why I now can add pictures.

There is summer now and people like to sit in their gardens. But it is not only the barbeque season. Garden gnomes inhabit almost every green private spot in Germany. You find them in flower pots, beds, and front yards. Some people really like it excessive. My mother has got a very small one. It was only a gimmick for buying a flower pot. S. discovered it and was very happy. She said Germany is known for the garden gnomes. Indeed, I cant remember having seen it in door yards in other countries. Instead, they occur in foreign movies when Germany shall be presented cliché-like. (I dont remember a specific movie now but hope you believe me though ;o)



The WDR has got an interesting article about the history of the garden gnome. A German is said to have made the first garden gnome in 1872 out of terracotta. Probably his inspiration was American Christmas drawings (we remember: the Santa Claus with his white beard and red coat was actually created by Coca Cola Imagine they had put it under copyright and would take every time for example $0.50 for using the image! They wouldnt need to produce Cola anymore *g*). A few years later his idea became commercial and had worldwide success. During the cold war during the 50s and 60s they were more spread in West Germany. In East Germany from 1948-1952 they were even forbidden.

Well, anyway S. had her fun, took plenty of pictures of the gnome in all situations of life (yes, this movie I remember: Le fabuleux destin dAmelie Boulain). She asked me if she can have one, too, for her home country. Well, I am sure the DIY hypermarket has it. But meanwhile its manufacture is (in most cases) not in Germany anymore but somewhere in Asia. You can see that from the price and the quality / painting style. If they are not too expansive I will maybe buy some as gift for the intercultural exchange in Turkey this September...

Well, I don’t know if this time title and entry fit so well together. (That’s why I crossed it out.) The exercises in this lesson were more in the aspect of “changing one’s perspective” and had not really something to do with “playing” and “staging”. If I was asked about my opinion, I was disappointed. The “playing” and “staging” had interested me much more. I wonder why this lesson was canceled or was put under another topic. Well, anyway, I don’t want to complain!

During last week the big folder “Global Learning” has arrived. It is a collection of loose sheets of paper with intercultural games and texts (105 pages!). Since I roughly browsed through it for the first time I knew that also university professors only use water to cook the soup. I found most of the exercises we have done since the beginning of the course in that folder. –Very interesting! And so there were also those exercises of today’s lesson.

The first task was to write down some thoughts about what an African development assistant would change here in Germany. This was indeed something what ordinary people here would find paradox I assume: Why should we learn something from “underdeveloped” countries. But actually it is interesting to get an outside opinion. Nowadays this is rather possible than years ago I think. You can see this in how the words changed. First, it was called “development aid”. Later it became “development assistant”. But I am not quite sure what the political correct version at the moment is. So my classmates wrote: stopping the waste of resources (energy, water, food…), promoting the cohabitation of different generations, supporting youth and culture (especially migrants and integration), and increasing the role of church in everyday life. But was it really the opinion from an African perspective or only what we heard about criticism of globalisation in general? When I answered the task I tried to find the problems Africa has and there was lack of water and food. We have those things in excess and that’s why I thought an African perspective would criticise it. For me it was by chance that this criterion was identical with the globalisation critic’s point of view. The aspect of family and church seem indeed to be more individual for Africa. But on the other hand those criteria could apply as well for Asian countries.

To confirm or not to confirm our ideas, a text was read from the ded-folder about the (fictive) experiences of an African development assistant in a German village and what he would change there (p.44f). Everybody should draw a picture of the village Mamadou (the name of the development assistant) described. Actually the German village was meant but some drew the African or both of his narration. I didn’t like drawing. In school I was never good at it and so, according to the teachers, my skills seem to be limited. I thought of imagining it instead. To me the description seemed to be full of stereotypes. The African village is totally traditional, the German village a modern large farm, I said in the evaluation. But the comments of my classmates convinced me. Actually there is no real “village-farming” in Germany anymore. The villages here are only settlements without much more infrastructure and the fields around them are in the hands of big farming companies which are like in Mamadou’s description “clinical” and over-efficient. Individual farming is more the exception here (because big companies can offer their products much cheaper I think). As for the African villages, the only African villages I have been to were in North Africa. In fact they were more rural and one could watch farmers doing their work with their hands. Nevertheless globalisation hasn’t stopped at their gates. There are also big companies and on the markets you’d find goods imported from neighbour countries. Of course Mamadou’s description was exaggerated because it was an exercise which should show people “development aid from another side” and should make them think.

[During class I wondered if the text was really written by (or after the experiences of) an African who stayed in Germany. It seemed to be too exaggerated. I found the answer in the folder: It was written by a German development assistant who stayed in West Africa.]

