Summer in Cincinnati

This will be my last Post in this Blog about American culture because I'll leave Cincinnati on Sunday to spend one week in New York City. Today I'll reflect on my experiences in this program.
I think that I passed through all the different stages of culture shock during this program, and I got to know many things about the American culture and American English. Beginning with architecture and history, and ending with Health Care and Religion I learned many things about the United States. I knew that there are many differences between Germany and the U.S. but I thought they would be not as big. During my journey many years ago, as I was a child, it was a totally different view on the country because I had a look at the tourist spots only, so I didn't get to know so many things about the culture, except of the food and architecture. I got to know so many things about American culture, and so I think I got over culture shock. Talking English with native speakers increased my English definitively. It's a very good point that I wrote this blog in which I described my feelings, experiences, and conclusions, so I got better in writing, describing, and concluding in English. The program was arranged very well by my Professors. It was well balanced between nice free-time activities like canoeing, and interesting learning activities like going to the Freedom Center. I think it was a very good program to learn many things about the American culture. This program helped me to decide whether to study in the United States because I learned so many things about this culture, and because I got to know so many things about the U.S. in general, and my decision is that I do want to study here!
The thing that changed for me the most is my view on the relationship between the people and the government. In Germany the government helps and supports people very much. In the U.S. everybody has to take care for himself. I like this attitude more because we are all free people and we should care for ourselves. Although the government should help the people sometimes like with a general public health care system.
Finally I want to thank Debbie, Ruth, and Jody for their effort and work. It was just a great time here in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you for the nice summer!!!

My study abroad experience

During my studies in the last three weeks here at the University of Cincinnati, I learned many things about the American Culture, about important American topics, and last but not least, my English improves from day to day. Everyday we regarded another topic. First, we payed attention to the buildings and landscape, so we got to know the differences between rich neighborhoods and poor ones. The differences are bigger than in Germany. Although, I knew that there are bigger differences, it was astonishing to me. I learned many things about the American culture and history during my museum visits. Especially in the freedom center, I got to know many things I didn't know. I knew that there was slavery, and that Lincoln abolished Slavery, but I got to know that there were many people before the Civil War helping slaves to escape. This system to help people escaping was named Underground Railroad. I learned many things about the Civil War, too, and who played big roles in it. Many of the things we examined are totally different to Germany. I remember here the Culture of Food, for example. To examine, to analyze, and to think about the reasons for the differences helped to relieve the Culture Shock. Due to the fact that I got to know many things about the American Culture, I abolished all prejudices against it very fast. All in all, I think the program was designed to learn many things about the American Culture and History and this knowledge helped me very much to get through the stages of Culture Shock fast. The new knowledge supported me in understanding the American way of life, and the way of doing things very much, too. Due to the fact that I wrote about another theme everyday, we got to know many new special vocabulary, so my treasury of words increased, I think, and I can talk with an average American guy now about important themes easier.

In this intensive English program I learned things in totally different way. During my studies in Germany I'm always in a lecture with 100 to 500 people and someone ahead wants to impart knowledge to me by telling me the facts, and by explaining the difficulties, so the person in the front serves me the lore. Here in the U.S., I have to obtain the knowledge on my own. I examined, analyzed, and evaluated the different things I saw. This was a totally new feeling. On the one hand, it takes much more time, and often you overlook important facts. On the other hand, you get to know much more things, and you go into the theme deeper, while occupying oneself with this certain theme in this way. You can decide what is important for you, and what is less interesting, too. I think that it depends on the stuff you have to learn to decide which way of learning makes more sense. It's the perfect way of learning for this kind of language course because there are not so many students learning something, so the professor is able to care for everybody, and the students don't have to learn the main grammar, which should be explained. Whenever there were grammar themes to learn, the way of learning changed from the learning by doing and examining way to the explaining and understanding way. I like this mixture of those two alternatives because it unites all positive aspects, and it eliminates all negative ones.

