Culture matters 5: ATTITUDE TOWARDS TAKING RISKS

In order to produce a readable piece of writing for you, I googled both the terms “taking risks” and “Risikos eingehen”. Interestingly, in English I got much advice to take risks, since life won’t get better without taking risks. In German most headings had the phrase “Kein Risiko eingehen” in them, because this would end in a disaster. Why is that?

The Peace Corps website claims that Americans are very willing to take risks. They think it’s always possible to start all over again and even if they fail, there will be new chances to get happy again. Failure is assumed to be an important part of life you can learn from. That’s one of the reasons, why people don’t save too much and there is a high level of personal bankruptcies.

Austrians, on the other hand, love to save their money. I had my first encounter with a bank employee at elementary school. Every year at the “Weltspartag” a man would come to school, open our piggybanks and count the money in such a speed that we were truly impressed. Then he’d write the amount into our bankbook and give it back to us with a “Sparefroh” present. What a day! And since then I knew that I had to save money, because “Spare in der Zeit, dann hast du in der Not”, right mom?

Overall, taking risks just doesn’t seem appealing to Austrians. We prefer to have a secure working place, a nice brick house and a supporting family. I’ve already told you about the Austrians’ opinion about change, which is similar to this topic. To sum up, taking risks is a big no-no, change is a big no-no and if we’re not sure about something new it’s probably the biggest no-no ever. It’s not that Austrians were cowards, but we are definitely highly skeptical towards taking risks, since that can make things worse. Nothing ventured, nothing lost!

Don't chicken out and cross the road!!!

After reading Betty's "Why did the chicken cross the road" entry, I wondered why it's always the chicken crossing the road. Well, actually it is NOT only the chicken...

Why did the fox cross the road?
-To get the chicken.

Why did the chewing gum cross the road?
-It was on the chicken's foot.

Why did the deer cross the road?
-It was the chicken's day off.

Why did the T-Rex cross the road?
-The chicken hadn't evolved yet.

Why did the turkey cross the road twice?
To prove it was not a chicken.

:))))

More Sign Language

Normally, people majoring in translation studies don’t have to justify themselves for choosing that course of studies. It’s considered to be both challenging and interesting. However, Sign Language students even have to struggle making people believe Sign Language is actually a real language. Considering all those statements like “I didn’t know you could study THAT…”, or “Gosh! You have to learn vocabulary too?” and not to forget “But what exactly takes so long learning that Taubstummensprache?”, I decided to dedicate another blog entry to Sign Language.

Above all, I want to stress Sign Language is a real, natural language like German, English and all other oral languages. It’s not a lingo for disabled people that some social worker invented, as many people seem to think. However, Austrian Sign Language is quite different to spoken German. There are other grammatical rules, other types of words and other ways to express certain ideas. Sure, there are some words that are similar and many signs even go with the German word, though of course there’s no need to say it aloud. You’d just form the German word with the mouth without vocalizing it. Still, there are too many differences too overlook the fact that Sign language is an individual language and is not to be confused with signed German.

A major difference between spoken languages and Sign Languages is that there is no written form of Sign Language. Researchers wanted, nevertheless, to put it down somehow, since that’s the only way to examine a language properly. Many different notation systems arose, but some of them are just too difficult to learn and are used as research tools only. The HamNoSys, for example is, in my opinion, a really hard and complicated way of writing down signs, though it’s surely very accurate.

Here you can look up how you'd write down the word "Dolmetscher".


While here at university everyone can write down the word signs as they want, we do have to follow rules when transcribing entire texts.
> All words have to be written in capital letters.
> there is a special way of putting down agreement verbs
> special signs go in quotation marks
…

Here’s an example: (The link didn’t work, but the corresponding video can be found at this page. Look for “Gebärdensprachkurse für Kinder starten wieder”)

GEBÄRDEN+SPRACH KURS IX-nach vorne unten KINDER WIEDER “starten” DANN AB OKTOBER IX-da [hmm] VEREIN KINDER+HÄNDE WIEDER WAS GEBÄRDEN+SPRACHE KURS AUCH SPIEL GRUPPE etc.
(I do not guarantee for the correctness :P)

However, if there’s no written form, what’s our counterpart to written exams or homework? We simply film ourselves with the equipment available in the media room. For example, while all of you had to do two written First Diploma Exams, we only had one written and the other one had to be recorded.

