All things taboo – or not so taboo?

This entry doubles as a recap of my time in Frankfurt, Germany. The reason for this is because it was my time in Frankfurt and my train ride leaving Frankfurt which really had me contemplating some of the issues which I am going to ramble about. To put in context, I headed to Frankfurt after Dortmund, Germany.

I’ve touched before on my reflections of different cultural habits and how there isn’t necessarily a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but rather different standards of acceptability. One of the things that I find most fascinating about travelling in Europe is, usually, the lack of regulation. This is particularly in contrast to Australia, a country which for a ‘free’ world really does have a heavy amount of rules and regulations which control so many aspects of our lives. While at home, this is the norm, and a lot of said regulations are things I like. Truthfully, I like being able to eat at a restaurant without having smoke blown at me. Whereas it sucks that you can’t legally take a couple of drinks to the park with you, I like that the law restricts my space from being imposed by completely drunk idiots in any given public forum. Freedom of choice be damned – you give Australians the freedom to make these choices and I pretty much guarantee you that it will be hooligan city pretty quickly!

Smoking is probably the biggest thing in my daily life in Europe which I have had to wrap my head around the completely different approaches, not only legally but morally. It has been confronting at times, being somewhere where the social perception of smoking is so incredibly different to my own. As a non-smoker, I am in support of the extent to which Australian government have gone to in order to regulate the rights of smokers in the interest of public safety. In my adult life, there’s like a constant divide between the smokers and the non-smokers – in work life and in friendship groups you have the smokers and the non-smokers. There’s this episode of Friends where Rachel feels as though she misses out on all the office gossip and opportunities for career development because her boss and her colleague go to the smokers balcony to smoke, and while out there they talk and make business decisions. I definitely felt this in my most recent job. But nonetheless there is a different social approach to smoking.

In Europe, there are smoking areas at the airport – in the airport, like a little glass room next to the baggage collection. At the train station, an area is marked out with a yellow line painted onto the ground as being the smoking area. At outdoor cafes, smoking is legal, and there is no separation between where the smokers and the non-smokers sit. In some hostels, people didn’t have to go right outside to smoke, they can half lean out the window, half the smoke coming into the room anyway. This whole different approach to smoking has taken me almost a month to really wrap my head around, but I still find myself crinkling my nose up in social disgust. If I chose to go outside with the smokers to talk at work, I wouldn’t have smoke blown in my face – they’d try to make sure they stand in the opposite wind direction and hold the cigarette on the opposite side. It’s a matter of courtesy. Here, people don’t care, with smoke being blown around willy nilly. This isn’t just in mainland Europe – in London, at Westminster Abbey, someone was standing right outside the Abbey doors smoking – I found this not only inappropriate on the level of smoking so close to a building, but smoking so close to children and hell, it’s Westminster Abbey! I know that in their eyes, I’m the one who is being reasonable with my rolls of the eyes and my moving to face in the opposite direction. But I’ve been conditioned to enjoy my clean air and being around a lot of cigarette smoke gives me a headache. They don’t know that, though. I’m just being intolerant, need to get with the European way of life.



Smoking area at the train station, in the middle of the platform



It would seem ironic as an Australian to comment on drinking culture – an Australian who faces the stereotype everywhere I go that I must love beer and drink it all the time, just because I am Aussie.  We do have a drinking culture, but it’s amazing how different it is to the European drinking culture. In Australia, people drink and they do drink a lot in one sitting – it isn’t just a grazing of beer throughout the day, it’s going out clubbing and having six drinks at home before leaving and then sinking them back throughout the night. Any excuse for a barbeque and some grog – Australia Day, Easter weekend, Anzac Day, Christmas, Boxing Day, New Years, any time there is a long weekend. You turn 18 and you ring the clubs to let them know you’re coming for your birthday and they supply free drinks, shots, fishbowls. You get married, and you have a wild and crazy hen’s or bucks night. The wedding is about alcohol.

