Me: Can you tell me about yourself, and your home life?
David: Yeah, my name is David Schwarz, I’m 21. I’m from Germany, near Frankfurt. Two older brothers, a mother and father of course, a dog, got out of high school two years ago. Now I’m studying for one semester here.
Me: What’s your major?
David: Business and Engineering
David: Business and Engineering
Me: What are the different traditions for weddings, or family traditions?
David: Um actually, we don’t have any family traditions; it’s the same in America, white dress a groom a bride in a church.
Me: what are the different traditions for funerals?
David: In Germany, people are sad of course there is a mass in church and after that you go to the graveyard and the family spends a lot of money to give food for everyone and talk about the person that died.
Me: How was your education in Germany different to education here at SCSU.
David: In the university in Germany you have eight or nine classes per semester, more lessons per day, yeah you don’t have homework or group assignments you don’t have tests, just one final exam at the end that is 100%, so you have to study for like 4-5 weeks. Nobody cares if you fail or pass, it’s your responsibility. The professors expect more, and don’t explain everything, here in America professors explain everything or are willing to answer questions.
Me: Is there any different on how a woman and man contact each other?
David: It’s pretty much the same compared to here in America.
Me: What are some religious or cultural aspects in Germany?
David: Usually everyone is Christian, half Catholic, half Protestants, maybe 2 percent of Muslims; pretty much the same as here in America but people go to church every Sunday except younger people who skip church. A lot of schools in Germany are Christian schools, because its tradition.
Me: Does Germany have rules on body language?
David: Well, before dating you must have a contact and body language just really the same compared to here.
Me: What do you have for your diet in Germany? For breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
David: Diet? Like if you want to lose weight?
David: Diet? Like if you want to lose weight?
Me: No, like asking what you eat for each meal of the day.
David: For breakfast cereals, jam and honey or butter always, lunch, noodles and cheese, not macaroni and cheese it’s really different, a lot of food with pork, and a lot of traditional Germany dishes
Me: What is the length of a school year?
David: Usually we have vacation for six weeks in the summer, depends on the state. Start in August or September, and ends in July or August.
Me: You said it depends on the state? So there are different states in Germany?
David: Yup sixteen different states, I’m from Middle West Germany
Me: What is the length of a school day?
David: Elementary school, its four classes per day, 8:00-12:00, Middle school one class than elementary school so more 8:00-2:00 and High school it depends 8:00-3:00 usually
Me: What was your daily routine on a school day for high school?
David: You have to stand up when a teacher enters a room and say hello, usually we pray in the morning and depends on the teacher, but that’s not common in Germany, after first class we had break for five minutes, after six classes you have one hour break to eat something.
Me: Were you allowed to eat off school grounds?
David: Depends on how old you are, and your school. My school at age sixteen, I was allowed to eat off campus. I attended a Christian school.
Me: What did you do after school?
David: Usually went home or went to a friends, had homework every day spent an hour, maybe study if you had a test, and hang out with friends.
David: Usually went home or went to a friends, had homework every day spent an hour, maybe study if you had a test, and hang out with friends.
Me: Did you have a job during high school?
David: No, not during school
Me: Is it common for students to not have a job during high school?
David: Usually during high school students don’t have jobs, they start after. Some kids had jobs but not very many.
Me: What was your routine while you attended the University?
David: It really depends on your schedule, I have classes five days of classes and it’s pretty much the same as high school except you don’t have homework and don’t have to study just study at the end like crazy.
Me: Did you have a job after high school?
David: I had a job for six months and when I started university, not anymore.
Me: What are the roles between parent and child, and how did it change?
David: Basically it’s the same as here in the U.S. and it depends on the family, my family my father was in authority so he said what to do, and my mom was softer an opposite of my father. They put a little pressure for school, to make sure that you tried. I was allowed to go out till 2:00 am at 16, and to start drinking.
Me: Was there a state law or country law for curfew?
David: Yes, you’re allowed to stay out till 10:00PM till your sixteen, then at sixteen till midnight, and once your eighteen no curfew. Considered an adult at eighteen, but if you do something bad you are not an adult till 21.
Me: What are the roles between teacher and student?