The next exercise in class (and also in the folder) should be to speak about African proverbs which were handed to us. Each group of three got three sayings where German equivalents should be found and their meaning should be discussed. I hardly could concentrate. It was very loud. The weather was hot and we had the windows open. Because the same day Germany had a football match, many people outside were making terrible noise. –And this for almost 2 hours in that room!

There were quite interesting proverbs among them. But mostly there was not only one interpretation possible. For example: “Only one digs the well, but many come to drink out of it.” Is it meant that one can reach much? Or is it meant that others come and exploit one’s work?

It was interesting to read those proverbs. I wondered if one can conclude from the existence of a proverb about “something” to the value of this “something” in society. Are there other values in African than in German society? Would we find to every proverb an equivalent?

Surprisingly many proverbs were similar to German equivalents although I could not exactly name them. Maybe my German proverb competence is not big enough for this. At the end I wondered about the sense of the exercise. In class there was not spoken about it. The folder says: “Experiencing a different image of man and different attitudes of life; Getting into touch with different norms and values” But unfortunately for me this aim was not reached. –Or it was maybe only in the context that African proverbs seem to be more ambiguous. More? At the same moment I wonder how ambiguous our German proverbs must seem to foreigners in their language.

Well, I post it in German... Unfortunately I can not participate myself in those interesting projects but only can recommend them. All you would have to pay is 30% of the travelling costs (and flights to Turkey and France are not that expansive!), so take the chance! For all those who study IKEAS it is - I am sure - a good opportunity to gain intercultural competence.
Please spread the information on your homepages, emails and so on. For further information please click on the coutries and you will be directed automatically to the pages of the project.
Thanks a lot!

**Teilnehmer für Projekte in Frankreich und Türkei gesucht**

Frankreich: 10.07.2006 - 20.07.2006
Türkei: 01.09. - 09.09.2006

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Actually I planned it already a long time ago to write some “additional” things here concerning intercultural experiences. But it is, I confess, hard to find the time. I am sometimes glad to have the obligatory articles about classes finished that I feel too tired to write some additional stuff. Anyway, there were some things which I liked to mention or only to make a note on.

The first thing happened already lots of weeks ago. Our market place was re-opened after some re-construction. The participants in the celebration were dressed in traditional costumes; the city was popular for its salt gaining. What surprised me was that there also was a black man. I wondered if this was intentionally and if the characters displayed should refer to real characters from that time. If so, was late medieval Germany so liberal to allow a black man to participate in the contemporary society? Should he display a trader for salt from a far country? Maybe. I did not pursue the question further but only wondered if in old times of trade intercultural communication played already a role or if this “science” actually is a modern days phenomenon.

The second things happened in the village where I am living. Nearby there are gardens, so called “Schreber-Gärten”. For me the Schreber-Gärten were a typical German occurrence. During the warmer days of a year people of the city go out to their small piece of land in the garden colony, grow plants, relax or barbeque. The more surprised I was to see two Vietnamese women planting salad and other German vegetables. I was with the dog and at first I passed. However my company made me to return and to ask them for a picture. In this occasion I also found out where they were from. But unfortunately the picture has never been taken. They were too shy (or I asked too harsh?). Anyway, it impressed me somehow and I had a strange feeling what I interpreted as that kind of feeling which you have when you make up with stereotypes.

The third thing… (I don’t know if I really get everything together what I actually wanted to write about)
The German national pride is also an interesting thing to watch. At the moment I think it might be in a change which can not be excluded to be long lasting. After hundreds of years in which Germany was split into more than 300 single states (dukedoms), two lost world wars and a long time of occupation, one can not deny that the German pride is different from other countries. If you ask German people what they think about their country they would answer with complaints. With further thinking, this is maybe observable only in Germany itself. When Germans are abroad I suppose they have certain national pride, or merely know how to differentiate them from other people (either native inhabitants or tourists). Of course I don’t know if this is a general phenomenon or if I only watch it with me. In fact because of the tomorrow beginning World Cup many foreigners come to Germany or look at Germany. Probably this is a good occasion to think about the own culture a little bit more, about what makes the difference between us and others. As a Focus article (in German) states being German has been discovered recently by the media. “We have the Pope,” “We have the World Cup” and “You are Germany” one can read from time to time. But this new euphoria is in its beginning. The Deutsche Welle published an article which says it is only limited to the World Cup and that the German flags, banners and t-shirts will vanish again soon after it is over. However it may be, I will definitely take the chance and buy one of those Germany flags for one Euro. And this actually only out of the fear that after the World Cup everything will be as it was before the World Cup, that is becomes impossible again to get a German flag.

