Rosenrot - Rammstein Fan Forum -

A friend of mine sent me a link to this page about the differences between the USA and Germany, written by a German who now lives in the United States.

It's quite a lengthy article, but there are some rather humourous bits in it and I thought it would be interesting to share it with everyone here

Happy reading!

Thank you , Anza

I only had time to read a short bit, and so chose the "Unions" area. Fascinating! He mentioned that in Germany, one has the choice to belong to a union (but still of course benefits from its contract). Can I assume that workers who do not join must still contribute union dues from their pay? This is only fair and reasonable, after all.
Can someone who knows more about unions in Germany this please enlighten me on this?

Over here there are some unionized jobs where you have the choice whether or not to join, and other jobs where you must be a union member in order to be employed in that field. Some unions are more powerful than others; and a few "unions" (I'll use this term loosely) have been branded as "Rat Unions" due to their collusion with the employer, and cannot be considered real unions.

A final comment regarding unions - Big business, multinational corporations etc. all have one law: Make as much money as is possible. It doesn't matter that employees are paid an inadequate minimum wage (maybe less?), that part time workers are worked *almost* full time hours (but not exactly full time hours) in order for the employer to avoid paying benefits, that workers who are ill treated have no recourse but to either stay and take it or quit, etc.

Wal Mart is a very good example of this. I have read on many occasions how this company has often (and in all likelihood continues to do so) violated worker's rights/human rights. See for one U.S. example: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5269131/

Consider just HOW BAD (and HOW PREVALENT) this violation of worker's/human rights was in order for a CLASS ACTION suit to be filed in court. Sure Wal Mart makes huge profits - but at what expense to its employees? If there was EVER a company (and there are a few out there!) that NEED a union to ensure workers are treated reasonably - it's Wal Mart.

Yes, there are also companies who do not have a union - some treat their workers reasonably and they in turn don't see a need to unionize. Other companies - like Wal Mart - engage in "union busting" tactics and intimidation of workers in order to prevent workers from unionizing and/or break the union.
This is why I choose NOT to shop at Wal Mart. I'm sure their share holders don't care, but I do. This horrible company is NOT getting one cent of my hard-earned money.

Thank you Anza, this article was so interesting! I particularly liked the bit about US and Canada compared to Germany and the Netherlands and I feel like I've learned quite a bit, too.

^ Not a problem

The mention about racism was very interesting:
Racism in everyday life is less prevalent in the US than in Germany, and it is discussed more. Americans cannot (and do not) assume that someone who cannot speak proper English or has brown skin must be a foreigner. In Germany, slight grammatical errors as well as foreign features are usually cause for scorn and different treatment. Foreign-looking people are commonly asked to show their papers by police. While some right-wing politicians ride the anti-immigrant wave in the US, the general population's view of immigrants is much more positive than that in Germany, where it is not at all uncommon to overhear comments like "all they do is steal and take our jobs".

This isn't necessarily true. Publicly, the only people who don't talk about race are white people, because of the shame that's still associated with civil rights and racism. It's usually in all-white situations, too. I lived in an upper-middle class, almost entirely white-Italian-heritage town from the time I was 6 to when I was 14. It was awkward just coming from a small, Welsh/English family, lets just put it at that. I moved to a more working class area that ten times more diverse then before. I've countlessly have had the "white people do this, black people do that" conversations with a rainbow-coalition of people, since then. It's ten times more relaxed where I'm living now, nobody gives a shit about who you are, we consider race a joke. Before, it was like holding your breath. Americans may put on this aura of being ever so politically correct, but the real, everyday man knows better. It's almost disgusting how uptight we try to kid ourselves into being. Not only do we worry so much about being "polite" but we get offended so easily.

My father was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany for a year when I was really young. My mother loved Germany, and most people were incredibly friendly. However, her German is horrible. There was this family-ran bakery she used to go to for bread, and she was desperately trying to order in broken bits-and-pieces of this language. The woman behind the counter looks her dead in the eye, and after weeks of watching my mother suffer, states: "I speak English." The army didn't give much reason for anybody to be all smiles, either. They were living in this apartment building, in the middle of the city, and some of the tenants through a piss-stained mattress out a window and left it there to rot on the lawn. They littered countlessly, and since most of these guys were young, got rip-roaring drunk every weekend. They were a horrible example of the American people. It's no wounder other countries turn our nose to us.


I have the idea that people should be on their best behavior when moving to or staying in another country and I don't think a lot of people have this worked into their heads. Basically, you're a diplomat for your country of origin for the most part, so don't act like an asshole. You've give the wrong impression, which just fuels racism.