Silvester/new year's eve

it's going to be a working one, this Silvester as the night between december 31 and january 1 of each year is referred to in german language. i don't mind too much. already as a teenager i found out that in north america new year's eve is quite disappointing.

just like the name for the occasion in english is rather down to earth compared to the more glamorous sounding german word that sparkles as you speak, so is the actual celebration of the calendar's turn.

as an almost teenager i found myself with family in toronto, canada. as adults were invited to a hotel dinner, we kids were left in the hotel room. for consolidation a big box of lego -- a huge underwater station -- was to keep us company. no fireworks, no sparklers, not even a Knallfrosch [fire cracker] or as harmless as it gets Tischfeuerwerk -- a cardboard cylinder popping open upon ignition spilling out plastic symbols of luck for the new year such as chimney sweeps, green four-leaved clover, a mock penny (or rather cent), fly agaric as so-called lucky mushroom and the like. ever since i didn't expect much of north american new years. the experience was confirmed when the highlight of december 31 evening in nebraska was an ignited line of gasoline along the only village main street. nothing compared to the playfully blasting trash cans, mail boxes, and friendly fire cracker fights while roaming the city streets in bands of excited youths. the swooshing and hissing of the rockets that people can buy so that each party has their own fireworks in front of the house. streets eventually are covered with the colorful confetti of left-over red paper and other wrapping of the firing material, bottles used as rocket launchers roll around.
everyone is enjoying themselves.

okay, to stop nostalgia, there is some danger involved with all these fanatic private rocket parties. once it happend that a friend caught a fire cracker in his hair, jackets get burned, finger tips singed. nevertheless, there have been more positive Silvester evenings than negative ones. it certainly was never boring.

if you have nothing to do you can also fall back on Blei giessen, a very fun and peaceful activity belonging to Silvester as countless paper streamers blown into each other's face. Blei giessen means pouring tiny amounts of heated, molten lead into cold water to interpret the result. just like pumpkin carving kits are a standard supermarket item at the right time in the united states, kits with a portioned bids of lead, a spoon to heat the same over the flame of a candle, and a booklet to oracle about the meaning of the re-solidified metal show up at the seasonal sections of german stores. everyone wants to know what the next year brings, right?!

whichever way you celebrate, quiet, rambunctious, with Sekt oder Selters [champaign or soda] have a
guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr -- a nice slide into 2010!

ps: just checked with one of my main sources on small town german life. she said there's quiet some noise and neighbors gathered on the street to watch the lights in the sky. i can imagine the solemn excitement despite sitting in a somber office.

where are you from? -- being foreign

"For the first time in history, across much of the world, to be foreign is a perfectly normal condition. It is no more distinctive than being tall, fat or left-handed. Nobody raises an eyebrow at a Frenchman in Berlin, a Zimbabwean in London, a Russian in Paris, a Chinese in New York."

-- Being Foreign. The Economist, Dec. 17, 2009

or a german in washington d.c.

after the inevitable question "where are you from?" my inevitable answer "germany" outs me as a foreigner.

in ninety-nine percent of these budding dialogues, the reaction has been positive. especially u.s. americans like to place themselves somewhere on a scale oscillating between full-germanness to remote german flavor as they recall a german ancestor, living distant relative, friend, work colleague or remote acquaintance, someone who was born, visited or served in germany.

"It has long been true in America that nobody can be foreign because everybody is foreign."

somewhat true. but the experience of just recently having left your home country comes with a different sense of being foreign.

the smart essay in the december 17, 2009 print edition of the economist summarizes many of the themes that accompany long-term living abroad. it offers a short history, philosophies, and traditions of foreignness. it acknowledges asylum seekers and economic refugees as well as adventurous students, artists, and other immigrants by choice.

falling in the latter category more than any other i felt at home reading the article that so concisely and knowingly penned out the contradictory equation of joy and burden of being foreign.

for example that it's easier for europeans to live within each other's countries or the united states. how about living in japan or any african country? the perceived similarities between western countries, however, sometimes wash away the experience of difference that cannot be overcome whenever you live outside your home country for better or worse.