The forth thing has something to do with the unfriendliness of Germans. At the moment I am living together with a foreigner, let’s call her “S”, and she sometimes tells me about her experiences. One of the first things she told me was that everybody stares at her all the time. First it wasn’t so obvious to me but then, when standing together with her in a waiting room it was quite obvious! My theory was that only old people would stare but in fact it was everyone. Okay, it might be a difference if you are in town or on a village. In our case it was the latter. There, people seem not really being used to foreign looking people in real life. For sure, TV has transported foreign life already into their homes, but in real…
Then she told me about the experiences in the bus. Can it be that foreigners are nicer to the people who surround them than Germans? Well… maybe, but I will not give my thoughts on that now. S was sitting face to face to a woman on the bus. The woman must have just come back from shopping. Suddenly the woman lost something from her basket. She was old and couldn’t reach it right away. S helped her but as soon as she took it up from the floor the old woman grabbed as if she was afraid S would steel it! Yes, she said “thank you” but in a monotonous, ignoring voice, looking to outside of the window and no trace of a smile on her lips.
It is difficult to explain that situation but I absolutely can follow her description. It was already sometimes that I thought people are ignorant here. Never expect too much from them! Even a reply to “Guten Tag” is oftentimes too much.
But of course this strange behaviour can be interpreted as personal by somebody who is a foreigner here and still quite unsure about language, culture and people.

Hard cut. I will end my posting here though I have not written a final or general concluding part. I will not do it here and maybe do it never because I think my Personal Notes can always be continued. I hope I will once more find the time to write something like “Personal Notes on Life - Part II” :-)

Sorry that I mention about this, but the date is quite remarkable. 06/06/06 – it will never come again. While I found it merely fascinating, others saw some biblical background in it. The triple six as a might have something mystical but the magic is dependent on its cultural context. Non-Christian cultures would see something else in it maybe or have other numbers for secret conspiracies. …What brings us back to the intercultural topics. But I admit that it is difficult for me now to build a bridge between 666 and international greetings and congresses. (Yea okay, in global astrological meetings it may play a role.)

But we didn’t start with the actual topic anyway. “What is insecurity for you?” and a picture was drawn on the blackboard. “Insecurity” in the middle and our associations around it: fear of unknown situations, fear to make something wrong, no mental preparation, expectation pressure, authority/dominance, lack of practice, language difficulties, lack of self-awareness. Those points with a personal context should be marked in one colour and those with an intercultural context in another. Soon it became clear that there is actually no distinction. All the mentioned facts can play a role in inner-cultural and intercultural situations. The explanation of insecurity can maybe be summarized as the following. It is the non-knowledge in and about certain situations.

Te main part of the lesson was now a game. We should imagine an international congress and divide into groups of four or five people. In the respective groups we should act like people from different countries. We had North Europeans, North Americans, Maghrebis, Vietnamese, South Americans, Japanese and Turks. I was in the group with the Japanese. Every group got a sheet of paper in which a description was given how people from those particular cultures would behave. During the meeting we would meet in our role others acting in their roles. I introduced myself as a Japanese manager with “Konidshiwa” but I could not follow all the points in the instruction. So probably I mixed some things up in the order of introducing. But I always made a deep bow and remained distance to my talking partners. Unfortunately there was not enough time to get to know all the cultures and I only met North Americans, Maghrebis, Vietnamese and South Americans. I was surprised by the way the Vietnamese were characterized. They had two males in their group and they only were – according to the descriptions – only allowed to talk to other males, which of course was difficult in a class with 89% women. They went hand in hand and introduced themselves as brothers. Also their girls came very close which surprised me. I – as Japanese - made automatically a step back. It was more difficult to talk with them, or to find common things, than I have thought. In general I found it quite difficult to talk to someone “normally” because everybody remained in his or her role. In reality there could probably be found a common basis much easier (?). At least I and maybe also my talking partner could try to make contact with each other.

Although it is (for me) rather questionable if this exercise has much relation to reality, it was a good practice. After class I met a Vietnamese girl and discussed the newly acquired knowledge about Vietnamese with her. She said that those things like holding hands, men not allowed to talk to women, coming (much) closer during the talk, men should not look at strange women and so on are not spread in Vietnam. I argued that it might be that she doesn’t know because she is from a bigger city. But she remained her point.