The Culture of Music in America

On Tuesday we visited the world famous Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. It's a really nice building, and it's placed straight in front of the lake, so it's the perfect place for a museum. The exhibition starts in the basement of the building and during the exhibition you come to the top floor. The museum's theme is music, so there was much music and media stuff. First you see a movie about the roots of Rock and Roll Music, so Blues and things like that. After that there is a movie shown where you learn manz things about the history of the music. There are also many clips from artists, like Madonna, Jackson 5, Kurt Cobain, and many more. One big exhibit is about the artist's clothes. I don't like it very much because I don't care for their clothing I just want to listen to their music. Although, it's very funny to see what silly clothes they had. I think the nicest exhibit was a music player, where you were able to decide which music you to hear. They showed you which music was similar to this song, and so you got to know the roots of the music! All in all, it met my expectations for what a museum for music should look like because in a museum with a topic like music, there should be much media. People don't expect to read much when they want to get to know something about music. You have to hear the music because it's made for it, and not for reading!
I think that there were more exhibits about the beginning of the Rock and Roll music. The biggest part of the museum was about the music in the 60s and 70s, so about The Beatles, Elvis, ... There were less to no exhibits about music from the 90s. I think that they dicided this way because music of the 90s is not really far away and it's still played in the radio, so they don't want to remind people to that music in a museum. I think that they wanted to show what the roots of the Rock and Roll music are. The audience is told that the early artists were inspired by the afro-american music, so Blues and parts of Jazz. The artists were pioneers in the U.S. because black people weren't equal in the 50s. They helped them to become equal by making their music popular! Music is always one chance to show the problems of the society. The artists can remind people on bad situations, and so they can let people do something against it, and it changed definitively. Today, most people like songs by black artists and black people are equal to white people in the United States. That's another point why there are less exhibits from the 80s and 90s because the role of music changed in the years. I think that the designers of the museum wanted to show the role of Rock and Roll music in the American History, and it played a main role in the 60s where black people got equal. I think it plays a small role today, although many artists make songs in which they accuse the government, some countries or something else for doing bad things.
Many musicians are portrayed as heroes in society despite their negative and harmful behavior. I think that many people just like their music, and they don't care for their behavior. In the television and radio everybody gets to know that the musicians are rich, have lots of fun, travel around the world, and have sex the whole day, so everybody want to be like them. That's the thing why they are heroes for many people. They live the life that many people want to live, and if you see so many good things, you don't care for the bad things. The people don't want to see the bad things happening to their artists, and the bad things their artists do. They make a hero out of them, and a hero is allowed to do everything in their eyes.

Religion in America

Hello everybody,

On Sunday we visited the Crossroads Community Church, and today we had a tour of the Cincinnati Mosque. I enjoyed these two activities, but I'm a bit confused. On the one hand, there is this very new and big mega church called Crossroads where the people use very much media to make the people do something. On the other hand, there is the Mosque that is very progressive for Muslim circumstances, but for us, so people from a western Country, it's very traditional. Though, I'm a Christian, and I've been in many churches in Germany and Italy, it was a really different service at Crossroads. There were no traditional parts of a common service like prayers. These prayers were embedded in the songs. The service reminded me more of a TV-Show because there was a big introduction using media, small breaks where the band played music, and you were able to look at the pictures, and there was a special guest the minister talked to.
I don't know exactly how a service in a Mosque looks like, but I'm sure that the service in the Mosque in Cincinnati is not different to any other service in a Mosque in Iraq, Iran or anywhere else because the Koran tells the people how a service has to look like.
The difference between modernity and tradition is one big difference, but there are quite more!
I think that the appeals of these two institutions are very different. The Mosque wants to be a place for people who came from different countries to the U.S. but share the same religious roots. The people pray together, they do sports together, they have parties, and many more things. In Islam, Culture and Religion is very common, so I think that the people feel like they would be in their home country while spending time in the Mosque. The aim of Crossroads is a totally different one. They want to change something. The minister talks about very many different programs they do. They help people in New Orleans, try to make Cincinnati nicer and cleaner, help people whose first language is a foreign language, help prostitutes in Mumbai, and many more things. Though it's very good what they do, and that they act, I'm a bit confused. They do everything with the feeling that their attitude and religion is the best, and that they're prior to anybody else. They want to Christianize the whole world, and because of people like that, many Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, Hindu etc. have prejudices against the Christian church.

