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Monthly Archives: April 2008
Birthday Customs in Different Cultures
In a conversation with a friend, prompted by one of our birthdays, an interesting question about birthday customs came up. Both of us are of German origin and so we had experienced the different ways how your fiends treat you at your birthday. There may be many different customs around the US, but at least here in Southern California, your friends take you out.
The very opposite happens in Germany: it’s your birthday and you are supposed to treat your friends to something, drinks mostly. One has to “einen ausgeben” – “spend one.”
You can imagine that this can lead to conflict if it is not known, we will get the cat and dog, or Venus and Mars phenomena.
Now, that it’s noted and out on the internet, there is no more excuse for any tension due to this cultural difference.
On the occasion of this birthday I take the liberty of showing of this photo I snapped a while back. Even though the occasion was a valentine’s day and not a birthday, it is still appropriate as it could have been for a birthday…
Posted in Thoughts
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Nail in the Fence
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down.
He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.
“You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one. Friends are very rare jewels, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed.
“They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us.”
Posted in Inspiration
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Giving Birth and the Act Causing it
Recently I had my son (8) in the car together with some friends, a boy/girl twin pair of the same age. It is always a great learning experience to have some kids in the back of the car, interacting with each other, without really noticing me. In situations like this I usually erect a ‘somebody-else’s-problem-field’ (*) around me so that I remain the non-existent observer.
The subject at that time was babies, and birth. Like usually in this area, girls are a bit ahead of boys, so the girl was pushing some rather interesting data towards the two boys. When the boys were slightly skeptical about some of the facts submitted, my veil was broken once or twice to solicit my expert advise.
I certainly answered, but sparingly so. We were on the way to the ice rink and I did not really want to get started explaining any details, especially not to kids that I had only borrowed and who’s parents plans I did not know. One of the questions for which my expert advise had been demanded, was “Does the sperm really must get to the egg?”
For me, the logical next question would have been, who the heck did that sperm get there. It surprised me again, as it had already several times before, that this question was not brought up. Makes me curious if kids really develop any curiosity when they are ready to actually face the facts. I still remember, I was about 10 when the mechanics of that procedure entered my world and that it was rather disturbing.
From very early age on, our son had learned that a baby grows in mommy’s tummy, and in pre-school he had a class where he saw pictures about how the baby was located – and again, the question of how it gets out there never came up.
I am sure that this will not be too far in the future, but for that second question I am now ready after I found this image…
I would love to give credit to the creator of this educational master piece, unfortunately it ended up in my email box without any such information as author’s name and email or web. Should anybody know, I will be glad to provide a link back.
(*) somebody else’s problem field – an invention by Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame.
Posted in Thoughts
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Raising the Flag – WW2 v. Iraq
Viewing an image like the flag raising of Imo Jima in World War 2…
… can instill emotions like pride for the great nation we stand for. Pride for the nation that protected the world from terrible dictators and the inevitable loss of personal freedom as well as the loss of our way of life.
Now, let’s look at another image that, on first glance, looks not too much different (intentionally so, I would guess) but conveys a very different message…
A very convincing example of ‘one picture is more than a thousand words.’ The initial reaction is the realization of how different the goals and objectives were then and now.
But I can not help thinking if this is really so different. Often the history books glorify past accomplishments, and I believe that this is mainly so because the victors write the history book combined with the fact that paper is very patient.
Let us take a look how different the two situations really are. In the second example we went to Iraq for some altruistic reason, to protect the world from a terrible dictator who was threatening the world with his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And we got him and wiped him out. At that point we erected a symbol for our right to be there, a demonstration that we are in control now. And it looks like we will be there for a long time to maintain that foot-hold.
About sixty years ago, didn’t we do pretty much the same thing? We went in there to eradicate a terrible threat to the civilized world in form of one main and a few secondary dictators that threatened our way of life. We wiped them all out, erected our symbol of victory and stayed there for a long time. In fact, we are still there to some extent.
I am speaking here as if the heroic country was my mine, but I actually grew up on the other side and I remember that even after several decades of guarding these guards of the world of freedom looked out of place for me, and that even though I grew up with GIs and their bases being part of the German landscape.
The only real difference I can see is the type of symbol used. The first one actually being much broader, and when looking what it brought the occupied countries – it was much broader – everything from white bread to psychiatry.
I don’t know what was more destructive to the occupied, though.
Posted in Politics
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