Anyway… some people said they wanted to copy the culture descriptions. I asked Ms Müller where she has it from and she replied that it can be ordered online from the Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst. The next day I send them a letter but still have no reply. Maybe they ran out of the material? I think it might be interesting especially for people from those cultures described to see how others would characterize them.

Short before the lesson ended there was another exciting game: the distance game. One member of each two-people group should come close. The other member should signalize nonverbally when the approaching person is coming too close and shall stop. Unfortunately I was in the only group with three people. I don’t know if it was because of this or because of the fact that we know each other pretty well that it didn’t work. I didn’t know how to signalize them not to come closer. I made a step back but the others just didn’t stop. It was the same with me when I was the approaching person. I didn’t know when to stop. But actually this game was not necessary for me to know how it feels if another one comes too close. I have made the experience for a couple of times before. And I remember a trick to make other people give way. It was called “the third eye” (in a communication or rhetoric seminar). It means that you go exaggerated straight and stretch your chest out, as if you would have another eye in it’s middle. This over-erected body lets people seem to be more self-conscious. Maybe it is because of two things: First, the person feels automatically more self-conscious, and second, for others the person seems to be more determined and also physically stronger, or “unstoppable”. So others would go out of my way. When I heard this I doubted if it really works, but it does. (The best way to try it is the pedestrian precinct ;)

I ended my last entry with the homework about arguments. And that's how I want to continue here. The homework was evaluated at the beginning of the course. I found it remarkable that somebody said an argument is the expression of “suppressed” conflicts. This seems to be quite logical. I mean, I can carry a conflict with me around but don’t feel like expressing my disagreement. But it is also meant that those suppressed conflicts can “explode” and the argument is not about the actual conflict but only deals with something on the surface. Of course then a solution can not be achieved. Ms Müller threw the words “conflict culture” in which she contrasted to “arguments as fights without consensus”. The former can for example be watched on TV when politicians meet in a talk show. Those arguments are not spontaneous and finding a consensus is likely or (at least) possible. “Arguments as fights” are more spontaneous and thus the participants are rather unprepared. It is doubtful that an agreement is found which satisfies both sides.

But what now about changing one’s perspective? Of course in the last categorization changes of perspective are not so frequently. They need preparation and hence are found more in the “conflict culture”. But another observation can be made. Janine added that changing the perspective is more likely to occur afterwards. Of course, afterwards one is always smarter. –Probably everyone can confirm this. One suddenly has the best arguments but it is too late. When having time for preparation it is easier to think of possible arguments and also a prepared conflict tends to be more productive for both sides because the issues can be taken by their roots.

The next exercise was to make a brainstorming about “mediating”. I only remember that I contributed the explanation: “searching and creating commonness.” Tutor Christine drew a circle on the blackboard and in its center she wrote “Mediator.” The students could add their associations which she also wrote on the blackboard: depersonalizing conflicts; formulating questions; empathy; moderate; filter emotions; even-handed; instructing; giving the feeling of sympathy and competence.
After the theoretical aspect was (more or less) clear, we were allowed to test it practically. Volunteers were needed but (once again) everybody hesitated. I had mercy and went into the middle of the classroom. Two girls joined me in consequence. Well, before I went on the “stage” I had already an assumption what would follow: Two of us would argue and the mediator shall calm us down. Every one of us three got their instructions. I should be the boyfriend who is late at his appointment with his girl. She blames him for that and I should argue with her. But I think I had not really a basis for my arguments. The situation was for me difficult. What should I blame her for, it was definitely the boyfriends fault to come late, actually I agreed with her. Plus, I am not really someone who knows and tries to argue. So it all started. “Why are you late; we wanted to go to the cinema!” she said. How should I react? I tried to find excuses. The mediator approached. My conflict partner and I were not really allowed to listen to the others accuses and so we had to maintain our standpoint. Because it was so difficult for me and I ran out of serious arguments (which she didn’t seem to listen too), it became ridiculous for me and I admit… I exaggerated. “I met another girl and she was so beautiful, I just couldn’t pass her.” Of course nobody would admit this even if it was the case. Well, I got seriously stuck. She blamed me for not calling her for my delay. I tried to blame her for not worrying about me. (- An argument which I thought of really late!) Much later that afternoon, when I was out with my dog, I had the idea that actually the boyfriend could have been late because he tried to arrange a dinner with her as surprise in a restaurant. He wanted to make it very special and because of the pressure he forgot the time. But yea… afterwards one is always smarter like I said.

