Destination: Germany
Where in the World Are You, Terry Ward?
by Jim Benning | 06.01.07 | 12:25 PM ET
The subject of our latest nearly up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world: World Hum contributor Terry Ward, whose response landed in our inbox this morning.
World Hum: Where in the world are you?
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Distance From Dachau to Darfur
by Peter Delevett | 05.29.07 | 6:22 PM ET
Photo by Peter Delevett Peter Delevett recently visited the Nazi-era concentration camp in Germany. Afterward, he wondered: Why wasn't he doing more to stop the genocide occurring right now in Sudan?
Attention Americans in Germany: Walking Naked in Public is Not Acceptable Behavior
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.07 | 10:36 AM ET
No, the 41-year-old man who was picked up by police while walking through Nuremberg was not on drugs, according to a Reuters report. He told the police he thought walking around naked was okay because Germans sometimes sunbathe nude in public parks. His fine: 200 euros. Perhaps the authorities should have him study the old You Are Germany campaign, too.
Related on World Hum:
* Of Spilled Beer and Lederhosen: Recalling Oktoberfest
* Germany Bans Smiling in Passport Photos
* Ben’s Place: Kissing, Germany
What’s World Hum? Here’s our story.
Experts to Americans: Easy On the Tipping!
by Jim Benning | 05.21.07 | 8:11 AM ET
Sure, in some countries a generous tip for great service is appropriate. But not everywhere. “In Japan, for instance, tipping is viewed as insulting,” writes Rosemary McClure in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. “In other countries, it’s considered disrespectful to hand a tip to a waiter.” How to avoid being the ugly American shelling out too much money in tips overseas?
Border Stories: Why Do Nations Build Walls?*
by Michael Yessis | 04.26.07 | 8:53 AM ET
Because of fear and the desire for control, writes Charles Bowden in a terrific story in the May issue of National Geographic. Bowden primarily focuses on the barriers between the United States and Mexico, but he ties them to a historical trend—a trend, generally, of failure. “Walls are curious statements of human needs,” he writes. “Sometimes they are built to keep restive populations from fleeing. The Berlin Wall was designed to keep citizens from escaping from communist East Germany. But most walls are for keeping people out. They all work for a while, until human appetites or sheer numbers overwhelm them.”
U.S. Sees Drop in Travelers from Germany, Japan, France and United Kingdom
by Michael Yessis | 03.27.07 | 6:30 AM ET
Commerce Department figures reveal a five-percent drop from those four countries in 2006, which has alarmed an already concerned U.S. tourism industry. Germany, Japan, France and the United Kingdom “typically supply almost half of all the foreign tourists visiting the USA,” writes USA Today’s Barbara De Lollis, and it’s the first decline in any of those core countries since 2003. Some say it’s because the U.S. has become one of the least friendly countries for travelers.
Chuck Klosterman: ‘I Believe Germans Are Nice Because They Were Nice To Me’
by Michael Yessis | 03.06.07 | 9:25 AM ET
Cultural stereotypes. We hate them and we love them. And in the case of Chuck Klosterman, they make an excellent topic for another half-brilliant, half-baked piece of cultural criticism. Writing in Esquire, the author of Fargo Rock City, Killing Yourself to Live and other books writes about a trip to Germany, where experiences including watching American football in a bar and visiting an art exhibit called “I Like America and America Likes Me” lead him to several insights about the folly of cultural stereotypes.
More Travels With Conan O’Brien
by Ben Keene | 02.26.07 | 8:12 AM ET
Travel certainly has its comedic moments, and yes, remembering to bring your sense of humor when visiting another city, state or country is almost always a good idea, but few people intentionally set out on a trip in search of slapstick. Not so with Conan O’Brien.
Kissing, Germany
by Ben Keene | 12.15.06 | 7:08 AM ET
Of Spilled Beer and Lederhosen: Recalling Oktoberfest
by Jim Benning | 12.04.06 | 7:46 AM ET
So October is but a distant memory. That doesn’t mean the annual bacchanal in Munich cannot still be celebrated. Thomas Swick of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel does just that in Sunday’s paper: “Remember this. The vast hall. The great din. The spilled beer. The smoky haze. The saccharine music. The pretzel vendors. The workhorse waitresses. The buttery smell of roasted chickens. The vendors of silly hats. The bodies squeezed onto benches that disappear into the distance and suggest a boarding school cafeteria of colossal scope and questionable fare. The strange feeling, as you drink engulfed by a human sea, of escape, of having departed the world of work, responsibility, sobriety.”
Kiel Canal, Germany
by Ben Keene | 10.13.06 | 6:38 AM ET
Berlin’s DDR Museum: ‘There Must Be a Microphone Around Here Someplace’
by Michael Yessis | 07.21.06 | 7:50 AM ET
A museum chronicling life in the former East Germany recently opened in Berlin, and Richard Bernstein of the New York Times writes that it captures what it was like to live in the German Democratic Republic, aka the D.D.R., under the thumb of the Stasi. “By the time you leave the museum, you’ve been both a perpetrator and a victim,” museum founder and director Peter Kenzelmann told Bernstein. It’s not all about oppression and murder and eavesdropping. “Other exhibitions are on the East German mania for nude bathing, a freedom that was considerably reduced by new regulations after reunification,” writes Kenzelmann. “There are displays on East German rock bands, ordinary consumer products and on the press, with this barbed comment: ‘Despite 39 newspapers, two television channels and four radio stations, there was only one opinion.’”
Vanuatu Tops “Happy Planet Index”
by Michael Yessis | 07.14.06 | 11:42 AM ET
And the nations with the world’s largest economies finished down the 178-nation list. Way down. Germany ranked 81st, Japan 95th and the United States 150th. The New Economics Foundation, which bills itself as a “think-and-do tank,” says its inaugural Happy Planet Index “moves beyond crude ratings of nations according to national income, measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).” The new index, they say, produces “a more accurate picture of the progress of nations based on the amount of the Earth’s resources they use, and the length and happiness of people’s lives.” A BBC News story quotes Richard Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance, as saying that the index “was an interesting way to tackle the issue of modern life’s environmental impact.” Layard continues: “Over the last 50 years, living standards in the West have improved enormously but we have become no happier.” So which countries besides the island nation of Vanuatu are happiest? Colombia and Costa Rica round out the top three. Burundi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe finished at the bottom.
On the Autobahn, a New Mercedes and the Bhagavad-Gita
by Jim Benning | 07.13.06 | 1:10 PM ET
Los Angeles Times Pulitzer-winning car columnist Dan Neil recently took a new Mercedes-Benz CLK 63 for a spin on the Autobahn near Stuttgart, maxing out at the car’s 155 mph limit. Even if you’re not a big car buff—I’m certainly not—Neil’s writing is so spirited and compelling, it’s hard not to get drawn into his transcendent Autobahn experience. “In the words of the Bhagavad-Gita,” he writes, “I am become death, destroyer of bugs.”
World Borders Redefined
by Michael Yessis | 05.29.06 | 9:22 AM ET
What defines a country’s border these days? Is it a physical place, or does it extend into the “virtual and electronic space”? Moisés Naím argues that it’s all three places and more in an intriguing essay in the Outlook section of Sunday’s Washington Post. “[W]hile geography still matters,” Naím writes, “today’s borders are being redefined and redrawn in unexpected ways. They are fluid, constantly remade by technology, new laws and institutions, and the realities of international commerce—illicit as well as legitimate.”