I think the major difference between Australia and Europe is the ‘hidden’ nature of alcohol in Australia. Drinking in public is illegal at home. In much of Europe, it is not only ‘acceptable’ but it is the encouraged norm to drink in public. In Lisbon, people stay out drinking on the streets until like, 2am, and only then do they go to the bars and clubs. In Spain, in the typical ‘let’s make a buck’ mentality, anywhere where a crowd of people would be gathered – such as the protest/rally sites of the Sol and Catulyna squares in Madrid and Barcelona respectively, you would be guaranteed that there were  bunch of blokes who had gone to the bottle shop, purchased a couple of six packs, and then they were wandering the streets trying to sell this alcohol – whether it be to underage teenagers, tourists who didn’t know better or locals who were too drunk to go get their own  alcohol. In Germany, it is perfectly normal to see a person walking down the street at any time of day holding a can or bottle of beer, just like how I would carry a water bottle. I’m told that here where I write this article in the Czech Republic, you could be at one bar and not have finished your drink and take it with you to the next place.

Want a beer on the run? This guy can sell you one!

In Frankfurt, Germany, I boarded a train with a group of blokes were on their way to Munich for a big football game. For two hours on the train, they were drinking beer and singing and chanting. (Sha la la la la la, sha la la la la la la, insert German words, Munchen, Munchen!)  It was 9:30am when this train departed. The conductor came through and merely checked their tickets and smiled as they chanted. Two police officers did a walk through of the train – I’m not sure if this was a routine inspection – but they merely laughed along with the chanters. Nothing they said seemed to say ‘look boys, try to keep it down’ or the like.  The train station staff, the other passengers – no one appeared ‘disgusted’ – a few appeared disgruntled, one man in a business suit changed cabins after this group of spirited gentlemen joined us. But it wasn’t a case where these guys were behaving in a socially unacceptable manner. Then, I had to change trains at Wurzburg, changing to the same new train as these guys, where for twenty minutes on my way to Kitzingen I was squashed in a sardine can of 95% football fans who were all drinking and chanting. I’m sure if you get the train from the Gold Coast to Brisbane when there’s some big game on whether it be at Suncorp or the Gabba, there are people behaving in a similar manner. But the alcohol is hidden, either a spirit splashed into a bottle of coke or a paper bag around the bottle, hidden in a bag. Should a conductor or security guard pass by, you’ll see these people quieten down a bit, just enough to prevent being kicked off the train. And yet ironically, if I had been in the same situation in Australia, packed in with rugby fans for example, I think I would have felt more uncomfortable, more at danger. I feel like despise the European drinking culture, it doesn’t come with the same hint of rowdiness and violence. We were packed like sardines, but no one was pushing or shoving. Somehow, despite the mosh pit, an orderly line for the toilet on the train was maintained.

Despite the laxness on approaches to things like smoking and drinking and the subsequent culturl differences, I witnessed some incredible infringements upon freedom of speech in Frankfurt. The people had planned a series of events in the spirit of the ‘Occupy’ events, dubbed ‘Blockupy.’ They weren’t just arrangements to meet in a public place and chant, they’d arranged things such as a concert. It was decided by the government and police that the whole protest was banned. My two days in Frankfurt, the police were out in force. They blocked off the whole banking district, which included closing down a major subway station which was a hub to transfer to other lines. Every single possible entry way – every road, every alley, every footpath – was blocked off by police. Every major monument or location of potential political significance was being guarded by police. Some French guys at my hostel told me that when they were entering the metro station at the hauptbahnof, the police interrogated them – who are you, where are you going, do you have a ticket, where is your passport?



In Spain, people gathered, erected signs and tents and attracted media attention, for their cause

Major streets blocked off and guarded by police in Frankfurt, to prevent a protest



Couldn't go the other way, tried this way - blocked off too!

I didn’t see much of Frankfurt city – I couldn’t physically get to it. At the time I was annoyed but in hindsight, it was a fascinating experience and I felt like it was something much more important for me to witness. And they did leave the old town open, although it was difficult to get to, though it was under guard.

A mission to get to, but worth it!

Along the main shopping strip, I witnessed a ‘quiet’ protester, someone who had dressed up their bicycle with signs and decorations in spirit of protest, be interrogated by police in public. He had his bag searched. A couple of tourists (including me) were taking photos and other police crowded around, blocking it off from public view. The guy was just walking his bicycle along, he wasn’t chanting or doing anything to disturb public peace.  I went from Spain where the police only interfered with protesting in the early hours of the morning when things got out of hand; to Frankfurt where the amount of money and the number of resources put into this operation which, frankly, was a violation of peoples right to freedom of speech, was absolutely ludicrous.