The second and third discussion was led by different people. The second was a scene in a living community about washing up. They played it really well and credible as if they would play themselves. But also the mediator did a good job. It was interesting to watch. The third situation was a group discussion with the class divided into supporters and opponents of study fees. But the topic is too big as that it could be solved first within the limited time and second by the mediator. Out of the two groups not more than two or three people were leading the discussion and the others seemed to agree in silence. I think the group discussion (25 vs. 25 people) was the hardest job for the mediator.

In how far this lesson will influence my further conflicts remains to be seen. So far I have not had the chance to practice it myself under real conditions. But in the next conflicts I will definitely try to become more aware of mediating. There is only one problem. The mediator has to be accepted. For example most of the conflicts are in family. Much before this lesson I used to try mediating within my family. But of course I had no success. Even if I tried to depersonalize certain arguments my parents did not listen and continued their way. The same problem might occur among deeper friends too. Therefore I am not really sure yet in how far “mediating” can be used in everyday situations because most conflicts occur in everyday life. On the other hand, when I see an argument between two strangers I would not in all cases intervene. Maybe it is because I think I should acquire more competence before I can become a professional mediator. And of course, the only way to do so is learning by doing. And if all this doesn’t help, we have in Germany a saying: “When two guys argue/fight, the bystander has a smile on its face. (Wenn zwei sich streiten, freut sich der dritte).” [sorry, don’t know if it is translated well :)]

After two weeks break we met again for another class. Unfortunately I had forgotten to bring my material with me. I asked someone to lend me a sheet of paper on which I could make some notes. But now, in this very moment when I am writing this and I am sitting in the library, I have forgotten to bring my notes with me again. What is going on with my head? But yesterday I was at the doctor’s and there was a poster that an Alzheimer Truck is coming to Halle’s market place in June. You can get a free check there and maybe I should take this chance.

The first thing I should do – especially because I am sitting in a library – is to look the word empathy up. Yes, dear reader, I am not sure about its meaning. BeiBei asked me yesterday what it means and I gave her an explanation but I was not sure if it was right. The Oxford English Dictionary 5th Volume (out of 20!) explains it with a German word! (This of course lets me easier understand.)

empathy. Psychol. and Esthetics. [tr. G. Einfühlung (see EINFÜHLUNG) [...] The power of projecting one’s personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of contemplation.

Hmm, okay I don’t know if I was right… but I will inform her later about the “real” meaning.

But before we actually started with this topic we compared the homework from last time which was to think about a different interpretation of the black-guy-white-couple-scene (see previous entry). The most common thing was that in those new interpretations the racial aspect was completely excluded. We spoke about why in those earlier interpretations we all saw a situation with racial background. As far as I understood it was because nobody is unbiased. We supposed that even the audience of our play has certain expectations and that the exercise has a certain purpose. Why would we get a drawing with a black person and two shivering white people in a black-and-white copy in a seminar about stereotypes if it is not intended that we interpret it as a racial conflict.

But the stereotypes are rooted deep into our society as we found out. In Germany people do not speak of Germans and Foreigners but about White people and Black people. Everybody who does not look like a German is automatically characterized as a “Foreigner”. And this is what we also find in politics. Unfortunately there has been an attack on a “colored” (how some would call it) German of Ethiopian origin in Germany recently. Immediately the press and politics spoke about assaults against “foreigners”. It seems that it is impossible to integrate into our society with a different appearance. You might be grown up here, went to school here, might have job and family but still people would call you a “foreigner”! Another girl said that also at the opposite side, the attackers, are put into a scheme. Everybody spoke immediately of neo-nazis. She concluded that actually for the public it is normal that people of a different skin color are beaten up by neo-nazis. What a terrible thought. But maybe she is right.

Another question was if prejudices can as well be positive. Ms Müller asked that. Actually I always thought that prejudices must have also a positive aspect, or else why did nature provide us with them? But in this moment I couldn’t answer. Indeed in our German culture (-how is it in others?) “prejudices” is a negatively connoted word. Nobody is proud of having prejudices; everybody would probably claim to have none or to fight them. But our prof meant the “charity” aspect, when for example native people help foreign looking people on the street. Yes, indeed I agree to her. “One cannot not communicate” (P. Watzlawick’s first Axiom) jumps into my mind. Here it means that even for example the skin color is a message: “I am a stranger here.” And people would either try to assimilate the stranger (as guest e.g.) or to drive the person out (as enemy e.g.). But what we also know from the communication sciences is that messages can cause misunderstandings or misinterpretations. A foreign looking person must not necessarily be a foreigner but if offered help in for example finding the way might even better know about it than those who try to help.

The second part of the lesson was connected to homework too. Everybody should think about or collect arguments about certain statements given in the lesson before. In this lesson now the students were divided (also by space) into pro or against and should argue.

