Time to have at the Germans again.
First, there is the story about Austrian pre-schoolers being denied their toys, in the hopes that this will help them avoid drug and alcohol dependence later in life.
The health counsellor for Vienna, Renate Brauner (an uber-stern Germanic Puritan with a penchant for wearing nothing but tall leather boots and wet noodles) says: “Pilot tests have shown that taking away children’s toys encourages them to think more about how to entertain themselves. They become more social and even those on the outside of the group find a positive role.”
I know, this doesn’t really make sense to me either. No wonder they created Oktoberfest. Okay the Bavarians did, but close enough.
Moving from the alps to the west, there is a new school opening in Berlin that will teach Germans to laugh.
“We Germans aren’t very easygoing and loose,” Susanne Maier (a therapist and German herself) told Der Spiegel magazine. “We’ve got to laugh before we make ourselves sick.”
So, in true Germanic fashion, they have developed a methodology for teaching dour Teutons to giggle, chortle, and for the really advanced learners, bust a gut.
This is not to say that all Germans lack a sense of humour. Two of the funniest people I ever met were German. Michael and Werner, were men of a certain age (old enough to have been in “the war”). Michael had quite a nasty scar running down the right side of his face, and he would smoke pungent cigarettes the way that Europeans do — you know, cupping the ciggy in their hand, and holding it with all fingers and thumb.
He would take a draw on it, and say, absolutely deadpan: “you know . . . [puff]. . . our friend Verner here spent many years in Brazil . . .”
“Yes, but I vent before the voor. Before!”
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