Where Should I Emigrate To?

I will have to emigrate. Very very soon it will no longer be possible to lead anything resembling a normal life in Germany. Last week, an 80-year old woman was raped and robbed on a Sunday at 11am after a church visit. In the centre of Düsseldorf, a once pleasant and affluent town where I spent several years working in an advertising agency, riding my bike, going for walks, coming home late...normal things one does. None of those things would now be possible in Merkel's Germany. And that isn't acceptable. But as that evil woman vowed to stick to her guns (so to speak) and indeed will next week be visiting Africa to sniff out more possible Deals (as we've learned to call them) with African leaders, I have no choice but to leave this once pleasant, but now doomed country.

So where should I go? Where can I go?

• Britain. The obvious choice. My second home. Yet last time I lived there, I had to leave after 1 year: The combination of atrocious weather, Fridya night culture, ropey infrastructure and manky food proved too much. Enormous administrative, personal and financial efforts had to made to remedy a wrong move. Dare I give it another chance? Still, the prospect of a new promising Tory government is a positive sign, the North has to be avoided ( I lived in Edinburgh last time) and a general gritting of teeth might do the trick. Odds: 6/10

• Hungary. The country I spent the most time in this year. Very sympathetic due to personal ties and the politics of PM Orbán which I wholeheartedly approve of. Affordable. Beautiful, historically interesting. But: Language problems, the near impossibility of finding a job there, low wages. And atmospherically, I often notice a certain ennui in people there, a tendency to be negative and find fault with everything, and a general lack of joie de vivre. Odds:4/10

• Holland. Probably the country I feel closest to outside (the old, pre-Merkel) Germany . Although I have the vocabulary of a 10-year old, due to spending my youth there I can sound Dutch.  I always get the frisson of coming home when I'm there. The smells, the weird food, the "Hoi" - it all feels comforting. Yet: Is it that much better than Germany when it comes to chaotic migration? And is the prospect of living in a politically divided, almost sectarian country any better than living with Merkel's constant "Nazi" slurs?  Odds: 6/10

• Switzerland. A country I have no ties with and know hardly at all. What I've heard about it hasn't exactly filled me with enthusiasm. Vigilante neighbours, high prices, strange forms of protestantism. Generally I'd say - too isolated, inward-looking, resentful and stuck in a decade we know little about. And yet: It's affluent, realatively safe, has good infrastructure and the prospects of finding a job there are better than in most other countries. Not a place I like, but as I say - it's grit your teeth time. Odds: 6.5/10 

Beggars can't be choosers. And it will be necessary to make a decision soon. The next German government will likely involve a loony left party AND  the nauseating, destructive Merkel. I hope not to be in Germany when that doubly whammy hits.

So what do you think? If you're German, do you have similar thoughts? If you live outside Germany, can you recommend a country I maybe haven't thought of yet? Let me know!

Where Were You Born? How Old Are You?

I have to confess, those are questions that quite literally make my skin crawl. Questions I will never ever answer. Not because of any vanity hang-ups, I hasten to add - and I can easily prove it when I say I wouldn't even reveal the month I was born in.

I just don't like to give people the chance to stereotype me. Tell somebody your birthday, and they're bound to exclaim "Ah, that makes you an aries (libra, virgo, whatever) then, bit stubborn, are we?" And I really can't stand that sort of thing at all. Somebody once exclaimed "What?? You're from Munich and you don't like beer?!" Err, yes imagine. Except, I'm not "from" Munich, I just happen to live here at the moment. I lived in Edinburgh once, and would you believe it, I don't like whisky.

People's urge to put you in a culturally determined identity box seems to be unquenchable. Born in the 70s?  "Haha, you must like flares" 80s? "All those shoulder pads, I can see that's you". 90s? "Grunge! You like grunge then?" "Born in England? Have a cup of tea, the English like their tea!"

Why oh why does it matter where your mother happened to give birth? Does the umbilical cord tie you to that local hospital forever? Are you meant to have imbibed some tribal thinking in those first few earthly hours? Of course, loads of people are very proud of their place of birth "Yup, Kansas girl me, the Sunshine State", or whatever advertising slogan happens to be attached to that neck of the woods. "Us Yorkshiremen are strong and silent, we call a spade a spade". To which of course the only possible reply is "Oh do shut up please".

I admit, I'm pretty extreme in not wanting to be stereotyped. If possible, I'd like to prevent people from knowing my gender, too. I live in constant fear of coming across something like "Oh you females, you just love babies dont'ya". No, I don't actually - I always fear they might give me some dreadful illness, and I don't like people who only ever sleep and eat.

Also, my attitude to this whole identity and stereotype thing has disadvantages. I don't have c.v. for example, so I can't apply for jobs, and am forced to stay self-employed. Still, it's preferable to listening to some HR person kneading a stereotype dough that has nothing to do with who I am - all on the basis of some arbitrary data.

