In seems a few people were a little confused by my Facebook status update announcing that I’m moving out to my own place. I’m sorry potential suitors but I’m not single now, Annett and I are still together and functioning in the usual dysfunctional one big argument from self-destruction state we call relationship normality.

It’s been a hard few months, Annett would probably be the first to admit she’s somewhat of an emotional train wreck at the best of times. Lately shes been completely consumed by job hunting. She has no off switch, so this task and the failure to complete it so far, haunts her every waking moment, and turns her into one irritable little motherfucker. I’m an insensitive arrogant delusional dreamer which can also have an irritating effect, like cheap washing powder.

We’ve always argued a lot, its part of how we work, but this is an example of how easy its been to start an argument lately:

me: whistling

her: are you whistling?

me: yep

her: could you not

me: why not? what could possibly be wrong with whistling

her: I’m trying to concentrate, your whistling is annoying me

me: who ever heard of a person who had a problem with whistling?

her: I have a problem with it, its annoying

me: Oh yeah because being a miserable bastard all the time is absolutely not irritating. I’m a kind of happy sort of person, I like whistling I’m not sure I can just stop.

her: If you don’t stop singing this second I’m going to take a blunt object and I’m going to repeatedly shove it into your eye, then I’m going to open the third floor window and with you hopelessly blinded I’m going to push you out of it. Then I’m going to hire a car and reverse repeatedly over your carcass.

me: singing

her: ARE YOU SINGING?!?!

(and repeat)

The biggest problem is that we are absolute opposites in every way. Yeah I know every couple says that because one person likes cheese and the other person doesn’t and instead likes Carrots, or Abba or something like that. But we actually are polar opposites, the only thing we have in common is that both of us have nothing in common.

Here is graph illustrating the full spectrum of possible personalities and our positioning on them

(click for larger image)

So you can see why we have problems aligning our world views. When times are good those differences are fun, they’re the catalysts for our most interesting conversations which usually end with Annett going “you’re such a filthy capitalist pig” and “I hate the stupid real world” and all those other little sweet nothings she likes to whisper at me before stamping her feet and walking off.

Recent times would not classify as part of those aforementioned “good times”. With no home, no stuff, no plan, no jobs and the fact that the flat we’re temporarily living in now is smaller than the size of your average microwave oven its been a challenge. It’s so small if one person stretches their arms, the other has to duck or they end up with a black eye. In recent weeks we’ve been generating more friction than a sandpaper orgy.

So that is why we’ve decided to ease a little pressure and I’ll move out now rather than waiting for Annett to find a job. This is because I’ve decided to stay in Leipzig, regardless of where Annett finds work which if all goes well will only be Berlin anyway which is just round the corner. It’s very cheap here which suits my sabbatical, my friends are here and I have such few in the rest of the world, the fluke that I found some here is unlikely to be repeated elsewhere and therefore should be cherished. I also have a new mini project starting up with Ami and Pete both of which are in Leipzig (or maybe Berlin in Pete’s case) so I need to stay around here. After five months of travelling together, one year living in a country where you know almost no-one but each other we’ve spent a serious amount of time together and there’s nothing backward or negative about taking a little time to discover yourself again.

I’ll of course split my time between here and wherever Annett is, while I’m self-employed I can pretend to work anyway so that is not really an issue. In the meantime Annett can have the whole microwave oven to herself while she looks for jobs and seeing each other can become something to look forward to again at the end of the day, not something we absolutely can’t avoid and spend the whole day and night doing.

In case you’re wondering I also plan to do shit loads of whistling in my new flat! Oh yeah…

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Genius
• Half Anniversary
• For some reason….
• Reasons to be ignorant pt.1

So time for drastic measures. I’m the sort of person who can only get motivated if I turn things into challenges, which I communicate publicly and knowing that you’re all sitting at home and waiting for me to fail and look silly, I soldier on and get some done before you get bored and stop checking and then I can just quit and look silly privately.

Let’s give that a go.

