What do you know about germany and where did you learn it?

[Friday]

Social Threads don't have to relate in any way to PTSD @Changeling.

 

[Never_falter2]

What does this post have to do with PTSD? Well, I started another post about the Invictus Games, which is to be found in „news and debates“. I was arguing that the Invictus Games were not given enough covering by the press and somebody said that people do not care about the Invictus Games. I said that most people never heard of the Invictus games and somebody, I think @Ragdoll Circus said that it was the job of the schools to educate people and I argued that people learn very little in school and know most of the things they know from the media taking Germany as example.

 

[watundah]

I was a German major in High School. My instructor taught us about the country.

I married a first generation American with German parents.

I traveled around Germany.

I have German ancestary and was curious as a child to learn more.

I'm not a social scientist but Im not sure this is a valid measure. Nothing about Germany comes across my feed except an occasional story about Merkel.

 

[Great White North]

Just interested because in another thread I had the hypothesis that we know most of the things we...

Maybe for the younger generations but for those of us where we didn't have computers growing up....only media influence we had was two hours of Saturday cartoons. We were taught by our parents . family and schooling. Can't say that media influences me as I get older as I don't watch the news etc...

 

[Never_falter2]

I deleted some of the post. So sorry, but I remembered that I discussed a similar question elsewhere and I am really concerned about anonymity.

 

[Effie]

I lived in Germany for 4 years as a young child, 2 years on one military base, back to England and then 2 years stationed in British West Germany again, but the second time, we lived near base, but not on base. I went to a German kindergarten but had Selective Mutism, so I didn't listen or answer in English or German a whole lot, if at all. Kids thought I was deaf. I remember random stuff from Germany.

Beer steins and lots of them.
Coins that said bundesrepublik deutschland and they were called marks.
Freizeitpark Traumland, a theme park that we called trauma land with a log ride.
Round tobacco tins that looked so much like English biscuit barrels that they sat on the counter and taunted me. I'd stare them down, willing them to turn into English biscuit barrels. The tins never yielded to my will.
Strange tasting giant lollipops.
Yellow phone boxes instead of red ones.
People not really into queueing like in England.
Triberg and their cuckoo clocks and a waterfall.
Wandering off in the Black Forest. My mother was angry because she said I was lost, but I wasn't lost, I knew my way back to the picnic.
Driving through East Germany to Berlin and the guards having big guns and looking mean. Going up a building to look at the wall and not understand why I wanted to look at a wall? Who cares about a wall? Then seeing the long open space along the wall and being really excited! They had the makings of a racetrack going on in their city! They needed to do their own Formula One tracing! A couple of years later, we were back in England and the grown ups were going crazy about that wall again, taking it down this time. I remembered my dreams for a racetrack in the middle of a city and crossed my fingers that Germans would come together for that racetrack. I was quite sad when the racetrack never materialized.

We've gone back to visit friends in Germany and relatives have gone over to live and work there for a few years and then gone back to England. I've taken a general western European history class in university, but not German specific. My parents and older sister are fluent in German but we don't have any German heritage. I understand enough German to read the signs and understand announcements, but don't speak at all and not enough to have a conversation.

I think I know more than just what's in the media, but I wouldn't say I'm culturally knowledgeable.

 

[PointlessExistence]

It's doomed.

 

[Never_falter2]

Doomed? Why doomed?

 

[PointlessExistence]

^^ If you can't see it, then telling you isn't going to do any good. Live with eyes closed and pretend everything will work out ok.

It won't.

 

[Never_falter2]

Sometimes telling other people what you are talking about is helpful. There is a ton of developments in Germany that worries me but I think it is pretty odd to say that a whole country „is doomed“.

Have you ever been to Germany?

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

No country is "doomed". Bad situations are everywhere. Not just Germany.
If you believe that, then the more correct assertion would be to say: "we" (as a collective, Earth) are doomed. But back on topic.

I learned about Germany from children´s war books (those were a thing) and my grandparents. I did not have a very positive view of them. My country was invaded not very long ago, and although my grandparents did not speak about their hardship a lot, I know they went through a lot that time.

Later I developed an interest in war and conflict, and I learned that things aren´t black and white. I learned that my grandfather had an interest in the german language and the country, and that he hated the war. Things in the media are definitely simplified (but they are always simplified mind you, about all countries and most situations).

As a teen I learned that German tourists can be incredibly obnoxious. They tend to not learn the local language and not adapt very easily, living in communities of their own. But I have a few German friends and I can definitely say a lot of Germans are not like that (and they´d be horrified at some of their fellow nationals, just like we all are horrified of some of our fellow nationals).

 

[PointlessExistence]

Have you ever been to Germany?

No. I don't want to get killed.