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1.9 The walk of shame

If you live in Germany, there are three cardinal sins that you should never commit:

1 Talk about the war in a social context

2 Tell inappropriate jokes at work

3 Cross the traffic lights on red

The first and second points are covered in detail later in this book, but in this chapter, we shall devote our attention to the third option — the red man.

In a rule obsessed country like Germany, breaking the rules in private is embarrassing enough, but doing it in public is akin to committing murder in broad daylight in front of others. This even extends to crossing the road on red. In fact, I’m pretty sure that, in the German translation of the Bible, another sentence has been added to the list of ten commandments: “Thou shall not cross the red light (lest ye shall be banished to hell for eternity).” That’s how serious this is.

For example, if you’ve ever been to the center of Hamburg, you’ll probably have walked down the street that’s home to the shortest pedestrian crossing in Germany (possibly in the entire world). It’s located opposite the Alex Cafe on Jungfernstieg. It only takes three large steps to get from one side to the other, and yet, you’ll find that there are traffic lights on both sides of the crossing. If you’re in town on a Saturday, you will undoubtedly witness the most bizarre spectacle of all, one that epitomises the German rule-abiding culture as good as anything else: crowds of people waiting patiently for the green light on both sides of the crossing. It is hardly relevant if there are any cars passing or not — those are the rules, so you must follow them. If you dare to step off the ‘kerb’ and defy centuries of rulemaking, you will immediately feel a sharp burning sensation on the back of your head. This is the accumulated effect of hundreds of eyes boring into you; a Molotov cocktail consisting of disbelief, embarrassment (on your behalf) and sheer shock, which ultimately turns into despising your very existence.

The Germans have a term for this; it’s called ‘Fremdschämen’ — being embarrassed for somebody else. And one sure way of experiencing this is to jaywalk. If you want to elevate your status to ‘enemy of the state’, then you could try crossing on red while there are kids present. Just make sure you’re prepared for the onslaught of abuse shouted in your direction, along the lines of “ES IST ROT!!!” (It’s red!), or the more lecturelike alternative: “What kind of example do you think you are setting to the children, you antisocial so and so?”

For a long time — I must confess — I continued to cross on red purely out of conviction. My instinct told me, if there are no cars, then there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to cross. But that was a long time ago. Nowadays, far from being a reformed character, I find myself jaywalking with a lot more purpose, a certain feeling of defiance — to separate myself from the masses, to wave my proverbial British flag, and to stick my middle finger in their German faces, in a “F*ck you, I’m British!’’ kind of way. I didn’t say I was proud of myself. More recently, I’ve gradually come to understand that even the Germans themselves have certain issues with the ‘red man’. This is particularly true of the younger generation — those who have travelled abroad and seen the reality of the ‘red light rule’ elsewhere. Or — to put it bluntly — the complete disregard for it. Every now and then, you see a couple of Germans sneak across the pedestrian crossing on red. However, they always leave a palpable trail of guilt and shame behind them, like a red flag. There is a meme about this:

Two men stand next to each other at a pedestrian crossing. It’s red, there are no cars, and its midnight. A speech bubble appears above their heads. The text is identical and it reads: “If only the other guy wasn’t here right now.”

Whichever way you twist it — there is no easy way to go about it. You either give in, or you don’t. Since becoming a teacher, I’ve cut down considerably on jaywalking. After all, I’m a civil servant now and thus I should be the embodiment of a model citizen. One fine day, one of my pupils saw me crossing on red, and I was mortified. He stood on the opposite side and glared at me in disbelief. For a moment, I wasn’t sure how to respond, but managed to get my composure back and told the pupil that I could see into the future, which was why I crossed earlier. Unsurprisingly, the answer left him very puzzled. Either way, it gave me just enough time to swiftly turn the corner, and get out of his sight.

Here’s a quick comparison of different logic when it comes to traffic rules:

British logic:

Question: Is it green?

Yes, then look right, walk to the middle, look left.

No, then look if there are any cars on the right, if not you’re good to go.

Question: What if a car runs through a red light? Answer: Well, they do that anyway, so you’ve got to watch out all the time.

German logic:

Question: Is it green?

Yes, then you’re free to walk!

 No, then you must wait for green!

 Question: What if a car runs through a red light?

Answer: Well, if it runs through red and hits me, I will be in the right, and the driver will be in the wrong, which means I will win the insurance claim.

Italian logic:

Question: Is it green?

Answer: What traffic light?