A similarity between the two types of religious institutions we examined is their expectation what people should do. The Islam tells the people exactly what to do and how to act. They have the Koran that answers any question a man or woman could have. The minister at Crossroads tells the people how to act and what to do, too. He tells even how much money they should spend. I don't like this attitude because everybody should decide what to do and how to act. If someone wants to do something good in the world, like helping abused women in Mumbai, they should do it because they want to do a good thing and not because god, a minister, or someone else wants him or her to act like this. We are all free, and we are all responsible for our actions, so nobody should tell us how to act!

On the one hand, the Crossroads Community Church wants to help people in Cincinnati by making the city nicer, giving people food at Thanksgiving, and many more things, but at the same moment, they think that only they are right, and that they have to help everybody to do the right thing, so to become a member of their church. We were told that Muslims generelly accept all other religions and people. Though, it's better to become a Muslim if you want to be in heaven after the day of judgement. So both religions raise the claim to be the best and superior religion.
I think that this divides people from each other. They say they accept other people, but in fact they don't. In the Mosque there are other activities beside praying, too. For example, they do sports and have parties there. Although, it's nice for the people to get together with people from their home country or at least from their home culture, this causes problems, too. If the people don't get in touch with other people beside the people in the Mosque, there will be a parallel community. The people from foreign countries should try to integrate themselves in the new country, and the best way to do this is to find friends that were born in the new country. The best way to find new friends is to spend time with people, so to do sports with them, to have parties, and so on. This is hard if they spend so much time in the Mosque!

That's it for today,

Sebastian

Medical Care in America

Hello everybody,

Today we visited a high-tech genetics laboratory and after that a general purpose pharmacy called Walgreens. We went to the Children's Hospital in Cincinnati in the morning, to have a look at the laboratories where people try to find out which disease the patient has. We were in the Gene-Laboratories where the employees get small samples of patient's DNA and try to find out whether there is something missing or there is too much information in it. They can ascertain whether a person has a special disease caused by genetic defects like a missing chromosome or one chromosome too many. One example for a disease is Down's Syndrome. You get to know whether your child will have this syndrome by the amniocentesis. The doctor takes a sample of the amniotic fluid, and it's send to the laboratory. People there clean this sample and after that they visualize the chromosomes. Now the hard work begins. They have to figure out which chromosome goes with the other chromosome and so on. After doing this, they can say which errors and failures are there and which disease it could be.

We were told that everybody has these mistakes and errors in his genes, but a few people just have more errors so they are ill and have problems. It can also happen that you have these errors, but you don't have a problem until you are very old. There is only the possibility that you can have this disease.

These methods, to analyse the genes, are in the U.S. only for the people with a good healthcare insurance. Otherwise, it's just too expensive for people because the whole test costs about $3500. That's quite a lot of money, I think, and many Americans think that too, that getting good healthcare is a basic right and everybody in a country should be able to get it. President Obama tries to start a Healthcare Insurance for everybody. It's a very good idea but a hard job because some people in the U.S. think that this duty to have the insurance limits their freedom so they are not able to do what they want. Though these people are only the minority, some political parties try to heat up this theme, and they want to make a big thing out of it. Many other politicians tried to start such an insurance, too but failed, and it's very sad and a big problem for President Obama that Mr. Kennedy died because he was a big advocate for this insurance. So we have to look what happens in the next year.

