New Year’s Eve – the German Way

In Germany the last day of the year is called Silvester. And that’s not the only thing that makes a German New Year’s Eve special. Below I compiled a few links to point out and explain some the predominant peculiarities. But first, please enjoy what generations of Germans have been watching on this day since 1963: Der 90. Geburtstag or Dinner For One – a TV special that has become a national cult. Produced in Germany with British comedians.
Never mind the German introduction, the sketch switches to English after 2:30 minutes.

Sherry with the soup, white wine with the fish, Champagne with the bird …
The same precedure as last year, Miss Sophie? — The same precedure as every year, James:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Surprisingly, while practically everybody in Germany knows this skit and considers it to be indespensable for a New Year’s Eve, hardly anyone in Britain or the US is familiar with it. Outside of Germany, Dinner for One is also watched in Austria & Switzerland, parts of Scandinavia, South Africa and Australia – a true crosscultural phenomenon.

Why Silvester, you ask?

No your friend isn’t planning to ring in 2009 with someone named Sylvester instead of you. Silvester is the German name for New Year’s Eve – owing to the fourth century Pope Sylvester I. Eventually made a saint by the Catholic Church, his feast day is observed on December 31. St. Sylvester’s day became associated with New Year’s Eve with the reform of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, when the last day of the year was fixed at December 31. But despite the holiday’s Christian name, many German New Year’s traditions can be traced back to the pagan Rauhnächte practices of heathen Germanic tribes, which took place at the end of December and beginning of January.

What else is typical for Silvester?
How about Bleigießen – or melting lead?

Bleigießen (pron. BLYE-ghee-sen)
“Lead pouring” (das Bleigießen) is an old practice using molten lead like tea leaves. A small amount of lead is melted in a tablespoon (by holding a flame under the spoon) and then poured into a bowl or bucket of water. The resulting pattern is interpreted to predict the coming year. For instance, if the lead forms a ball (der Ball), that means luck will roll your way. The shape of an anchor (der Anker) means help in need. But a cross (das Kreuz) signifies death.

Also quintessential:

• the midnight fireworks
• on Silvester, good luck charms and New Year’s greetings are often exchanged. Acquaintances may give good luck charms to each other in the form of ladybugs, four-leaf clovers, horseshoes and pigs.
• the Neujahrskonzert (New Year’s Conert) of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra which is broadcast around the world (usually in more than 50 countries and to an audience of appr. one billion viewers).

In addition to wishing each other Ein Gutes/Frohes Neues Jahr (a good/happy new year), during the last days of December many Germans add the phrase Guten Rutsch! to their greetings. While many Germans now use it to wish someone a good “slide” into the new year, the word Rutsch more likely comes from the Yiddish word Rosch – which means beginning or head.

In this spirit allow me to thank you for reading Southeast Schnitzel throughout the year 2009. Let’s not look back but forward to a new decade.
Prost! to 2010!
Happy New Year & Frohes Neues Jahr to all of you.

Misusing Schnitzel for extravagance

When a Schnitzel is misused for stupid extravagance

The delicious breaded Schnitzel gave this blog its name. That’s why I consider it necessary to point out certain perversions of traditional cuisine. The golden “Kaiser Schnitzel” needs to be called out.

Prepared by the Schnitzelhuber restaurant in Düsseldorf, the golden Schnitzel comes not only coated in bread crumbs but also with truffels and gold.

Yes, you read that right. The breading of the veal sports 24-carat gold leaf. But the tasteless precious metal isn’t the most extravagant ingredient of this dish which is offered at a German self-service restaurant (sic!). It’s the truffles – usually sold for $2,000 to $3,500 per pound – that make for a luxurious lunch. Schnitzelhuber charges €150 ($214) for the “delicacy”.

Restaurant owner Thomas Huber said the imperial schnitzel comes with a traditional potato salad and a glass of champagne. He is not the first to have the golden idea, Huber told a German tabloid. In fact, his imperial schnitzel revives regal eating habits that stretch back at least 1,000 years. ”The Eastern Roman emperors used to order the best pieces of meat be topped with leaf gold.”