"[...]foreignness is intrinsically stimulating. Like a good game of bridge, the condition of being foreign engages the mind constantly without ever tiring it. John Lechte, an Australian professor of social theory, characterises foreignness as “an escape from the boredom and banality of the everyday”. The mundane becomes “super-real”, and experienced “with an intensity evocative of the events of a true biography”."

just going to the supermarket is an adventure in the beginning (prices without included taxes make for a big surprise at the cash register, unknown brands and missing products). cooking can result in cultural fights when pancakes are not pancakes but Eierkuchen and eaten any time other than for breakfast. the visit to a foreign dentist is a scary novelty and costly with cash needed before the pain even subsides. hunting for housing is an unbeaten path with sticky strings attached by a seemingly all powerful landlord ruling over lessees without law. routine activities such as clothes shopping, gift giving, and party invitations become a social gamble.

"Every foreigner of inquiring mind becomes a part-time anthropologist, wondering and smiling at the new social rituals of his adoptive country."

i am still searching to understand the subtle rules of how u.s. americans make friends, often boldly and sudden. i observed many times how two of them talk to each other at a bus stop or party assuming from the conversation that they have known each before just to find out that only met the minute before. in conjunction with this conundrum comes the riddle of the how privacy is handled. questions concerning boyfriends, family relations, and the sum of the latest paycheck or how much your cute purse costs are willingly answered within in seconds of a new acquaintance. depending on my mood i like playing the game of u.s. american interaction or not.

i feel like a foreigner every single day. although it does not strike as strong of a chord with me as other underlying principles, the article also describes the dark side to having gone away.

"Beneath it all there is the guilt of betrayal. To choose foreignness is an act of disloyalty to one’s native country."

reproaches of not being home or taking care of things there can flare up in subtle ways from the home front. on the foreign shores, criticism resulting from constant comparison between your two countries, can result in reproaches of another kind.

"A foreigner is, after all, someone who didn’t like his own country enough to stay there. Even so, the complaining foreigner poses something of a logical contradiction. He complains about the country in which he finds himself, yet he is there by choice. Why doesn’t he go home?"

following the way the cookie crumbles, a country might choose the person and not the other way around. whichever way:

"The funny thing is, with the passage of time, something does happen to long-term foreigners which makes them more like real exiles, and they do not like it at all. The homeland which they left behind changes. The culture, the politics and their old friends all change, die, forget them. They come to feel that they are foreigners even when visiting “home”."

this feeling comes quicker than the article makes it out. as much as i am the foreigner in the united states, some people in germany jokingly have called me "the american" when i visited back home. how much do i know about current milk prices, the latest catchy song on the radio, the current fashion on the street or the talk of the german towns i lived in? not so much at the moment despite almost obsessive watching of Tagesschau, Tagesthemen, heute journal and the absorption of any printed german online and offline.

"But we cannot expect to have it all ways. Life is full of choices, and to choose one thing is to forgo another."

going back is always an option, living abroad is something not always offered. that doesn´t mean though that i´m not german anymore.

Stollen -- discovering a german christmas cake tradition abroad

we never have been much of a Stollen family -- "Stollen" meaning the bread-like cake filled with almonds, dried fruit, raisins, and currents inside and decorated with molten butter and powdered sugar on the outside. Stollen is one of the christmas specialities in germany and cities like dresden or nürnberg pride themselves with original recipes for the dense rich loaves.

we never have been much of a Stollen family because my grandmother would prepare home-made Apfelstrudel. for my u.s. americans, think of a big nut roll with an extended filling of butter-roasted breadcrumbs, almonds, raisins, and lots of grated apples that have to be of different varieties.

nevertheless, as german tradition demands, Stollen has to be on the table for gatherings in the Adventszeit, the Advent season anticipating christmas eve. commercially produced ones appeared on ours.

every year since i have moved to ohio, a Stollen was sent over the ocean to be shared with my u.s. americans. inspired by another two baby Stollen that arrived at the right time this year, we decided to bake one ourselves. i was excited as always when doing something german or something new. now i could combine the two following a new tradition of producing german food favorites that i had never made from scratch in germany before but couldn´t find ready-made in the united states (think Quark, Pudding, or Klöße).

missing a family tradition to fall back onto we downloaded a recipe for a Dresdner Stollen. a christmas elf helped us with the dough. that`s where the story begins of how to make a fancy brick -- the way the supposed Stollen unfortunately turned out.

















the dough is quite heavy with lots of butter but no eggs. you might find the absence of eggs curious but the more interesting fact is the presence of butter. originally the loaf was meant to be a food for fasting with only flour, yeast, and water as base ingredients.only with the Butterbrief of 1491, a papal permit allowing butter in the dough, the Stollen morphed into the richness we know it now according to the official website of the Dresdner Stollen (available in english and german by the way).