This gentleman with the somewhat decorated bicycle being questioned and guarded

Perhaps the way that I feel about the right of the people of Frankfurt to freedom of speech being violated; is how people would feel when they come to Australia and their freedom of choice to smoke and drink is restricted. But in Spain the people were given the freedom to protest peacefully, so it isn’t something that you can put a blanket ‘European’ label on – which is where the fascination comes in with how some things are ‘European’ but then some things are so specifically ‘German.’ It is these differences which makes travelling such a fascinating experience.

Culture shock and the superiority complex

One of the things that I have always struggled most with throughout my travels is wrapping my head around the different cultural standards of politeness and human courtesy. You expect things like architecture and food to be different; but it’s difficult understanding what the ‘unspoken’ social norms are in different countries. In particular, I find it interesting comparing the ways in which people interact, customer service, the way you treat people as you pass them on the street.

Even among my own country, you could say that I’m at the ‘higher’ end of the scale in terms of believing in courtesy, treating people as you want to be treated, all those sorts of lame notions. That might sound  little conceited, I don’t mean it in a conceited way. Some people would argue that I should be a little more selfish – that I can be a pushover. I suppose the flow through is that while I’m travelling, I retain those same sorts of values and when I feel as though someone is being disrespectful, I’ll take it rather personally. It is a part of the human condition that within any culture there are people who are ‘normal’ and some people who are slightly less respectful. It’s a personality thing. Any city with a busy public transportation system will have people rushing about who are more concerned about where they need to be than about the people around them.

However despite this understanding, I cannot help but find myself exhibiting a certain level of snobbery. I hear myself exclaim out loud something like, “Gosh people here are rude, this would never happen in Australia.” I hear it, I hear that my tone is filled with superiority, but I cannot help that this is how I feel.

I can remember in the Czech Republic in 2008 being extremely offended by someone who had their dog on the train (in itself, a cultural norm) allowing the dog to sit practically on my foot. In 2010 I told a customer service agent in the New York City Subway that there was no need to be rude when she gave me some attitude when I used my ticket incorrectly – perhaps the suitcase I was hauling might indicate that I was a tourist. This trip, at Victoria tube station in London when I was hauling my luggage along, someone came pushing past and nearly made me fall over – did I get a glance back, an apology, a helping hand? Not at all. I remember being on the train in France in 2008 and I was trying to lift my backpack up onto the racks above and I was having trouble. Many strong looking men passed through the aisle, squeezing around me, and not one stopped to offer to assist. These are all examples of scenarios that would cause me to be frustrated with the culture around me.

Perhaps though, it is the case not that the rest of the world is ‘disrespectful’ but rather that they are different. Perhaps I need to let go of this feeling of cultural superiority. People who travel often enjoy making cultural contrasts – I love the tiniest things, like that Morrisons grocery store here in Edinburgh has a cafe inside, or that you can buy ridiculously cheap and yummy sandwiches at Tesco, or that the cross walks in London will sometimes just be a free for all to cross when you can on major roads, with horns blasting from cars at pedestrians who don’t see a car is coming. It is quite conceivable that tourists who come to Australia possess their own superiority complex when it comes to things they encounter with Australian culture – perhaps when they see someone barefoot at the shops, or a simple gasp of shock horror at the price of alcohol.

I think also that culture shock is in many ways a manifestation of homesickness – it isn’t entirely about being bothered about things, but just that it is an outlet to direct the fact that you miss the comfort and familiarity of home. It isn’t that Australia is better, but just that I know what to expect, how to react, the best way to interact with people to get what you want. Even here in the UK, where we speak the same language, I feel like we don’t speak the same language. I have to consider how to phrase things, I can’t just glance at my coins and count them out quickly, I’ll be having a conversation with someone talking about their wee bearings and take twenty seconds to realise they’re talking about small children. It gets exhausting having to think about everything, and sometimes it’s just a small moment when I think how much easier things are at home.

Once I get into the flow of my travels, these things will worry me less. Sometimes, I think it’s easier to just accept that you are a tourist. I’m not a local, and I shouldn’t be expected to behave like one. If I try, then I think I just find myself being upset and disappointed with myself. I can do my best to adhere to cultural and respectful things – I’m not going to wander around a conservative city in a tank top, for example. But if I get confused about how the bus ticket system works then I would expect to receive certain level of courteous understanding from the people I’m interacting with. After all, the world is a nicer place when we treat others the way we wish to be treated – however maybe my standard of how I wish to be treated is out of place in the world! The ultimate conundrum.