Hold on to that nut!

SCENE: Last week, Tuesday morning, at the coffee lounge, workplace, somewhere in Duisburg, DE

Collegue: "So how was your visit?"
ME: "Er, he was a rather young guy, Korean, but he did have some good advice for me"
Colleague : "Scrat, stop it, darn, you are beginning to sound like a German"
ME: "Aw, shit yes.. sorry!!....he was a nice guy...appeared knowledgeable...and gave me some good medicine"

That was exactly what happened. My skin goes bonkers everytime things turn a bit cold. And the past couple of weeks, it's been just more rain and summer's slowly slinkin away..I have had this "skin-cold" enmity for as long as I remember..And I am talking about growing up in South India here...people actually like the winter that lasts for may be 22 days there....And my skin couldnt take that...Anyways the gist of the story is that I got a recommendation from a colleague about a particular clinic here in Duisburg...Overall was a good experience, nice doc and all that, gave me sensible recommendations and I walked out happy.....

Turns out this colleague hadnt been to this clinic......had heard about this doctor from someone else and was just using me as a lab rat.....yeah and like we want from any good lab rat he wanted feedback on how the trip to the doc was!......

And that was how the conversation went...every bit of it.....If you did not notice, please pay attention to the fact that I opened the conversation with a condescending view on the doctor's age and made a comment on his ethnicity, before turning to actually answer the question. That is probably taking things a bit too extreme, but I seriously feel the bias against youth here in Germany. Any introduction typically starts as "Name, X jahriger". It is the culture here and I can bring myself ( if I try very hard, to temporarily) accept it, but I havent seen age so obviously stated in other cultures I have worked/spent time with.

I mean I am friggin 29 years old...I am considered old in Eastern countries.....mature enough in the Americas....but no in Germany, dismissed as a 'Junge'...And this condescending view of youth permeates into every pore of the society....a 45 year old guy in Senior management ( Vice President/ Director levels) is considered a freak occurence ( a guy who was extremely lucky and was very guileful)....

Another thing is ethnicity and I am not going to make any jokes about this....I am not judging it as good or bad.....But the time I have spent in Germany has made me much more conscious of who I am....make no mistake.....the crowd( German and otherwise) I hang out with is like me.....we'd have the same lifestyle...eat the same food...listen to the same music.....discuss the same things... wherever we are...Bangalore, Phoenix, Berlin, Shanghai or Dusseldorf.....but maybe, just maybe, that I choose only such people into my 'crowd'.....All I am saying is that the space to make that choice is not so wide here....