The first statement was “Female teachers in Germany should not be allowed to wear head scarves”. (Another option was “Children under the age of 3 should go to the kindergarten”. But I -as somebody who has not even thought about getting children yet- found it impossible to have a clear opinion about that.) It was almost an equal number of supporters and detractors. So a girl should present her opinion and the discussion started. (The content of the discussion is not so important here that’s why I omit it.) We did the same with another topic but the question was with which. The children-topic was rejected and we could make own proposals. Nobody had an idea and I suggested arguing about smoking prohibition in bars. –A quite accepted proposal. But the share was not really equal. The majority was pro and maybe only one third against. Despite we took the topic. After some hot discussion we ought to stop and to change the role, which means to change the point of view. Hence, I suddenly found myself supporting smoking in bars! The same we did with the head-scarf topic and evaluated afterwards.

It was quite difficult to present a different point of view than one’s own. The participation rate was less than in the previous debates. But something really interesting turned out: In the vice-versa-conversations many people agreed that it is difficult to find a compromise. Instead it was made easy to the other side to counter the own arguments so that the “actual” viewpoint wins. I was not excluded from making fun of my new viewpoint and actually sarcastically tried to tear it down. For lack of personal and “real” arguments more general arguments like those from “experts” in the media were used. In the vice-versa head-scarf discussion I spoke for example of the German “Leading Culture” – a term often used in the public debate. Another result was that those who at the beginning of the debates had actually no clear point of view but had to decide for one group got completely caught up in their group’s opinion. –A group phenomenon, but interesting to see it in action. People integrate into groups they want (or have?) to belong to and maybe even give up their personal viewpoints.

After our evaluation the question came up if it would be better to have tool (like for instance a ball) in the discussions would be better to control the talk. It means that only the person who has the ball is allowed to talk and when he/she has finished the ball is thrown to another person who wants to speak. Another method would be to have a presenter/moderator. He or she could lead the conversation and give it structure. I found that in our discussions we only scratched some arguments but did not deepen them. The other side for example had no chance to counter them because another argument or aspect was already brought up.

A moderator is good but not always the best solution. In my experience it always depends on the participants of the discussion. Sometimes the moderator is not constructive or authority enough and the participants are better to control with a “toy”, something to touch. Once we tried to work out a constitution with participants of different nations. Some of them just could not be quite and let nobody finish their statements. The moderator was not accepted. So we used a tool. (There was no ball, so it was a “talking spoon”.) This worked quite well after some difficulties at the beginning.

The homework for the next lesson is the last thing I like to discuss here short.
What is an argument?

An argument is a clash of different viewpoints among at least two parties. Its purpose can be either to find a consensus or to deepen differences.

Does a solution belong to an argument?

It is probably not possible to find always a solution. But before saying so maybe one should think about what a solution is. If we understand “solution” as positive outcome (I put the Oxford English Dictionary away again, but a solution is probably always positive?) then I have experienced enough conflicts which had no solution. But one thing for sure, every solution has a result, if positive or negative.

Is there a change of perspective? If yes, which role does it play?

There is not always a change of perspectives in conflicts or else why would we have those strongly polarized arguments for certain issues. But it is a useful tool. It depends on the intention of the debate if you want to find a consensus or want to persuade somebody. But in both ways it is helpful to think about the other side’s points of view, either for understanding them or for attacking them.

The next topic will be about empathy and changing one’s perspective too. I hope that by then my poor memory won’t have made more progress and that I remember to discuss the homework further.

Sorry... I can neither comment nor blog at the moment. My computer needs a repair. It should be fixed by the end of next week I hope. (Incredible how expansive the customer's support is!)

What comes into your mind when you think about the USA? An association game. (President) Bush, Microsoft, English, Everywhere, Mixed Ethnicities was my answer. The other members of the class made also notes about their imaginations. The same we did for France (Baguette, blue-white-striped shirts, black moustache [this was indeed a picture which I have seen somewhere and which suddenly came into my mind!], (President) Chirac, Nuclear Tests, Vine Farmers, Cheese [foot in general]) and Germany (Wurst, Bright People [from the outside at least], Airport, Life, Order, Better Climate, Culture: Literature, Classical Music, Love Parade). We compared the answers of the course members and it was quite significant that the first notes of the participants to each country) except for Germany) were almost the same. For America the President played a big role, for France it was more the food. When it came to the question which country was easier to describe, it turned out tobe the most far away country USA (from us here in Germany), followed by the neighbour France. The home-country Germany turned out to be the most difficult to find stereotypes. And therefore the answers were pretty specific while in the USA-description everything was more general.