After this very interesting visit in the Hospital, we went to Blue Ash and had a look at Walgreens. This pharmacy is totally different from those I know in Germany. First their assortment of goods is quite different. In Germany you are able to get the medicine and cremes but nothing else, and here you get make up, casual gear clothing, hair colors, and even dog food. Another interesting thing was that they sell products of big companies as well as their own generic medicine right next to them, but these are much cheaper and packaged in the same way. I learned that it's a big problem for people in the U.S. if they get ill and have no insurance. These people often try to have a do-it-yourself diagnostics. They go on certain websites and type in what pain they have, and then they pick out one disease it could be. After that they go to a shop like Walgreens and get medicine for the disease they are thinking of, but then the real work begins. For example, if someone thinks he could have the flu, he has to decide which medicine out of 60 he has to take. You can imagine that they get the wrong medicine very often, and that's very dangerous. People often waste money by buying the false medicine, so it would be cheaper in the end if they would go to the physician first before buying the medicine.

That's it for today,

Sebastian

Cultural Perspective on the Wall

Yesterday we went to the Ohio State University in Columbus, the capital city of Ohio. We saw there an exhibit that discussed the fall of the Berlin wall. This exhibit was created by German students of the University of Paderborn. They wanted to take pictures out of certain perspectives. They had old pictures that showed Berlin many years ago when the Berlin wall existed, and they wanted to compare it to the new look of Berlin. I liked some of the pictures because the students taking them had partly very good ideas, but I have to say that too many pictures were taken out of the position of a tourist going through Berlin, so these pictures were nothing special.

There were only pictures in this exhibit with small texts, so you learned hardly anything about Berlin, the Berlin wall, or the cold war. Partly you were able to feel the atmosphere of this chapter in the German history. Most of the exhibits in Germany use fewer pictures. They use pictures only to virtualize certain things they are talking about in the texts next to them. Here it’s the other way around. The texts just explain what the picture means and wants to say, so there was rather less content in this exhibit if you compare it to other exhibits.

Everybody knows about the international effects of the fall of the Berlin wall. It meant the end of the cold war, so the end of 50 year-long fear about WWIII. I think that it’s important to remind people of this chapter of history. People should learn about it so that they do everything against a new cold war or something like that. Another important thing is that no country should be split into parts again. After 20 years of reunited Germany, there are still some differences in economics between the former 2 parts, but there are no other differences between East and West. There are still many prejudices about the people from the eastern or western part of Germany. For example, many people from the East think that people from the West are vain, and people from the West think that everybody from the East is either a Neo-Nazi or a Communist. It’s just crazy because there is no western part and no eastern part of Germany. There is just the Federal Republic of Germany.

Sebastian

How children play and learn

Today we visited the Children's Museum in Cincinnati, and we spent time observing the different styles and purposes of play at the exhibits. It was real fun to see the children (and also the other guys in the group including me) playing there at the different parts of the museum. It was a real "Learning by doing" museum, so you were able to touch everything and to play with everything. I think that this is the big difference from traditional museums. Another big difference is that there is less text because it would bother the children, so that's the way curators want the children learn something, too. Not by reading and only seeing, but rather acting and playing.

It's quite a hard job to adress children in different ages and stages of development. The people, who designed the exhibits, tried to appeal the kids by creating them in a way that different parts of the exhibits were convenient for children of different ages. A good example is the exhibit with the river and the easy "machines" where you were able to do different things with water. On the one hand, little children were able to play with the small boats in the water, and they realized that the boats sink if too much water is in them. On the other hand, you have the watergate where older children were able to see how something like that functions, and what is the use of it. Sadly, this exhibit was not designed very well because most of the children played with the water and tried to splatter the other children. As a designer, you should make the exhibits function only in one way, so that it's easy for the children to do the right things.

Finally, it was a very nice trip, and I enjoyed seeing how the children played with the whole stuff, and, in fact, I enjoyed playing by myself, too! It would be nice if there would be even more exhibits where children act and don't have to read so much because the children want to have fun there and reading is work for them. It's really difficult to design things in a way that children understand them easily, learn many things, and are not bored.

Language in Ohio and Illinois

Hello guys,

I spent the weekend in Chicago, and I really enjoyed it, so here is my next post about language in the U.S., and how my English changed during my time in the United States.

