Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences 
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in Germany, people shake hands at meeting and parting. Males and those advanced in age are supposed to initiate i.e. the man shakes hand with the woman, the older woman with the younger woman etc.. however, handshaking is thought generally nice and thus if you want to be considered more outgoing you stretch your hand out first, irrespective of the status. When meeting a group, you shake hands either by status (more important person first, least important person last) especially in a formal, business context, or simply by ‘order of appearance’ i.e. from left to right or vice versa, in a less formal situation. The status-relation of handshaking can lead to conflicts, when people who consider themselves important feel passed over in favor of others whose hand is shaken before theirs. Teenagers don’t shake hands, but nod toward each other, because this is considered less formal. The quality of the handshake (e.g. strong and solid vs. limp and fishy) is supposed to reflect on your character.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,This is not double standard, this is logistics. The doctor as such cannot be ‘late,’ i.e. made responsible because of emergencies cropping up, or because what had seemed like a 15-minute appointment ended up a 35-minute treatment. Once you are inside, you yourself of course expect the doctor to take their time and listen to you thoroughly and not shut you up after 10 minutes and chuck you out, because the next patient is already outside waiting – irrespective of how delayed your appointment may already be. The immediate patient’s needs should take precedence over who may be still standing outside the door. Considering that, it becomes obvious why it is you who must reschedule your appointment when you are significantly late. Normally, however, you should be able to argue your case with the assistant and still get to your appointment.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,Who is to decide what constitutes a valid contribution to society? And what exactly would such a contribution be measured in? Economic value by income? Then a housewife should be put out of her misery a.s.a.p. Emotional support? Then a bitchy, 30-year-old single loner would have less worth than society is ready to pay for. Social involvement? Then an organized, froth-at-the-mouth do-gooder using up barrels of fuel per year for driving about pestering his victims should be encouraged.
What’s yours, for instance? Some people might argue you use up way too many resources, only abuse the economy for your own benefit and in old age are reasonably to be considered a pest to humanity – plus not likely to contribute anything worthwhile any more. And from what age onwards would we then (all of us) expect to be put out of our misery for not contributing to society? Actually, come to think of it, what do you suggest doing with those who have accidents that leave them permanently damaged even at a young age? I reckon your line of thought is like a stone thrown into the water: the circle of potential victims increases in diametre the more time you think about it. Maybe think about it again.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,i am not bulgarian myself, but i travelled in bulgaria and have made friends there as well. the women i have met with are all professional women (one is a doctor) and they are nowhere near your description. i find they are very eloquent and self-assured, and have wide insterests. as to bulgarian women doing everything for money, it is a hugely poor society, quite shockingly so, and like in any poor society you will find a few women willing to do everything to support themselves and their families. to generalise that to a general ‘bulgarian woman’ stereotype however is, i believe, plainly wrong.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,I am assuming you are talking about your paternal grandmother and are thus not matrilineally Jewish, which only would make you fair dinkum Jewish. 😉 As it is, you are not considered Jewish, despite your grandmother. You can convert to Judaism, yet conversion is traditionally not encouraged; in fact, some orthodox communities will refuse to acknowledge conversions done by other (e.g. reform) communities. The reasons for this are that converts in the past were often triggerering persecution of local communities by Christians (you might want to read up on the history of converts to Judaism, a great many of whom where burnt at the stake). The most widely acknowledged form of conversion is to join a course in Israel. These take up to half a year, and then you get acknowledged by the local authorities (certified). Be aware that ultraorthodox communities may not accept that, either. As to learning about Judaism, you don’t have to go to temple to do that; there is a multitude of literature available, and there are many Jewish sites on the web (such as virtual jerusalem.com) that will give you an insight into Jewish life. I recommend Israel meir lau, shaul meislisch (ed.), _Jewish life_ (1988) as a good starting point. That may be difficult to obtain in English, though a good Judaica store should have it or offer a similar compendium.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,The German stereotype (negative) of Americans is: boisterous, noisy, incredibly self-centred, Puritan/hypocritical, chauvinistic (patriotism tends to get read as chauvinism by other countries), politically domineering and completely ignorant of other cultures, or indeed of any culture. Foreign languages are alien, history is a word they heard some time at school, and tolerance is not a strong point, it being – with China – the place widely known for its death penalty.
The German stereotype of Americans (positive) is: daringly creative, extroverted, kind, with a good sense of humor, patriotic and involved in community life. Still, somewhat naive.