After four weeks of skipped intensive German class, whilst getting better after the op (I can now sit for a few hours, enough to go back to class I’d say) I’ve missed something like 66hrs of class, which to put in context compares unfavorably to the 33hrs I actually went. As one of the worst in the class at that point, I’ve definitely missed enough to make it not worth going back. I like to pretend the powers that be stopped me learning by striking me down with that nasty cyst thingy, but more likely is that I gave it to myself to get me out of class, which was at the very intense end of intense for a language retard like me.

Now I need to step back up to the language pool and dip my big toe back in the water. I present you the

Sieben Tag Deutsch, Deutsch….um….argh

(shouting) “Annett what’s the German word for Challenge?”

“Herausfirduyniansgujdjfdung”

Me: “Come again?”

“Herausfirsjdhjsdjsdsung”

Me: “No just the word please, not the dictation of your debut novel. Say it s-l-o-w-l-y….”

Her Raus Ford Er Ung

There, in that one word, is why I’ll always be shit at German.

This reminds me of a conversation I had last weekend in Berlin, at the International T-shirt Day event although with who I’ve forgotten, other than that it was a girl.

“What’s this called in English, the thing you hang clothes on?”.

Me:  “Um, a hanger”.

She laughs with a look of disbelief, “Your kidding me? That’s so simple, ah English”.

Me: “Yes while its very nice that you have lots of long complicated words for everything, like when you’ve mis-buttoned your clothes (ferknupfen, if you’re interested), but we like to keep our language very simple so that everyone can speak it. Which I’m sure you’ll agree is very commendable.”

“What is hanger in German by the way?”

Bugel.

Ah great, a new word for me to instantly forget.

So Sieben Tag Deutsch HerRausFordErUng

The rules: No English for 7 days, starting……now. If I break a rule I must put 5cents per word in

At the end I can give it to charity, a beggar or the Casino or something.

Of course there are exceptions:

- Annett gets two twenty minute “Get out of German free cards”. In English I’m a reasonably interesting guy to talk to, I mean if no-one else is around, and your expectations are low. In German I’m a balding, moronic, one year child with no concept of grammar. So this challenge will be as painful for Annett as for me, if there’s something we really have to talk about that’s important, she can play one of her twenty minute “Get out of German free card”.

- I can speak English when speaking to people who can’t speak German. Like most of you, hence this is in English. Or people on Twitter. Or people on email who don’t speak German.

- I can speak English with my Graphic Designer guy, who is German but who may produce a steaming turd rather than the new website of my dreams, if I’m forced to talk to him in German. So he is exempt.

The time is 7pm, the day is Sunday the 28th of June. Hier beginnen meine sieben tag Deutsch HerRausFordErUng.

Update: 7:40pm - First accidental English word spoken, first 5cent coin in cup.

Update: 11:06pm - Broke the rules to say the punchline of a joke (my own and very fantastic I have to say) couldn’t say it in German, cost me 45cents, but worth it.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Learning German and German Class

Trabi City Tour In Car Action from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Staying in a Japanese Love Hotel
• Test

Let’s begin.

The last month has been a pretty shitty one, the majority of it I’ve spent in bed, in pain, in hospital or all three. I could write many blog posts about my experiences, which I know from reliving them with friends would be funny, everyone loves misfortune as long as it belongs to someone else and this month I was hogging more than fair share. I probably won’t write those posts because thinking about it all is depressing and I’m a chipper, the glass is not half full, why it’s positively overflowing, look great spurts of (what liquid is supposed to be in the glass in the half full/half empty metaphor? Water/Gin/Mountain Dew?!??! Has that every been clarified?) , great spurts of mystery liquid are spewing out, its become a fountain and now unicorns and small children have come to frolic in it - kind of guy.

My parents dropped by this week, I got a call from Mum saying that UPS were outside with a parcel she’d send and the UPS people didn’t know which flat to ring as our names are not on the bell, could I go down a let them in. When I got down there I opened the door to find my Mum and Dad on the doorstep. My first thought was why are UPS sending two people to the door with the package? That’s not very efficient staff usage. Secondly why have UPS employed my parents? Mum is far too nosey to not open an interesting looking parcel and Dad hates driving on the right-hand side of the road. It turned our there was no package, I had been cheated. However when I tried to close the door on the UPS employee imposters they refused to leave citing parental privileges. I’d been careful to only give my address to select people to stop riff raff like these two arriving at my door, it turned out Annett had given it to them which is hardly a surprise. I get nervous every time we’re at the Airport because Annett is the sort of person who under even the lightest of question would confess us for a crime we haven’t committed. Ironic as being German she’s never actually broken a rule in her whole life, still she cracks under even the slightest questioning, it wouldn’t take the Stasi or anyone for that matter very long to get her secrets:

Man on street: Guten Tag!

