I very much enjoyed our wonderful vacation in Greece.
Some of the misery the Greeks are currently cursed with was actually quite noticeable. Also, some people living there apparently can no longer understand how Germany treats the debtor Greece who is beyond help. Regardless, I was feeling great – as always when I stay abroad, I had no problems getting friendly with the people.
😉
After all, I myself feel “Partly Greek”.
I learned this trick in 1964. In that year, I spent the entire month of August in France as an exchange student. It was a railroad-worker exchange. The program was one of the many extra social services the erstwhile Bundesbahn let its many employees benefit from.
Consequently, I was sent to a railroad-worker’s family named Pigneret in Lyon at the age of 14. The couple had two children: Pascal (14 like myself) and Chantal (perhaps 9).
My host family were smokers, which meant that even Pascal had his own pipe. And in order to not have to stand there and look stupid while they smoked, I got my own pipe. How I enjoyed smoking a pipe with everybody after meals. Once in a while, there was also the accompanying small glass of red wine.
That was my first stay abroad. Earlier vacations had been spent on farms in Schladming and Haus in the Enns Valley (both in Austria). Unfortunately, this was not something I considered abroad – regardless of the exciting alien currency (Schilling) and the even then better food.
However, in Lyon, there were quite a few people who did not like seeing me. After all, I was one of those hated “les boches“. The second world war had ended less than 20 years earlier. That was also true for the boys of my age group.
For instance, I often painfully felt the opposition against the Germans when we played soccer with French boys my own age. Since schools were closed in August, and since the French children in those days were a lot more liberated than today, they played in great numbers on the many backyards and courts.
The family Pigneret, too, had to accept that hosting a “boche” in the family is not a bonus for neighbourly relationships. Actually, I was the reason why friendships between families were destroyed.
In those days, I adapted a trick: I told the people that, basically, I was only half German and the other half French, and that I also felt French. This came easy to me, because the life-style, climate, language and much more in France had fascinated me so much that it was not even a lie any more.
At the age of 16, I, once again, was “truly” abroad. It was the only vacation at the seaside my parents ever took us to. We went to Terschelling, a beautiful tideland island that belongs to the Netherlands. And there, too, I was not very welcome as a German. It turned out that, again, my small lie was helpful. Regardless of the fact that I spoke no Dutch. But the confession alone was probably paying off. Consequently, I made this trick my strategy.
Whenever I travel to India today, I feel partly Indian – and I also try to behave accordingly. In China, I am half Chinese. My bike tours took me to many countries. I was always partly Italian, Corse, Croatian, Moroccan, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, or whatever.
And in Switzerland, I am partly Swiss, which is a role I very much enjoy. And in black Africa, I am partly negro.
🙂 I hope that I will then be a “wonderful negro“.
Even in the USA, I am partly American, even if this role is not one I always relish. To make up for it, I very much enjoy being partly Australian, Canadian or New Zealander. As you see, I, too, have my prejudices.…
Incidentally, it was a little difficult in Latvia, because every other Latvian is in fact Russian and the Russians do not like the Latvians – and vice versa. Which means that telling people you are partly Latvian can mean you just told this to the wrong person.
In actual fact, I am partly Prussian, because my father comes from a family that had lived in Berlin for many generations. But being partly Prussian is something I absolutely would not want. In fact, I would prefer being partly Austrian.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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