Well it was cool rereading it because it made me see how much further I've come in terms of the language and in terms of the culture, like how much more I know and understand about this place. In shining a light on herself and her own history, it shined a light on me and my journey too. Yay.
SPEAKER_07Welcome to the Bookish Expats Podcast, where we discuss books that help us understand the host countries we have lived in or we're currently living in. In this episode, I had the pleasure of co-interviewing Nicole from the Expatcast podcast with former guest of this podcast, Tajana. Nicole chose the book Shot in Freuder, which I am 99% sure I'm saying wrong, by Rebecca Schumann, and it is 99% not wrong. It is a hilarious peek into 1990s East Germany from an outsider's point of view. And let me tell you about more about that in just a second. If you are interested in starting your own podcast, then let me give you a month free. Podbean.com forward slash virtual expat is the link you want to go to. But also, I'm starting a specifically expat-related beginning podcasters online workshop. By workshop, I mean it's a resource dump. I have found tons of information online, podcasts, YouTube channels, live streams, websites, Facebook groups, you name it, for the past two and a half years. And being an expat podcasting, there's a very unique space set that we kind of straddle. There are certain things, certain choices you have to make and things you have to know before you're going in. Things that's good to know before you start your process. And that's what this workshop will be. If you are an expat and you're interested in joining us, please let me know. I'm also selling my voice. No, really, I am. If you or anyone you know needs a voiceover talent, I now have a page on voices.com. It's just voices.com forward slash actors or forward slash staffio. What I don't charge for is the promo spots that I have in these episodes. What I want to do is provide a free space for other content creators that are producing things that selfishly I like and unselfishly that I think you'll like and that's relevant to the things we're talking about in the episode. So, what is this book that Nicole picked? It's a shot in Forder, a love story. Here's the full title Me, the Germans, and 20 Years of Attempted Transformation of Unfortunate Miscommunications and Humiliating Situations that only they have words for by Rebecca Schumann. Most importantly, Nicole read this book before she went to Germany and read it recently before we interviewed her. So many good cultural nuances in this book. And it was very, very cool to talk to Nicole, who's an American living in Germany right now, and Jana, who is from Germany living in India, and myself, who've only visited Germany very briefly once when I was seventeen and once about two years ago. So it was a very interesting for our three perspectives to wrap our head around Rebecca Schumann's story about life in Germany from an expat's point of view. Final thing before we dive into the interview, if you or anyone you know is an expat and a rather bookish one at that, and wants to discuss a book that helped understand the local culture that they had moved into, then please do contact me. All right, well, thank you so much, and let's get to this interview. Thank you, ladies, for joining us on Bookish Expat season four, the completely bookish version. With me today, I have Tatjana. Yay! And special guest, Nicole from the Expatcast podcast. Hello. All right. So Tajana and I are going to pick Nicole's brain on a book that I'm completely going to mispronounce. So Tatana, can you help me out with the book name, please? It's Schadenfreude. Thank you very much. By Rebecca Schumann. Is that right?
SPEAKER_05She's American, so that's nods out to me.
SPEAKER_07But it it sounds like a German last name. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05That's true.
SPEAKER_07Anyway. All right, so there's that. So dun dun dun. Nicole, are you ready? I am so ready. All right. We've taken a page from your own podcast where you end the episode with some quick questions, and we have 10 quick questions to start this interview off. I'll do five, then Tatjana will do five. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08I've never had this turned on me. No, I'm terrified.
SPEAKER_07Again, like you say, just answer quickly and in a short, succinct manner. We have a lot of more meaty questions for longer exchanges later on, after the demo. All right. So here we go with the first five. This is more of the geographical and book background. So where have you lived in your life?
SPEAKER_08Oh, okay. I know this one. I've lived in suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in America, in the US, um, in Charleston, South Carolina, in Chicago, Illinois, and now Freiburg, Germany. Nice. How long have you lived in Germany? Two years, almost two years. Coming up on my Deutsche Tag, my like anniversary of my living in Germany, and it's coming up. When is it? August, uh, beginning of August. Oh, how cool.
SPEAKER_07Okay. What do you do for a living? I'm a librarian. Yay. I don't know really asked that question, but because you are a librarian, I felt that it was important for this episode.
SPEAKER_08And I always play it with that much enthusiasm, too.
SPEAKER_07Do you happen to have the book with you? Awesome. Can you do us a favor and read? I'm I imagine the back of the book has a like two or three sentence summary-ish kind of thing. There's one on the inside book flap. Perfect. Can you read that for our listeners?
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_08Sometimes love gets lost in translation. You know that feeling you get watching the elevator doors slam just before your toxic co-worker can step in, or seeing a parking ticket on a Hummer? There's a word for that mix of malice and joy, and the Germans, of course, invented it. It's Schadenfreude, deriving pleasure of another's misfortune. Bad luck happens to be a specialty of slate columnist Rebecca Schumann, and this is great news for Germans. For Rebecca adores the Fata Land with the kind of single-minded passions its folk usually reserved for beer, soccer, and being right all the time. So basically, for people who haven't read the book, like she falls in love with Germany or like becomes fascinated with German the German language, moves to Germany at various points in her life, comes back to America, tries to make some stuff happen, goes back and forth, back and forth, and eventually she commits to pursuing a PhD in German and German literature. And that's where the book kind of divides off into her experience in academia, getting the PhD, and then trying to get a professor position in a super saturated market. And how did you find out about this book? I was recommended it by a coworker who was also a librarian and was really the king of book recommendations. He just knew everything, he saw it was coming out, knew I was headed to Germany, and there it was. Oh, okay. I don't have one that initially made me love books in general because I grew up just always reading, but the one that changed the way I think about reading was Looking for Alaska by John Green, which I read when I was maybe like 14, 15, 16, somewhere in there. And I realized through reading this book that in my head I had two categories: books that you read in school and then books that you read for fun. And I literally, it didn't occur to me that they're the same thing, and that you can analyze books for fun and that you can enjoy books for school. So that was a big moment that changed the way I looked at things and led me to become a librarian, long story short. So I'll go with that one.
SPEAKER_05Were you thinking then you might end up in a book-related working field?
SPEAKER_08That's when I started to think, oh, this could be this could be something for me. Yeah. I didn't think of library yet. That took a lot more time, but um was the goal.
SPEAKER_05How do you interact with the with books in terms of are you highlighting, circling things? Are you discussing them in a book club or whatever?
SPEAKER_08Oh, I'm super passive these days because I used to be a little bit more engaged with the item itself, the book in your hand. I would underline it, maybe write some notes in the in the margins, but that was more high school and college when I was buying a lot of books. And then I went to grad school and got impressively broke and stayed that way for a while and stopped buying my own books. And you can't really like write in library books. They don't like that, I learned. So these days I just kind of read it and return it.
SPEAKER_05Brilliant. And uh did that any did it change while living overseas now that you're living in Germany? How you read, what you read, any of that? Oh, totally.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I I stopped wanting come books that were too, I don't know what to say, too literary, too serious. So when I moved abroad, my life was so stressful that I noticed myself naturally going to only books that were, I wanted them to be quality but lighter. So my my um qualification was that I would just pick out the ones with the pretty covers because those tended to have something behind it that worked for me. So I'm slowly coming out of that. But I went through a good year, year and a half phase where, yeah, pretty books only. That was it.
SPEAKER_05I think that's fair enough. A lot of I I went through the same thing just because I think for for work and studies, especially, you were you're reading so much. And uh when you want to read, then for pleasure, you only read just like light stuff, and that gets you out of that, basically.
SPEAKER_08And I felt very guilty about it, but that's perfectly fine.
SPEAKER_05We don't judge you, we read everything as well. We don't do guilt on this podcast.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. I like trying to I'm trying to force my brain to agree because I feel that way, but I don't think that way sometimes.
