25 Things I Hate About Germany

And here's the reverse of my first "25 Things."

#1 Little nonregional beer. I may be spoiled by the Brickstore Pub and Taco Mac, but I expect my bars to provide a little more beer selection than just the local beer and two national varieties. Furthermore, despite German beer's stellar reputation abroad, it's pretty mediocre here, especially compared to Belgian or Czech imports.

#2 Ruler usage. German children and many adults are incapable of drawing a line without a ruler.

#3 Disdain for the USA. Bush might be gone, but the general belief that the USA has no culture—in direct disregard of the lack of interest in "high culture" by most Germans—is still widespread.
Oh, and if we're not culture-less, then we're a bunch of militaristic, Zionist, homophobic, fascho-capitalists. No exceptions. Not even for you, Oregon.

#4 My BA has no value. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the German higher educational system hates the liberal arts.

#5 No preservatives in food. It might seem wonderful to have lots of chemical-free food, until you realize that you have to go shopping almost every other day, lest everything get moldy.

#6 No black beans, and by extension, no burritos. Willy's, I miss you so! And no, döner kebab do not compensate.

#7 No (inexpensive) green vegetables in winter. Sure, maybe only eating seasonal vegetables is a good thing, but I got sick of weird winter vegetables like white radishes and red cabbage pretty quickly.
And when it is not asparagus season (May), there just isn't any asparagus. Or rather, there isn't any for under 10 euros a kilo.

#8 Dubbed television. TV originally in German is largely shit, so they tend to import everything from the USA and Britain, but because there are just enough German-speakers to make it worthwhile, I have to watch "Little Britain" and "Stargate" in German. The Swedes don't have to put up with this!

#9 Techno. The hip-hop scene isn't worth mentioning, and the result is that all discos play house music. And not necessarily good house music.

#10 Metal. Angry long-haired men screaming dominate the alternative scene here. And Goths. And the three indie kids in North-Rhine Westfalia moved to Berlin in 1991.

#11 Schlager. German pop music for people over 40, or the majority of German musical production since the end of WWII. Imagine "Feliz Navidad" for all seasons played a very great deal during all major outdoor events.

#12 No diversity. While it may be true that there are a lot of "foreigners" (Germans never say "immigrants") here, they have very little influence on mainstream culture, except that Germans now eat Italian, Chinese and Turkish food. The absence of integrated nonwhite non-Christians* makes even the most liberal German intolerant when it comes to thinking about other ways of living and doing, and a lot blind when it comes to criticizing their own.**
*The really low percentage of white collar nonwhite Germans also drives me crazy. It's just a visual thing.
**Germans DO criticize themselves a lot for things they did during the Holocaust, but only those. That means hating on Muslims is okay, but not hating on Jews. That means that denying the Holocaust is a crime, but that there is no government-approved way for Muslims to become government teachers of religion.

#13 Weird sense of humor. A lot of Germans would have trouble with someecards.com. They prefer slapstick to irony or "randomness" (a bad term for something strange and unexpected being considered funny rather than weird, donkey); in other words, "MadTV" rather than "Family Guy."

#14 Little original contemporary culture. Germans would not have come up with someecards, or Facebook, or Twitter, or YouTube, or "Little Britain" or "Six Feet Under" or "The Office." Germans are good at scientific solutions and museum exhibitions.

#15 My accent marks me as an American, and that means that every person who meets me will ask me a series of questions including: "Why are you in Germany?"; "How long have you been here?"; "How do you like it?" (which means, "how is Germany better?"); "What do you do here?"; and either some smart remark about Bush, an anecdote about when they were in the USA as an exchange student, or a polite comment about some aspect of American culture. Basically, I'll be stuck in "just moved here" mode until I get a non-English job or eliminate my accent.

#16 No shopping on Sundays. If you don't buy milk or bread or aspirin, you're screwed until Monday.

#17 No OTC drugs. Vitamins, herbal teas and band-aids are available at drug stores (never groceries), but if you want aspirin or Alka-Seltzer or allergy meds, you've got to tell your tale of pain and woe to a pharmacist. And there are no bottles of 300 aspirin.

#18 Discount groceries. Nothing is out of its original containers, nothing is arranged nicely, there is no muzak, and about three people work in the store, so in addition to having to wait in a line of 20 people to pay, you feel guilty about the exploitation of labour. The alternative is too expensive for someone on my wages.

#19 No central air. No central air means no air filtration, and that means that dust accumulates within a matter of days. I vacuum as soon as the dust bunnies would be a threat to the health of children, and that's once every ten days.

#20 No sandwich culture. Despite the similarity between a "belegtes Brötchen" (a white dinner roll plus) and sandwiches, the Germans have failed to develop a gourmet sense for their snack-like bread choices. Bread (though quality) rarely ends up with dry-roasted tomatoes or grilled eggplant or sliced honey-baked chicken or arugula. German bread culture is still somewhere around American housewife with high-waisted pants, circa 1983.

#21 Washing machines built like jet engines. They take at least an hour and a half to finish a load, making washing anything less than one's collected whites or colors not worth the time or water.

#22 No powerful chemicals. I don't know if the contents of American detergent are illegal in the European Union, but German detergent does not take out stains.

#23 The German personality. They like order, they like organization, they like control, they like paperwork. They might complain about bureaucracy in their country, but they secretly love obsessing over tiny details and talking about obscure points of geography or history. And they suck at small talk.

#24 Bad journalism. The "quality" newspapers are written like philosophy papers, and the few decent newsmagazines rarely achieve the same in-depth, authoritative perspectives of the New York Times or The Economist.

#25 Winter. Atlanta spoiled me. Gray weather from October to April makes me sad, sad, sad.