Annett: I can’t tell you. He told me not to.

Man on street: Entschuldigung?!

Annett: Oh okay already don’t look at me like that, I can’t be burdened with this anymore. I’ll tell you what you want, I’ll tell you all of it, all the lies the secrets. He owes the NZ library service $4! Phew, it’s better to have that off my chest. Guten Tag.

I got my own back on the visiting riff raff by having had the foresight not to clean the toilet for several weeks (dirt is Mums kryptonite). She acted unphased and only the facial tick on one side of her face gave away the pain she felt inside.

With visitors comes hosting responsibilities, so I started leaving the flat again and being more mobile than I had the last few weeks. It was refreshing to get out of the flat and see what was going on in this inferior real world that everyone keeps banging on about.

It turns out there’s an election going on in Leipzig, and also some bigger Government parliament election thing for something call the “EU”. I don’t know the specifics, I’m English so we leave Europe to the Europeans to worry about.

A long time ago I freed myself from worrying about the trivialities of politics, you know the – issues, ideas, wings, principals, promises of the politicians both in power and vying for it. I think maybe it’s because I never really lived anywhere I had any great affinity for, somewhere that I would really call home and so my interest in future was passing at best, as that was all I was doing. Now with Leipzig being a place that feels warm and homely it’s time for me to make my vote count!

I think I did vote once at my University for some kind of election, I voted for the person with the funniest name in each category, was a good day to be Sarah Koch, one of the few I bet. I understand the importance of voting, I have just sort of ignored it. I’ve always figured that when whatever country I’m in really needs me to vote, they’ll flick on the bat light or something. Only it will be a caricature of my face, and I’ll see it from my secret lair and come out and realize that now I must care. I’ll make a lot to learn about the politicians, understand the problems facing the next government, make an informed decision and head to the polling station where I’ll vote for the person with the funniest name.

Having unburdened myself from actually having to care about the politics of politics, I’m free to focus on what really matters – what the candidate looks like!

Luckily I got a good look at them as they’d thoughtfully put up pictures of themselves all over the city. Presumably so I and like minded fellow citizens could draw moustaches and cheeky goatees on their faces on the way home from the pub.

I really want to pick the right candidate to receive my vote (I’m eligible to vote here), so I’ve spent extensive time studying the faces of the candidates, you might not have that much time so I’ll summarize them down for you:

Dieter Deissler, Now that’s an expression to be proud of, it’s equal parts cocksure and utterly confused, a mixture of “what’s for dinner honey” and “who’s shit on my shoes”?

Franz Taraschka. What’s going on here Franz? Trying to be a big shot? “No mum I can’t talk right now, got to get my photo taken for the paper, yeah I’ll be round for dinner later”.

Do you think you’re a real go to man because your talking on the phone whilst bicycling? Does a bicycle show you a commoner like the rest of us? Well, all it shows me is that you, Sir, are a health and safety violator! Mobile phones should not be used during the operation of a bicycle.

Thomas Zeitler. I know what you’re thinking – I’ve seen this man before. You’re right to think that, you have seen this man before he’s none other than the bastard love child of

Dr Evil & an egg…

Look at his perfect conical dome! I just want to get out a little teaspoon and whack the side of a few times. I’m finding it hard not to do Egg puns here, so I’ll just done one to end my review of Eggy, I wouldn’t vote for him because I’m concerned he might crack under the pressure!

Mathias Weber.

Mathias: Dad, dad can I borrow the car again this weekend?

No son, you remember what happened last time, when you went to a party got high on ‘shrooms drove home and crashed it into the neighbours cow.

Mathias: That was an isolated incident, and like weeks ago now, can’t you just let it go?

I’ll let it go, when you get a haircut and a job you scruffy little delinquent. Why are you holding a notepad?