Rich people picked up the habit but it was finally prohibited in 1514 – until Huber resurrected it in 2006, when he first put in on his menu. Since then he has sold about 100 of the precious cutlets. However, Huber’s schnitzel went public only this week with a report in the local media. The chef said with the economic and financial problems still dominating the news he previously had not dared to publicize the decadent dish.

You can call be me by my first name

Forget the Umlaut – call be me by my first name

Living with a last name that features an Umlaut can be fun – or annoying, depending on the situation. Especially if you live in an English-speaking country like I do. Here in the U.S. people usually ask, “how do you spell that?” or “can you pronounce your last name again, please?”.

Sure I can. And I really don’t mind you butchering my name, either. I understand: Höferle is hard to say if you are unfamiliar with the German language. Changing my last name’s spelling to the English keyboard-friendly Hoeferle also hasn’t helped. It made for funny moments, though. Something sounding awefully close to “hopefully” or “hofferly” has been the usual outcome in recent years.

No matter how often I tell people to just forget about saying my last name and instead stick with Christian, they still try to get it right. Which is a really nice gesture, I think. To help you understand what these crazy dots over the vowels a, o, and u are about I compiled some background information here.

Find a scientific/linguistic definition of umlaut here.

This video should get you in the mood to try pronouncing these strange sounds:

And if all fails remember: My name is Christian.

Also, dear marketers and copywriters: Inserting umlauts into your American brand names, logos or slogans may help you create some awareness. But it will also let you look really ignorant of other languages and cultures.

When athletics trump business

Sometimes the Americans’ unconditional enthusiasm for team sports and school athletic programs can be unsettling for foreigners. Case in point was an experience I had today.

I was invited by Walker Valley High, one of the finest public schools in Bradley County, TN, to be a guest speaker for a session on international business. My friend Lisa who runs the German language program at the school asked me to speak on the differences between German and American etiquette and protocol in professional environments.

What was originally scheduled to take place today had been postponed to another date on very short notice. No problem, of course. Schedules change, people deal with it. The reason for the delay, however, is what will catch some newbies to the U.S. by surprise:

Due to the threat of rain on Friday the school’s football game was moved up one day (today). This also meant that the pep rally for this game was moved up – thereby killing the scheduled intercultural business session.

To make this perfectly clear: I have no problem with this change of plans. I would just like to point out that for most Germans the reason for the rescheduling will be hard to understand. How can a football game be more important than a school lesson? One with a guest speaker to boot? For German business people appointments are to be kept. Cancelling on short notice is usually seen badly.

What Germans often don’t know is how much Americans value team spirit and the relating education that leads to team players. It is fair to say that no public school in Germany has athletic teams like the schools in the USA, where these teams create an identity and a sense of belonging for the entire student body.

So don’t be surprised if you get puzzled looks from Germans next time your school sports event is cause for schedule changes.

UPDATE: Went to make my “guest appearance” at the school one day later. Was überpünktlich (right on time, one minute early – no, I’m not OCD) to be the role model Lisa was hoping for. Met a full classroom of students and Walker Valley’s principal who sacrificed a large part of their lunch break for our session. These kids were listening, asking questions and taking notes. Very nice. Thanks for having me, future leaders.

I never found out who won the ball game, though …

Improving the English language for Germans

Improving the English language for Germans

It is old news that the Germans’ use of the English language can be irritating at times. Nevertheless everybody understands them – regardless of how bad their accent or their grammar is (my dad is living proof). A lot of that is owed to the fact that America has always been an immigrant country where many newcomers didn’t speak proper English. American culture is forgiving of this. How about European culture? Just read this little story I found via Twitter. Thanks to Cindy King for posting this.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as re plasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Genealogists say Obama has German roots

Genealogy Experts claim U.S. President Barack Obama has roots in Germany

I don’t know how true this is, but today I stumbled upon a report that links Barack Obama to Besigheim, a small town near Stuttgart in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. 

The POTUS in Lederhosen? A revamped Chattanooga Oktoberfest with the CIC as the VIP tapping the keg?
Barack, no a Maß, bitte!  

