Kultur 6, Yuntao Chen

The articles included in this week's Kultur are interesting as usual. One of them talks about the fact that the doors in Germany are always closed. The author states that the proper way of knocking in Germany is to knock once loudly and come straight in. I find this very interesting. In my home country, China, doors are also usually closed. However the rules there are that you knock the door once and then wait for reply. You should never come straight in without the acknowledgement of the person inside. I guess in Germany if someone does not want other people to disturb him/her, he/she will just lock the door and that way nobody can run straight into the room.

Another article talks about sorting trash in different dustbins. The author complained that in Germany there are too many categories of trash to sort through. This is interesting, because here in Ann Arbor, we used to have trash cans for different kinds of garbage, but recently they have decided to merge all of them into two categories -- recyclable and non-recyclable. I personally do not know the rationale behind this move, but I understand that an elaborate sorting system is only sustainable when you have a very well educated population which have a strong sense of environmentalism and can correctly identify the categories of trash. Such level of sophistication is difficult to find. So I am very glad to know that it can be realized in Germany.

The author of the aforementioned article also says that in Germany if you order a telephone service, the company will simply mail the equipment to you and expect you to install it by yourselves. I think this is a very good idea. Let the people who are able to do these basic installations do it by themselves, and in case someone can not install a phone, he/she can always call for professional help.

The Kultur texts in this semester are very helpful. They provided a lot information about the different aspects of actual German society. I am very interested at them, and am looking forward to reading more of them in the next semester.