David: During elementary school, they do a lot of stuff with you, and you have one teacher for all of your classes, and you have a good relationship and once you go to middle school you have every class with a different teacher, and the teachers come to you. They put more pressure on in middle school, and it’s starting to get more serious, the teacher has more authority, you don’t have a great relationship with them. In high school it’s different; you are more educated and are able to have conversations with the teachers
Me: And the university?
David: It really depends on the teacher, In the German language you use a formal name to call them and their last name, one teacher allowed us to call him by his first name, so he was looked at as being cool, and here in America professors allow you to call them by their first names more often. In Germany you can only go to professors to talk to them about teaching stuff, and here in America you can talk about anything.
Me: How was your grades grouped together in the school?
David: Elementary ages six to ten years, middle school, there were three different types of schools, if you’re not good at school go to the lower school, middle school is 5th grade to 9th or 10th and high school is 11th and 12th.
Me: So there are different middle schools?
David: Yes, it depends on how well you did in elementary school. The teacher decides how well you did and picks which middle school you went to, and you can change between middle school if you get better or do worse. Only people in the best schools and go to high school and can go to university. Our grading systems are 1-6. 1 is an A and 5 is failing.
Me: What is 6?
David: ha-ha I actually don’t know why there is a 6.
Me: Were you in any clubs or sports in high school?
David: It’s not like here in America, where you can have your whole social life in school, there are clubs like chess club in school, I was in soccer, and it would happen outside of school.
Me: What are some activities that you do?
David: All boys in Germany play soccer and girls they dance and ride horse. I don’t have a sister so I’m not sure what they do during their time.
Me: Would you say that soccer is the most important sport in Germany?
David: ha-ha yes everyone loves soccer, and everyone watches the “world cup” and we really follow soccer. Everybody knows the soccer athletes, they are very famous.
David: ha-ha yes everyone loves soccer, and everyone watches the “world cup” and we really follow soccer. Everybody knows the soccer athletes, they are very famous.
Me: I have to ask, are you a fan of harry potter?
David: I like harry potter, the movies are bad, and you guys have a Quidditch club which is awesome, it’s of course a big deal I would say everyone loves it, that was a nice question ha-ha.
Me: Is there any special traditions for dating?
David: Of course men have to pay and they should be polite at least.
Me: Is there anything that you think I should know about Germany?
David: Yeah, the language, there are 100 of different types of German. Bavarian is a more known language, and I wouldn’t be able to understand, if you hear how they speak you would know where they are from in Germany. They pronounce words differently. It’s like your accents here in America.
David: How many people do you think live in Germany for population? Just guess
Me: Umm.. maybe 750,000?
David: Ha-ha are you sure? 18 million people live in Germany and it’s the size of Minnesota, so we are very crowded, and in America you have free space.
Me: Do you still have country side though?
David: Yes we do and we have a lot of little size cities.
Me: Have you only been to Minnesota?
David: I have been to New York just two weeks ago and Alaska.
David: I have been to New York just two weeks ago and Alaska.
Me: Ha-ha wow I haven’t even been to that many states.
David: Ha-ha really so I’ve been to more states then you
Me: So how is the weather compared to Germany?
David: Ha-ha the weather is the same except your October was really hot that’s the reason why people from Germany came to Minnesota because of the same weather.
Me: Why did you choose St. Cloud State University?
David: We only have two partner Universities and one in Georgia and one in SCSU, and Georgia only allows 6 students. There are 22 Germany students here at SCSU.
Me: How long have you been studying English?
David: We start in 5th grade.
Me: Is it difficult to learn English?
David: There are very similar words; kindergarten and iceberg are German words. The structure of a sentence is the same. You don’t have to think about it.
Me: Have you been to a lot of countries in Europe?
David: Yeah I’ve been to about 50% of Europe. I live about 6 hours away from Paris. It’s like you can drive to Chicago and I could drive to Paris.
Me: ha-ha jealous, I wish I lived 6 hours away from Paris.
Me: How does your country teach the holocaust in school?