Anyway, note that translation is a bit tricky when it comes to Sign Language. In English for example it’s ok to say deaf and Sign Language, but in Austria the political correct terms are “Gerhörlose” and “Gebärdensprache”. Saying “taub” or “Zeichensprache” is considered to be pejorative, so make sure in advance that you know the corresponding words in both of your languages.

Culture matters 4: ATTITUDE TOWARDS CHANGE

All things have to change to something new, to something strange.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet

_________________________________________________________

If we look back at the world’s history, the first thing we’ll notice is how everything has changed- not only the beings on Earth, but also the Earth itself. There is land where there wasn’t, there were plants that aren’t anymore… The world keeps changing and that’s also true for our whole lives. And although change is such a central part of life, not all people feel comfortable with it. Today I’ll examine the American and the Austrian attitudes towards change when it comes to changing things and people.

Changing things means mostly improving technologies and optics. The American point of view is according to the Peace Corps site “New is better”. I think the same is true for Austrians. We enjoy having smaller cell phones, new modern clothes, new cafeterias etc. As you see it’s not only about things, but about everything around us. If it’s new it’s considered to be better and sells like hotcakes. However not everyone is happy with the things around changing. The elderly, for example, keep moaning about the good old days, when they had their old washing machine that worked so much better than this new one their children bought for them. And it’s not only senior citizens who aren’t always content with changes. Just think about the new cover child of “Kinderschokolade”. I know so many people of my age who got so angry about it. Some even refuse to buy any more “Kinderschokolade”… So all in all, in Austria change is obviously assumed to be a mixed blessing.

Now for changing people and their lifestyles, Americans think also very positive about any changes. They think by changing, they can become better people and improve their lives drastically. Things are not better, just because they’ve always been done like that. That shows for example in the high turn-over rate in American workplaces and also in their mobility. Austrians, in comparison, don’t like changing their lifestyles. They feel strong bonds with the place they where raised and don’t easily leave that places. I’m not sure, but I think very often that has to do with fear. People don’t think life could be better somewhere else, so what’s the point of moving? And why changing jobs if the one they have isn’t absolutely horrible. Maybe they hate what they’ve got to do every day and they’re miserably paid, but other jobs might be much worse. Don’t ask me about the logic behind this, but it’s the way a lot of Austrians think.

To sum up Americans are pro-change in nearly every way, whereas Austrians aren’t too fond of change. I guess our problem is that we start to like things too easily. I'm a perfect example for that behavior. When I moved into my new apartment I immediately noticed that odd door handle, that you have to turn upwards to open the door. At first I thought we’ll certainly fix that, but after a week or so I got used to it and now I really like it. In fact I absolutely adore our dear incorrectly assembled door handle. Here is it:

The strange behaviour of meat-eating people

Reading your blogs, my SUK4-mates, made me realize how little I've told you about my personal life. I'm always sticking to facts, mostly because I don't think my life is particularly interesting for you. True, I could tell you about my cool new i-pod (and it's REALLY cool) or about the huge Temmel ice I ate today or about that stupid "Vollmond Caffe" (yes, that's the way they spell it) next to my apartment, but then again I'm not sure if you'd really care. However, I really like your personal entries and I'm absolutely not bored by them, so let's try if I can do that as well. So here we go:







The strange behaviour of meat-eating people




I’ve been a vegetarian for three years now and I’m really content with that. I don’t eat animals, because I don’t like the thought of animals dying for me and eating their carcasses. That somehow seems weird to me. However, I’ve been a meat-eater for the better part of my life, so I find it absolutely understandable if people keep eating meat. I mean, it is tasty and we vegetarians know that and really don’t mind you eating it. However, most meat-eaters don’t seem to know that. When they find out that I’m a vegetarian after a nice chat, they suddenly start to behave in a very strange way and I’m not talking about individual cases here.

Firstly, there’d be a short silence, after which they’d say, “A vegetarian, are you? Don’t you like the flavor?” After I've explained my reasons to them and that I don’t care if other people eat meat they say, “Yeah, you’re right. Everyone has to decide that for himself/herself.” So far so good. However, after this nice introduction they normally go through the famous (at least among vegetarians) three meat-eater phases:

Phase one: I’ve got really good reasons to eat meat! Though I’ve made it clear that I couldn’t care less for their eating habits, they still try to justify why they eat meat. They tell me where they buy their food, that if they don’t eat meat they’ll get terribly sick, that one can’t live from vegetables only, that animals are created to be eaten and so on. After advising me to consult a doctor about my unhealthy vegetarian lifestyle they usually drift into phase two.