SPEAKER_05So you you started answering that a little bit, but what do you prefer? Hardcover, paperback, ebooks, or audiobooks today?
SPEAKER_08Oh, my very favorite kind of bound book is well, in the US I know it as library bound, and they really don't have it outside of libraries. So it's a hard cover, but on a paperback, basically. So the paperback has just like thinner cardboard as a cover, and the hardbacks have like a thicker yeah, hardcover. There's this version that's kind of both in one, so it's a smaller format, but the cover is still hard enough and it's printed directly onto the cover. Like there's not a sleeve, it's just on the book. And I've found that they're way more common in Germany. In America, you can only order them through certain companies that work with libraries and large-scale booksellers like that. So you couldn't really find it in a personal, like one-to-one version. Here they have them pretty commonly. I don't know what you would call them though. I have never heard about that before, but that's great. I'm probably describing it for you then because you've definitely seen it. Do you stuff do you know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_07Or well, the only thing I can think of is is some of the like really thick reference manuals I that I've seen in libraries have kind of that binding on it.
SPEAKER_08But I don't know if that's like what kind of for fiction, even. So yeah, you know how a lot of times the format of a hardcover book is just like taller and a little wider, and then the paperbacks are a little shorter and a little thinner, but then thicker. There's more pages in them, right? And so this version takes basically the format of this the paperback book and puts a printed cover on a slightly thicker piece of cardboard that is then the cover. Do you have an example around you there? No, I'm looking at my bookshelf right now, but I well, I don't know if this spoils any of your future questions, but I haven't bought as many books since moving here. And I'm seeing that we pretty much only have paperback or hardback. But I can I'll find an example and send you guys pictures to try and explain what I mean.
SPEAKER_05Great. As a librarian, ebooks, is that a complete no-no for you?
SPEAKER_08Or I love that they exist and I love that a lot of people love them, but I've never clicked with it. Yeah, it's just a different experience from what I'm going for.
SPEAKER_05Fair enough. So last question on the quick uh 10 question intro. What was the last book that you read, except obviously the one for today's show?
SPEAKER_08I when I went to check out Schadenfoyer from the library, I also saw this other book I'd been wanting to read for a while, and I was so excited it was in. It's called An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green, who's actually the brother of John Green, who I referenced earlier. They're famous YouTubers, I guess, and seem to be good at everything they do. Um and Hank Green was a scientist, I'm pretty sure, for a long time. But now he just wrote a book and it is so I totally recommend it.
SPEAKER_05But it's non-fiction then, right?
SPEAKER_08It is fiction. It's fiction, okay. Yeah. He totally just stepped out of his little comfort zone and wrote a novel and nailed it.
SPEAKER_07Oh, that's so frustrating. I mean it's wonderful, but it's frustrating to do that.
SPEAKER_05Right? Great. So that finishes up basically the first 10 questions to get to know you as an expat, as a bookish expat, and a little bit about the book. And now we're gonna speak a bit more actually about Schadenfreude. When you first read Schadenfreude, you were still in the US? Or you was that before you had moved to Germany?
SPEAKER_08Or so okay, I'll give the exact timeline of how this one played out. So I think the book came out this spring before I moved to Germany that summer. And I was recommended it then, but I it wasn't in the libraries yet because they get the books a couple weeks after the release date. But I had this trip coming up. So it was in my last semester of library school, and one of my classes, I still don't believe this was real, but one of my classes was to go to Bologna, Italy, and attend a children's book conference. Uh it was the coolest thing ever. Yeah, and I was gonna be traveling around with some of my librarian friends a little bit beforehand. And, you know, it was like, okay, I'm gonna be in Europe again. This is the continent that I'm going to be living on soon. It was like it had this special anticipatory feeling to it. And I had, I'm like a chronic saver. I try to save everything that I can. So I had a gift card from ages ago for Barnes Noble, which is a big bookseller in the US, and I went and bought Schaden Freude as my little like splurge, treat yourself for this trip. And I read it while traveling, but technically while living in the US. Okay. Long-winded answer. But that's also what made this book so special to me is like it fit perfectly into this, like, you know, putting myself in that mindset of what's coming next.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. No, that makes total sense. Okay, that actually works still with my question very much. Because basically, before you read the book, and then also before you moved to Germany, what did you know about Germany and what of that turned out to be correct? And what turned out to be complete focus?
SPEAKER_08So I moved to Germany mostly for my boyfriend, it's German, and we were long distance. And so we had two years long distance before I moved over here, and I'd spent three months in Germany, but I was staying at his family's house, and I was like, they never gave me a key, so I was just like in their basement with their five cats the whole summer. And it was in this tiny village where you couldn't get anywhere other than the woods. So I would sometimes sneak out the window and go on around in the woods.
SPEAKER_07So anyway, wait, wait, slow down, slow down. We're we're out of the 10 quick question. Can you back? You were staying there for five months and they didn't give you a key, and you were in the basement with cats. Yeah, five cats, three months. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_08Five cats, three months.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that that sounds like a king uh sort of uh thrilling thing.
SPEAKER_08It sounds so much worse than it was, but this is the most beautiful house, the most beautiful village. Like I was, and I was in the middle of such a high stress time in my life that I was so happy to just like sleep in, do some online work, and then just like hang out, work on my German, cut the cats. It was great, honestly. But a little weird in retrospect, yeah. So I have been to Germany, but I can't say that I really experienced a ton of Germany through that experience. Um, so and I've been taking some classes, like learning the language, and there in the classes they always tell you these like cultural things. But of course, you never know if it's like the textbook tells us to talk about discotext, or we're talking about disco text, but no one would really call it that these days. You know, like some of the stuff's just outdated, but some of it's totally true. And I didn't necessarily know that yet. So reading this book was really cool because it was able to sort of start to confirm or deny some of those assumptions and then built up new ones for me. So I mean, oh god, reading it back, there was like I took a couple notes of things that I was just like, yeah, I remember that being like hitting me then being like, yeah, that's such a thing. Like, well, yeah, obviously the punctuality. I almost said that goes without saying, but it doesn't. I'll say it. Very punctual people, and I am not. So this has been fun. And then she mentions in here somewhere the oh, I did write it down that says fork. I can't read my own handwriting. One-handed fork holding. Like in the US, I guess a lot of people do this, and it's not just me. You like your one hand is under the table, your other hand, you're just using the fork. And if you really, really, really need a knife, if you can't wiggle it apart with your fork, then maybe you get like a butter knife, right? But that's it, and that that's kind of the end of the signalization of what you're doing with your utensils. But here, you use both. Your hand should be on the table. If it's under the table, that's a little fishy. When you're done eating, you put your fork and knife on the one side to indicate that you're done. If you want more, you leave it open. I didn't know any of this, and I don't remember actually picking it up when I read it the first time. I don't think I'd identified that as something in my life, but I know looking back, I was doing that when I was staying with those family friends because they we had dinner together every night and they would feed me so much food. And I was like, I guess I'll keep it because I don't want to be rude, but it turns out I was signaling to them through my utensils that I wanted more. Anyway, yeah, the whole like this is such a little thing that since living here, I've been like, oh my god, yes, this is a thing that I have talked about with especially my American friends that we didn't know we were weird were you know doing something wrong until wrong by their cultural understanding, until it was pointed out to me, like in this book.
SPEAKER_05This is so brilliant that you bring that up because I am German and I when I read that in the book, I was like, oh come on, this can't be this this dramatic, but it is.
SPEAKER_07It is. And this is the joking of the fork. I remember when I was backpacking in in Western Europe and all the Europeans around the table, when I switched my fork to use a knife and then switch it back to eat, they all just kind of went, You you do do that. We thought that was a joke. And I'm like, wait, what just happened? Like, really? Oh real.
