Ich denke, dass Berliner freundlich sind
Capital dwellers tend to get a bad rep and are regularly described as hurried, cold and rude. Often all three at once. This is a bit unfair - you try removing all your filters, let the tide of humanity wash over you and watch the Everest of your sanity quickly erode. Prolonged exposure to people can lead to increase chances of misanthropy. The metropolis is a cradle of innovation and multiculturalism where diverse groups live together in harmony. By ignoring each other.
I, for one, don’t subscribe to the view that big city people have a monopoly on rudeness, we’re not that special. But stereotypes always have a grain of truth to them and the enduring image of the reticent urbanite is probably related to the higher numbers of axe-wielding psychopaths drawn to multicultural hubs, where they get to murder people in increasingly creative ways.
Berlin is no exception (although I’m not up to date with its axe-wielding-murderer statistics). When I moved the Prussian capital three months ago, well-meaning people warned me about Berliners’ bluntness, the infamous Berlin Snout. Maybe they forgot that I had lived in London for 10 years. It’s like warning somebody from Hiroshima about the dangers of Chernobyl. Berliners, though, were doing their best to shatter their image as the rudest people in Germany, except that none of the people I met were really Berliners, of course. At least in this aspect they neatly fit into a stereotype - capital residents are never born in the capital. The more irreverent and radical, the smaller the place of origin.
I pointed out this bewildering lack of bluntness to the friendly owner of the shop below my flat. “Berliners are better behaved nowadays of course, but I occasionally find them too brusque”, he confided. I also got a neighbourly discount for the jumper I was purchasing. “So where are you originally from?”, “Bremen”, “and how long have you lived here?” I enquired. “25 years”.
The following Thursday I went to the farmer’s market to get some potatoes. “Oh yes”, the seller informed me, “Berliners like to test you, you have to gain their confidence first”. He was of course not from the capital himself, but hailed instead from the outskirts. I then got his entire biography and some complimentary fresh garlic. Things were not improved by meeting born and bred Berliners. The owner of the local café, where I do most of my writing, is one of these rare specimens. He provides me with any leftover cake, doesn’t mind me turning his establishment into my living room, and is overall a very nice person. Like most Berliners I’ve met, and most people in general.
So where is this famed tribe, this legendary snout? I mentioned this to a particularly gregarious woman in a bookshop yesterday. During a gig. (We’re in Berlin after all.) “Well, the further north you go, the colder and more stand-offish people are … Berlin is not that northern, I guess”, she helpfully tried to point out. “So where are you from, then?” She beamed, “Hamburg”.