Phase two: Did you know you still eat meat? Whether I eat an apple with a worm inside, a beetle while I’m riding my bike, a spider in my sleep…I do eat animals and there’s hardly a meat-eater who didn’t enjoy telling me about it. I don’t deny I do all those things, but the point is that I don’t do it on purpose. I’m not lying in my bed trying to spot spiders I could eat for supper and I don’t open my mouth when I ride my bike to snack a few flies on my way to university. Things like that happen and although I’d prefer not to eat insects, I can’t help it.

Phase three: Don’t you pity the plants you’re eating? Here it gets really tiresome for me, because at this point my counterpart has obviously run out of ANY reasonable argument. Then I normally try to explain to them that animals consist of flesh and blood like we do and that they can also feel pain due to their nervous system plants just don’t have. We argue a bit about our opinions, but in the end we’re both happy when we finally change the subject.

So, can anyone out there explain that phenomenon to me? I mean, people always claim that vegetarians are so intolerant and then they are the ones who keep nagging on us. I’m not speaking of all meat- eaters here of course, but the majority definitely reacts the way I described.



Speaking of carnivores:

Culture matters 3: VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

I do know that it’s not easy to generalize opinions about the human nature, since most people don’t agree on that. However, I think it’s possible to give a vague impression about the most common attitudes towards the human nature in Austria. That’s also what the Peace Corps culture site tried to do, with the difference that they described the American point of view.

According to the website, Americans strongly believe that men are basically good. If left alone, people will do the right thing and therefore can be trusted. Consequently, courts consider a person innocent until there are proves against him/her. If people don’t fit this pattern and do something evil, an explanation for that behavior is searched.

The official Austrian opinion is essentially the same, though in practice people certainly tend to mistrust others. People from other cultures and homeless are considered to be especially dangerous (not to mention homeless people from other cultures!). While pedagogues claim that there are certain influences that make people bad, the rest of us knows that they are just evil and should be locked up for eternity.

Broadly speaking Austrians are pretty suspicious, but if they get to know other people better and get to like them they behave differently, of course. If we can trust Peace Corps, Americans have a far better opinion about the human nature, but I’m not sure if they, too, aren’t only speaking of the official opinion. Mistrusting (Austrian) me…

Vocabulary books at Amazon

Reading books in a foreign language does always mean ignoring a lot of words you don't understand. I mean, of course, one would look up words that seem to be important, but reading isn't fun anymore if you have to look up every second word to get the content of the book.

Thanks God, Amazon provides remedies. They not only sell books, but for some of them there are even vocabulary books available. I, for example, read the book "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and bought also "Aschendorffs Vokabularien zu fremdsprachigen Taschenbüchern".

At first I was a bit disappointed, because there was only the German translation and there were also a lot of words I already knew. However, the book turned out to be really useful for many other words, expressions and abbreviations, like "ROTC", "shop talk"... It also explains slang expressions and gives information about phrases that refer to quotes or historical event. It's, at any rate, a good way to increase your passive vocabulary and it keeps you reading smoothly.

Culture matters 2: FATE AND DESTINY

The outlook on fate and destiny is a very interesting topic to examine, for it reveals a lot about people. Sure, it would also be fascinating to explore how people came to those opinions, but that would go back too far, since in America this way of thinking starts with the Puritans and in Austria probably even earlier. Interesting as this might be, it would be too time consuming to go deeper into that, so I’ll concentrate, again, on comparing and contrasting the American and the Austrian point of view.

Americans are quite optimistic about the future. They think they have every opportunity to become as successful as they want. It’s the, for America so characteristic, from rags-to-rich dream I’m talking about. The general opinion is that unsuccessful people only have themselves to blame. The motto of the Americans is undoubtedly “Where there’s a will there’s a way”. In short, the site obviously comes to the same conclusion as the book “Gig”, in which people talk about their jobs. Many of them didn’t like what they were doing, so they just changed their jobs or even moved until they felt comfortable with the way they lived.

