Dienstag, 30. Juli 2019

Epilogue

After arriving save and sound in Germany a couple weeks ago I decided that now might be a good time to reflect on the experiences of the past year. First of all I want You to realize that it was all the people I met that made this year so incredibly beautiful and unforgettable. I try to cut all the kitschy exchange student stuff out (The world is a book and those who don't travel just read one page) and share my experiences and observations as objective as possible.

I need to say though that my observations will (obviously) not reflect all parts of this diversed country, which I doubt anyone will ever be able to summarize in any way without leaving some of the details out. Even after one year I regret to tell that I have just been able to see a tiny part of the United States.
I often got to compare the country with the whole European Union in which countries have about the size of a single state in the United States and the culture for example between south and north might be comparable to the differences between some countries in Europe and I'm still surprised how well this comparison works to give my friends a fairly accurate picture of how big and diversed the other continent/country is. The speciality of the US though is, that all these differences are united under one flag and capitol. Most of the people speak English and are able to understand each other more or less depending on the incredible variety of accents and slangs. This represents also the overall culture. While in one town for example some food or music might be absolutely celebrated and cool, in the next town it might be hated and not be enjoyed at all. Some food, on the other hand might be universally accepted by the major part of the population of the country or at least a part of it. In the South, which Louisiana is definitely a part of, for example chicken, potatoes, ice cream, Oreos, even butter, gets fried. That most people express a concern for over- or underweight might be connected to that, but at a non regular base it is a cultural trait, which makes me miss some of the food pretty bad from time to time.
Another cultural universal is the patriotism, which is told to be in the United States stronger and more spreaded than in most other countries in the world. In my social environment this might have been also influenced by a big air Force Base close by which increased the student body with military personnel as parents on my school a lot, so I was truly exposed to a lot of the patriotism which the United States are so famous for.
Another conflict point, the US is famous for is the gun and weapon culture, which is especially in the southerns states strongly supported by the bigger part of the population. I got to hear that those controversial laws are necessary to prevent revolutions or raise those, keep the culture alive or shoot alligators running for you, but the probably most named reasoning I heard was that people need to protect themself. And I surprisingly found it true. Events like people getting shot in my neighborhood concerned me and I often had to take care which part of town I was going too with friends especially at night. In some situations I might actually have thought that a gun might have given me a saver feeling, but most of the time I still believe me and most other people in the world are better without a gun.
I also thought over the year a lot about how and if my picture of America changed. The US often gets idolized as a country where everyone can become a millionaire if he just tried hard enough. The longer I stayed in the US though, the more I realized that for once nowadays there are countries with a higher success probability to become a millionaire and secondly that it is harder to become a millionaire than ever before, given that you didn't inherit a lot of money. And I got to see the other side of the curtain too. As well as you can raise very high you can fall very deep and hard. As I'm back in Germany now, I appreciate the fact, that no person in this country has to sleep on the road if they do not want to, even more than I did before.
I don't want to take the whole social and political system of any of these two countries apart, but I do think that there are errors in every existing system, and that every country is very well able to make itself better in just looking at another one and determinating what could be done to be a little more like the good side of the it.
This actually pretty well shows my attitude, that I tried to keep over the whole exchange year. I once read the quote that every person on the planet knows one thing that you don't. I often thought about this fact and found it to be very true, whenever I met someone for the first time, and just tried to figure out how I could enhance myself and others and just get the best out of and in every relation I had.
I really do believe that this also represents the year that I had and the vision that I had when I left Germany on a sunny day in the beginning of August 2018. I tried to become more than I was, to be able to share more with the people I know and to be able to contribute a little bit more on both sides of the Atlantic than I was capable before, and I really hope that this will proof right in the next couple years to come.

Eintrag von Christoph, 23:51, Permalink

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