as written above we joined the christmas elf when it came to the fun part of kneading the remaining ingredients into the dough such as currants [Korinthen].














strong hands folded them in followed by Orangeat [candied orange peel], Zitronat [candied lemon peel], and a mix of dried candied fruit pieces. i imported the little boxes a while ago as they are not common in the united states. we trusted that all the sugar in them would preserve them a bit longer than the expiration date indicated.















almonds are another part of the filling for the loaf, that according to legend is symbolic for baby jesus wrapped in a white blanket.














what a beauty! the dough tastes delicious. i and my favorite american probably ate a cup of dough speckled with nuts and raisins each before it went into the oven. we were thinking of starting another ice cream edition. instead of the prevalent variety in the united states of cookie dough ice cream, we will have Stollen dough next.











we tried to shape it into a loaf folding over one side. despite adding aluminum foil on top after a while and repeated knife stabs to test is dough-iness inside, we got it all wrong.














after 80 minutes in roughly 180 degree celsius [350 degree fahrenheit], a visually acceptable bread with a one centimeter rock hard bottom and dry yellow innards encased by a solid browned crust came out.














lucky enough the christmas elf had prepared a second batch of dough following another recipe out of a u.s. cook book. may i introduce you to the perfect home-made Stollen with a moist soft sweet inside and crisp powder-sugared skin as seen above?. mmh, want a slice of German christmas?

honestly, it would be great if a couple of my dear german readers could dig around in their family cook books to supply me a secret recipe for a successful Stollen. anyone?

sandwich culture & beyond -- eating out in washington dc

au bon pain, cosí, potbelly's, caribou coffee, and the obligatory corner starbucks. the sandwich culture in washington dc goes beyond the standard subway. it comes, however, with a few weird rules.

au bon pain is my favorite for name and style sake. the yellow and white simple style of letters, the french nasal ring to words, the variety of sweet and savory snacks. it is cumbersome though to order. just a simple sandwich requires marking the right spot on a long sheet. despite orally telling the sandwich-preparer-person that i just would like to order the menu-listed portobello and goat cheese sandwich he ignores my voice and demands the sheet with his hand.

after putting the fungus and the protein on a toasted sun-dried tomato bread he not only hands me the food but the sheet as well. likewise the cashier ignores my person, looks at the paper, takes my paper bills. has been the best place so far to buy a somewhat non-traditional sandwich in a way that requires minimal human interaction.

au contraire at cosí. another popular sandwich shop that like most others of its market range offers soups, salads, beverages, and sweets in addition to bread-y items. but you better know what you want the minute you step through its glass doors. depending on if you are a salad or a sandwich type you need to queue up correctly. a lady with a friendly smile is eager to inquire after your wishes. lucky me, someone wanted to talk about my gustatory desires. this time trickier with my choice of the cosí-invented menu option called duo. it lets you choose between two of the three: half a sandwich, regular-sized soup, half a salad. either way you are in the wrong line. miss friendly smile shooed me into the nearest row of people, probably just to get rid of me.

as goes for the omnipresent starbucks with its minimal selection of edibles and flood of varied brown, flavored water, i have learnt to abstain entirely. in a three step trial i found out that its chai tea -- i am not a coffee person -- induced rashes on my right arm and queasiness in my tummy. i got desensitized with every attempt but thought i stick to peppermint tea from home.

this is by all means just the tiniest selection of food available in dc.

i also ate bean-stuffed tortilla-like pupusas with raw slaw at el rinconcito, a neat little el salvadorean restaurant on park road at columbia heights. i tried the talked-about chain-produced yet tasty goat cheese pizza from california pizza kitchen on wisconsin avenue (where no one could provide calorie information for any of the menu items). i slurped long-boiled soupy lentils, spinach, and chickpeas from the indian take-away called naan & beyond at the corner of 17th and L street.

you get the picture. foodies and fast foodies alike will find a plate full in dc. including the fun to discover the interesting ways favorites and novelties are served.

help yourself!

november 9th, at the end of the day

after we have all seen the images of people hammering on the concrete of a graffiti-adorned wall conquered by masses, there is one piece of written comment within u.s. media that i think best ties up the meaning of the day. it's a comment in the new yorker simply titled "november 9th" by georg packer.