In Austria that’s absolutely different. People seem to be more serene here when it comes to changing their future. They don’t think everyone can do everything they want. Mind you, they wouldn’t tell a child explicitly that they can’t become everything, but they would certainly not encourage them if they dreamed about becoming famous, rich or anything. If Austrians are unsuccessful, though they have tried, the public opinion would be “Why…He/She is probably not meant for that…”. Actually, it doesn’t even matter a lot how hard they tried. Imagine for example an unemployed Austrian, who doesn’t get a job in or near his hometown. It’s very unlikely that this person would move in order to get hired. Our motto is more like “Do kau ma hoit nix doa…”

In comparison to the topic “age” I’ve already covered, there’s a great difference between the American and Austrian attitude towards fate and destiny. Americans are obviously more active in changing their future, although that certainly differs from region to region too. Just think of the first page of Bill Bryson’s book “The lost Continent”, where he writes about his hometown:

“When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the firestone factory and live there for ever and ever, or you spend your adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can’t wait to get out, and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the firestone factory and live there for ever and ever.”

Sign Language Vocabulary

A big part of learning a language is, of course, learning new words. In order to do so many students keep glossaries, buy vocabulary learning books and tons of different dictionaries, like collocation dictionaries, monolingual dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, phrasal verbs dictionaries etc. Obviously there are many words to gain and there are many ways to store them, but we are speaking here about spoken languages. How would you store signed words? That’s one of the frequently asked questions Sign Language students hear, so I thought why not answer it here and share my experiences with you, my language-interested fellow students.

Let’s start with the question of learning new words. Learning Sign Language words is a rather time-consuming process. Our teacher, a native speaker, prepares a vocabulary list with all the new expressions. He hands out these lists of German words and expressions and then signs each one, pausing after every word for us to write the it down. Now you’ll probably ask: How would you write down a signed word? I’ll give you an example: Here you can watch the Styrian sign for “April”. (By the way, the person on the viedo is one of the teachers at our department) I wrote the sign down like this:




As you can see I use a lot of abbreviation, describing exactly where the hand is, where it goes and how this movement looks like. Of course, everybody has his/her own system to remember the words. For example, better equipped students might film themselves signing, drawing talents might put down the word this way… It really doesn’t matter as long as you remember the word accurately, since small changes could change the word's meaning. Also, the facial expression needs to be remembered, especially the mouth gesture. Although in most cases the mouth forms soundlessly the German word, there are also words and expressions that require a special mouth gesture.

Ok, that’s it for now… Much as I’d love to tell you more about this wonderful language, I’m too tired right now.

See you tomorrow…

Culture matters 1: AGE

The first cultural category discussed at the website is about age. In every culture people treat each other differently, which shows especially in the way people treat the elder generation. Native Americans, for instance, regard them as very wise, whereas other cultures don’t treat them that respectful. I’d like to examine the American behaviour, when it comes to senior citizens and compare it to Austrian behaviour.

According to the Peace Corps culture website, in America there is an emphasize on physical beauty and youth. The same is true for Austria, but there are certainly differences. For example, in most people won’t accept plastic surgery to look younger. I don’t think that Austrians are more self-confident, they are just more conservative. The only kind of plastic surgery we do accept is reconstructive surgery. So if a woman looses one breast due to cancer, no-one would mind her having such a surgery done. But when it comes to cosmetic surgery people would certainly backbite.

In addition, the site claims that for Americans physical activity plays a vital role, since that’s the key to work and therefore to production. Elder people aren’t so fit anymore and as a result less productive. That’s why they are fired and younger, in many cases even cheaper, people are hired. In Austria, work isn’t assumed to be that important. Elder people are supposed to retire and in fact most of them are looking forward to this time. However, problems occur, when older people are fired before they are in retirement. That happens for the same reasons as in America, namely because younger people are often cheaper and more productive.

The site continues, explaining that for Americans new is principally better, and the elderly aren’t too much concerned about what’s new. In Austria it’s not so much the problem that elder people aren’t in touch with what’s new, but they aren’t taken serious. I can’t say why, but there are those clichés of slow driving men -in the Austrian’s opinion they are always wearing a hat- and of old women, all having the same short haircut, usually a permanent made by Klipp (an Austrian hairdresser chain).

Overall, it’s a very negative vantage point the article reveals and it’s not better in Austria as I’ve pointed out. However, that’s only the general opinion about elder people. When it comes to real people, like our grannies, neighbours etc Austrians love elder people. In fact we love them so much, that we hire illegal east European caregivers to look after them. Well, I guess that’s another topic…

Peace Corps News

I’ve just read an interesting article at the “USA today” website that fits the Peace Corps topic. It’s about the probable kidnapping of a Peace Corps volunteer. Here’s a short summary:

According to “USA today”, the Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell, 40, is missed in the Philippines. She has been working there since March 2005 as a teacher. On April the 8th she planned to hike in a beautiful area North of Manila, though it’s known that the New People’s Army operate there. The last case the NPA seized a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1990 they released him unharmed thanks to the Roman Catholic Bishop Antonio Fortich.

