A Sad Country

• I have been living in Western Germany for a year and a half. I have a great job and a good salary. Before Germany, I have been an international worker in 5 different countries (including Brazil, Argentina, Spain, France, the UK, the USA and DR Congo), so I feel I can compare. Most German people I have met here are friendly and polite. They are also shy, cold and distant until they get to know you and trust you. They can then become trustworthy friends if given a chance. However, even Western Germany, the "sunny side" of the country, looks to me like a sad place to live in. If you do not have an inner light, you cannot shine, and no matter how much they try (even by having a few extra beers to look more relaxed), they are still stiff. This is because adult German people do not have that inner light. I believe German schools do a hard work to turn that small light off since very early in life. Hegel described the ideal of a Nation, and the individual just got lost in this pursuit of perfection. Here, the rule comes first. Even the German concept of beauty is born, in my opinion, from the harmony born out of precision and foreseeability. In Germany, job and academic titles are more important that anything. I have been systematically pushed to use my PhD title, and to mention that I have two masters degrees, which I find ridiculous. But if you want to be respected here, you are to be called Frau, and of course, Dr. Yes, people here spy each other, as one comment in this Forum said. I can see this in my workplace. Of course this happens everywhere in the world, but I feel Germany is the only place in the world in where spying and delating are consider good citizen actions. German citizens (not all of then, this is just a trend) are hyper competitive and do not like to assume mistakes because they have been taught that this would make them look vulnerable. Someone else's pain or suffering usually disturb, unless that someone else lives in Africa, and they do love to make donations for those who live very far away. I have had a terrible experience in a German hospital, in which lost a baby. When the nurses and doctors saw me crying and asking to be with my baby, they called the police and forced me into a psychiatric institution. When the doctor who received me at the psychiatric institution asked me about my story (he was from Switzerland) he apologized and told me that I had scared the doctors when I cried and asked to be with my baby and then refused to talk to them. I asked this Swiss doctor: But I lost my son, how do they expected me to react? And he answered, before letting me go home: German women stay silent in bed after a miscarriage, they might look pale but they do not cry out and do not ask to be close to their babies. Lesson learnt. Believe it or not, after being mistreated in such a horrible way, I do not hate Germany. I just feel sorry for the people who get used to the many positive things of this country (clean streets in Western Germany, nice cafes, cultural offers, good will) and do not dare to go to a different, more vibrant and alive country. I AM canceling my residence permit and leaving this country. I believe I would be happier in any country in the world, maybe with the exception of China and Russia. I have lived in Congo, as I said, in a house with no drinking water, no electricity, no TV, of course, with bullets entering my room windows and I have fallen into ambushes. Could you believe me if I told you that those were some of the happier years in my life? Yes, because Congolese people are happy to be alive, and their happiness is something that I absorb. As I am, right now, absorbing the emptiness and unhappiness of this dear, but sad, very sad, German nation.

  Ready to leave Germany 15 Mar 2009, 12:26 - Denuncia

germany sucks