he seemed to have been the only english writer to remember the other november 9ths in german history, a day that because of its other less joyous associations was never turned into an official german holiday:

"This is because November 9th is also the date on which Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated [abdankte], in 1918, two days before Germany’s defeat in the First World War. On November 9, 1923, Hitler attempted to overthrow the Weimar Republic, in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. In 1938, November 9th was the Night of Broken Glass [Reichskristallnacht oder Pogromnacht], when Nazi gangs attacked Jews and their property across Germany and Austria, foreshadowing the genocide to come."

german media such as the leading newscast tagesschau included coverage of the ceremonies in several cities including berlin and munich, which commemorated the jewish victims.

packer also seemed to be the only english writer to mention the name of günther schabowski, or "schmetterling schabowski", [butterfly] as the berlin monthly cultural publication "das magazin" once dubbed him. schabowski was the german democratic republic official who on the evening of november 9th 1989 in a press conferences that was broadcast on television had to answer questions about new, more liberal travel regulations set out by the east german sed party [sozialistische einheitspartei deutschlands or socialist unity party of germany]. asked when they these travel rules would go into effect he as packer writes "shrugged, scratched his head, checked some papers, and said: 'Immediately'." this set off the flood of people who we have seen on the indefinitely re-run archival video these days.

packer also ties together the many intricate forces that created the fall of the wall. he credits the brave people behind the curtain, u.s. support of the dissidents, the disastrous communist economy [planwirtschaft or planned economy], the weakening sed party elites, the role of then soviet union president mikhail gorbachev (click here for an interview by al jazeera english's david frost with gorbachev)* alike.

"For Europe's Communist regimes to disappear so suddenly and bloodlessly (Romania was a different story), everything had to fall in place, above and below, within and without. Such circumstances are improbably rare."

whereas i found more credit being given to seminal politicians to path the way to the tumbling of the wall in u.s. based media, the power of the people is something that has been more emphasized in german media. especially in leipzig, where the famous monday demonstrations [Montagsdemonstration] happened, people are proud of this day, i imagine.

dr. peter pfeiffer, a professor for german at georgetown university in washington, dc, who i happened to talk to, reminded me that there were no children during these monday marches as people were aware of the snipers on the roofs around the augustusplatz.

but packer also looks beyond berlin to explain its uniqueness. iraq, for instance, he writes, was according to some advisers of president bush "like Eastern Europe with Arabs". it so far has turned out otherwise. the continuing struggle of people in zimbabwe, burma/myanmar, and china, proves that the friedliche revolution, which is called velvet revolution in english, and its circumstances are not easily repeated. a south korean class mate at ohio university told me before how touched koreans were to see the wall fall in the hope it would foreshadow a reunion in his country. it hasn't happend yet. packer interestingly, sees the biggest parallel case in the recent uprising in iran. a brutal summer for iranian who protested the outcome of the election and president ahmadinejad has damped the hopes for victory of the demonstrators. but suspense remains in the air. the revolution must come from within, packer writes.

like happened in east germany helped by many people and a butterfly.

what exceptional media coverage have you seen? what was the best, favorite, worst, ugliest, or most interesting story in the flood of anecdotes and facts? go ahead and post your recommendations in the comment section.

read the whole comment titled "november 9th" by georg packer in the new yorker

here's a more personal take on the day, with anecdotal memories old and new



* discloser: i am interning with al jazeera english at the moment.

november 9th, the personal take with anecdotal memories old and new

the basic fact in the beginning: i was seven years old when the wall came down. my family did not ride to berlin in a frenzy. my primary memories are mainly childhood images.

among the strongest of them connected to the fall of the wall is that with the concrete also saturday fell away as a school day. i attended the beginning of second grade, after having suffered on saturdays during the first whole grade. now i could watch one of my favorite television shows that ran in the morning called "achim und kunibert" [achim and kunibert, a show with a big clown and a miniature somewhat crumpy clown] and another one i remember quite clearly called "mach mit, mach's nach, mach's besser" [losely translates into "participate, copy, exceed", a show, in which two teams of kids competed in a race involving an obstacle course in a gym].