SPEAKER_08They actually, this is so funny. I at one point in the summer of staying with these this family, they were like, Yeah, we like we're just spending so much money buying all this food for you guys. You guys eat so much. I was like, I'm only eating so much because you put it on my plate. And I didn't we never close that miscommunication loop where it turns out they were doing that because I was quote unquote asking for more. And then yeah, it was super funny. Just one of those things that you're like, how are we tangled right now?
SPEAKER_05And this is so funny because now like I I am living in India and Stephanie is living in China, where the whole table manners are again completely different. And uh you always think, well, you know, in the West, basically clubbing everything together that is Europe and the US, it's all the same, but no, it's not.
SPEAKER_08And that's the thing, you sometimes think I think that's the thing that this book did really well, is for me that Germany and the US don't seem that far apart, right? Like a lot of Germany is new and and like the buildings are very newly built, like post-World War II, a lot of them, and so they have a lot of high-quality modern amenities, right? Yeah, the cultures are somewhat similar, especially like pop culture. In Germany, they watch so much American pop culture, which is another thing. Like, I wrote down that she talks about how they watch the Germans watch like the worst American sitcoms. Like they don't watch the ones that we actually like, like they're super obsessed with like friends and big bang theory ones that I'm like, I mean people like them, but not like to this level. Do you love those?
SPEAKER_07I I grew to like friends. Okay. Yeah, friends is not a thing is not a thing in the US. Oh yeah. It's massively. It's the thing is friends is very sort of Nicole, like we what you were describing about feeling guilty about liking lighter books. Friends is a very non-thinky light sitcom. It's definitely not cerebral. You don't turn it on to be stimulated, you turn it on to turn off.
SPEAKER_05That's probably what works intercultural, because A, you can translate it. Obviously, everything in Germany is dubbed. So you need to translate all that. The wordier it gets, the the trickier it probably is. And then if you have too many cultural references or pop culture references that are just purely American, that wouldn't translate either into German. So probably that's one of the reasons why if French does work so well here in Germany.
SPEAKER_07And because Big Bang Theory is insanely popular in China, and there are so many references, American references, and I do not understand how it's I mean, I'm guessing the comfort level with being sort of geeky and introverted might be the connection, but I I'm not sure. It's very confusing.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, and I don't mean to say that those shows like aren't big in the US or that they shouldn't be. Like it's just that there is a huge love, and like that would be a thing that people would ask me about, you know, they'd be like, oh, like you're from the US. Like, oh, like do people really go to the bar every night, like in how I met your mother, whatever. And I'm like, what? It's just a next, it's another level of love that I'm I was not expecting. So yeah. Anyway, this is all to say the pop culture in America carries over a lot to Germany, not entirely, but a lot of it. And so it's easy on the surface to like travel through and think, not that different. I could do this. And it's really only the more you stay there and the deeper you sink in the German language and the German culture that you start to see all of these little things that really mount up. Where I know a lot of people who have lived all over the world say adjusting to Germany has been one of the hardest things, just because it's it's deceptively different. And I think that the author did a really good job in this of expressing that, where at the beginning it's all like sort of these surface level things that are similar or not, and it's all good and fine. And then the longer she engages with Germany and lives there, and et cetera, the more she's like, oh, like this is a thing that I wasn't prepared for, and that's a thing that's different.
SPEAKER_07Did you notice anything that she experienced? I don't want to say that Rebecca Schumann was wrong, but did you did you notice anything that Rebecca experienced and wrote in the book that you not disagree with, but that you haven't experienced and find a little bit hard to relate to any of the culture.
SPEAKER_08I think that for them there might have been things that they didn't stand out for me too badly because I was like, she was experiencing such a different Germany than the one that I've known. So I'm living right now in in 2019 in Freiburg, Germany, in the far southwest corner. And she was living in the early 90s in she was in a couple other cities, but a lot of the book is about her time in Berlin. And this was very shortly after the fall of the wall. And that is, I mean, that was to me one of the coolest things about this book. It's like time traveling and looking at this specific moment where I don't know, like I was born in 1992, so when the wall fell, that was before my time. And so I grew up being like, oh yeah, that was a thing. I know, I know, you guys are making things. I know.
SPEAKER_07I initially feel old now. That was in my high school year book for the one of the year.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. So we probably also have totally different like thoughts in our mind about that. But you know, it's like kids today, like an 11 is a thing that they learn about in history class, not a thing they experienced. Same for me with this whole change in Europe. Like I knew it happened, but I didn't really think about the impact. And I've been so fascinated with that as of late, like that decade, the decade since, and really just how how recent that whole history is and hearing what it was like for an outsider to be there discovering it all. You know, Berlin is still really cool these days, but it's like I think were we saying the other day that when we talked, Tatiana, that it's like bars that try to look like the East, you know, like they tried to call back to these old times, but it the times have just developed past that. And so in the book, what she was experiencing in East German Berlin are just going to be pretty different than what I'm experiencing. And I think the thing that stood out to me more was just how much I have experienced a lot of the same stuff to different degrees, right? Like the maybe she I've never lived in a vague, which is a Bodengemeinschaft where they all live together. I've never done that, but I know people who have, so I know it exists. But she was really way deeper in that than I was.
SPEAKER_05Right, right, right. But you were saying that just fits in so perfectly because you were saying the east of Berlin and so forth. Now you're living in what from the Berlin point of view is the deepest, deepest west. Um, and there is a whole chapter in the book actually dedicated to what is called ostalgie, which is the love that Germans, some Germans anyway, have for the former East, basically. Um, have you encountered any uh sort of references to there's basically former West, former East, and anything of that?
SPEAKER_08I've definitely encountered people talking about the differences. And well, okay, so I've met some people who their families from the East and hearing their family history is just like, oh wow, okay. Totally different than what you hear from a lot of family histories on the West. I've heard about a lot of people make comments about the tax. There's like a what is it, solidarités or something? Yeah, where when the reunification happened, there was a tax implemented to help support the, I guess, rebuilding or modernizing of the East. And that tax still exists today. But I've heard some West German people say, like, but as soon as you drive into the East, the roads are so great when tax money they're just using it to, you know, we need the the money, whatever, they bicker over this. So I know that for sure. And I think it's becoming more and more clear to me now that I'm working in a public library in Germany, and my the people I work with are a lot older often, like the the public that comes in that I interact with. And I think that they would maybe be more outspoken about this kind of ultrogy, like this longing for the east. And also, I'm responsible for buying the books in the library for politics and society, Gesellschaft. Is that yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And the like sociology, basically. And there's a lot of books that come out about the East and about the Eastern the women from the East. I think this is really fascinating. Like a lot of people talk about feminism through the lens of the DDR. And I don't know if they're longing for it or if they're just saying, look at all, you know, 30 years out, look at all of these examples we have of really powerful women, Angela Merkel being the easiest example, who grew up in the East and then are very at a different point with their experiences of equality or their feelings about themselves in society than people who grew up in a different environment.
SPEAKER_05I can see that. But I think ostragi in Germany is very sort of like a wave that comes and goes. And a couple like 10 years maybe back, there was a huge movie that came out on that topic. So that sort of brought that up again. And now I think with feminism being quite sort of a thing out there, it's just another take that you can take that historical period on. What was the movie? The movie. Oh dear. I'll check that out and I'll let you know. It was actually a movie that was depicting the former East Berlin and what life was in there because very funny because there's so many prejudices from the East about the West and from the West about the East, obviously. And neither of them or most of them would never know what life was like in the other on the other side. So this movie depicts that very, very nicely. It's a fun, like it's a comedy, it's nothing serious, and everybody gets shot or something, but it's a very, very realistic view in that uh East Germany.