Another result was that the USA got a pretty negative stereotyped assessment. Foreign Politics (Iraq) and global market domination played in my eyes a big role. But Germany was assessed even worse in general. My ideas were more positive but the thoughts of others included for example Unemployment, which is a big issue here. We have two students from foreign countries in the course. The girl from China - although she is living here - thought as stereotype of Germany of Hitler which surprised me a lot although I have encountered it often that foreign people in foreign countries associate Germany with Hitler. I suppose this sympathizing with Germanys past regime occurs especially incountries with a strong leader. I once had an experience in Egypt on a vegetable market. The people there were really friendly and lots of them wanted to talk with us (although the language was a barrier). Asked where we come from we answered Germany and were friendly greeted with Hitler, Hitler!which made us shiver because actually in the national and international context it is something embarrassing and nothing to be proud of. But those guys meant it friendly and probably because of missing education expressed their pride on Germanys ex-dictatorship. But speaking about friendly, the girl from Armenia mentioned the unfriendliness of German people. I dont know if I share this opinion. Indeed Germans look unfriendly. But as US researchers have found out it is because of the German language. Due to the pronunciation of German people have always their mouths bent down (so opposite to when you are smiling). But when as a foreigner you dont talk to old women in the tram, you can find a lot of friendly and funny people here. [Bus drivers are in fact a special crowd: I go every day by bus and since they never greet me when I greet them, I had to improve my pronunciation into a loud and clear GUTEN TACH!]

But back to the course: Was it already difficult to describe the auto-stereotypes of Germany, it should become even harder to describe what actually means being German. I have thought about it earlier how to distinct us from other cultures. Yes, I think this is what you dowhen you prepare intercultural evenings in exchange programs. So forme being German is belonging to an association (or more), having lots of art (and artists) but it also means complaining although we dont have to. The biggest agreement in the course was the language which distinct us from others.

But the most exciting thing of the course still had to follow. The members were divided into groups of three (or sometimes four like in my group). We got a drawing showing a bench. At one end there were two people sitting, shivering with crossed legs and making themselves very small. At the other side there was black person sitting, turning into their direction and saying something (the mouth was drawn open?). Each group should interpret the situation, what do we see in the picture, and finally turn it into a small play which shall be acted in front of the class. In my group we discussed relatively long how the situation shall be. I thought the sense in the picture should be to interpret it as racial discrimination that the two white people move to the very end of the bench whenthey see the black guy sitting down. Finally the other three members convinced me that the white couple is not scared by the blacks skin colour but only because he behaves strange. Okay, so we invented the situation. The black guy comes out of the foreigners department angrily because he was not accepted to live in Germany. Because he or she makes such a noise the others are scared and move to the other end of the bench.

Almost in the same moment we had come to an agreement, Mrs Müller called our group to be the first one which performs. So we went to the middle. I could play the angry black man or woman. Afterward we saw some interpretations of the others who did it similar to my suggestion and put racial bias in the foreground.
I liked the scenes a lot. They were really funny and well acted sometimes. And to be honest, I am looking forward to the next acting exercises.

But the lesson had finished and we got some homework. How can the situation on the bench be interpreted completely different? I thought that maybe the white couple - they were only slightly dressed - could have made a trip to Mallorca or some other holiday paradise. They thought it would be always warm there and didnt take enough clothes with them. So they went to the beach but it is so cold that they are shivering. Another guest - the black guy - sees them and offers some clothes to them (in the picture he wore a jacket).
Another possibility could be that the white couple, they are very clean, were desperately looking for somewhere tosit down. They want to wait for an appointment with the black guy. They see the bench with a forth person sitting on it who is spilling all the coke over one half of it and the bench becomes terribly sticky. But because there is no other bench they take the clean corner to sit down. The forth person leaves. The black guy doesnt know about the cola there and takes a seat and wants to greet the white couple. But the white couple who knows about the previous accident there shivers of disgust that he took that place in the dried but sticky cola.

Well...stereotypes. We always expect things which probably mostly occur (or else we wouldnt have them) but in exceptional cases when they do not occur surprise us a lot. We sometimes insist on our ways of thinking, our patterns and previous experiences that when something new happens we wouldnt understand the world anymore. We can try to prepare ourselves for new situations but I wonder if successfully. The word unexpected actually already says that they are not expected and therefore impossible to prepare for. The only thing to learn is how to cope with unexpected things, how to react, how to avoid embarrassment but see it as a new aspect which enriches our view of the world.