In the last week I got to know new formulas for greetings and saying good bye, and I learned how oldfashioned my English is that I learned at school. For saying "Hello" people here often use "How are you?", or "How are you doing?" though they are not really interested in your real behaviour, it's a nice greeting and more peronal than just saying "Hello". In Germany it's common to use a greeting connected to the daytime like "Good morning", "Good afternoon" etc. You ask for the other person's behaviour only if you know him well and if you're really interested. That's a real difference from the States. Another difference is that people in the U.S. gesticulate less than people in Germany. People in my home country really talk with their hands. Though it depends with whom you are talking, I think that people here use their hands less! On the other hand, the other ways of nonverbal communication are similar to the German ones. We have almost the same distance when we are talking, for example. I think that this is like that because European people and American people originally have the same roots, and the immigrants to the U.S. learn these rules of communication.

When I spent the weekend in Chicago, I didn't really notice a difference between the Cincinnati accent and the Chicago accent, but I think that there is a difference that I can't hear because I'm not so adepted to the accents in the United States. The only thing I noticed was that there are many immigrants, primarily from Mexico, and their accent is very hard to understand, so I had some problems when I had dinner at Chipotle.

Finally, I have to say that I learned many things about the American way of communication. I'm now used to the American accent that was hard to understand in the beginning because in Germany we learn Oxford English. When I talked to some people at the barbecue, I got to know that some words I used are very oldfashioned and in British style. For example, I used the word "trousers", and a young girl broke out in a laugh because she didn't hear that word for a long time. Now I know that I have to say "pants" in the States.

So that's it for today!

The Disneyland of Shopping

Dear Reader,

Today I will tell you something about the Culture of Food in the United States. We visited three different stores. First we visited Clifton's Kroger near the Campus. You can get there very much Fast Food and typical american food. The people there are mostly people from the working class and the lower class so you don't get the best and most expensive food there. It's not so nice in there, too. After that we visited the Pipkins in Blue Ash where you can get organic food and food for localvore people. It's a very small shop and it reminds me to markets in Germany where you are able to get the food straight from the farmer. It's a new hipe in America to care for the food you buy and to eat only organic food so it's a political statement to go in these shops and to buy these things! In the end we visited a very large market - Jungle Jim. For me it was like the Disneyland of Shopping because there was everything in this market: a Sushi Bar, Starbucks, a Bank and we had a guided tour through this market! So this store is totally different to the store for the localvore people, because you get everything out of any country you can imagine. There are special departments for the different regions in the world like Italy, Germany, Britain and Asia. It was amazing to see how many sorts of bananas there are. In Germany you only know the sweet ones. In this store you see many immigrants because I think they want to eat something from their home country.

So each kind of store has it's benefits. On the one hand you have the Kroger where you can get everything you really need and it's not that expensive. But the food is not the best and you don't know where it comes from. On the other hand there is the Pipkins where food is not more expensive but better. The only problem is that you are not able to get everything there. The Jungle Jim is the perfect shop for immigrants and people who like food from foreign countries. You are also able to get everything you need and even more there! To sum it up, every store has it's benefits and they are for people living in different socio-economic layers. So it's very different to Germany and a new experience for me.

Cincinnati - The grand station of the Underground Railroad

Hello everybody,

Earlier today we visited the Freedom Center in Downtown Cincinnati where wie learned a lot about the history of slavery, the underground railroad, and the experiences of African Americans in the United States.

For me, the most disturbing part of the museum was the Anderson slave pen. In the first floor of the museum there is a house rebuild where the slave-trader John W. Anderson locked his slaves. He had a few of those slave pens at his pinecrest farm outside Maysville, Kentucky. If you are standing in front of this house you think it's an average building and that there is nothing special about it but if you go inside and you get to know by the audio tour, that there were so many people kept in this little house you feel very sorry for the people and you ask yourself why people do something like that to other people. The atmosphere is emphasized by the sad and slow music with the minor cords. It's a really touching part of the museum.

