One thing that all Germans have in common is their absolute disgust for all things kleinbürgerlich (petty bourgeois). You know; being small-minded, scrupulously orderly, old fashioned, reactionary, banal, provencial, dilettante and, well, “square?”
Another thing that all Germans have in common is that they are small-minded, scrupulously orderly, old fashioned, reactionary, banal, provencial, dilettante and, well, “square.” You know, kleinbürgerlich?
Take this latest tourist-bashing craze going on by the Enlightened Left in Berlin (the way coolest, least kleinbürglich city in Germany), please:
“Noisy tourists go home!” reads one hostile sign in the eastern district of Friedrichshain. “Berlin doesn’t love you,” say stickers plastering traffic lights in nearby Kreuzberg.
A gallery in an area known for its trendy bars featured for months a scrawled sign in the window: “Sorry, no entry for hipsters from the U.S.”
Being petty bourgeois here isn’t pretty, folks. It never has been. But it sure is petty. And somebody’s got to do it. I just wish they’re weren’t so many volounteers here all the time.
Who needs tourists when you have the federal government to subsidize your hipness? The wife spent a week in Berlin in July and was shocked by the unfriendliness. Try asking a bus driver for directions. I’m glad Frankfurt is more down to earth. Even the bankers are friendlier than the Berliner! (Just don’t get in their way when they find a parking space.)