SPEAKER_07Hey there. So this is Stefan. I just wanted to let you guys know that the movie that they were talking about is Sol and Ali. It's S-O-N-N-E-N-A-L-L-E-E. I'll put the link in the show notes to the trailer so you can take a look at that. It looks really good and it's going on my movie list. But I want to veer off into podcast land for just a moment to give you a referral. A podcast referral, as I always do. A podcast I really, really, really like is called The Varmants. And I have to say it like that because it has an exclamation mark at the end of it.
SPEAKER_01Hey, my name's Paul, and I'm not an animal expert.
SPEAKER_04I'm Donna, and I'm not an animal expert either.
SPEAKER_01And together we do a podcast about animals called Varmants.
SPEAKER_04Every week we pick an animal, do a bunch of research on it, and bring you some interesting facts about that animal.
SPEAKER_01But we don't stop there. We talk about that animal in movies, TV, and other pop culture.
SPEAKER_04And we talk about whether or not that animal would make a tasty dish and how intelligent we think it is on the scale of one to ten.
SPEAKER_01It's exactly like one of those fancy PBS nature documentaries. Except with more poo jokes. New episodes go live every Thursday wherever you find your favorite podcast.
SPEAKER_04Or you can visit us at Blazing Caribou Studios.com.
SPEAKER_07They have so many good ones to choose from. It's ridiculous. Like I could go with a pretty one like a dragonfly, which was a really great episode. And I have to admit that's about when I started listening. So let's start there since that's where I started. So we'll start with dragonflies. So that was episode 92. That's number one. Number two on the recommendations that I have for farming. I'm gonna go with black bears, because that was a really fun one to do too. And the third one is a no-brainer. This is I was laughing hysterically on the metro when I was listening to this one. This one's without Donna, unfortunately, but it's Paul with a bunch of creepy collie creatures. He did uh live stream for the cure 3.0, which is a fundraiser for cancer research that was organized by Nick and Justin from the Epic Film Guys, which is another great podcast. I'm telling you podcasts baguette podcasts. There's no way to talk about one podcast without bringing in like six others. Anyway, I don't want to spoil it for you, but Paul does something very, very brave and gooe and gross for well, gross from a Western point of view. So he does something very interesting to get donations for that good cause. So that is the live stream for the Cure 3.0. And as of as of right now, it is the uh latest episode, but they come out on Thursday. It's a Wednesday for me, so there's it's gonna be the second uh latest episode by the time you hear this. So that is that came out on July 4th. Oh, that came out on July 4th. There's all kinds of goodness with this. So, yeah, so those are the three episodes that I recommend starting with. Get in there and start listening because Paul and Donna are wonderful human beings and wonderful podcasters. Let's get back to some other wonderful human beings. And I guess I'm in that category because it's Nicole, Tatiana, and I having this conversation. So let's do this. It is a love story, as we mentioned before, and the language loving side of me picked up on a couple of things specific to heartbreak that Rebecca talked about. One of which was feels slightly awkward to say with a German present. Sorry, Tatiana.
SPEAKER_05No, no, go ahead.
SPEAKER_07She did approve this, I swear. Uh, but in the book, uh, Rebecca wrote, quote, to this day, I am not sure even how Germans produce, unquote. And she was talking about the lack of physical touch and comfort level. And I was just curious, without revealing more than you're comfortable with, what your reaction to this or your experiences in Germany as an expat.
SPEAKER_08Okay. Because like nudity, they love being naked all the time, as much as possible in public. Totally okay. But yeah, touching and like physicality and warmth and like romance, a little bit less so. But then on the other hand, like this is stuff I sometimes don't even notice anymore. But like, my when my parents were visiting, we were waiting in line for something, and the people in front of us, they were an older couple, not old, old, but like maybe my parents' age, maybe like in their 60s. And the guy had his hand in the pocket of the girl's jeans the whole time, like kind of grabbing the booty. And I didn't even notice that. I was like, all right, whatever, that's comfortable for now. And my parents were like, oh my gosh, like in like that's really that's really pushing it. Because my American standard study is a little like you don't go for the anything, you know, in public where you're where you're being showy. So there's stuff like that where they they are, and I see a lot of couples, especially above the age of I don't know, maybe like 40. Like I feel like in the US, like couples kind of stop being affectionate openly to the outer world, and maybe also personally, and once they like are together for a while, they have kids maybe, they have all these other things and they're like less loving in public. Here I see a lot more people kissing. Doesn't matter what age, like they're a couple, they're out together, they're being affectionate in some way. But I mean, I totally get where she's coming from. I think like she I think she said that satirically, right? Like to make a point extreme to drive it home. And yeah, I I kind of do see that to a certain extent. Like, I know that the cultural attitude attitudes towards sex are totally different, especially for young people, what have you. But you sometimes look at these people and like they're not like they are pretty unflexible, like pretty rigid in comparison to what I'm used to, right? And so I I can see what where there's this like such a like a stereotype of like the air of coldness more than warmth. And so for someone who's used to love and romance being this warm, mushy thing, and then seeing people who aren't that way, it's like kind of hard to imagine, like what that you know they get that way ever.
SPEAKER_05But this is I think you're making a fantastic point because I never really could get that straight either. That whole FKK, uh the free crop freie Körperkultur, where basically Germans go on the beach and completely naked, and that's fine. But then in in other situations, it's so stiff and cold. But I think it's really that that as long as you're not close to somebody and you don't know them, so mainly in a professional background, it's all very, very distanced. So if you meet somebody, it takes a long time to the moment that you would actually hug somebody or that that right-left kiss thing basically. However, once that does happen, so once you're in a relationship or uh when once you do have made friends, etc., then it becomes a lot less strict and a lot less a lot more comfortable and sort of warm. For sure, for sure.
SPEAKER_07And even in the US, I think the the touchy-feely vibe is very different from place to place. I think in some places people will hug people sooner, they'll they'll do public displays of PDA, public displays of affection. Yeah, they'll do that soon, you know, a lot more. It just really depends on the the context and the people. But I just thought that was I thought that was clever. It was meant more as humor than as a cultural judgment. I almost nothing about I've spent all of maybe three weeks in Germany in total in my life. So I'm just the observer today.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so while we're speaking about sort of things that are in the book, and I personally would just like to look asked she does bring up that Germans don't shower much. However, you're explaining. And I'm bringing up that question more to give our love the interviewing Nicole the chance to uh rectify that.
SPEAKER_08I get your hit, I picked up that there's a correct answer to this. That actually stood out to me too, because slightly other related hygiene stereotype or misconception. My dad, when he was in high school, they had a German exchange student at a school and they had up like a swimming class, and she was swimming, whatever, had her arms up, and he saw that she didn't shave her armpits. And so since then he's like, that's a German thing. And he's brought it up a couple times. And to me, it's exactly the opposite. Like the men shave their armpits. The men shave lots of other things that I like their their chest. Sorry, that sounded weird. Just they're not. I mean, like they're more into priming. Primming? Yeah, that's a word that I read in books a lot, but I never use out loud, and now I got caught trying to use it. They're more interested in how they look and looking smooth and put together than American men. And so to me, and like the women, a lot, I mean it's individual to individual, but I don't experience a culture of not shaving. Same goes with that. Maybe it was true more back then, but people shower year, like what seems to me normal. The only difference is there's not air conditioning. So in the summer, some people are a little stinkier. But I couldn't, I guess that would have been a good one to bring up earlier when you asked me if there's anything that stood out that wasn't true. Like, yeah, I haven't really experienced that as an issue outside of when you work in a library, you meet a lot of people who come from different walks of life, and some of them don't really shower.
SPEAKER_07Nothing to do with Germany and more to do with housing situations. Yeah, and Nicole, you said on your podcast you said that your library is not air conditioned. I'm still thinking about that. Me too.