 

Read the AP story here:

 

Researchers say Obama has German roots
By DAVID RISING and CHRISTOPH NOELTING

BESIGHEIM, Germany (AP) — Barack Obama in traditional German lederhosen? It may be hard to imagine, but researchers in the U.S. say they have located documents that prove the president has German roots dating to the 1700s.

According to parish records uncovered by experts at the genealogy Web site Ancestry.com, Obama’s 6th great-grandfather Johann Conrad Woelflin was born Jan. 29, 1729, in Besigheim, a small town north of Stuttgart on the Enz river where it feeds into the Neckar.

He sailed aboard a ship called “Patience” in 1750 to America, changing his last name to “Wolfley” upon arrival and eventually settling in Middletown, Pennsylvania, according to head genealogist Anastasia Tyler, who oversaw the research.

In Middletown, he married Anna Catherine Schockey in 1756 and had at least six children, including Ludwig Lewis Wolfley — Obama’s 5th great grandfather — who was born in 1766, Tyler said.

The investigation was started by the Web site, which determined in 2007 that Obama had Irish ancestry, after researchers decided a few weeks ago it would be fun to try and prove or disprove rumored German ancestry ahead of the president’s visit to Dresden on Friday, Tyler said.

“We’d proved the Irish, so we just wanted to see if there was any truth to the rumors of German heritage,” she told The AP in a telephone interview. “People supposed a few different lines that went to Germany, and the one that seemed the most plausible was this Wolfley line, so that’s the one we concentrated on.”

Tracing the ancestry of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, the investigative team linked Obama back to Wolfley relatively quickly. But it wasn’t until last Friday when a researcher was poring over microfilmed documents at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, that they got the breakthrough documenting Wolfley’s German ties, Tyler said.

Better than simple birth papers, the document — a so-called parish “Seelenregister” or “register of souls” — gave detailed information not only about Wolfley, but also his parents and grandparents.

“That was the absolute key piece to the puzzle,” Tyler said. “Not only did it tie Johann Conrad back to Germany … but it gave us his parents names and these great details.”

Among other things, the documents suggest Obama’s family involvement in politics began centuries ago — the parish Seelenregister indicates Johann Conrad Woelflin’s grandfather, Conrad Woelflin was mayor for 30 years of Orsingen or Oefingen, both towns south of Stuttgart. The old script makes it difficult to read the name of the town exactly, but the Family History Library says a baptism record for one of Conrad Woelflin’s sons lists Conrad as a “member of the court” in Oefingen, so that seems most likely.

The documents also show the current U.S. Commander in Chief has something of a military pedigree.

Johann Conrad’s father, Johann Martin Woelflin is listed as a military field surgeon, born in 1690. According to the Seelenregister he was involved in much of the tumult of early 18th century Europe power struggles, fighting in France, Sicily, and what is today Romania.

During the 1716-18 Austro-Turkish War he was involved in the famous siege of Temesvar, in which Habsburg Imperial armies led by Prince Eugene of Savoy took the last important Ottoman-Turk stronghold in Hungary, which is today the Romanian city of Timisoara. During the siege, the document notes that Woelflin was injured with an arrow shot from the fortress.

Married to Maria Margaretha Woelflin in 1722, the couple had nine children of whom Obama’s ancestor Johann Conrad was number four. The family appears to have moved around a lot; primarily in the Stuttgart area.

Besigheim deputy mayor Klaus Schrempf told APTN he was “very surprised” that Obama could have a connection to his city. But he tracked down a copy of other local church records himself, and located Woelflin’s name.

“If this turns out really to be the case, we will extend an invitation to Mr. Obama and if he would come and visit at some stage, it would be a great joy for the city and for the people,” he said.

The quaint city dates back to at least 1153 and today has 11,400 residents. Rivers surround the town on three sides, and two medieval towers and a late-Gothic church give it a picturesque silhouette.

At the time of Johann Conrad’s birth, it was part of the duchy of Wuerttemberg.

Bernhard Kober, who runs the Cafe zum Hirsch in the old city center, said he always thought Besigheim was “something very special.”