Mathias: I’m not sure, its just something I’m trying out, I think maybe it makes me look more intelligent.

You look like a work experience waiter. Put it down.

Mathias: Can you lend me a fiver?

Can Chimpanzees fart the national anthem?

Ingo Sasama. Ingo?! I-N-G-O hang on wasn’t that the guy that stole that baby in Australia? Oh no wait that was someone else.

People who have facial hair are 97% more likely to be good people than people without facial hair. This is an established fact. Facial hair = good. People with facial hair = better.

Check out Ingo’s proud maine, full yet groomed like a lovable uncle. Uncle Ingo.  Now we’re getting somewhere.

I’m sure if the whole world just voted for the person with the best facial hair we’d see no war, we’d see no famine - where a beard leads, happiness follows.

Clearly the greatest thing about Manfred is his name – Manfred. It’s genius. Manfred, say it now – M-a-n-f-r-e-d, feels good doesn’t it? I’ve long been searching for a name for my first born son, a search I can now officially call off.

Ulrich took the afternoon off from playing World of Warcraft to come outside for this photo. He found the walk up from his basement tiring. The direct sunlight sharper and more intense on his pasty skin than that found in the MMRPG Runescape Neverwinter Lifenights where he is a level 53 warlock.

Brigitte travelled back from the year 2090 in the DeLorean. Despite being an Android her mimicry of human emotion and expression are almost faultless , thanks to her long study of various Evil Headmistresses from TV and film – the only thing we she can’t get right - the subtle arc of the human eyebrow.

I guess you know who my vote will go to – that nice man (with the beard) Ingo Sasama congratulations you are Germany’s next top political model! Well unless a late entrant called manfred fuchs joins, in which case all bets are off.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Shop until the $ drops
• Do you think you could love me?
• 30/30 Day 4 & 5
• Just Do Weird Shit Pt.1

photo credit: New England Secession

Some people say coolness is a myth, they say its in the eye of the beholder (hang on no, that’s something else), they say the less you try the cooler you are, that coolness is just a state of mind, believe you are cool and you will be cool.

I say that sir, is now total bollocks.

Why? Well because scientists (okay actually a small nerdy bullied boy, which makes him a strong candidate to become a future scientist) has developed the definitive list of how to be cool (this was found somewhere and scanned in and circulated all over the net a few months back, its been sitting in my to blog folder ever since). I’ll present that for you now and then I want you to total up all your cool points (1 point per correct answer) and we’ll see who is the coolest reader of The Zig.

Everyone must comment there score, no exceptions, its like a game or something, only there is no prize except knowing you are cooler than all the people I know who like me enough to still read this blog me and my mum.

To the list then:

Motorcycles – I once tried to drive a moped in Laos, a country with almost no roads. I wobbled about, people laughed I got off went round the corner and rented a bicycle – 0 points

Wear Cologne – I don’t like aftershave, or smells manufactured by designer labels and sold for expensive amounts of money. We should all just smell stinky like the 99.99% monkeys that we are – 0 points

Move to Williamsburg – I’m going to be honest, I don’t even know where Williamsburg is. Shame on me – 0 points

Learn to speak European – Difficult to know where to begin with this gem. His grasps of Geography shows similarly stunted development to my own. I guess as a European, I can do this – 1 point!

Grow Facial Hair – If I were a superhero hair growth would be my superpower, in the time it takes me to write this sentence I can totally grow a handlebar moustache. Maybe I just did. Anyway – 1 point.

Helmets – I have no helmets, but then I don’t work in construction – 0 points

photo credit: saumilshah

Mohawk – Luckily the mohawk goes down the center of the head which is wear I have hair, although I suspect not enough to pull off a mohawk – 0 points

Designer Shades – When I bought my fancy new glasses (okay actually my parents bought them for me as a gift (thanks guys you rock)) I got a few pair of designer sunglasses! – 1 point

Subscribe to Vice – I’m assuming this is the magazine, I have only one subscription and that’s to Procrastinators Monthly it’s not arrived yet but I’m sure they’ll get to sending it tomorrow (Procrastinators monthly ha! See what I’ve done there, epic gag!!!) – 0 points

Psychrock –I hate psych and post rock, anything over 5:30secs is an abomination. Time is money people- 0 points

Leatherjackets – What you think I’m the Fonz? Never owned one, never will, unless I get that Motorbike and Helmet – 0 points.