As you see, the negative sides are stronger and more varied, so there is a widespread, sometimes unacknowledged antagonism toward and suspicion of Americans. Ah yes, I forgot, part of the ‘no culture’ stereotype is that they lack taste and thus easily fall for kitsch and tackiness, the louder the merrier.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,I’ve traveled in Ireland, England, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany (obviously), Denmark, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland. I have encountered ‘hairy’ women in German-speaking countries and former Eastern Block countries – where they are considered to be completely ‘natural’ – but the majority of women now shave their legs and armpits in all the above listed countries. I would not say they are considered ‘more appealing.’ I must confess I do not understand the part of your question about hygiene, because to me shaving the armpits is a matter of aesthetics and not hygiene. I am, however, also aware of the feminist position according to which hairlessness is part of a pre-pubescent body in Western culture and thus a shaved (artificially hairless) beauty ideal propagates an image of women as sexually (and by implication mentally) immature, and adolescent. But personally, I think the ‘unnaturalness’ of shaving body hair is part of a great many ‘unnatural’ things termed ‘culture’ and ‘beauty.’
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,… sometimes it (size) does!
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,I know, I know, don’t ever mention it … but I really do think the reason for the bitterness of this generation that I, too, have noticed, may also be found in the fact that they spent their childhood during World War II. From my mother I know that even this year she spent a night sleepless on our holidays in the Middle East, because the planes flying overhead at 2 a.m. had the same engines as those German bombers she remembers when she was 4. She was drenched in the morning. Add to this experiences of famine, death, rape, loss of home, suddenly missing adults or getting lost themselves, and you have a generation of children in Europe that grew up traumatized. In the United States I think the situation is only slightly comparable, because though families worried about older brothers/ fathers dead overseas, the immediate trauma, the closeness of war, wasn’t so great. Then again, the Cold War paranoia (building shelters in the back yard, etc.) was greater. Still, I was pleased to find the majority of ‘oldies’ in the United States comparably cheerful, kind and open when I went overseas.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,From an atheistic non-American: I recommend you read up on Bin Laden’s training by the CIA in the Afghanistan war camps (go to the BBC network’s background information page on Bin Laden, or, failing that, The National’s web site). If anything, this is a home-grown problem of U.S. Cold War politics.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,I think your boyfriend’s pen-friends were not quite so honest about their relationship with the guy in your life. I have two male friends, one of whom is married, the other who has been through diverse girlfriends. I think it is a question of drawing the boundary for yourself: I am happy to be their friend (and in the second case, the friend who lasts), and I respect their right to a private life that excludes me. I don’t think I could do that if there was the slightest insecurity about our standing toward each other. I have found the females in my male friends’ life to be somewhat protective initially – sassing out if I was a potential threat – but afterward they accepted me. Only one girlfriend had a really strong problem, but that was because she generally disapproved of cross-gender friendships, thinking them impossible (i.e. sex would always interfere).
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,definitely yes, in sexual terms i can still find a 20-year-old very attractive. however, i also find them sometimes shockingly, dully immature – which tends to cool down the initial ardour somewhat… in general i would prefer a relationship to a man 3-7 yrs. older than me, because i could not overlook feeling intellectually superior or more mature to my partner for too long. maybe it’s because of these awkward moments when you suddenly think you must be sounding or feeling like his mother… *g*
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,… are all states associated with strong sweating. feverish illnesses, some of them fatal, also make people sweat. so do some forms of death, when the body over-exerts itself finally in a panicked and futile attempt to prevent a collapse of the organism. maybe that is why sweat is instincively just as alerting and revolting as other ‘offensive’ smells, indicating extreme physical states and maybe contagious diseases.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,A stripper wears next to nothing prior to wearing nothing, and the entire purpose is to show as much of her naked body as possible before stripping. A fashion model wears next to nothing to show off the flimsy bits draped about her body. Nobody really cares about her anorexic frame, nor would anyone want to see her wearing nothing, because her elongated bones only serve to hang the flimsy bits on and parade them around the catwalk.
On a more general note: though there are women in the fashion business (fashion designers such as Jill Sander, Laura Biagiotti, Donna Karan, Vivian Wood, etc.), and their fashion is just as sexy if not more so than that of the male designers, fat old males still dominate just about every top level of society because we live in a patriarchal world, the fashion biz being no exception. (Footnote: Yves St.-Laurent may be a tattering old fogey, but he’s not fat, as far as I know; I quite like his style – I only wish I could afford it…)
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,I do have a question: I have not been to New Zealand but spent some time in Australia and have found the competition (not just at football games) between the two countries curious. It seems there is a lot of hidden or maybe unacknowledged hostility behind the jokes and comments. I thought at first it was only an Australian thing, but later found New Zealand friends to have the same attitude toward Australians. Nobody could give a decent explanation, though. Is there some historical reason? Maybe a political conflict? Competition in economic terms?
As to New Zealand’s image hereabouts in Germany: spectacular landscapes, cultural diversity (especially with the maoris about), lots of sheep, lovely climate, very much a place for nature tourists. You don’t hear much about the cities there, more about hiking.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,