“I took it for granted that some great person came from Besigheim,” the 47-year-old told APTN. “That it is Barack? That is great for us.”

Several other presidents have German backgrounds — perhaps most famously Dwight D. Eisenhower, who as Supreme Allied Commander Europe during World War II directed the western effort to defeat Nazi Germany. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on Obama’s German link.

But Ancestry.com spokesman Mike Ward said the site decided to pursue Obama’s ancestry purely out of interest.

“We use these types of stories as opportunities to highlight how interesting family history can be — that everyone has an interesting story to tell,” he said.

How an American comic icon became philosophical in Germany

Why Donald Duck is the Jerry Lewis of Germany

This past weekend I stumbled upon what is probably one of the best examples on how German and American cultures touch. The Wall Street Journal had a story on the history of Disney comics in Germany which explained why the translated versions of the Mouse House comics are quite different from the originals. 
Much of this is due to the fact that publishing company Ehapa which started to import Disney comics in the early 1950s hired a translator with an academic background who took her job seriously. Dr. Erika Fuchs gave Carl Burk’s stories about Donald Duck, his nephews, his uncle and Ducksburg new meaning in German. 
Unlike the English originals, the translations included many hidden quotes and literary allusions. Fuchs once said, “You can’t be educated enough to translate comic books”. She sometimes even managed to insert political subtexts into the duck tales. Fuchs’ work spawned a tradition of “Donaldists” who saw deeper meaning in such trivial things as comics. Many of her creations entered the German language, such as the phrase “Dem Ingeniör ist nichts zu schwör” – “nothing is too hard for an engineer”, but with the vowels at the end of “Ingenieur” and “schwer” altered to make them rhyme in a funny way (remember: it was the 50s). 

Here are some excerpts of the WSJ article: 

Germany, the land of Goethe, Thomas Mann and Beethoven, has an unlikely pop culture hero: Donald Duck. Just as the French are obsessed with Jerry Lewis, the Germans see a richness and complexity to the Disney comic that isn’t always immediately evident to people in the cartoon duck’s homeland. Comics featuring Donald are available at most German newsstands and the national weekly “Micky Maus”—which features the titular mouse, Goofy and, most prominently, Donald Duck—sells an average of 250,000 copies each week, outselling even “Superman.” A lavish 8,000-page German Donald Duck collector’s edition has just come out, and despite the nearly $1,900 price tag, the publisher, Egmont Horizont, says the edition of 3,333 copies is almost completely sold out. 

The story goes on to explain how Erika Fuchs’ Donald brought the heavyweights of German literature to “Mickey Maus” readers: 

Dr. Fuchs both thickens and deepens Mr. Barks’s often sparse dialogues, and the hilariousness of the result may explain why Donald Duck remains the most popular children’s comic in Germany to this day. Dr. Fuchs’s Donald was no ordinary comic creation. He was a bird of arts and letters, and many Germans credit him with having initiated them into the language of the literary classics. The German comics are peppered with fancy quotations. In one story Donald’s nephews steal famous lines from Friedrich Schiller’s play “William Tell”; Donald garbles a classic Schiller poem, “The Bell,” in another. Other lines are straight out of Goethe, Hölderlin and even Wagner (whose words are put in the mouth of a singing cat). The great books later sounded like old friends when readers encountered them at school. As the German Donald points out, “Reading is educational! We learn so much from the works of our poets and thinkers.” Dr. Fuchs raised the diction level of Donald and his wealthy Uncle Scrooge (alias Dagobert Duck), who in German tend to speak in lofty tones using complex grammatical structures with a faintly archaic air, while Huey, Louie and Dewey (now called Tick, Trick and Track), sound slangier and much more youthful. But even the “adult” ducks end up sounding more colorful than they do in English. Fuchs applied alliteration liberally, as, for example, in Donald’s bored lament on the beach in “Lifeguard Daze.” In the English comic, he says: “I’d do anything to break this monotony!” The über-gloomy German version: “How dull, dismal and deathly sad! I’d do anything to make something happen.”