written March 11th, 2009 · 0 comments

A funny article about how unfriendly Berliners can be, and a video that shows this in action. Although the video is in German, one can get a feeling for this unfriendliness. Oh, and the German government wants to change this! Letting those good old Berliners know that it is ok to smile and let a little sunshine shine through that heart. (Do not take this too negatively! I have many wonderful Berlin friends here!)

When I was in the United States in December, visiting my family, I was really taken aback at how friendly everyone was when I was out shopping. You tend to forget the degree to which American people are friendly when you’ve lived in Berlin for almost 4 years. It was somehow really nice to be able to communicate with people in this casual way again. I had a similar experience when visiting London with a Berlin friend for a few days. We were wandering around the city discovering neighborhoods here and there and most often had a map out. Whenever we were deeply searching for something on our map, someone would come up to us and ask if we needed help finding our way! We were just SHOCKED every time this happened, and it happened over and over again! Some woman even walked with us a few blocks, telling us a story. I mean, for someone to come up to us at the sight of a map, let alone, actually giving us directions was unbelievable for us Berliners.

I have been repeatedly told by Germans, well actually Berliners, that they find this kind of friendliness fake. They believe Americans are basically completely fake, because they wave and smile and chit chat at the grocer’s.  Crazy, isn’t it? I mean, there is a BIG difference between being a fake and being friendly, sociable and likeable!

This is a great photo I got from Spiegel Online. I had a very similar experience. At first, the woman was really gruff, and in the end, she actually turned out to be pretty helpful, but no smile…not even the slightest. I can so totally relate.