It was a bit busy in my local supermarket Rewe at the Kulturbrauerei. When I approached the cash register, there were four or five people in front of me. At the end of the line stood a shopping basket on the floor, its owner nowhere to be seen. Must have dashed off to get some last minute things. Can happen, right? I just positioned myself next in line. When she returned, the girl whose basket was in front of me appeared to fetch it to leave to do some more shopping. Great, I thought, one less in front of me. But then she stepped behind me, apparently offering me her place! To a Dutch person like me, that made no sense at all. If your basket's in line, that's your spot, except if you just leave an empty one and then start shopping.
I noticed before that Germans under no circumstances want to appear rude or uncivilised, but this to me seemed like a step too far. There's all kinds of humble, but this was the awkward kind. So in my best Deutsch, I offered her her place back and stated that I found it absolutley no problem that she wasn't there but here basket was. Funny, these cultural differences. In Holland, it would have been the other way around; people would have made a great fuss if you took their place while they had run off for something they'd forgotten.
1 comment:
It sounds to me like you struck lucky with this manifestation of queue-politeness. As an anally retentive and expert-queuer Engländer, I still have AT LEAST 12 heart attacks a day at how disorderly queues are just about everywhere other than anally retentive England. Queueing WITH Germans IN London gave me 13 heart attacks a minute. English people standing, making sure not to touch each other, not talking, waiting for bus. Bus comes. German friend walks past the 900 other people and gets on the bus first. I need to have a lie down just remembering it.
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