I am very happy, though, to talk about things that really were formative, and therefore matter. For example: At a young age, my family moved to Holland. A country,culture, language, experience that really had an impact on me. Much more so, than an arbitrary place on the map which happens to be my place of birth

"My Country - Right Or Wrong" - Is Criticism good or bad?

Recently, an article by a German expat in New Zealand was brought to my attention. The author pointed out that New Zealanders weren't keen to deal with any form of criticism of their country. "Thin-skinned" was the way she described it.

This triggered off reminiscences of my time in Scotland. Any form of less than over-the top enthusiasm was met with resentful, defensive silence. And you really had to pile it on. If you failed to use words like "best ever", "world-class", "tops" you were a marked person. (Talk about British understatement...!)

This is all fine, if it's about being polite. Of course no sane person goes round telling other people what a shit-hole they live in. Of course I toed the line, talking about the splendid weather (wasn't), really tasty food (wasn't) beeaauti-ful countryside (have never been).

And yet, and yet. Isn't criticism a force of good? Should it not be encouraged? Especially from outsiders, especially in a country like New Zealand which might otherwise be in danger of  "im eigenen Saft schmoren". Ehem, I hope this wasn't too critical - take it as feedback!)

Wise, forward-thinking companies encourage their employees to notice things that need improving, find out where processes can be changed for the better. Lemming-like behaviour, head-down, nose to the grindstone... all these things struck me as old-fashioned, and vaguely totalitarian. I mainly grew up in countries - Holland and Germany - where criticism is encouraged from an early age on, and is seen as a mark of respect of the community you live in. It means you're interested in what's going on, you take a stance, you care, you're an active citizen. Not being critical in Holland would be seen as a sign of having dumbed-down, of being switched off, and ultimately a way to side-line yourself.

I agree of course that criticism has to be constructive, and cannot zoom in on fundamentals - like the weather in Scotland which can hardly be changed. But even here, I'd say a degree of realism would be infinitely preferable than the weird buil-up of societal pressure. Why should it not be possible in Scotland to say "Agreed, we haven't got the best weather but then again, that's why everything is so green and lush here". It would be realistic and honest. And infinitely preferable to the peevish, tight-lipped reaction which to the casual observer from outside indicates nothing more than an inferiority complex.

Personally, I find the pressure of permanent compliance with the staus quo, always asserting that you're 100% behind the mainstream, "Yes it's grrreat!, Love it! So excited! Super"...." tedious in the extreme. And no, I won't deliver.

I would still offer cookery-classes in Scotland and encourage New Zealanders to get out of their country more, and get a different perspective. No hard feelings, mate!

You?

Chocolate - an Intercultural Personal History

The first chocolate brand I remember eating was Verkade. We were living in Holland at the time, and everybody was chocolate mad.Verkade chocolate was okay, if a bit tooth-breakerish.Verkade is one of the oldest Dutch manufacturing companies, and was instrumental in the home-grown advertising industry - but in 1990 got taken over first by United Biscuits and then by Private Equity Blackstone -with predictable results for the quality of the product.

We were in Holland, but we were also part of a NATO HQ, and therefore our daily shopping was done in the NAAFI store http://www.naafi.co.uk/home.php where I encountered my second chocolate experience: Cadbury's Milk Tray. It tasted quite good - I particularly liked the ones with some orangey foam in them, but I also became aware for the first time in my life that I was eating something totally artificial: The one with rose-flavoured jelly in it (much later in my life when living in England, I would re-discover this in a different guise, namely as Fry's Turkish Delight bars!) didn't taste at all what I was used to eating as a child. It tasted foreign, and slightly - well, wrong. Rose-flavour wasn't a concept I'd grown up with. But interesting.( I think threre was also one with lime flavour which reminded me of cleaning fluid, also from the NAAFI). Much more to my taste was a bar called Nuts (which we pronounced in the Dutch fashion "Nüts", as nobody suspected the name actually had a meaning).

Cadbury's of course, was taken over by Kraft Foods in 2010, and Milk Tray still exists, but apparently has gone downhill with all the interesting flavours taken out, and just caramelly ones in the box. Fry's doesn't exist anymore, but Turkish Delight is still produced (albeit in Poland). And "Nuts" is okay, still manufactured by Swiss multinational Nestlé.

After we moved to Germany, my chcolate brands became Milka and Ritter Sport (the latter still a family-owned business,manufactured in Germany!) There was no more rose-flavoured jelly but much more down-to-earth "Alpenmilch","Vollmilch" and "Joghurt".

A life-time's journey via chocolate - quite fascinating I find. (And part of some more research on my part).

Happy to hear about your chocolate memories etc. on Twitter, @Margit11

©Margit Appleton 2012