1.10 Going to the Baumarkt

I’ve never pretended to be skillful at DIY, and so I’ve always had to rely on the professionals to do the job of fixing stuff around the flat. Okay, this is not quite true. When I was in my twenties, and thought I knew everything and could do anything I put my hands to, I did my fair share of trying to fix stuff around the flat. More often than not, I ended up failing miserably. I’m even talking about simple things like painting the walls. Before I embarrass myself further by divulging such stories, I do have to mention the fact that Germans love their DIY. Going to the Home Depot store, known as the Baumarkt, is one of their favourite things to do on a Saturday. (In Germany, Baumarkt is to Saturday as church is to Sunday). To me, the experience of going to the Baumarkt is about as pleasurable as going to the dentist to get a tooth pulled out, or spending my day doing taxes. You get the gist. Let’s start by examining why the Germans love it so much.

In Germany, tenants are allowed to carry out small cosmetic renovations on their dwelling — be it a flat or a house — provided that they return it to its original state when they vacate the premises at the end of their tenancy. Thus, if you so wish, you could paint the walls black, hang Avant Garde paintings, put up shelves, or even install an entirely new kitchen. Actually, the kitchen is very often a necessity, since a lot of flats do not have them when the tenant first moves in (or floors, or light fittings, for that matter). This is, in fact, is the reason many people find themselves at the Baumarkt on a Saturday morning.

To qualify for a visit to the Baumarkt, one must first ‘graduate’ from the University of DIY. If you are foolish enough to think that you can just stroll in, report to the information desk as a complete novice (read, idiot) and have a friendly employee sort you out with everything you need while you pick out wall colours and sip on a chai latte like they do in the adverts — well, to put it mildly, you’re wrong! I’ve made that mistake, and had to learn it the hard way. First of all, you have to get your head around all the correct terminology — by which I mean the names of every possible item you might need to complete your task, including, but not limited to, the exact type of plywood you need, the exact type of appliance you should use it with, the exact type of screw, the exact type of wall and the exact measurements of your walls. Failure to get these details right will leave you blank faced, quickly becoming overwhelmed by all the terminology that is being rapid fired at you. You’ll begin to sweat. You’ll stutter. Then you’ll probably mumble something along the lines of, “Oh, I didn’t know”, which will confirm the assistant’s suspicion that you’re a complete idiot.

Even if you pass Stage 1 and learn all the necessary terminology like ‘Hohlraumdübel’, or ‘Federklappdübel’, as well as the exact size of the hole you’re facing and therefore the size of wall plug you need, you are still a long way away from ‘mission complete’. You’ve merely passed to Stage 2.

To complete Stage 2, you need to successfully get a person to help you — and finding an employee in a building as huge as the Baumarkt is about as rare as finding a polar bear in the desert. If you actually manage to locate one, chances are he or she will be busy helping somebody else, and you will be forced to hover by them, like a vulture, waiting for the exact moment the other customer finishes and you can pounce on your prey. You’ll have no more than a split second to get their attention before someone else does. Even if on the inside you’re screaming, you need to remain calm and, stepping firmly towards them, say “Entschuldigung” as loudly as you possibly can without shouting. If you naïvely believe that standing in their line of sight with a lame smile on your face is going to do the trick — well, my friend, you’ve never experienced German customer service and you’d be just as well-off lighting a campfire right there in the middle of the store to get their attention. Another novice mistake expat like me often make is trying to stop an employee while they are busy helping somebody else. This will guarantee you the same reaction as if you had just stopped a stranger in the street asking for money. Best case scenario, they’ll just ignore you. But if you’re not so lucky, they might bark something at you to the tune of, “Can’t you see I’m with a customer right now!?” Your natural reaction will be to apologize, and go hide somewhere in the corner of this massive complex.

All of this explains why, after countless attempts, I decided DIY was not for me and that the best way of solving any issues would be to call my landlord and ask them to get things fixed. After all, in the rental agreement there is a whole list of things that must be fixed by the landlord in case they are faulty. The only difficult thing is getting your wording right to make it sound like their problem. But, once that is done, you can rest assured that someone is going to call you to make an appointment to get it sorted. That is one comforting thing about living in Germany. Once it’s written in black and white, then it’s the law, and not adhering to the law, or worse, breaking it, is the most un-German thing anyone can do.

One fine day, I had a visit from the company that was supposed to fix up a tiny part of the ceiling that had previously leaked and now needed repainting — a job that would have literally taken two minutes, but I had no desire to get the paint from the Baumarkt myself. So, I called the landlord. To my amusement, two people turned up. They stood in the bathroom for half an hour staring at the ceiling. Then, one of them got up on a chair to paint, while the other stood next to him with his hand on the chair. He was presumably making sure it didn’t fall, but since the chair only went up to knee height, it was about as useful as propping up a tree. After they had finished painting, I asked if they could fix the same type of problem in the guest toilet, but was summarily rebuffed and told that I would have to make another appointment with the office for that. Marvelous, I thought to myself, this is what ‘creating jobs’ is all about.

Indeed, one of the things the Germans are really good at is creating employment. And this was a sterling example of that. Why give one task to somebody when you can create five, and why give that task to one person, when you can get five people to do the same thing. It’s pure economics. We’ll look at this in more detail later on.