1. While waiting to be seated at a bistro, I grabbed a menu off a table to see what they had for food. Waiter who was ignoring me saw that and instantly scolded me in front of the entire restaurant saying that is their job.
2. An alpine train was coming by and I was doing the fist pump in the air to get them to honk the horn. A random stranger said that my actions were unwelcome and that trains are serious business.
3. When on bikes I did a skid stop to make my wife laugh, a random stranger said I shouldn’t do that.
4. At the airport, I had to pour out water before going through the security checkpoint. There was no bin to pour out water so I just poured it out in the garbage. A random stranger got quite upset and said the water does not go in the garbage.
Not to mention all of the very unfriendly interactions I had with locals. Honestly will probably never go back, people are so much more friendly and laid back elsewhere which is more my style.
And it's funny, because the first thought they have if you get fined (say you didn't include the impressum in your personal website, or nosy neighbor found you mowing the lawn on sunday), it's that you must have done something wrong, not that the law is unfair.
It’s a Rechtsstaat with hardcore legal-positivist brain. Rules aren’t guidelines, intent doesn’t matter, context doesn’t matter, fun definitely doesn’t matter.
I think that is the biggest disconnect for me. To me rules are guidelines and I will break them when they do not make sense. Following the rules just because they are the rules doesn’t fit my style, although I live in a place when population density is very low so I understand that people bending the rules here has less of a consequence than bending the rules in densely populated areas.
Exactly. There are some “rules” that are perfectly valid, like “don't kill anyone,” but those make perfect sense and don't need much debate.
Plenty of rules are actually retarded and sometimes harmful if you follow them blindly. This is precisely how they got Nazism, and they like to pretend that it was only the bad guy Hitler's fault and a few other people's. If you know Germans well enough, it becomes pretty clear that a large part of the population was actually responsible in a small but meaningfull way.
I had a German exchange partner who refused to use the crosswalk unless the traffic light was absolutely green, even if there was absolutely no car or traffic around. That's just beyond stupid, and mindlessly following rules like that is how you get tyranny…
For you the rationale is "even if there was absolutely no car or traffic around".
For most Germans the rationale is "even if there was no car or traffic around, and no child could see me doing this", where the latter part is the most important one.
If you do it with friends and nobody is around, no problem. I often cross the street over a pedestrian crossing when the pedestrian light is on red and there are no children around, and I got scolded (very rarely, like less than 1%) but I don't care because it just might have been an unhappy or intolerant person, but that's definitely not the rule that people scold you for this. I don't think this is a German problem. I'm pretty sure if I'd do that in France it would have the same effect (maybe not in Paris).
In regards to your Nazi-comment: Of course we are aware of that it takes the majority of people to enable a slipping into Naziism, which is why we are so strict about it: No signs nor expressions used in that period are allowed to be used today, an Americans even scold us for caring about not "forgetting" what had happened (because we don't allow the signs or expressions, "freedom of speech").
So you saying "they like to pretend that it was only the bad guy Hitler's fault" indicates that you have no clue about how most Germans are.
From the 4 points he mentioned, the only one which would piss me off would be the last one, where he decides to spill the water in the trash bin. Who does that? What do they think when they do this? Why not just ask the security person where he can dispose it?
But the other 3, I can't explain why they scolded him; it's not normal.
As a German myself, that list is surprising. The only one I could imagine is 4., because the bins generally aren't watertight, so you're essentially spilling water on the floor which will make a mess for everyone.
And there are always places to pour the water it's just usually at the entrance of the terminal
... Which is obviously dumb, cuz nobody is going to go back to them after they've already queued to get in.
But 1-3? You must've really gotten unlucky...
1 I could only imagine in expensive restaurants,
2. I am seriously surprised by, because while the person manning the train would almost always ignore you, so would everyone else - no matter what kind of gesture you do.
And 3... While I cannot fathom doing that on purpose myself, I'm extremely surprised anyone would bother interacting with anyone about that? Definitely doesn't reflect my experience living here for roughly 40 yrs