Abercroombie & Flitch – I’ve seen this brand down the Sunday Market, quite affordable but I’ve yet to invest – 0 points.

Learn to play guitar – I bought a very cheap guitar in NZ, I learnt to play the riff to Smoke on the Water, on one string only, which I’m sure you’ll agree is worth half a point - .5 point

Irony – Like rain on your wedding day? Oh no wait that’s not actually ironic. I of course no all about sarcasm and irony as I’m English, we practically invented that school of humour – 1 point

Become a band photographer – You’ll now from viewing my photostream that while I take many photos I’m not a photographer. I have taken photos of bands, but I have also paid the banner to attend the gig where I took said photo, which I think doesn’t count – 0 points

Wear all black – In summer? Are you crazy? I would never wear black because I’m warm and sunny and as fun as chocolate mousse and birthdays – 0 points.

photo credit: Loren Javier

“Hollywood” – I’m pretty sure he didn’t need to put this in speech marks because I’m pretty sure it exists and is in LA and I’m pretty sure I went there on my first backpacking trip when I was 19 or something. It’s nice if you like gunshots, cockroaches and themed diners. I probably deserve a bonus point because I met Bruce Willis there. Okay I didn’t meet hum exactly but I saw him and I’m sure I could have met him if I had no problem jumping a red rope and getting arrest – 1 point

Online Friendships – You mean people still meet offline? How quaint! I live online, so this one is pretty easy. There are at least 10 people I communicate with on a daily basis that I’ve never met in real life – 1 point

360s – hum, this could be turning around repeatedly in a circle, or a skateboard move, or more likely owning an Xbox 360 which I’ve never done or would do – 0 points

Make your own movie – Now that is a good idea, I’ve been meaning to get into video editing and stuff. But for now I’ve made quite a few video’s so I’m going to give myself half a point for this - .5 points

Exxxtreme Everything – Everything by definition is not very specific, contain after all – everything. So I’m going to treat this as having a go large state of mind. When I go son, I go large I’m an all or nothing kind of guy so here I’ll give myself a point for my ample life gusto – 1 point

photo credit: David Masters

Eat More Meat – If you were to ask Annett for my most said expressions first would be “can you just shut up a minute” followed by “can you just stop being so German for 5 bloody minutes” followed by “A meals not a meal without meat” I truly believe this, there are very few people who eat meat with more frequency than me I would hypothesize. I basically only eat Bread, Meat and Potatoes – 1 point.

That’s Steve and we’re hanging out…

Hang out with Steve – I’m going to assume he is talking about my dear friend Steve Fox, the man the legend. Hanging out with Steve definitely makes you cooler, at any one moment he’ll be catching a fish with one hand (even if there is no water in sight and you have no fishing equipment he’ll just ask it nicely and in it will come), open you a beer with the other hand, while turning over the steaks on the BBQ with his toes and simultaneously telling you a riveting story about an Indian sewer cleaner – 1 point (if you have a friend called Steve who isn’t Steve Fox, you can also have a point and all of my sympathy).

10/23, respectable but with room for improvement. How did you do? Answers in the comments.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Do I look like a therapist? pt.1
• Backpacking China Pt 4 (The Final Part)
• Sods Law
• Don’t even doubt it
• Rules of the Universe

So disappointed we read about a place called Gang Gang Snowmans which was in Osaka, near Kyoto where we were going to head anyway so we diverted there to check it out. Apparently it had an old Cadillac on the roof you could hire for the hour, subway car, underwater themed rooms, a dungeon all kinds of awesome weird tacky fetish theming that would have made such a great post/story. So we went to Osaka and walked and walked, and checked the map, and walked, and checked the map, and went back where we had already walked, and asked people, and walked, and went back and asked the same people, who told us to walk, and walk and walk and then I mean hours later, we were so exhausted and we hadn’t found anything cringe worthy just ordinary fancy hotel rooms, maybe with an adult toys vending machine in the room, but not much more risque than that. It turned out that we couldn’t find Gang Gang Snowman because it had closed down a few years before. So instead we checked in to Hotel Love (kudos on the name guys, international, yet also classy with a suggestive underlayer of perversion! two thumbs up). I made a tour of our room that you can watch now if you like, don’t worry its safe for work:

Japanese Love Hotel Room Tour from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

Here are some other videos’ we took while we were there

Annett bashing things in the Arcade:

Annett playing in the arcade from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

I can’t imagine a game being developed that could so perfectly match the personality and skillset of an individual, its like they reached into her brain and plucked the idea for her perfect game, the game she was born to play.