then there are handed down memories from my parents, about herr zimmermann, the man in our apartment building who was said to be working for the stasi, short for staatssicherheit, the secret police to "secure the state". herr zimmerman was busy with observing neighbors. as a child i had a notion that he is suspicious and to be avoided. in hindsight the pulling down of the dark brown roller blind made sense; watching western channels on television was forbidden, neighbors such as herr zimmermann might tell on the dissident viewers.

street names changed, school names changed. gone was the wilhelm-pieck-straße, where we lived. new heroes more fitting with the new ideology moved in such as dietrich bonhoeffer. once the pride of new tenants, the whole apartment building from the late 1970s has vanished. gone was also otto-grotewohl, the street where my kindergarten was located, i don´t even remember the new name. gone was also the big metal bust of lenin at the nearest high school.

favorite products vanished as well. some for good, some for a while until they had a come back in a smaller production line. my favorite example: knusperflocken [crunchy flakes, a chocolate candy]. they are pretty much known and enjoyed by people in the west and east. but i think only people in the east, i think, really appreciate their survival.

especially people in small town of zeitz, where the knusperflocken are produced by the zetti company. it is one of the few companies that survived die wende [wend, the whole process of political and economic change in east germany] in zeitz, which i should disclose is my home town. the reappearance of products most importantly secured some jobs in a region notorious for high unemployment ever since the wall came down. knusperflocken is where my grandmother worked. knusperflocken are probably the product i care most about to have shipped to me in the united states whenever there is a chance.

so it's childhood memories, parents`talk, and sweets. dr. peter pfeiffer, a professor of german at the georgetown university in washington, dc, said that while most people under 30 years of age do still carry memories of east germany they were not traumatized by them as my parents' generation.

only in the early nineties, dr. pfeiffer, said he noticed differences between exchange students coming from east or west germany in terms of clothing and language. he said one example was the expression fakt ist, [fact is] which east germans used in contrast to west german students and has become pretty common. just as typical ossi words [the sometimes derogative term of people in east germany, ost meaning east] such as "broiler" and "roster" are no secret language any more. at least since german book author else buschheuer wrote her book "ruf!mich!an!" [call!me!] in which the neurotic female main character refers to her hated east german house mates maik and mandy as "broiler"-neighbors.

another professor at ohio university, dr. joseph bernt in the journalism department, said to me once that he remembered the earlier exchange students from leipzig (which is located in east germany). they, he said, about a decade ago came with a sense of despair and hopelessness, a sort of no future confusion. a contrast to the students coming from leipzig these days, he says, they are so enthusiastic with the world open before them.

no matter where you were, in the united states, west germany, east germany or timbuktu --
what are your memories, anecdotes, and associations of the times when, before, and after the wall fell? go ahead and post them in the comment section!

here's a more analytical approach to the day, my favorite article of the day and the reasons why

pumpkin carving

halloween without jack 'o lanterns, is like pancakes without apple sauce.

so creating these lanterns by carving pumpkins is a widely enjoyed activity by young and old u.s. americans. this year i got invited to a party dedicated to producing these neat halloween essentials.

before you slashing about with knives and baby saws, the pumpkin needs to be freed of its whitish, somewhat foamy, seed-laced innards. after a quick circular cut to lift off the top part, we used greenish mini plastic shovels, that came with a pumpkin carving kit, to scoop out the useless inside. (some people clean and roast the seeds, though).














only then a pattern is applied to the outer surface.














this is done either by a blueprint that has tiny holes along black lines to punctuated the pattern on the pumpkin or













by simply drawing on the orange skin with a marker. but if you are like me, you just dig out your swiss army knife and start attacking.


















the result in my case turned out to be quite...crude, to put it politely. i don´t know why people needed an explanation to my simple image. everyone can sure recognize this skillfully carved hole as a shooting star!?!


















luckily i was not alone in my misery. another artist had some trouble to have her shape identified as the african continent, mind you, of course with madagascar situated in the south east.

















after the recognition rate for my little wishing star was quite low, i tried the more common jack o lantern face approach. it´s not my fault it turned out lob-sided. my pumpkin baby was born with this disability to begin with.

















other pumpkin carvers did a much better job in cleaning and smoothing the gaps into a refined image.















even the more unusual kitty-cat pattern came out about right.


















as well as this rabbit-toothed companion, the biggest pumpkin of my carving season.


















but the prizes for the most intricate patterns go to an anonymous artist who carved the calligraphic arabic word for al jazeera (meaning peninsula by the way) as well as















a young carver in the cleveland region for the neatest design and scariest effect!