Study Abroad Trip

After being fortunate enough to participate in an exchange program in high school and going to Germany for a few weeks, I knew I always wanted to go back if the opportunity was presented. I was lucky enough to get the chance in the spring of 2024 for a German study abroad trip over spring break. I had taken two semesters of German for my major and the topic of the class itself was similar to what I had just done in the Lincoln Legacy class I took. After much contemplation, I decided now may be the best opportunity for me to travel internationally again and the academic connection was too good to ignore. The trip ended up being very different from my past trip to Germany and that led to me reciprocally noticing a lot of different things.

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Having taken two semesters of German, German 101 and German 102, I can confidently say my German is still awful. To make matters worse, both my German classes were taken over a year before the trip, so the content from the class was not fresh. That being said, there were some general takeaways I knew would be important. The first is that German as a language is a more formal language than English, so you have to be aware when you are addressing people with authority, you are not unintentionally insulting them. Based off my interactions in Germany the presence of formality could be seen in everyday interactions. Beyond language, everyone was very spatially aware and polite, especially on public transportation. Additionally, when using the past tense, it is important to put the verb at the end of the sentence and countless other rules depending on the case. Culturally we also learned valuable information in the class. Germany is in general a more punctual society compared to America and more open to discussing politics than typical in America.

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I never ended up discussing American politics on the trip because it never seemed to come up naturally in conversation. I did, however, have a lot of interesting conversations about other things. The first was when I was at a restaurant in Vienna with some of the group on one of the first nights. Our waitress approached us and told us she had a friend who was living in America as waiter and had mentioned the difference in income; in Germany and Vienna waiters and waitresses derive their income from a regular hourly wage, in America the income is heavily reliant on tips. She then proceeded to ask us which system we thought was better. I know many people who have worked as servers in America and not a single one was particularly fond of the way they were paid, so it was an easy answer for me, and one that likewise resonated with the entire group. I think the U.S. uses an income based on tips for waiters because it is beneficial for small town restaurants who otherwise may have difficulty staying open. For that reason, I also do not think it is likely to change.

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While I did compare a lot of elements of German culture to American culture, I based the comparisons off individual qualities not trying to determine if one country measured up to the other. That being said, I do think I inadvertently took ethnocentric approaches in some instances. I remember complaining about how the water was carbonated on my last trip and likewise at the start of this trip, but then I figured if I had lived in Germany my whole life carbonated water would be normal for me and still water would be out of place. There was one student on the trip who did not know German and spoke English instead. There was a bit of secondhand embarrassment because the student became progressively less patient with people who could not speak English. Presumably, this was because the student had an expectation that people in Germany should know English instead of that student conversely acknowledging they were the one who was insufficient in knowledge Language is how a culture expresses themselves and can be used as an identity, so it was definitely surprising to see someone expect that everyone in another country spoke and understood English.

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In addition to taking German classes, I also had a prior course that I felt had a very similar curriculum to the German study abroad course. In the Lincoln Legacy class, I studied the role that historical context had on Lincoln statues and how public perceptions on those statues changed over time. Similarly, the German class would study how historical meaning influenced urban planning and how meaning can change with memorials and buildings. Considering the overlap in content, my prior trip to Germany, and having taken two German courses, participating in the class and going on the trip seemed like a full circle moment.

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The two most interesting perspectives I heard were about German politics and approach to history. The class I took that went on the trip, GER150W, looked at some of the ways German memorials and architecture was used to convey meaning and the context behind the sites we were visiting. Additionally, we looked at how that meaning evolved over time. In general Germany has an approach to history that I think is much more unified in the overarching approach compared to America, which seems to struggle with questions about parts of its history to this day. The approach I witnessed in Germany was confrontational. Multiple tour guides expressed that they, and Germany, felt a responsibility to educate and generate discussion about difficult parts of their history.