Shinjuku Crossing:

Shinjuku Crossing from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

Apparently the busiest in the world and the one place we saw in Japan that was closest to mental images I had in my head before we arrived.

Annett trying Baseball (batting):

Japan - Baseball batting practice. from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

Um, well, perhaps not a natural. Lets try pitching instead:

Japan - Baseball pitching practice from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

Hum, maybe leave it there huh (I should also confess while I was marginally better at Batting I was no better at Pitching).

One more post on Weird Japan is planned.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Trabi City Tour Video
• New Japan post up on tee-junction
• Equal Job Opportunities, China, Bus Rides and High Fives
• The zig goes japan, staying in a capsule hotel
• Test

photo credit: raindog

I haven’t written for a while and I know I should, but then I also know I should be nice to my Grandma, call my parents, have medical insurance and wash my socks but I don’t, so go figure. Sometimes life gets in the way. I’ve also found it hard to write or reflect on things lately because my brain has been completely clogged up like a cheap U bend - with the German language.

I and anyone who knows me would say I’m not a natural language learner. They might also say I’m prone to understatements.

For some people it’s as if words and sentences are floating constantly around us, buzzing around our heads. They need only to glance towards them and they’re sucked down almost by osmosis, directly into their vocabulary to be reborn as beautiful, grammatically correct sentences. I too see these floating words and they see me, in fact the words are in cahoots, they like to form a tight fist and then repeatedly punch me in the face! I can sit for hours like this at my desk dizzy from their blows, emotionally battered and staring down at my Hausaufgaben.

photo credit: greenkozi

Adam, Adam come on now, you’ve forgotten the context. Ah yes, I’ve enrolled in an intensive German class, 3.5hrs a day Montag bis Freitag. In one day I put in more effort than I did in the entire year that I lived in Germany before. That sounds impressive, but then 10×0 would be still zero right?

The course is held in an adult learning center with a sweat old dear for a teacher who somehow remains happy and upbeat despite on a daily basis being faced with great ineptitude on a daily basis. The class is full of characters and watching their interactions and the humour they provide me, is the main reason I get up at the ridiculous hour of 7am every day to attend. Of a class of 15 people I’m the only native English speaker. There are 5 people from China, one from Vietnam, one from Syria, one from Malta, 5 from the Ukraine and one from Iran.

photo credit: kamshots

My least favourite but most entertaining classmate is Bejan, the one from dem Iran a fact he gets wrong almost every day when he tries to demasculinate it to be das Iran (German language joke alert). He’s about 45, always looks slightly haggard in that ‘hard life’ kind of way. He’s bald as a badger and shuffles his way into class every day with his little metal flask and lunchbox looking down at his feet.

Every class has their show off, and Bejan who appears to feel not a hint of shame that he’s in a Level 1 German Beginners class but has lived here for 9 years, is that show off. He loves nothing more than to give you one nanosecond to answer your questions before jumping in and answering it for you. Bejan knows just about every German word, I think he attends just to bolster his self-confidence, or at least that would be the case were he were to get a lot of the answers right. While he knows an incredible number of individual German words he has little idea what to do with them. Let me construct a building metaphor  here (pun intended) - while his garden might be full of bricks, he can only make rubble. He sits next to me, not by choice exactly, I missed the first day and there were no other seats. When I get stuff wrong, which occurs only 99% of the time he likes to tut, which drives me insane.

