Bad weather? Surely not!

Here in Southern Bavaria, we've just been through what was possibly the worst weather period since records began. Two weeks of solid, uninterrupted sheet-rain. Plus wind. Plus single digit temperatures.

And this got me thinking as to how people...no, not how they cope with the weather as such, but how they spin a narrative around it. A narrative that is rarely factual. Here in Bavaria for example, when the bad weather started, the media at first tried to play it down. Tomorrow, or the day after at the latest, they promised, the sun will return. Temperatures will climb. Yup, time to wipe the barbecue dry. (It seems nowadays good weather can only be experienced as such if you fire up the barbecue...) When it wouldn't get better, but got increasingly worse until there was serious flooding in several towns, the media changed tack again. They bigged it up."Worst ever", "Unbelievable..". "Bavaria worst affected.." A gigantic "look at us, we're even huge in our misery, when the weather is bad here, it's worse than anywhere else". Because Bavarians take great pride in their weather- and their summers in particular - being sunny and hot. So when it fails, it has to fail spectacularly, so that you can build a narrative round the event, prepare a future "Do you remember 2013, when we had this incredible..."

Change to Scotland, where I lived for a year before we moved to Munich.There's a different narrative spin at work there. In Scotland, it just doesn't do to remark that the weather is bad, it's raining cats and dogs or it's blowing a (Beaufort 8) gale. It maybe the case but it doesn't get remarked upon. On the rare occasions when the sun is out, however, absolutely everybody will make it their business to discuss the weather with you. Not just innocuously ("Nice day, isn't it") as could be suspected. But in an openly challenging way: "Hot enough for you?!" (~17°) "This heat is getting to me!", and of course the ubiquitous "Another [!] beautiful day in Edinburgh". This last remark you can easily verify on Twitter - just put in search term "Edinburgh" on any given day, it is always there. The fact that it may have only lasted 5 minutes will not be part of the narrative. Of course not, as relaying facts is not the issue. It's about proving a point and hammering it home - YOU may think the weather in Scotland is always bad, but I'm proving you wrong, wrong, wrong!!

So the narrative of how weather is spoken about is much more important than the actual metereological details. And it tells you a lot about how people see themselves and how they want to be seen.

Hello you Chinese - How About Some Manners?

"Intercultural training" - my heart always sinks a little when I hear those words. Picture former teacher who got a freelance opportunity to tell the IT department abroad how to cut up food, what to say instead of Howdy, and what never, repeat never to say when presented with a sheep's eye in your soup.

These courses are especially in demand when it comes to China. "How to Do Business in China", "Intercultural Chinese Etiquette", "Understanding the Chinese" are just some of the courses employees have to attend before a placement or a short stint in the People's Republic. And only yesterday did I look at some online advice for  executives on the subtleties of when to wear a dark blue or a black suit. God forbid us Westerners might actually screw up a deal by offending the obviously extremely highly-strung Chinese fashion sense!

Change of scenery. A Munich department store, escalators. A huge group of Chinese tourists shoulder their way onto the steps, some of them already one floor up. The two groups communicate with each other at the top of their voices - gesticulating and shouting at highest pitch. Totally oblivious to other customers and  their shocked glances. I have no idea, - and to be honest I'm also not that interested whether that is the done thing in a Chinese market. In a central European department store this sort of behaviour is not on.

Recently, we were in Salzburg (Austria). We visited an outdoor café in the Altstadt with a very nice view onto Mozart's birthplace. 10 minutes later a huge group of Chinese tourists had arrived, gathered all the free chairs available (without asking) and grouped them round a table. All of them had huge McDonald's lemonade paper pitchers from which they slurped noisily. They plonked their McDonald's drinks on the café table. After a while one of them got up, hailed a waitress as if she was a dog and started shouting at the top of his voice in atrocious English. "Twenty orange juices" was what he wanted and somehow managed to communicate. Volume alone must have done the trick. Meanwhile the other members of the groups talked to each other in shouty voices and took photos in "thumbs up" pose. Gone was the  lovely scenery at the nice cafè - everybody fled.

It really seems very odd indeed that Westerners going to China need to be coached within an inch of their lives in superior Chinese manners when at the same time, Chinese people coming here, behave in a totally objectionable way. I can already hear the culturally versed interlocutors who explain that this sort of behaviour is actually a sign of appreciation in Chinese society and dates from the T'ang Dynasty. Maybe. But I don't really care. Intercultural awareness works both ways.

And it is high time that Chinese people wanting to travel here in the West acquainted themselves with some local manners.