SPEAKER_08There's oh yeah, there's a couple people who come regularly, and I know that they, for whatever reason, are not showering regularly, and it's normally whatever, you can just kind of wait till they're in their spot and carry on. But when you're closed into this little box and it's just oh, it's just baking within itself, it's not great. But I am also a person who sometimes likes to skip a shower in favor of sleeping in for 10 more minutes, and in that way I'm like, well, fine, I can do that, and no one's gonna notice because we're all sweating growth anyway. So the problem is that the immigrants here don't shower me.
SPEAKER_07I don't too funny, too funny. Oh, here I go again with the language part. Just full disclaimer, I took German in high school, and that was a very long time before you were born, Nicole. That's when that was. And I remember none of it when I was a horrible student. It had nothing to do with the language itself. However, I have developed a liking for analyzing languages, even if I can't speak anything other than English at this point. Going back to the author in the book, she and Heartbreak again, she mentions that in German, heartbreak in English means literally love grief. That was a part that I loved is when she touched on moments like that in the book. Were there any language things that you noticed in the book that you were like, yes, I love that. That's a gem of mine too.
SPEAKER_08There were several. I mean, she used them as the titles of the chapter. So let me just flip through real fast because there are so such good ones. Yeah, okay, table of contents. There's still some I don't know. That was what was quite kind of cool, I guess, reading through like uh Jugendsunde is not a word that I use. No. I'm gonna have to look what it means right now, or you can tell us, Tatiana.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think that would be true probably something that is much more used of coming from an older adult telling somebody in their use. So Jugend Sunde basically means a sin that you commit in your use. And it's usually used not as a proper like sin as in something serious, but just something foolish that you did when you were young. And yeah, because like you know, like that boyfriend you had back then, the first boyfriend that was a like typical Jung Zunam, basically.
SPEAKER_08There was a couple that she used this title cap chapter titles. There we go. Yeah, I definitely was like, yeah, I love that word. I'm glad that this is getting a shout-out. Sprachgefuel, which is like the feeling for a language. And they talk about that a lot, especially when you're learning the language. They're like, you know, learning the articles, you could study it, but really over time you build the sprachgefuel, you learn, build this impulse. Yeah, exactly. But it's way prettier to or like cooler to be like schwachgefuel than like feeling, you know, you know what I mean? Uh Lebensraum, which yeah, that one got a little used by some people incorrectly. But that is a thing, like I remember once I asked someone, I was like, I have been so uncomfortable because I'll be in the line at the grocery store, and this happened multiple times, where a man with a very large tummy would be standing behind me too closely so that his stomach would like bump up against me. And I was like, No, no, thank you, no thanks. But I didn't know what to say if I could say something culturally, if that's like appropriate, or if we should all just like cuddle on up and embrace each other. I was like, I don't know. So I asked someone, I was like, this is happening. What can I say something? And if so, what? And they told me, yeah, it's it's totally normal to ask for some ein bisschen Lebensraum to like a little space for me, please. Or a bit Abstand would also be probably better because Lebensraum. Some of these words, like, yeah, you gotta keep sensitivity with history and whatnot. But yeah, I think if you're able to separate that from the history, like it's a nice word. And then, well, of course, Schadenpläne, that's like the biggest one that Americans know. And it it's not used as frequently as I would like, but it's definitely a solid example of the German language. And there's so many other ones, like the funny ones, like Krankenhaus, like the sick house is a hospital, an airplane is a Flugzeug, a fly thing.
SPEAKER_05Like oh my see, and that's that's what I loved about this book because some of those words up here. I would never, as German, think about the words Krankenhaus or the hospital or uh Flugzeug plane. It's just that's what you learn, right? That's your language. You you just use it, it's there. But it's true, once you pick that apart, it becomes so much more obvious that some of them are really strange.
SPEAKER_08Well, I've had the funny experience a couple times recently of learning a German word and being like, that's so goofy and literal, and then being like, oh wait, that's what it is in English too. But it's the same thing where I never thought about the words. Like the most recent example is straw that you drink out of. Someone was like, I was asking them what the word was, and of course it took a while to get there because they don't really use them as frequently here as in the US, it's in everything. But we got there, and she was like, Oh, and I for I forget what it's called, but what is it? Strollheim. And what it basically I mean, it translates to straw, as in hay. And I was like, that's so weird. And then I was like thinking about it, what it is in English. Oh, right, straw. Straw isn't just a word for the plastic thing. It came from the word for the hay. These are the same thing. I just think the one's weird and the other's normal. But this is probably how it is for you reading this and being like, is that a funny word? Like Won Gemeind shop. That's such a it's an A gay. It's a people living together. You just use it all the time. You don't even think of it. And then you're like, oh, I guess that is.
SPEAKER_07That's funny. For some reason, I wrote down when she was talking about uh when she first went there and she was in a hotel and she tried to tell them that her bed would not open, and she said to them, My bed is closed. And I wrote down specifically what she said, she was like, it's a matter of possession, context, and temporary versus existential state. I'm like, wow. And then she went in to explain it, and I was like, that's that's a lot to deal with, just to say I can't sleep because the cot's not opening.
SPEAKER_08This is the thing. I literally had this conversation yesterday with some friends who are at various stages of learning German. Like, you have to get to a B2, C1 level of the language before you can actually have a basic conversation effectively, because the little things like that, like when you're starting to learn the language, you get one little thing wrong and it's a totally different meeting. It's it's such a precise language. And I was arguing that there's like this magical golden space where you're at like late B2, where you know enough that people won't switch to English, but you're bad enough that they're expecting you to make mistakes, and so they're prepared to be like doing mental acrobatics to figure out what you're actually saying. Um I advanced past that recently, and now I'm good enough where they don't think I'm gonna make well, yeah, great, except for now they think I'm gonna make less mistakes. And so when I do something like that and say that that is closed wrong, when I use the wrong form of closed, then all of a sudden they're like, What are you talking about? And I'm like, come on, like like you don't know. I know it's not perfect, but don't you know what I mean? And they really don't. Like it's not people being like, whatever. Genuinely like one tiny little mistake is a totally different meaning. It's all built on like prefixes, suffixes, and pronouns and all of this other existential stuff.
SPEAKER_05As you're mentioning your trip through the German language, basically, how long have you been learning now?
SPEAKER_08About four years. Yeah. Really more seriously, only three. But yeah, three, three and a half years into very seriously, diligently learning it to feel decent at it.
SPEAKER_05Because in the book also the author mentions, right, that there is this scale of the how difficult languages are to learn, basically, internationally for an English-speaking national. And German is supposedly on number two. So there's very easy languages in category one. And then there's German already in number two. Now, obviously the script is the same, which it makes it easier already to basically start in the language. But other than that, as a German speaker, I would never want to learn that language.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Well, it is a big, it's wonderful and beautiful language, and I love the precision. But at the same time, it as an expat, it does make it really hard for people because yeah, like the conversation I was having yesterday was people saying, like, I've been learning it for so long now, and I still can't even feel confident asking for something, you know? And it's really a barrier to integration, but of course, one that is worth pushing through because it's the German language. You're in Germany. Like very few people I know are anti-learning German if they're serious about living here. But you get people like a couple of my friends were only here for like two to three years, and she was on international trips for a lot of that, so was he. So they never really learned good German, and they got to the point where they were like, should I stay? Should I go? And they were like, Well, let's go because we're not the language is not working for us. And in people like that, people who study abroad, all of this, like they're not really realistically gonna pick it up that quickly.
SPEAKER_05And so it's the challenge. How has it been because I also always remember that there's certain words that sound very different the same or are the same in fact, but are used differently. Like, for instance, handy. Handy in English is like practical, something is practical, basically. Oh, this is very handy. But the handy in German is actually a mobile phone. Give me my like give me my handy, my mobile phone. Have you experienced any of that sort of any trouble with yeah, so many.
