The Zig goes……………….Boston pt.2
// October 11th, 2007 // the zig goes...
Cheeky, Cheekies, all aboard the party bus
Yay! A country where the default language is some sort of english…..”diet english”. The journey was eventful if you like airport waiting lounges, if so it was practically an orgy. They threw all but the kitchen sink at us, delays, flight cancellations, rail strikes, lost luggage – all packed into one long 24hr patience test. It took a weeks worth of my english charm to get them put us on the 9:25pm and not the 7am flight after the 6pm got canceled.
I’ve been English charmless since, waiting for the stocks to refill ready for the next emergency.
Any of y’all expecting long posts of comedic mishaps and cultural malfunctions in the good old USA are likely to be dis-appointed. Perhaps its because everything I read, watch and listen to comes from here anyway but that fish out of water feeling has so far eluded me. Except when I’ve tried to pay for the bus in Boston, something I’ve managed to fuck up every single time to great comedic effect, but effect that wont work so well in word form.
Being English is usually a green light for traveling most places without any hassle, but surprisingly it was me causing the problem on the way over.
Check-in lady: (seeing my English passport) “And which country is your permanent residency sir?”
Me: “Erm (cultural identity crisis)…..German I suppose (she seems friendly so I throw in a) whatever is easier for you (English subtext: Tell me what is easier for me)”
Check-in lady: “Doesn’t matter to me, Germany, okay. So can I see the identification confirming your German residency”
Me: (Your lucky I even remembered my passport I’m thinking) “erm…..actually England is my permanent residency”
Check-in: “Oh” – disappears with passport to talk to someone else.
But eventually we got to JFK. I expected good things from the airport of New York, New York so good they named it more than once. Actually it turned out to be the crummiest airport I’ve ever seen, literally. It was crumbling, I’d have taken photos of the cracks in the walls if I wasn’t concerned that they would have thought I was photographing possible security vulnerabilities.
Me and Bill G
That would have been pointless, as you wouldn’t need a bomb to destroy jfk, just push hard one of the cracked walls and I think the whole place would have come down like concrete dominoes. But we snaked through the rat tunnels hunting our plane shaped cheese and after only a teeny tiny 7hr wait flew to Boston.
Plenty more happened but I’m bored of writing about travelling, so now I’ll just jump to the Hotel. Our area is “interesting” there are alot of activities on offer, the most common being mugging, stabbing, narcotics and even if your lucky enough the little more exotic “death”. I’ve done my best to blend in with my miscellaneous ethnic origin allowing some sort of chameleon-a-bility. German people stick out like floods in the desert everywhere they go, so Ami is causing more of a problem. Lucky our hotel is also full of germans. In-fact the conference is also 50% German, if the food hadn’t got a 100 times better, but the beer a thousand times worse it would feel like i’d never left the fatherland.
I know I have one reader who is particularly into language differences, so i’ll take a stab at the US, UK and DE language differences that have become apparent on the trip.
The English (UK) language is made for patronizing. Everything is loaded with subtext which is dependent on the person so it takes a while to know them and what they are really thinking. A few examples:
“Thats interesting” = “I was just sick in my mouth, did you notice?”
“Oh right, I’ll check that out thanks for the tip” = “What should I have for dinner? Pizza? Nah, I ate it last night, ah I’ll have a liquid dinner, where can you get a cheeky around here?”
“Oh, hey, nice to see you hows it going?” = “You’re in my way, please move”.
The American language is made in hollywood. As long as you sugar coat everything enough, you can forget the bitter bottom. Its language designed for distraction. If your smile is big enough, no-one notices the knife in your hand. One of the most effective ways of sugaring is to use superlatives and exaggeration like
“America’s wildest sunsets.”
“I would LOVE to help you sir, but I’m afraid I have no knowledge of that issue.”
“Bostons best……..curb” “Voted Bostons greatest……..vending machine”.
I was even wished a “spectacular” day? Spectacular, its Wednesday. When was the last time you had a spectacular Wednesday, or just a spectacular day?
So we have one language missing from this list I guess, my little Deutschey friends.
The German language…hum…well that one is easy, its the language of hate and pain. No examples needed 
Andreas and I have discussed the differences between German and American customer service. Of all the customer services, I’d take German.
A nice red car.
I think its pretty simple, people working on minimum wage shouldn’t be forced to pretend to be happy. In the US they are, in Germany they wont even pretend your not inconveniencing them. German people will help and resolve your issue very quickly, and very begrudgingly. You’ll get what you want and they’ll make it pretty clear that they hate you and everyone you’ve ever met in the process. The English just resolve your problem and subtly mock you and make you feel uncomfortable and inferior in a way that makes you not ask again and just put up with what inconvenience you have to suffer.
More from the US coming up soon I hope, if I can find the time. I have plenty more (better) pics that will eventually make it to flickr as well.
The audience for my second talk.
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