When I was sitting in this slave pen listening to the sad music I remembered the visit to Buchenwald when I was a child. The Nazis kept and killed there many people and today there is a memorial about it like the one here in Cincinnati about slavery. I think you can't really compare these two cruel things because the Nazis killed even more people and they just wanted to kill them there like people build machines in a company. You can name it industrial killing. It was even worse than this sad chapter in the American history but my mood was about the same in these tow situations: disbelieving and incomprehension that and why people did something like that to other people!

I think if you know what happened in the history you can learn of it and there should nothing like that happen again. It's important to learn about the history especially about the sad chapters of the home country. Though you are not guilty for what your ancestors did you should know it. Especially german people should make an effort that something like the holocaust won't happen again!

Greetz,
Sebastian

Cultural values in children`s texts

Hey dudes,

Today I`ll tell you something about children`s texts and the libraries in the States. There is no real difference between the libraries in Germany and the U.S.: they look almost the same way and are organized similarly. The only difference I noticed was, that the children`s section in the library we visited in Blue Ash was rather big when you compare it to the dimension of the whole library.
I chose two books yesterday: The Oklahoma City Bombing and Ellis Island, both books with a content for children up to 8 years I guess. The books are very different from what I read when I was a child. At that time I read books about technical stuff, or funny books without any real content mostly because I was not so interested in history. Ellis Island by Conrad Stein is truly a nice story about the three waves of immigration to the U.S. and how it changed the country and the people. In fact it`s very interesting to read how the people got into the United States and how their life began here. It`s amazing that almost everyone living in the U.S. has ancestors who had to pass Ellis Island to push to New York City, how it`s called in the text. In this book there are no typical children-paintings or something like that. There are many photos of the time when Ellis Island was famous for immigration. The other book about the Oklahoma City bombing was very interesting with a hard content for children. It`s about the terror atack in the 90s in Oklahoma and about the children hurt there. The story is very hard and sad because so many people died because of one crazy fucked up guy. I think it`s very good to let children know that such sad things can happen and that they can learn about it. When I was a child there were no books about such things for children, I think. In this book there are only photos again. Especially photos of the damaged building and of tired helpers to emphasize how awful this attack was.
I think that all children can identify with the book about the bombing, because all children can be hurt by a bomb, independent on the color of their face. On the other hand not every child is able to identify itself with an immigrant in the beginning of the 20th century because most people who got to Ellis Island came from Europe. So children whose ancestors are from Africa or Asia have problems here.
To sum up you can say that children`s texts reflect the cultural values in a country because children are informed on these values by these books. The children get to know how everything works and what people think about different things. Children`s texts are also good to convey "have to know`s" about the home country to children.

That`s it up for now so hear ya tomorrow,
Sebastian

Buildings and Landscape

Hey guys,

I`m now here in the U.S. since Saturday and I`m staying at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. The architecture, espacially on the campus, is very nice. There are many typical american university buildings made out of bricks. So the campus looks very nice and old. Between these old buildings there were erected many magnificent new buildings like the recreation center with the indoor swimming pool which is great.

I was really impressed by the college of technics, too. Sadly our dorms are not so amazing. They look like a chest - high, big and not stylish. When you walk over the campus you can walk over grassland and an artificial landscape. We were told that this is landscape art and I think it`s very nice to spend there a chilly afternoon or evening. That`s it about the campus. The buildings near the campus are less nice. There are many old and not renovated buildings and it looks not so nice but if you walk a few minutes you reach a street with many nice bars and restaurants. It`s almost what I expected to see here in Cincinnati: An old and nice university with a long tradition and nice bars and restaurants near the campus.

The differences between the buildings near the campus and the buildings in Blue Ash (where we have classes) reflect the differences of the people living there. On the one hand you have the poor people living between downtown Cincinnati and Clifton Campus in there small houses and flats where the streets are not secret and on the other side - 10 minutes away - you have Blue Ash, a nice suburb where the middle class lives and where it is really nice and safe.

That`s it for today so hear you soon,
Sebastian