The Berliner Blog #5

Contents:
- One Lonely Indian
- German TV
- Deutsch in Neukölln

One Lonely Indian

My guidebook told me it was worth a trip to KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens – Department Store of the West), a seven-floor department store, if only for the gourmet food market on the sixth floor. Gourmet food? Say no more. Just a peek will do, no buying necessary. Apparently KaDeWe is Europe’s second largest department store, next to Harrod’s of course.

As I made my way up the escalator I was greeted by quite the sight: a tipi and an Native man in costume making crafts surrounded by maple syrup, Coffee Crunch chocolate bars, Icewine and animal skins. Then I noticed the massive pictures of the Rockies everywhere and fake, red maple leaves. No I hadn’t stumbled upon some weird transporter into a Canadian gift shop, this was part of a special exhibit showcasing the wonders of Canadian cuisine. Canadian cuisine? What the hell is Canadian cuisine? How can we have a cuisine when we barely have an identity as a people?

It made me sad that all we have to export as “Canadian” is Native Indian culture and sugary products. It just doesn’t seem right knowing our dodgy history with the Native Indians to be using them as a proud symbol of our country. It also shows how little we know of ourselves and our achievements, our arts (in my opinion our most important cultural export), our other peoples on the coasts, our French-Canadian culture and countless other things Canadian. Or worse, this is what the Ministry of Tourism believes is a healthy picture of the true Canada for the world to see. Right, like that’s exactly what people see when they come to Canada. And as for beer, the only kinds I saw were Molson Canadian and Moosehead – good show boys, those’ll really stack up next to the German beers!

So I went up and asked the nice Indian if I could take a picture of the tipi (I didn’t want him in it because I thought it would be too sorry a picture). We got to talking and it turns out he moved to Potsdam seven years ago from Alberta and now teaches about Indian culture in various places here in Europe. He has a German wife and a daughter, but doesn’t speak German. He looked lonely and happy to talk, not too many people were approaching him. He told me all the gigs he had done (some cheesy TV commercials, a TV show, a play – all as various American Indians), gave me some good places to go for English books and bison meat and said we should have coffee sometime. With a name like Murray Small Legs how could I refuse? I think he was happy to meet another Canadian. Oh, and there was a Mountie earlier in the week but she had to return to Canada.

The Ministry of Tourism didn’t have enough money to send anyone else and the tipi was Murray’s.

German TV

Here are some choice pics from my TV this evening. On one channel they have live Oktoberfest broadcasts (complete with men in lederhosen and ladies in dirndls!) and the next they have ads for dial-up sex chats (quite different from the ones in Canada where the girls keep their bikinis on and their hands to themselves).

Deutsch in Neukölln

My German friends always joke that I should be learning Turkish instead of German because I live in Neukölln and I think they might be right. Maybe learning German in Neukölln is like learning English in China Town. No offense to anyone Turkish or Chinese, I’m just trying to learn German.