The Peace Corps

The website I talked about in my last entry is set up by the so-called Peace Corps. But who are they and why do they bother to discuss cultural issues on a whole website? Since it’s important to know who and why people publish information I wanted to find out more about that governmental agency called Peace Corps. Here are my results.

The history is short and easy. In 1960 Senator John F Kennedy encouraged students at the University of Michigan to live and work in developing countries. That started the ball rolling and an agency working for world peace was founded. The Peace Corps Volunteers try to help people in 139 countries with issues like AIDS education or environmental preservation for example.

The Peace Corps mission statement consists of three aims. Firstly, They want to help willing countries and their people. Secondly, they want the people in the counties they serve to get a better understanding of Americans. And lastly, they want Americans to get a better understanding of the countries they work for.

So what’s the website about culture matters for? The Peace Corps Culture website is meant as a workbook for students, to realize what culture means and to compare the own, American culture to foreign ones. It’s an interesting project and in my opinion a valuable website for anyone interested in culture.

Introduction to my teeny weeny comparison project

At this website American culture is examined, using thirteen cultural categories. They deal with people's attitude towards

1. age,
2. fate and destiny,
3. the human nature,
4. change,
5. taking risks,
6. suffering and misfortune,
7. face,
8. self-esteem and self worth,
9. equality,
10. formality,
11. realism,
12. doing and
13. the natural world.

As an Austrian I’ll try to compare the American vantage point with our vantage point in order to show, where the main differences and similarities lie. However, I think it’s to large a topic to write about in one essay, so I’ll analyse those categories one by one. But first of all, let's find out more about this website! (see next entry)

Irish English

For all people interested in Ireland and Irish culture (and we are interested in that, SUK4-mates, aren’t we?), here’s a short but funny quiz. Find about about terms like Taoiseach, snapper, gardai, rashers etc.

Traditions in Austria

In her entry “Austria 1923” Pam Mandel talks about the Schladminger Erntedank festival. It’s one of those typical Austrian traditions known for Dirndlkleider, Lederhosen etc. I don’t think there are typical Austrian customs, since it’s difficult to define what “Austrian” means. Austria is a very small country (83 871 square kilometres) with a population of only 8090000 people. Austrians are said, like many other people, to have special trades. They are conservative, religious, cling to their traditions, are able to yodel (I, for one, can’t do that) and so on. However, if you dig a little deeper and get to know Austrians from different regions you will find out that it’s not that easy. Austrians are very different indeed and are very proud of that. Try to call a Tyrolean a Viennese and you’ll understand what I’m saying.

Firstly, our language isn’t all the same. Foreigners might learn that we speak German, but that’s only the language we use for writing or in school. In fact in every Austrian region another German dialect is spoken. Even German people struggle to understand some of them, because they differ a great deal from standard German or “Hochdeutsch”, as we call it. We are very proud of that dialects and not seldom make fun of the way other Austrians speak, especially Viennese lingo is very unpopular. You have learned that “man” is “Mann in German? Right, but in Carinthia you’d say “Monn” and in Upper Austria you’d pronounce it “Mau”.

Secondly, traditions vary a lot in the different regions. Before I came to
Graz I knew festivals like the one Pam describes only from TV. Ok,
there are some remote areas, were people costume and behave like that, I thought, but I was sure that such tradition-loving behaviour wasn’t common in Austria. Well, it’s not common in Upper Austria, where I come from, but in southern parts of Austria people keep their traditions alive, even people at my age. My boyfriend, for example is from Carinthia. When he first told me that he has a traditional costume at home I though he was kidding me, but soon I learned that where he comes from that’s totally normal.

To sum up, the term “Austrian” isn’t a really adequate one, because there are many types of Austrians. However, there is a list of issues Austrians agree on: HC Strache is as embarrassing as a politican can be, Arnie shouldn’t kill people, there are no cangoroos in our entire country, so stop confusing us with Australia... So what can we learn from all this: Austrians may not be too similar, but they aren’t too different as well.



Greetings from Upper Austria,

Birgit