What is ethnographical writing at all? This was the question which was answered at the beginning of the lesson. Our prof told us about its history but we didnt have to make notes, so I didnt. Maybe it is not so important to know about its history but instead it is worthy to know what it is about. As far as I remember it is used by ethnologists or anthropologists to describe foreign cultures / environments out of a subjective perspective. This shall include both personal descriptions and personal feelings: emotions and reactions on experiences. After some time (weeks / months...) those diary entries shall be evaluated from a later standpoint and hence a progress of intercultural competence be seen. For further consolidation a text was handed out dealing with the issue of ethnological writing. It is not long, maybe one page; a reference where it was taken from is missing. Well okay, what do I need a reference while I have not even read the text extract? (Of course I will read it later!) If one day - which surely never will happen - but IF one day I should research on ethnological writing I would like to use those notes as a starting point. And so it would be good to know where the text fragment was taken from to continue reading. Well anyway, if I look up the OPAC of our library I would probably get a list with plenty of books about ethnological writing... But so far I only regard ethnological writing as something practical where I do not want to spend too many thoughts about theories.

And maybe this is also the problem I had with the other part of the lesson. The "homework" was to bring all the notes on the previous classes with us, so to say our course-diaries. Beforehand I wondered why but I never had expected that course members should read an entry out of it. The intention wasthat course members who think they have difficulties in writing their diaries canask questions about their style and eventually improve their writing.

BUT from the first lesson on it was said that the diary is something PERSONAL in which we ought to reflectabout the previous lessons, write about the content as well as what we think about it. And thats what I do since the first lesson with a clear conscience. Again in the last lesson it was told that "there is no performance aspect" and again it was emphasised that the diaries are always something personal. I would not have had the idea to read something out of my diary in front of the others and to hear how they judge it. It is not that I don't care, of course I want to "perform" well but on the other hand I am too convinced about that I do everything right in this diary and that I just dont need the others opinion. (Am I too arrogant?)

But think about it: Can you make something wrong when the diary is said to be personal?! For me the sense of writing this down is to preserve something of the seminars content for the future and maybe to get some things clearer (later?). Of course I have asked others in front of the lesson about their diaries, how they write it, if they have problems with it. I mean, I dont want to make something completely different and thus risking that it may not be accepted. Some assurance is good. But still everything - and I say it again - is personal. Thus, I didn't understand some questions from the other course members if they are allowed to write about this and that. Oh my gosh! Why asking?! Why make rules where there are none?! Just write what you think is important for you personally!!!

Fortunately the answers to those strange questions were "yes, you can do it like that..." or "Just do it if you are able to do so..." and therefore they were no limitation (thank you!).

Nevertheless the conception of the course planned to hear three readers. No volunteers. After a minute of silence a girl (Janine) raised her hand but to me it seemed more out of pity. Her entry was good what to say? Melf was the second one who had mercy. I liked his writing style very much and encouraged him to continue (after class) although others had some (slight) criticism. Two good examples, but still a third reader was missing. Gerolf was asked but he was merciless. I did not feel like reading in front of the others and did not see the sense of it. My thought was although not meant seriously: "Now after two good examples I shall be the bad one?!" I had given the address for my blog to Mrs. Müller, our prof. She knew what is written in my entries. After class she told me that she thought I would read because I even publish it on the internet, free to read for everybody. Well... with internet its a bit tricky. In theory everybody would have access to my page but practically nobody knows that it exists. And I will not make a note on the board "Go to my page!" (So... I must have disappointed her.) (But I know she wouldnt take it to heart. I will volunteer other times again.J) Once more after some minutes of silence ("If nobody wants to read, I have to force someone!" an act of desperation!), a second girl volunteered. Everything was okay, too. For me it sounded like when you rate on eBay somebodys deal: "Everything fine, looking forward for next time", "Everythings there. Good show!"

Well, (for me) the sense of the course was rather questionable. At the moment I dont know what I could take from it. I am still writing how I always would be writing especially since from the first lesson on the freedom of writing was granted. Nevertheless it is good to have heard about how ethnological writing should be. The only problem I see is that when being confronted with a completely new surrounding and culture it might be impossible to write down every single difference from the own culture. Especially at the beginning the writer might be overcharged with recording what he or she regards as noteworthy. However it is a good way to note at least some things which were especially striking. At a later point it helps to reflect them, to see personal progress and finally maybe to laugh about what was at first ridiculous or embarrassing. Yes, I would say it is worth writing those diaries on a personal basis because later they even might become the origin for funny anecdotes.