Culture Comparison

I might do this more and more as I discover different things about German culture because I think it's really interesting (and more relevant to the people back home) if I compare aspects of culture with things from back home. It's also part of what I'm meant to be doing out here anyway. Today it shall be a glimpse at youth culture but it's definitely not going to be very deep as I've only been to one club.

The important thing though, is that I have been to a club and have finally met a few more people my own age. This is thanks to my flatmates having some friends over and me walking in from the cinema to find the kitchen filled with people but I still made an effort not to hide in my room and chatted with a few of them. One said that my German was really good and that she could understand everything I was saying which was a good start. They then invited me to come out with them and because of the whole 'wanting to make friends' thing I said yes.

We took a taxi to the TV-Club which was really bizarrely a student club for Tierproduzenten und Veterinaermediziner. I can translate the German (ish)(livestock/animal producers and vets) but still have no idea what it means! However it was very much an average club, very much like any student club I've been in in Durham. This immediately made me smile as I don't think I expected things to be the same and it was nice.

The fun difference was the fact that all drinks were bought with Pfand added. In this club it was one euro, which you got back when you returned the glass. It's just a way of making people return glasses or recycle plastic bottles that you find all over Germany. However in the club it lead to the less drunk people swiping empty glasses from the more drunk people to get a few euros.

The music was also pretty strange, there did seem to be two different rooms with two different styles (one rock and one standard club stuff, don't ask me I don't know music!) but the songs they were playing spanned several decades. I'm not sure if this is like an English club (maybe Klute) but we had something from the top 40 followed by the Spice Girls followed by songs that were even older.

A third difference is the amount of smoking that went on outside the club. This is something I've noticed all over Germany and that I could probably donate a whole blog post to but probably won't. The smoking culture in Germany is much more prevalent and widely accepted than in England. Smoking adverts aren't banned and all over the place you'll see posters or tv or cinema adverts making a certain brand of cigarette look really cool. However somewhere will always be the words, "Rauchen kann toedlich sein" (smoking can be fatal), it just seems strange. There are definitely more people who smoke over here though, or maybe I was just in the wrong club.

The last thing I noticed that was different to student clubs I'm used to, was that this club stayed open way past 2am, which is when the ones in Durham tend to shut. I got home at around 5am after leaving the club at about 4:15 and the party was still going even then. Admittedly the number of people there had fallen drastically but it was still going.

On the whole I'm still of the opinion that clubbing probably isn't for me but I'll do it for a night out and meeting people was good. German clubs and English clubs really are very similar but for the differences mentioned here which is nice. I hope to find many more similarities with England so that I can come home and say, "It's all a lie! The only real difference is language! Let's mix the world up a bit!"

Until next time!