It's been twelve years now since I moved to Berlin. And yes, eventually, I became conversant in German. After all, you need to learn the language if you want to fully enjoy your time in Germany. But sometimes, I encounter people who don't even try. And this sometimes annoys me.
This is a Berlin-specific phenomenon, perhaps. But sometimes, I find myself in situations where I am a customer, and I need to talk to someone who is customer-facing, for example, when ordering food in a restaurant. I would assume that people who talk to customers in restaurants in Germany would know how to speak German. But no, in Berlin, this is not always the case. Sometimes, I would order in German, and the person would answer me in English. I would simply continue to speak in German, perhaps because this person looks at me and sees that I must be a non-German-speaking person, after all, I am not white. Sometimes, the conversation would just be funny, since I am the Asian speaking German, to a European speaking English.
Other times, it would not work. The person would actually ask me if I could speak in English. And this is when it gets annoying. I mean, you're customer-facing, and you are in Germany. I would expect you to speak German, at least the basics. Otherwise, you shouldn't be working in a customer-facing job. And I suppose Berlin is very tolerant when it comes to this, because I haven't seen this situation in other parts of Germany. I imagine if I were in Paris, and a customer speaks French, yet the employee tells this customer to speak English, that would not fly very high.
Perhaps the reason I find this annoying is because I actually made the effort to learn German. And therefore I am at least trying to be an exemplary immigrant. I want to integrate myself, and I must say, I think I did that rather well. And then here are the other foreigners who don't even make the effort to learn the local language, which perhaps in my head, gives the bad impression on foreigners. I mean, what would a local elderly German say to this? When they go to a restaurant, in their home country, and they see the menu in English, and the people working in the restaurant, talking only in English? No wonder they would start hating foreigners. And I don't want this population to hate me, a person who is very visibly a foreigner.
I definitely am watching how the political situation goes, especially here in eastern Germany. Berlin is a bubble, it seems, but just outside Berlin in Brandenburg, there is definitely the sentiment that foreigners need to go away. And obviously this is not something I would want.