David: Too much, ha-ha they teach history in 7th grade, every year we learn about the holocaust, it’s important of course but we talk about it too much. Our teachers are not people that did that, so they are as far away as we are. If I were to talk to my grandparents, my grandpa was 16 when the war ended, and if I were to talk to them, it would be different than the teachers. The teachers are like it happened we have to learn about it, it was horrible, and people that lived through it don’t want to talk about it and you can see the remorse on their faces because it was so horrible.
Me: Do people freely talk about Hitler?
David: Yeah, we talk about him and it was important, He influenced Germany a lot, a lot of people make jokes about him and there are a lot of people who don’t make jokes about him, it’s a touchy subject. In 1928, black Friday, Germany was just in a war and really poor, everybody lost a lot of money then his party started in 1923 and in the beginning he wasn’t powerful people thought he was stupid and crazy but after black Friday, it changed people felt helpless and he tried to change it so everyone elected him. People in Germany worked really hard and after the war, 20 years later once again a very powerful country and a big population.
Me: In Germany do you reference America a lot? Or how does Germany view America?
David: You guys influence us a lot, your Hollywood movies, and TV shows like Simpsons. A lot of people don’t like America because of wars and politics. The U.S. is important and powerful and has helped us as well. One side really likes the U.S. and one side not so much.
Me: What percentage of Germans can speak English?
David: Eastern Germany, English is very rare for the older generations. I’d say about 50% our age everyone usually knows English.
Me: What can you tell me about the cities in Germany?
David: You would be really surprised on how the cities look like, the buildings are really solid and the walls are doubled in size and yeah it’s more expensive, and the cars are really different, no American cars except ford. I’ve never seen a Pontiac or GM. It looks really different here, we don’t have SUVs or jeeps, our cars are smaller and cheaper and more efficient. Our streets are smaller because we have a lot of older cities and built for people who had maybe one horse. So a big SUV you wouldn’t be able to drive.
Me: Did you ever get to experience living on a farm?
David: When I was 6 I lived in a small village and there were a lot of farms, we grew the same crops as Minnesota like wheat and corn. We don’t have pumpkins, I’ve never seen a real pumpkin before and now I have two on my balcony. We don’t celebrate Halloween and the big companies that make Halloween stuff try to make Halloween big in Germany, we have so many holidays that we celebrate, we have Karneval where we wear costumes in February for 5 days.
David: When I was 6 I lived in a small village and there were a lot of farms, we grew the same crops as Minnesota like wheat and corn. We don’t have pumpkins, I’ve never seen a real pumpkin before and now I have two on my balcony. We don’t celebrate Halloween and the big companies that make Halloween stuff try to make Halloween big in Germany, we have so many holidays that we celebrate, we have Karneval where we wear costumes in February for 5 days.
Me: What are some other holidays you have in Germany?
David: Christmas, Easter, Independence Day, Work day (Labor Day) a lot of Christian holidays. There are ten or twelve holidays, and it depends on the state. Anytime that the United States has influenced Germany, we learn about it, and I don’t know when the civil war happened but we did learn about it because it involved slavery. We start learning about Greece because that’s our root and then Rome Empire and then go to medieval times, and Germany didn’t exist in that time, so learn everything about Europe and then Germany was founded 1871. It was influenced by everything else. Another thing Europe is more responsible about their resources, we started 30 years like how you are now, you guys started to think now about global warming and we started that 30-40 years ago.
I then proceeded to turn off the recorder because I thought we were done, but then he asked me if he was the first interview, I then told him that I had another interview this next Thursday, since he knows all of the German exchange students, he asked who it was and we discussed that. He said that the experience was very rewarding.
Preparations for the interview:
First, I thought of twelve questions that I wanted to ask my interviewees. As a class we decided on eight more questions and I added those to my final list of questions to ask the interviewees. I decided that I wanted to interview foreign exchange students from Germany, since we had a total of 22 students and most of them lived in my dorm; Benton. I decided to use my computer to record the interview, before this decision, I did a test interview with my roommate to see if the sound quality would be suffice for the interview, so that I could write a transcript.
First, I thought of twelve questions that I wanted to ask my interviewees. As a class we decided on eight more questions and I added those to my final list of questions to ask the interviewees. I decided that I wanted to interview foreign exchange students from Germany, since we had a total of 22 students and most of them lived in my dorm; Benton. I decided to use my computer to record the interview, before this decision, I did a test interview with my roommate to see if the sound quality would be suffice for the interview, so that I could write a transcript.