There’s one part of German class that I like more than any other, if it happens several times in one class my heart literally fills with joy, I come home like I’m returning from carnival – I’m of course talking about Bejan getting answers wrong. Yesterday we were practicing learning the numbers up to einer Million. Bejan had the simple task of saying “hundert”

Teacher: “hundert”

Bejan: ‘”hunder”

Teacher: “nein, hunderT”

Bejan: ‘”hunder”

Teacher: “nein, Bejan, nein – hunderT. tttttttttt”

Bejan: ‘”ttttt, hunder, tttttttt”

Teacher: “nein. ok. tttttttttt”

Bejan: “ttttttttt”

Teacher: “tttttttttt, hunderTTTTTTTTTTT, hunderTTTTTT

Bejan: “tttttttttttt, hunder, tttttttttt, hunder, tttttt”

Teacher: “um, ok, nächste Frage”

I was giddy with happiness, I felt like a small child in my pyjamas on Christmas morning coming downstairs to see a bicycle shaped lump under the tree.

One day a Vietnamese woman entered the class and had a perfectly proficient, long conversation with our teacher in German. When a new student arrives we get to ask them questions such as

“Wie heißen Sie?” / what is your name

“Hast du Kinder?” / do you have children

Yes she had two, one in Germany and one doing an internship in the USA

“Bist du verheiratet?” / are you married?

She’s SE Asian and over 35 so this one was pretty much a no brainer.

“Was sind deine Hobbies?” / what are your hobbies

Kochen, Kino, Music hören and the rest I’ve forgotten

“Was ist dein Beruf?” / what is your job?

She was a Hausfrau (housewife)

“Wie lange sind Sie schon in Deutschland?” / how long have you lived in Germany

10 years.

Bejan was floored, I thought he was having a panic attack next to me “10 jahre, aye, aye aye” he repeated to himself chuckling away unaware of the irony.<

Life is simple when you’ve just started learning a language. It’s organized and formulaic and can be neatly folded and placed in its appropriate box because you don’t yet have the vocabulary to critique the theories of Nietzsche, or Cultural Relativism. So instead we repeatedly tell each other our names, how old we are, if we have children and what our hobbies are. Responses are delivered in the best butchered German we can muster:

I am 25yrs now,

my hobbies are – well that was a tricky one as I didn’t know the word for to ride so I was saying “Fahrrad spielen” which you could interpret as “playing bicycle” , as in my hobby is to get down on my knees and pretend to be a Bicycle.

I have no child…

Everything becomes simple, and your expectations shrink down with it. In English it’s not that easy to entertain me, if it’s deep and meaningful or makes me laugh then there’s no problem. What you had for dinner last night (sorry twitter, although ironically I didn’t tweet what I just had for dinner) is not really going to cut it. If you can’t even say what you had for dinner last night because you lack the vocabulary, then either you’ll be completely bored or your entertainment expectations in that language must decrease which is what’s happening with me, and I guess with other people as well. Exhibit A:

Valery (a guy from the Ukraine) made a joke yesterday that went a little something like this:

Teacher: Valery, hast du eine deutsche Frau?

Valery: Nein, ich habe keine deutsche Frau, doch ich habe viele deutsche Frauen!

HAHAHHHAA, give this man a stage and a microphone I thought! When he delivered the punchline in German I thought my sides were going to split, the room erupted in laughter it was a veritable humour riot. Jokes that good could end wars. Yeah that’s right, I said wars.
Nochmal, in English this time:

Teacher: Valery, have you a German woman?

Valery: I do not have a German woman, I have many German women!

Ba boom….In English it’s barely Christmas cracker worthy, which I guess goes to show just how vital and fascinating and awe worthy language is.

It also highlights what you’re reduced to when you can’t speak it - you are just a 25 year old man, who is not married, has no children, comes from England and likes to impersonate a Bicycle.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Sieben Tag Deutsch Herausforderung (7 day German challenge)

I’m a naturally friendly person, so I guess I’m reasonably good at talking to people. Over time (and Dr Pepper purchases), the Indian owner of this shop and me formed a sort of quasi-friendship. Only quasi because he never knew my name, I never knew his, but in certain areas of our lives we knew each other intimately. I knew that he had two children, and uncle, a wife, and as it would become our de-facto conversation topic that - he hated his job.

‘”I’m here always working, morning to night, every day, seven days a week, always working” he would say in a dreary shoot me now sort of tone.
“Oh dear, yeah that is tough” I’d respond thumbing the change in my pocket. “I have no-one to cover me, my uncle he has a shop but that makes nice money, this shop doesn’t.”

