This is about the intangibles.
My friend and singer colleague Nicole Warner wrote a great piece about Esskultur, or, the ins and outs of dining with Germans. This is one very specific example of how to interact with Germans, and one that you would probably encounter sooner rather than later. Everyone's gotta eat, right? Nicole talks about the little cues of when you drink from your drink, how you toast, how to greet people, basically how to get in and out of the door without gravely offending anyone, even unintentionally.
IT IS HARD. The little things that wouldn't bother you in the least (my mother is fond of saying, "eat while it's hot!" while my grandparents adhered to the "we ALL wait until everyone's food has arrived" rule) or the finer points of shaking hands with everyone at a function, these are things you would only know if someone had told you or you'd spent a lot of time observing. My first extended stay in Germany, I felt like I was going to have to tackle the waitress to get my check. It's not just that they're not into "customer service" like US servers are, it's that they expect you're going to sit and stay a while, whether alone or with others. And when you inadvertently cross some invisible line, it can be a really alienating moment for everyone. In those moments, when something has happened and you don't know exactly what, that's when the foreign-ness creeps in.
It's even harder when you don't speak the language. I've watched my sweet husband go from a grocery-store-induced panic attack (they asked if he was collecting Treuepunkte - like bonus points) to being able to converse with colleagues at the theater. He doesn't always understand what's being said, but he puts it together and figures it out. It's more important to communicate than it is to use every correct verb formation and the exact right adjective ending. We still get looks from time to time when we speak in English on the tram. We still get looks when we speak in English in the grocery store. This will never go away, and I'm no longer fussed. Germans are also a culture of people who stare. It's not aggressive, like that guy who's staring you down on the subway in NYC. It's just the way they observe. Intently. And it can make you feel even more foreign - like a specimen under a microscope. With time, you don't take it so personally, and you stifle the urge to ask them what the hell they're looking at (in perfect German, of course), and you chalk it up to "that's how they are."
How does this cross over into your job? I don't really have enough hours to devote to the full-scale explanation. Knowing what your job is (and is NOT) is one critical piece of information. As a singer, your job is to show up ready to sing, and then try to do everything that's asked of you. Depending on the director, you may be expected to fill in certain artistic blanks for yourself, or even volunteer ideas. Some will give you a path to walk and let you live in the mannerisms of the character. Some will walk the walk for you and want you to do it exactly like that JUST LIKE THAT every time right down to the position of your wrists and fingers. Some conductors will want you to take liberties. Others will want you to be trained on their baton like a retriever on a duck.
As someone trained in the American system, I'm usually over-prepared and, by nature, over-eager to be a good student. I am the retriever, eager to please, ready to spring into action. But over time, you may also realize that this is not exactly part of your job - pleasing everyone. And then, more foreign-ness. "What do you mean I'm going to be pulled between the conductor and the director and the dramaturgs and then none will be happy with me? Can't we just talk about it and figure it out?"
The answer is "sometimes." But one of the methods of discourse I've encountered has to do with stating an opinion and then proceeding to beat someone about the head and shoulders until they concede that opinion is correct. It's not enough to say "everyone has an opinion, this is mine, you're entitled to yours too," SOMEONE must concede defeat. In those moments, I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes because, with a few exceptions that are very close to my heart, being right about every little detail just isn't that important to me. And then, my old friend from language school says to me, "if you don't stand up for yourself and push back, they won't respect you. Having an opinion and being quietly confident in that isn't enough - you've got to be able to throw out that opinion with enough oomph to make them take a step back and consider your position."
This is where I use my whiny voice. Reeeeeeeeally? I haaaaaaaaaave to? UGH. Idawanna. It's just too much work and I'd rather use my energy for something important, like memorizing Falstaff.
But this is a pretty critical issue for foreigners in a foreign land. Learning the boundaries and rules of another culture is just as important as finding out where your own boundaries start and end. Because they will be tested. Over and over and over again. You'll be mocked for your accent (good/bad/ugly/offensive/indifferent), you'll be corrected for your improper grammar (when you're trying to ask a really complicated question and the answer is WAY more important than the gender of the noun - doesn't matter, you'll get corrected and you still won't have the answer), you'll be discriminated against (regardless of your skin color/gender/sexual preference/marital status - foreign is foreign, to some people), and you will still have to carry on doing your job and making your way through this life, and hope that you get savvy enough to do this without some jackass ruining your day.
In today's New York Times, there's an opinion piece about giving up one's American passport. As with most opinion pieces, the comments section (up to 519 as of this moment) is where civility and restraint go to die. So many are ready to tell the writer that he's not a real American anyway, good riddance to bad rubbish, there are so many people waiting to take your place, and so on. As if questioning the IRS tax code is tantamount to disloyalty, treason, even! (What are those stats on how many people cheat on their taxes?) Having been through this myself, I am here to tell you that dealing with taxes in two countries is a headache and a half, even with a capable bilingual tax account whose entire business is working with expats, and armed with the upbringing I received at the knee of a bookkeeper and eventual US tax auditor. You want receipts? I got em. You want spreadsheets? I got em. And it STILL took me forever to get my taxes done. What's truly disturbing, though not surprising, are those who treat expats as if they have committed the gravest crime - interacting with FOREIGNERS. Perhaps coincidentally, there are several other pieces about foreigners and Germany in the Times today - this piece about proposed German language requirements and cultural assimilation, another about immigration protests in Dresden, and yet another about the refugee crisis (focusing on Berlin and Hamburg). I am not a refugee, and I don't even begin to understand how difficult it must be for asylum seekers running for their lives. But for now, I am a foreigner in a foreign land. No matter how many verbs I conjugate correctly or how many times I use the Konjunktiv with perfect word order, it doesn't change the nationality on my passport.
So here's what I've got to say about being foreign:
Learn as much as you can about the traditions of your host culture. Honor them, but don't forget to honor your own.
Learn how to be polite, forceful, assertive, and even a little rude in your host culture, but don't employ that last one unless it's absolutely necessary (sometimes it will be).
Pick your battles. I can't overstate that one enough.
Learn to spot allies and cultivate relationships with them - people who can help you navigate your way through bureaucracy, and who will do so just because they're helpful. Cherish these people - they will be your saving grace.
And finally, take the time to figure out what's really important to you about your home country. Be an informed citizen. Do your best to epitomize the best of your native land and be a foil to every stereotype. You will do yourself and every other foreign a big favor by NOT adding fuel to someone else's fire.
Coming to you from a south-westerly corner of Germany, this foreigner bids you all,
"Gute Nacht."
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Up next in this series: Thomas Wolfe says I can never go home again
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