Berliners Praised for Not Being Brutes
June 22, 2006
During the recent re-opening of a fancy department store in the heart of former East Berlin, a cheese seller was spotted screaming at a customer who dared turn over one of the displayed cheese packages looking for the price tag. When the visibly annoyed shopper told the sales clerk he was not exactly being customer-friendly, the old man -- whose beet-colored face, by this time, indicated a level of excitement approaching cardiac arrest -- barked back with utter self-confidence and no sense of self-irony: "I am the best seller in the world."
Yes, and pigs can fly. The best cheese seller in the world was surrounded by a group of nodding Germans who came close to applauding him for his courage and determination to stand up against the forces of anarchy and destruction. The German rule number one is: Order must be preserved. You cannot just walk into a store and start turning the inventory upside down. Seriously, where would that lead us? To sales assistants helping their customers? Or smiling at them? Or, God forbid, wishing them a nice day?
No. Shopping in Berlin can be quite a humiliating experience. If you're a masochist, Berlin stores are your dream come true.
Shocking news
A survey conducted by Reader's Digest magazine, however, paints a different picture.
Undercover reporters conducted three tests in 35 cities around the world: walking into public buildings 20 times behind other people and checking whether somebody would hold the door for them; buying small items from 20 stores and noting whether the shop assistant would say "thank you;" and dropping a folder full of papers on the street in 20 busy locations to see if anybody would help pick them up.
The results of what the magazine described as "the world's biggest real-life test of common courtesy" placed Berlin as Europe's second and the world's fourth most well-mannered city. The only cities in the world that ranked better than Berlin were New York, Zurich and Toronto.
What drugs were these reporters on when they figured out that New York was the world's capital of civilized behavior? All those anonymous hard-working folks who have had the pleasure of being elbowed around the New York subway at rush hour or the poor innocent souls who ever ventured into a stuck-up Soho boutique without a platinum credit card attached to their forehead will beg to differ.
A reality check
Survey results, however, are usually in the eyes of the beholder.
"I am very happy that Berlin ranked so well in this international courtesy test," said Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit.
Mayors often sound like kindergarten teachers. They are constantly singing nursery rhymes, which -- with all due respect to Mother Goose -- present a somewhat skewed view of reality. Eating an apple before going to bed doesn't really give you the right to knock the doctor on the head.
"Some non-Berliners still cultivate the prejudice that the inhabitants of Germany's capital are rough, uncouth and have a loose mouth," Wowereit said. "Of course, even here occasional exceptions confirm the rule, but most Berliners are, especially now during the World Cup, proud of their city and want to be good hosts."
When beggars become choosers
The job of a mayor consists of being a plumber and PR manager at the same time. When pipes break, mayors try to fix them, but then they try to make it seem like the problem was never there in the first place.
If Herr Wowereit thinks that "rude Berliners" have been invented by jealous country bumpkins or -- even worse -- green-eyed foreigners, then he's simply doing his job and proudly wearing his rose-colored glasses.
Berliners are proud of their city. And they should be. It's a fascinating place, if a little crude on the edges. It's a city that has managed to turn its lack of beauty into an ideological virtue. It's an über-cool place in which pomposity is looked down upon and one hipster gallery is called "This is not Paris."
Most Berliners do want to be good hosts these days. The World Cup is already beginning to feel like a reinvention of the Love Parade.
It's just that calling Berlin Europe's second most polite city is an exercise in wishful thinking. The Queen from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" was known to believe as many as six impossible things -- and, all of them, before breakfast. But she's never been to Berlin.