SPEAKER_08And it's always so weird because you have to first off, I can't say the English words like an English person, like an American or an English speaker would, because then they don't know what you're saying. You have to do like this like fake German accent, like you can't say marketing, you have to say like marketing, which I am not over. Like I think it's ridiculous, but it's funny, so it's good. Yeah, but there are some things where I get frustrated where I'm like, you're taking the English word, but you're doing it wrong.
SPEAKER_07Well, since we're talking about things that are wrong, let's talk about things that are right. Very, very right. I have three words for you podcast at Bridge Club. If you listen to any or all of my podcasts, you probably have heard me talk about them before. Here is Adela to tell you more about the podcast at Brunch Club.
SPEAKER_03Hi, podcast listener. So I have a question for you. Have you ever found yourself starting a sentence with so I heard on a podcast? And do the people that you say that to stare blankly back at you or roll their eyes? Then you should join Podcast Brunch Club. My name is Adela, and I founded Podcast Brunch Club. It's like a book club for podcasts, and it's a global community of podcast listeners. We have over 60 chapters across six continents that meet up in person to discuss a thematic set of podcasts every month. The themes have ranged from laughter and comedy to the death penalty. And it's a great way to discover new podcasts, learn something new, and meet new people that live near you. We also have a podcast for those who can't attend in person or who want to dive deeper into each topic and hear from the podcasters we feature. Find out more at podcastbrunchclub.com.
SPEAKER_07So just so you know, the listening lists are going to be in our show notes, or you can go to podcastbrunchclub.com forward slash listening at hyphen. That's the one in the middle, not the top and off the bottom. But lists start with an S and that's it. Okay, the language one from March 2019. I do remember that one being really fun to talk about in the group. Because each listening list comes with about three or four different uh podcasts. Actually, since I normally recommend three episodes, I think I might actually stop with that one. That's also where I learned about the Ology podcast, which if you're not listening to it, Ellie Ward. My gosh, is she a podcasting and just oh my gosh, is she an amazing, amazing person? The language one from March of 2019. I think you should start there. Also, I have a special surprise for you. I just this week interviewed Adela for the Virtual Expats podcast. So you can hop on over to that podcast. Actually, you don't have to anymore because they're all going to be consolidated on this very same place. Virtual Expats Changing Scripts and Bookish Expats are all going to exist in the same place from now on. Adela's coming out in the fall, so stay tuned. I'll be sure to let you know before her episode comes out. But my goodness, that was such a fun conversation to have with her. The podcast brunch club. Seriously, either go to a meeting, listen to the podcast, or just cry because you are being pod solitude, and there's no reason at all in this day and age to be a solo podcast listener. Unless you want to, but I know you like people. I can sense it in you. Alright, hey, speaking of people, let's get back to the three people having the conversation about Schattenporta, shall we?
SPEAKER_08I was wondering how it was for you, Steph, reading the book, because she uses a lot of German. And sometimes it's explained, but sometimes it's not. And so was that a barrier for you reading the book as someone who doesn't speak the language?
SPEAKER_07I I grew up not understanding languages around me. So I have lived in a perpetual state my entire life of not knowing what's going on around me. Maybe that's why I'm such a bad language learner, because I'm just so used to not knowing that when I'm in a place and I can understand something, I'm like, wait, this is so distracting. So no, if anything, it made her descriptions uh when she didn't just drop and when she dropped and explained, it made those really, really poignant for me. So I really liked that.
SPEAKER_08Good. Yeah, that was one thing that I worry about recommending this book to people. I'm like, is it too alienating if you feel like because sometimes it'll just be used in context, just one book, like one word. And I wasn't sure if that would be well, and I guess everyone's different, right? Like maybe you have a high threshold for that and someone else might have a lower, but that is something that stood out to me both times I read it, especially because I said some of the words, I mean most of the ones she uses in context are fine, but a lot of the words aren't ones that you learn right away. So even as a German learner, it could be a little bit like they were that often.
SPEAKER_07I don't know. I I would figure someone who would read would have a certain tolerance for just for running across words they didn't know no matter what language it was. True.
SPEAKER_08I think I wonder if maybe I was more sensitive to it because I was reading it when I was like at this point, I think I was at like A2B1 German, and I felt like I should know a lot of things. And coming across stuff that I was like, do I know that? Do I not? Maybe I was you know extra critical in that sense.
SPEAKER_07Language guilt. It's really Nicole, have you ever quoted the book in conversation? Maybe not exactly word for word, but situations or some of her terminology or anything.
SPEAKER_08I've definitely referenced it. I'm not I have a terrible memory, so quoting things is always off the table for me. But I have definitely made reference to especially some of the stories or even some of the feelings. Like I think she does a good job of giving you an atmosphere. And I think that I've referenced, but I don't know, I can't think of like specific examples, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_07Have you ever recommended it to a German friend?
SPEAKER_08I don't know if I have. I've recommended it, I think I recommended it. Tatiana. I loved it. I remember when I started working at the American Library where I worked the first year I lived here, I noticed that they didn't have it, and I think I recommended that they buy it, but I they did end up getting it, and I can't remember if that had anything to do with me or not. So I don't want to take false credit. But once it was there, I think that would be something that I would recommend to the readers that would come in, regardless of where they're from, because it's totally you know up the alley of anyone who's living in Germany. But I think I should I should recommend it more because it would be really fun to see what people think and how they react.
SPEAKER_07It would be very cool. And if you get reactions, please do social media as the reactions because I'm very curious. I mean, we could have an end of one. Tatiana has already shared some of her impressions of the book, but I'd like a bigger sample set.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, totally fair enough.
SPEAKER_07So Tatiana found Rebecca Schumann on social media, and it looks like she's pretty active on social media. I think we're both following her at this point. So know, Nicole, that when I ask the next question, we could maybe sort of forward it on to her see to she up show or plot. No pressure there. So if you could ask the author or less high stakes, any character in the book, any question, what would it be?
SPEAKER_08That is a good question. Yeah, I I think I would be curious, because we okay question. This is maybe a little bit like too like talking about craft or something, not craft, but like the book takes a turn in the last quarter or so and goes more like less talking about German, Germany, etc., and more talking about like academia, which I was also really interested in. But I thought that those are kind of two different audiences. There's a lot of more overlap, but person who reads it for academia would be maybe less interested in the beginning. People who read it for German stuff would maybe be less interested by the academia. So I was just kind of interested in that choice because I think I can't imagine it went through without people bringing that question up in the editing process, um, or her asking herself, like what you know, I think it's a choice, and I just would be interested in hearing about what went behind that choice. But I don't know if that's too like, you know, meta like asking about the book instead of the content.
SPEAKER_07But honestly, we Tachana and I had conversations about this when we hit that part of the book, and we were kind of thinking it felt like two different books.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_07Personally, I was cheering on her when she was dissing academia before she got to that point where it's all she talked about. And then I was like, okay, now it's too much. So it was like the balance was really good in the beginning, love story part, and then I felt like it went a little too far over.
SPEAKER_08I think I would agree. Yeah, I was well, especially being like finishing up grad school at the time that I read this and having a lot of opinions, academia in general, and like the state of academics in America. I'm down for that kind of content. But I did leave the book feeling like, oh, I kind of wish we carried through more like what was going on with her relationship to Germany as she starts to build her life in a non-German place context, etc. I mean, she's still obviously super active in like through online, through her translation work, like obviously she's connected to it, but I would rather hear more about that, I think, in this book. And then I want to read a lot of long, like ranting essays online about academia because like I'm down, I'm down to traction.
