Kultur 3- Calen Jones

Yes, I know this is a bit late, but I'm doing it nonetheless.

Some of the kultur articles did not surprise me at all. The articles about beer, public drunkenness and German pessimism affirmed my beliefs about the country. It made me really, really want to attend Oktoberfest at some point; the most interesting thing I learned was the Purity Law of 1615, which states that only water, hops, malt and yeast can be used to brew beer. The descriptions of beers such as Pils, Boch and Weisse were familiar, because they offer those at Ashley's. And the German pessimism I have known all my life due to my grandmother, who looks somberly at her house, her family, and her wine as things of the past.

Other articles that surprised me focused on organic food and humor. The fact that Germans exhibit health-conscious behavior extremely contradicted my view of the typical overweight sausage-loving, beer-drinking guy. Also, when I visited Germany at the age of 12, there was no shortage of ambulance sirens in the streets; I was told that congestive heart failure was very common and a by-product of the food that Germans eat. I guess organic food can be unhealthy as well? The organic/inorganic scale does not parallel the healthy/unhealthy scale apparently. Lastly, the German sense of humor based on region gave me a perspective about geography within Germany, and much of the author's reasoning behind the types of humor made sense. I never really thought about different cultures within the country, but this article (along with the beer article) taught me a little about the people from each place. I wonder about differences in humor based on geographic region in the USA.