Lesen Sie diesen Text auf Deutsch.
This story is part of our Mystery of Heimat series. It is an exploration into what binds people in Germany together: religion, profession, hobby, background or economic situation. It is, in short, a search for the contours of the concept of home.
When she leaves her building in the morning, the smell of mohinga, a fish soup made with rice noodles and lemon grass, wafts through the streets. She loves the smell, but in contrast to her neighbors, she prefers eating it in the evening rather than for breakfast. She already knows the soup vendor. "Mingalabar," the man calls out and waves in greeting, and she does the same in return. Her language skills are good enough for such simple greetings and things like "How are you?" or "I'm from Germany." Sometimes, though, she wishes she could have a real exchange with the vendor – ask him questions and answer his. But her Burmese isn't good enough for that.
It was different back in Vietnam. The euphoria of finally living somewhere other than Germany gave her so much energy that she quickly learned the new language. But that was 16 years ago. She has grown older since then and Burmese is not as easy to learn as Vietnamese. Plus, Myanmar is not her first overseas home, but her third. Yet even absent the ability to communicate with the soup vendor, the greeting ritual every morning helps her feel comfortable in a foreign city. It makes her apartment feel that much more like home.
Christiane Schultz is 57 years old and has been living in Yangon, the economic capital of Myanmar and the country's largest city, since 2016. The quarter she lives in is called San Chaung, a place that is home almost exclusively to Burmese and very few foreigners. She intentionally chose this part of the city: She doesn't like impersonal neighborhoods full of expatriate Europeans. She wants to be a part of the fabric of the country's life. Plus, her small flat on the seventh floor of a nondescript apartment block also has the advantage of being close to her office.
Around 3.4 million German citizens are currently living abroad and around 1.9 million of them are gainfully employed, often well-educated and in positions of responsibility. Schultz is one of those to have taken the plunge. According to surveys, fully 15 percent of Germans would like to live abroad, but only around 4 percent actually end up doing so. Schultz grew up in Aachen but moved to Hamburg after graduating from high school to study fashion design. After completing her studies in 1986, she worked for several different companies in the areas of design, product development and purchasing. But she never really felt completely comfortable in those jobs. She didn't like the "hierarchical labor system and conditions in Germany," as she puts it. She says she experienced "constant rivalry battles and social coldness."
By 2002, after more than 15 years in the fashion and garment industry, she had finally had enough. She was 42 years old and thought: "Something has to change." By chance, she found a job advertisement looking for experts in the apparel and textile industry to engage in development work in Vietnam. She applied, got the job and headed off to Hanoi with the Center for International Migration and Development (CIM), which is closely affiliated with German government agencies.
Kommentare
"It's not difficult to leave, but when you come back, it seems as though nothing has changed….,"
I totally understand Schultz’s statement here. Interesting, because I come from Bombay, India and came here due to personal reasons around 20 years ago. Ever since I arrived here in Germany, I feel things are on a long 20 years pause and every time I visit family and friends back home in Bombay, I actually feel the change and dynamic movement in various aspects of life. While I was here, India saw the birth of three new states and major metropolitan cities, a war with Pakistan and a loss of a major territory hence making the map of India look different compared to the one I leant back in school, its growing silicon-valley hubs and super growing middle class, millions of young brains, great independent newspapers (earlier we just had state-run and hence propaganda news). It was changing, in fact many of the Asian countries that I lived in earlier. I felt a deep urge to go back to India and become apart of the people who I could relate to. There was often when I thought that Germans need a revolution of minds and needs to deactivate the pause button. There is a lack of drive that I have experienced right from my colleagues at work to even young children at my children’s school.
"Germans need a revolution of minds" ? What exactly do you mean by that?
Continuation:
"there are no power struggles and no mobbing" – in contrast to Germany. She says that intrigue and false promises were a day-to-day part of her German career.."
Yes, power struggles and mobbing belong to the daily politics at work. But this is not different in Indian corporates (not in the rural areas of course) too. But here it is tougher if you are a foreigner and I am not talking about being a European foreigner and, you are not treated equally or taken seriously at work (that is the opposite in India of course for the foreigners) and hence it is so difficult to climb up the ladder in big corporates. And mind you even if you hold equivalent educational qualifications or at times even higher qualifications than your German counterparts, it is tough to climb. Back 20 years ago after my studies when started working here for a big intl. corporates it was tough in the German office to position and prove your worthiness to your German colleagues. Now that I am a mother, I really have given up on climbing up the ladder. Even though it itches at times.
“of the privileges and security that some of her German friends take for granted.”
Yes, this is a fact that I really do not understand too. Having travelled and worked and witnessed live in countries like Afghanistan or even rural India, I agree here completely. They have it all and its just all too cosy, extremely secure (not forgetting the security that they derive from 1000s of laws and 100s of insurances) for them out here. This factor coupled with a small weltanschauung of many Germans, I guess that is the reason why they have never seen a reason to move on: because they are used to a gemütliches and secure life.
“I don't understand why so many people in Germany, despite the prosperity and all it has achieved – all the things people abroad are envious of – why Germans are so unsatisfied and don't value what they have,"
This is a mystery to me too.
“In her circle of friends and acquaintances, she says, there is widespread fear of socio-economic decline….. Islamophobia.”
Many from my circle of friends and the people that I over hear at a café are coated with a thick layer of angst of losing something. And mind you many of them come from upper-middle class families. But here again, I believe this has a lot to do with Weltanschauung, lack of contact (and I mean not just holidaying but really working and living and truly experiencing other cultures) with countries with other cultures and religions. This coupled with a sense of superiority still sits in many Germans.
Great article. hat mir spaß beim Lesen gemacht, da es sehr oft schwer ist mit Freunden hier darüber zu sprechen und Leute zu finden, die ähliche Meinung haben