Longstanding Culture Shocks Part 1/?

As one might expect since moving to Germany, I’ve experienced many instances of culture shocks. I have visited Germany before as a tourist, so I was not completely unused to some of the cultural differences, given that it was my first time living abroad for an extended period of time, many of these differences were very noticeable at first. While I’ve gotten used to many of these cultural differences, there are still a few that continue to amuse me.

The supermarket is one area where there are many instances of culture shock that did take some getting used to, I will admit. For instance, when buying vegetables or fruit that are not prepackaged, one must be sure to weigh the vegetables on this machine which will distribute a sticker that tells the price of the produce. I assume that this process is to make the checkout process more streamlined and efficient as opposed to in America where the cashier must weigh all produce in order to calculate the price.

Something I found to be rather contradictory in this process is that when selecting Brötchen or other bread, there are no stickers or anything to make the checkout process easier for the cashier. In my experience as a regular bread consumer, the cashiers have always had to consult a book with barcodes of the prices or have had to select the type of bread on the checkout computer system. While weighing the produce is no big deal to me now, it did take some getting used to initially and I will admit there were a few times when I almost went to the checkout lanes without having my produce weighed stickered and then had to return to get that sticker.

A few more aspects of grocery shopping that are still noticeable as culture shock to me are the fact you have to put a coin deposit into the shopping cart in order to be allowed to use it and also when checking out groceries, you need to bag your own groceries yourself. I’ve found it amusing how most of the instances of culture shock I’ve noticed have been in relation to grocery shopping. I think this is because it is something that one does so regularly and to have changes to that routine, even very subtle changes can become very noticeable.

Another instance of culture shock that still amazes me is how self-sufficient children seem to be in Germany from an early age. When I first arrived in Germany I was a bit blown away by seeing young children, some around the age of 7 or 8, on the bus, travelling independently of their parents. This was fairly shocking to me, coming from the often very protective nature of American parenting. Not to mention that there are no traditional yellow school buses in Germany, that are a hallmark of the classic American adolescence. I recall as one who relied of these yellow buses as a form of transport for the majority of my childhood, that many children (some around 7 or 8) would not even be allowed to disembark the bus unless an adult was there to meet them, even if the bus stopped right in front of their house – a stark contrast from the young independence of these young German students. I wonder how many American parents would react to hearing that children take the public city bus on their own with total strangers as passengers. Neither way is necessarily correct or incorrect, perhaps a balance between the two is best.