SPEAKER_07Okay, there's a few. The Professor is in and oh, Jorge Chan has a really good comic strip. And for some reason, right now I can't remember the comic strip, but I can remember him. Uh PhD comics. Those are two different things. Do I know them? Yeah, the Professor Is In is a blog by I think an ex-academic who helps people deal with their life post-academia. And she her blog often calls academia out on the ridiculous things that they're doing. Like volunteer professors apparently is now a thing in the US. Oh my god. Volunteer professors, full-on course load, but not getting paid at all. Not even adjuncting, but volunteering. Yeah. So she works well, stuff like that, and then also tries to help people transition to a quote unquote regular career after academia. No, I don't I don't know either of them, but they'll song. I'm gonna send you both of these by when we hang up. And Jorge does a wonderful comic strip called PhD Comics, where he's constantly poking fun at uh academia in the US. And it also there's also been two movies to come out of the comics. And they're the first is funnier than the second, which normally happens, and uh they're both equally funny. So yeah, listeners, I'll put those in the show notes. Anyway, touch on it. You finished reading the book a few weeks ago. What is your reaction to the end of it now? Do you feel the same way?
SPEAKER_05Yes, I still feel the same way, and I completely agree with Nicole as well that especially when you read the cover, it's very wordy. There's a lot of text on the cover, and it's Schadenfreude and something something. The entire text really sets you up brilliantly for the first part of the book, like the two-thirds probably, uh first two-thirds, where it's really about the language and those words that are very unique to the German language and her experience, the author's experience in Germany, living there and learning the language, etc. etc. So for me, not having an academia background at all myself, the last part got really sort of out there, which I didn't really because she's still teaching German at that point. So there's like that little string that still attaches it to the other, to the rest of the book. But other than that, I really couldn't figure out how that those two books belong together. And so I agree with Nicole that it really feels like two separate books actually could have written on that.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Nicole, how would you finish the book if you were the author? If you stopped before the academia got too much, how would you have finished it?
SPEAKER_08The questions that I had once she committed to America, like I wonder, did that feel like a commitment? Like, did that feel like I've made the choice, I'm gonna be here now? And if so, what went into that? Like, I know so many people, especially when they're starting to think about like marriage and kids, lean more towards Germany because those things are there's more social support here. And she met her husband in the States, so it makes sense that they were there. But I I wonder, like, did that come up? Did that did you ever think about maybe we'll move back to try life there, especially after all these bound, like these challenges that were just specific to America? And I wonder too, like, what was her relationship with that like? Like, what was she thinking about? Like, how am I going to integrate the things I love about Germany to my life here today? What was going on in her classrooms that she was teaching? Um, what kind of questions were coming up? All these kind of things. So, like obviously it's her memoirs. She can't change what happened, but you can change where you zoom in. And I think I would rather zoom into those kind of like personal choices, cultural questions, that aspect of things.
SPEAKER_07And that's felt like where it was going. So I think that's I think editor Nicole, you're hired.
SPEAKER_08That was what I initially wanted to do. Once I read that book back in high school and changed my life plan, it was like because I wanted to be an editor. But they have to work a lot over time, and I don't love that idea. So here we are.
SPEAKER_05You were thinking of changing your life because of the book?
SPEAKER_08No, no, no. The book I mentioned way in the beginning that changed my opinion about books in general. Yeah. What I landed on as a career idea after reading that was that I wanted to be an editor for specifically for young adult novels. And that didn't happen. But yeah.
SPEAKER_09But look at me using my former editor.
SPEAKER_07There's plenty of time. Yeah, people have three, four, five, and ten careers these days. So there's plenty of and now you've got two languages that you can be editor in.
SPEAKER_08Oh God, don't make me edit in German. No, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_07No. So I'm assuming you've read the book twice, the first time before you moved to Germany and very recently.
SPEAKER_05Yes. What about the book helped you about your exped journey?
SPEAKER_08Well, it's cool rereading it for this podcast because it made me see how much further I've come in terms of the language and in terms of the culture, like how much more I know and understand about this place. But it also just helped me like in shining a light on herself and her own history, it shined a light on me and my journey too. You know, I think what's so relatable about this book is like this whole thing started because she had a crush in high school, and this guy liked Kafka because he was like a high school cool kid and was like, uh, not cool kid, God, that's super nerdy, but like, you know what I mean? Like the RT soul was like Kafka, wow. And she was like, I also love Kafka, Kafka, then, you know, like I've so been there. And the fact that that one little insignificant relationship like spawned her whole life. Yeah. I feel like so many of us. I mean, that wasn't my story, but we all have equally huge outcomes from such minuscule events. And her her perfectionism, her like chasing the desire to be, to prove her intelligence, to become accomplished and all that is just so relatable. And then at the same time, when she gets there, being this like smug little like I'm laying in like an apartment with young people instead of a family stay, you know, like she sort of is braggy and book, you know, like writing it now as an adult, she's self-referential and calls her out on her past selves quirks. I loved that, and it helped me see like I'm as someone who's paranoid about being like too smug or like braggy accidentally. You know, sometimes that happens, right? So I want to like I loved her calling herself out on that because it like makes me look back on like how I approach talking about my journey, or you know, when I go talk to my friends, am I being like like I live in Europe, blah blah blah? Or am I being more authentic, you know? And I I just I really love that aspect. And I think it it'll be a fun thing to revisit again. Like it's a book I can definitely keep coming back to in various points of my journey.
SPEAKER_05Have you read those books that she mentioned in the book? And like, are you bragging generally about you reading certain books that other people wouldn't get through?
SPEAKER_08No, okay, I'm not that dedicated with my reading at this point in my life. I did on the topic, if you're asking me directly, I guess I'll admit that I have read Ulysses. No, like back in college when I was like studying literature, I was maybe a little bit more in that direction, but like I'm not really competitive in that way now. But what's funny that you should ask that is my brother got me a couple books in German for Christmas this year, one of which was a bunch of Kafka stories. So once I finished this reread, I was like, oh, I do have that, and I'm trying to read more German. So I picked it up and I read The Metamorphosis.
SPEAKER_09Okay.
SPEAKER_08Could confirm, I can now officially confirm that like I don't feel the same way about Kafka that she does. Like it was cool, it was like, and also just reading in German is like not that fun for me. So I'm probably not gonna keep pushing through that particular book. But it another thing that I love about books is when they inspire you to step out of your sort of bookish comfort zone and read something that you wouldn't otherwise. Like when I was a teenager in Red Twilight, and then the author was like, uh, a lot of it's inspired by Wuthering Heights, and then I read Wuthering Heights and I loved it. And I was like more fun outside of that channel. And so, same thing here, like I wasn't gonna pick up Kafka otherwise. Like, sorry to my brother, but that Christmas gift was sitting on the shelf, and I was like, one day, one day. But this made me be like, hey, I wonder if I could read it, and also she loves it so much and makes it sound so exciting. Maybe I'll try it. And yeah, I was I was I I'll keep reading it here and there, and I I do like it, and I do like knowing, like, oh, I can read Kafka, that's cool. It's a nice like it marks your progress, but it's not my that's not my my battle to to fight. I don't need to conquer that Mal Everest. You know, I'll stick to like German magazines or something.
SPEAKER_05Good. So are there any other books that you would recommend to our sort of to the expats listening out there with regards to expert life in general, not necessarily Germany or even Germany if you want?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, there's one other book. I feel like they're trying to make it a thing where like book Americans writing about Germany, they have books with like bright yellow covers because shortly after this book came out, Achtung Baby came out, which was an American who moved to Berlin and was raising a family there and talked about the differences in parenting and early childhood education. It was really interesting and I really liked it. They're two totally different stories, but there's I think readers of this that liked it would like that one as well. And then more generally, I just like especially as a librarian, like a book advocate, I want to say read what you like. Like the book I was talking about earlier, where I was like, even just now, like I should try reading in German more, and it's just not working for me. I was trying to read more like impressive books a year and a half ago when my life was really stressful, and no, I needed to read like rom-com level books, right? And once I started listening to myself and allowing myself to first off read in English and second off read things I wanted to read in that moment and not shoulding in any way what I should be reading, it got so much better, and I was so much relieved because I was able to have this experience that means so much to me, just losing yourself in a book. So I just want to say like my recommendation would be like read what you want, push yourself for sure, especially if you're language learning, but don't be too hard on yourself. And if you need a moment with a romance novel or whatever it is for you, like go for it.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Who cares what you read as long as if you want to read, read whatever makes you happy. Exactly. Are there any any other questions that you think we should ask our future guests at Bookish Expacks?