How did you approach people?
I walked over to Carol Hall and asked them if it was possible to get a list of e-mails or room numbers of the German exchange students. They were very helpful and got my information, and they actually sent an e-mail to a couple of German exchange students explaining the project with my contact information. The same day, I got two e-mails from two very willing German exchange students. We sent e-mails back and forth figuring out when to conduct the interview.
When, Where, and How did you conduct the interview?
I conducted the interview with David in the basement of Carol Hall. I figured this spot would be comforable because there are rarely any students in the basement during the day, and its a spot that most residents of Benton are very familiar with. I arrived ten minutes early and set up my computer. When David arrived, we introduced ourselves, I explained the assignment a little more clearly and gave him the list of questions, so that he knew a little bit more what to expect.
Whom did you interview?
I interviewed David Schwarz, a 21 year old from middle west Germany. David has two older brothers and a dog. David loves to play soccer and attended a Christian school. He came to SCSU to learn better English.
Describe the interview
I thought the interview went very well. It was the first interview, so I was slightly nervous. David made it very easy to interview him though because he would talk a lot or add things that I wouldn't think of asking. I learned many things about Germany that I didn't know before. At the beginning it was more of me asking questions and him answering, but as the interview went on, it got more to the point of us just talking and learning about Germany and America as well.
Country Report
Germany is a country located in Europe. In Europe, Germany has the largest economy. "It is a federal parliamentary republic of sixteen states." (Wikipedia, 2010) Germany's flag consists of "three horizontal stripes of equal width, black at the top, red in the middle and gold at the bottom." (Country Reports, 2010) This country is about the size of Minnesota. Germany has a population of around 81,000,000 and it's ranked "15th overall for population." (CIA, 2010) Germany's main religion is Christian and there are two main types of Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Germany has a climate very similar to Minnesota, and this type of weather is called temperate seasonal climate. The current president of Germany is; Christian Wulff, and he will be in office for a five year term. "Germany maintains a network of 229 diplomatic missions abroad and holds relations with more than 190 countries." (Wikipedia, 2010) In Germany, they have a life expectancy of about 79 years of age. Germany is actually known for producing many poets and thinkers. Sport wise, soccer would be one of Germany's favorite, but some other sports on the rise are handball, volleyball, basketball, ice hockey, and tennis. Once people reach the age of 16, they are allowed to drink wine and beer. When they are 18, they are allowed to drink any alcoholic beverage of their choice. Germany after WWI, was a very poor country. People felt helpless at the time. "Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg in 1933." (Country Reports, 2010) Germany is known for having the most holidays for a country. They have around twelve holidays that they get off of work from.
Germany is a country located in Europe. In Europe, Germany has the largest economy. "It is a federal parliamentary republic of sixteen states." (Wikipedia, 2010) Germany's flag consists of "three horizontal stripes of equal width, black at the top, red in the middle and gold at the bottom." (Country Reports, 2010) This country is about the size of Minnesota. Germany has a population of around 81,000,000 and it's ranked "15th overall for population." (CIA, 2010) Germany's main religion is Christian and there are two main types of Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Germany has a climate very similar to Minnesota, and this type of weather is called temperate seasonal climate. The current president of Germany is; Christian Wulff, and he will be in office for a five year term. "Germany maintains a network of 229 diplomatic missions abroad and holds relations with more than 190 countries." (Wikipedia, 2010) In Germany, they have a life expectancy of about 79 years of age. Germany is actually known for producing many poets and thinkers. Sport wise, soccer would be one of Germany's favorite, but some other sports on the rise are handball, volleyball, basketball, ice hockey, and tennis. Once people reach the age of 16, they are allowed to drink wine and beer. When they are 18, they are allowed to drink any alcoholic beverage of their choice. Germany after WWI, was a very poor country. People felt helpless at the time. "Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg in 1933." (Country Reports, 2010) Germany is known for having the most holidays for a country. They have around twelve holidays that they get off of work from.
Works Cited.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany 10-27-10