“Sorry to hear that I’d say” meekly rooting around for some positivity I could inject into the conversation - “but you’re your own boss, that’s got to count for something right? I mean you’re building something and if it successful 100% of that success if yours.” Okay, so while I’m not exactly a life coach of some note, I was proud of this uplifting response.
“100% hahaha try telling my wife that. And it’s not successful my friend.” Damn, shut down again.
“Have you thought about employing someone else to run the shop?” I’m clutching at straws here, of course he has.
“I could but it costs too much I wouldn’t make any money. Sometimes my wife she runs the shop or my uncle will cover me for a little while but if not it’s just me my friend, working day after day.“
I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do now. Can I help? Should I buy more or less Dr Pepper?

Then we’d talk about what I did, which I don’t think he ever understood, but then no-one does so I just left it as IT stuff and tried to make it sound about as much fun as a being an unwilling participant in a prison gangbang, so he didn’t get jealous. This was how it used to go when I came in the shop, first some light hearted banter about the weather, maybe the youth of today, how close the weekend was but then when I’d least expect it he’d skillfully dodge the conversation back to his being stuck in his shop, day after day.

“I think you want what I have, and I want what you have” he used to say sometimes. I’d smile and nod and say “yeah maybe, such is life, the grass is always greener” but I would be thinking – err yeah about as much as I want a grand piano to drop from the sky and smash on my head the next time I come out of the house to innocently buy Dr Pepper and Cadburys buttons. Although hang on, maybe I’m being hasty, you do have very commendable head hair growth…

After a while I started to avoid the shop, if we were walking by I’d send Annett in. I think people know not to go to Germans for sympathy, I always thought it was just one of those unwritten rules like don’t lick lightbulbs. German truths do not come sugar coated.

Eventually I found another shop about 3 or 4 minutes walk further on with a Chinese dude who judging by his body language also hated his life, but didn’t feel the need to verbalize it. I was sure to never make eye contact anymore than absolutely necessary just in case. He probably thought I was a mute. I was actually just a Dr Pepper fiend happy in my little optimist bubble where every day I’m the guest of honour at an earth sized carnival, that people keep trying to rain on.

I started this about a strange German man I met today when I buy a SIM card, but it reminded me of this man, so I’ll do the German man as part 2.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Interviews
• My Language learning days are over.
• Goobye Dubai, Hello Shanghai
• The Optimist EP
• The Great Korean Wall of China

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Staying in a Japanese Love Hotel
• The zig goes japan, staying in a capsule hotel
• So what happened to the zig?

I was very excited a few weeks ago when the people at eChinaCities mailed me via Facebook to ask if they could rerun a few of my China blogposts on their site, starting with my Nightbus to Wuhan series. I think this is the first time anyone had asked to do this with any of my posts so I was high fiving the air with great satisfaction. Then it turned out they proclaimed to have a million unique visitors a week or something ridiculous, so I started dreaming of Chinese book tours and speaking appearances, I could be like the alive guys who crashed in their plane in the mountains somewhere and ate people kebabs, I would travel the country telling of my near death travel experience, which would mean more buses, and more 47hr long bus trips, oh the joy.

Actually I needn’t have got too excited, the sites not sent a single referral back to the zig (at least when I wrote this, which was on the 4th April, I’m queuing content and everything now, the zig has gone pro) and there’s only been one comment on there which is about tying a cow to a bus, I think it’s sophisticated new spam, I mean who wouldn’t approve a comment about a cow tied to a bus? Sneaky spammers. Its possible the comment was more entertaining than my article.

Anyway, while I was over there stalking myself, I started looking at the job section and came across this gem of an ad. Equal Opportunities law has not quite arrived in China yet, I circled the requests that would be slightly frowned upon um, just about everywhere.

Well at least I know I needn’t bother applying for that job which is a shame because I’m extremely qualified for it, being at least 170cm.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Staying in a Japanese Love Hotel
• Backpacking China Pt 4 (The Final Part)
• Backpacking China Pt 3
• Backpacking China pt 2
• Backpacking China pt 1