This is an outsider’s blog. No inside-track stuff here. I have been living in Germany as a correspondent and columnist for 15 years and the place is still a mystery. All those hidden rituals and anxieties. Strangest of all: the curiosity of Germans about the views of foreigners, their genuine interest in the judgement of outsiders. The Germans seem to be on a constant search for national identity, imagining it perhaps to be something rounded, well-formed and made of precious metal; a Lost Ark. But that’s not the way it really is. Identity is made up of moments, snapshots in an album.

So that’s what this blog will try to do: collect those moments that help us work out what is “typisch deutsch”.

Let’s hope we can get a conversation going. I will try to feed the blog a few times a week. Sometimes you will get short observations; sometimes the English version of my columns; sometimes mini-essays. Mainly it will be in English, but there will be German contributions too. Don’t be afraid to make rude comments. I certainly intend to be both rude and, if absolutely necessary, affectionate about my host country.

Dieser Artikel wurde am Dienstag, 27. Mai 2008 um 12:45 veröffentlicht und ist abgelegt unter Typisch deutsch. Du kannst die Antworten zu diesem Artikel mit Hilfe des RSS 2.0 Feeds verfolgen. Du kannst eine Antwort hinterlassen oder einen Trackback von deiner Seite aus senden.