SPEAKER_08Ooh. It's so circumstantial on the book, I think. But I guess I would be also interested in hearing, yeah, like how their expat journey and their reading journey have crisscrossed throughout, you know, like what someone's journey of. I used to read more of this, but now that you you guys asked a little bit of that already, but I think that's really interesting, and I'd love to like have a whole like deep dive onto that.
SPEAKER_05Hold on. Okay. And then last but not least, where can our listeners find you online and and listen to you and listen onto you?
SPEAKER_08Yeah. So I have a podcast called the X Fat Cast. I interview people about anything X Fat E related. Sometimes it's more resources, sometimes my librarian side of me wins over and I'm like, here are good quality resources for the problems that I'm having. Sometimes it's more fun. Sometimes it's more just like let's just talk about what you're experiencing. I think the my natural inclination is to talk a lot about the challenges of expat life and like breaking down the idea that people have that you're just like off living this wonderful vacation life. Like it's a it's a really hard life living abroad. And it doesn't matter where you came from or where you are, you're gonna have a lot of emotional challenges. And we can we talk a lot about that. So you can put a chat anywhere you're gonna have a cast under the expatcast, and then we're on social media mostly um Instagram and Twitter at the expatcast.
SPEAKER_07Probably too modest to say this, but there's a recent episode of the expatcast for attention. It was the actual cast. I recommend that one. That was super fun to listen to. There's also an amazing episode where Stuff's looking at the origin of book is expensive kind of good stuff.
SPEAKER_08I'm really looking into this like wonderful online connection of expats that's just seemingly like never ending in a really wonderful way. So yeah, both of you guys have been on my show, now I've been on yours, and yeah, their episodes are really, really great. I would recommend that. Great.
SPEAKER_05Thank you so much, Nicole, for being on the Bookish Expats.
SPEAKER_08Thanks for having me. This is a blast.
SPEAKER_07It's Steph, just one more time for this episode. This is the first episode for season four for Bookish Expats Podcast. Hey, word of mouth is the best way to spread the word about this project. As messy as it sometimes may be. So please do help us by doing just that. Spread the word about Bookish Expats on and offline. The next episode will be out the last Friday in August Panda time, also known as in China. So if you're in North America, that's late Thursday evening. What day is that? It is August 30th. For me, probably for at least half of you, according to my stats. It's gonna be late Thursday night, the 29th of August. Who's coming on? And that will be the one and only that will be the one and only Tina Kanagaratan. She is one of the three founders of Historic Shanghai, an organization in Shanghai that in Shanghai, China, that arranges walking tours and many other events to educate people about the city's fascinating history. Tina and I are going to be talking about The Good Earth by Pearl F. Step Buck. Cool tip! I am actually listening to it on Audible, so it is available in Audible for you. So I need a few more thank yous before we head out. Of course, thank you so much to my co-interviewer for this episode, Tatiana. Her enthusiasm, insights, and humor were such an incredible delight to have. We were both reading the book separately but together in preparation for this episode. There were a lot of back and forths of Did you read this part yet? Oh my gosh, what about this? This part was hilarious. Wait, what did she do there? Yeah, we had all those moments. It was awesome. And a special shout out to her daughter, who is reading up a storm in kindergarten. Yeah, you heard me. How times have changed. I remember reading Dr. Seuss at that age, but apparently she's reading versions of all kinds of English classics already. Wow. Also, thank you again to Damon Castillo for the background music we are using in this podcast. The song we're using today, we have switched from the last episode. It's called Body Blues, and it's still from the Mess of Me album. That is the album that he has graciously authorized us to use in uh all three of these podcasts Virtual Expats, Changing Scripts, and you guessed it, Bookish Expat. For those of you who are lucky enough to live in the central coast of California in the US or have access to get there, he's actually playing, let's see, his next gig, his band's next gig, is August 2nd, coming up very, very soon, 2019, at Mission Plaza in San Luis Obispo. At the end, here when I'm done talking, we will listen to that song. Not just the instrumental version, but we'll listen to the song in its entirety, including Damon's mesmerizing voice. So stick around for just a little bit longer. I also want to thank the other voices in this podcast that gave us more creative edutainment projects to follow. Paul and Donna from the For It's Podcast. I have to do that. And Adela from the Podcast Brunch Club. Thank you to all of them for making such thoughtful content time and time and time again. And for joining the voices here on the Bookish Expats podcast. I really adore all of you. The Bookish Expats, as I mentioned previously, has moved. It has moved. It is now over on the Virtual Expats site. There will be more changes. We're not done. So don't get too attached. But for now, you can find us over at virtualexpats.podbean.com. There's a lot of improvements in the mix for all of this stuff over the next few months, but I will definitely keep you in the loop, especially now that Podbean has the record on your phone option, which is super handy. I know it's not quite as crisp as this mic. My Samsung QTU. My love, my dear love. I'm loving my mic right now. This is something you should not do as a podcaster. Hey, yeah, so we've moved websites. And uh but we haven't moved the main website right now yet. It's still stephfuccio.weebly.com. Whatever changes I make, I will have redirects, forwards, notes, voice notes, all kinds of things to let you guys know what's happening. Anyway, if you want to contact me about any and all of this, anything, anything at all, I am Steph Guccio S T P H F U C C I O. Absolutely everywhere online. It's also at my Gmail address. I'm going to let Damon finish you out in a very groovy-groovy kind of way. Damon.
SPEAKER_06Ain't it sad that you've never seen just how beautiful life can be?
unknownIn fact, if I had to make a call, I'd say you never seen yourself at all. Just a vlog here and a vlog there when you're standing in your underwear.
SPEAKER_06Confidence has always been free. But I can see you alone in a room. Wearing nothing but some sweet perfume. That's why I'm here with ya.
unknownDon't choose to lose.
SPEAKER_06See yourself through my eyes. You paid your dues. Say goodbye, your Friday blues.
unknownFrom the shackles of the bouge voisine. And that's the working man I have to propose.
SPEAKER_06Propose you leave the printing of your pretty clothes. That's why I'm here. Don't choose to lose you'll buy a bloom. Well you're so hot and you don't even know it. Girl, I love what you got. Gonna teach you to show it. If you're done with the lights, see yourself through my eyes, you pay your dues. Say goodbye to your body blues. I'm just a kind of stupid work of all. I love what you got. Gonna teach you to show it. If you're done with the lights, see yourself through my eyes, you pay your dues. Say goodbye to your body blues, your body blues, yeah, yeah, your body blues, yeah, your body, your body blue, eh, your body, your body.
SPEAKER_02You could save big when you bundle your home and auto with progressive, but when we just come out and say it, it feels like it falls a bit flat. So we're gonna sting it. We'll even sting the business part. Now that's the commercial you'll remember, even if you don't remember the bundle and save with progressive part. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company in Afiliates discount month available in all states of situations.
SPEAKER_01Membership fees apply after free trial. Cancel any time.
SPEAKER_00You know what's wrong with health and fitness? You weaponize it against yourself. Why didn't you go to the gym today? You're so lazy. Ah, why did you eat that? You have no self-control. Stop it. At Beachbody, we think training and caring for your body in a way that works best for you should be about loving yourself. Let us help you without all the judgment. Here's how. Go to BeachBody.com to claim your free membership and start feeling great.