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In America I think part of the difference is educating about the past is not always prioritized, rather politicized, and then consequently polarized. At the Nazi rally grounds the tour guide articulated very clearly that he did not feel any guilt or responsibility for the actions of the Nazis, just a responsibility to make sure that history was not forgotten. He also said this belief was held by the majority of society with only a small minority holding much more extreme views.  Comparatively, in America I think there are four different stances on remembering history. First there are those who do not want to have any reminder of history on controversial topics because they feel are in some way being blamed. Second there is a party who do not want reminders of history because they fear it commemorates perpetrators of injustice. And the other two parties would be the same as in Germany. I think if an approach is taken to emphasize objectivity by finding common ground in truth and not ignoring or hiding the past, American society can eventually come to a consensus similar to one currently seen in Germany.

The common belief in responsibility to educate translated to multiple different solutions depending on the issue at hand. For the question of what to do with Nazi architecture the answer was profanation, using the area in a way which it was not intended for to take away from the meaning. This was accompanied by the practice of not maintaining the architecture with periodical aesthetic renovations, this way it would not deteriorate as architects had anticipated. One thing I would not have appreciated as much if I had not taken the class was the use of architecture to answer questions. At the Jewish Museum in Berlin the building is designed to have open spaces and voids to be representative of the fact there was not an answer to every question regarding the Jewish history and people’s lives that were lost during the Holocaust. Before the largest void known as the Holocaust Tower, there was a small display that consisted of a book with stories of over 170,00 German Jews. Having the book’s exhibit right before the void suggested that the void contained those stories and others, representing that that many stories of the lives that were lost cannot be recorded. It was a powerful experience, and I am not sure I would have picked up on the correlation to the exhibit preceding the tower without the context from the course.

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The class also visited the German parliament building, the Reichstag or as it is more commonly referred to, the Bundestag which refers to the German parliament itself. They had a very transparent approach to democracy that was evident in the architecture of the building. The main room of the parliament building was covered by a glass dome that people are allowed to visit. This is meant to be representative of the fact that people ultimately have the power and is further reflected by the facts there are large platforms that extend over the debate chamber where citizens are allowed to watch legislative sessions in person. There are even sections of the main halls surrounding the debate chamber that have graffiti from Soviet soldiers who took the building at the end of the Second World War. It has been left as a reminder of their past, with negative remarks removed so the intent of preserving the graffiti cannot be misused or mistaken as a sympathetic choice. I find that a very admirable decision and one I cannot imagine would have the same outcome had scenario faced America. Americans are very proud would ostensibly trend on the side of advocating for the removal of anything that represented defeat or a negative characteristic of American history.

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I remember when I was younger my family was visiting a friend’s house and when we entered, I asked the hosts where we should put our shoes after we took them off. That was something my family has always done and had become a habit, so when I heard the response, to just leave them on, I was caught off guard and hovered by the entryway. My dad must have noticed my hesitation because he bent down and told me, “Their house their rules,” gave me a pat on the back and that was the end of that. I like to think of my approach to intercultural engagement in much of the same way. There are a lot of things in life that there may not necessarily be a singular way to do something “right” rather a multitude of ways that may ultimately just depend on how you were raised and what you become accustomed to. When you are traveling to another country or visiting somewhere with a different culture, I think the appropriate thing to do is practice what the culture you are visiting does to the best of your abilities out of respect.

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When I first went to Germany, I was willing to try new foods (more than my younger self could say), try to speak in German, and noticed a variety of differences in Germany from America. However, I did not ever seriously take into consideration the reason for any differences or contemplate if I preferred any of the differences, I had experienced. The reason for this this I am truthfully not completely sure. Perhaps a combination of being overwhelmed and operating deep-down under the assumption that what I was used to automatically had to constitute as my preference. Upon heading to Europe for a second time I think I was more critical in my assessment of differences and willing to identify practices from other cultures that I think could be beneficial to implement in my own. Since coming to college, the biggest development I have had in intercultural engagement is the frequency of exchanges. Coming from a small town, I was exposed to a fair number of different cultures proportionately, but nothing close to what I have experienced at college. I think it is important to always be open to new perspectives or ways of doing things when interacting with a person from another culture and refrain from making judgments until you have enough information to draw your own conclusions.