Communication Failure

I'm going to try to tie some random thoughts that have been floating around in my head together under the theme of "communication." You see, I sort of got in trouble yesterday when I failed to sign a form. I got a letter, which may have told me to sign a form, but as it was in German I didn't understand it. The subject seemed to be about the termination of my contract at the University (because I'm paid by the NSF now). And so I guessed that the letter was just informing me of that fact, until Georg got a phone call from a frustrated administrator wondering why I hadn't come down to her office to sign my termination form. I went today, by the way. Apparently Frau H and I are cool now.

I had a similar experience the two days ago when I went to purchase a pre-paid cell phone for my mom (she'll be here in 2 hours - yay!). I think I said something like "Ich möchte einmal Handy" which I imagined was "I'd like another cell phone" but it isn't. I'm not sure it makes sense at all. Anyway, the girl didn't understand me, so we switched to English and after only moderate communication troubles, a cell phone was purchased. Plus, I got a free schedule for the European Football Championship (since I'm invested in it now) and a cell phone sock thingy in the colors of the German flag.

Misunderstandings occur both ways, of course. Today at lunch we saw a guy wearing a shirt that said "Save a tree. Eat a beaver." All of the Germans at the table got the literal meaning, but no one knew what the other meaning of "beaver" was - or "eat" for that matter. We wondered if the guy wearing the shirt knew what it meant.

The language barrier is tricky (especially since it's more difficult to understand me than other English speakers), but not the only opportunity for communication breakdowns. Cultural misunderstandings are frequent as well. For example, several people in the lab occasionally walk around with their right pant leg rolled up. Jenny's taken to asking the "What up, G?" when she sees them - which requires a lengthy explanation. Here, pants are rolled up so they don't get caught in bike gears.

I saw this article in the NY Times this morning. It's about the neurological changes in a person unable to detect sarcasm or irony. If you follow the link be sure to watch the video. It shows actors having the same conversation twice. The first time sincerely, the second time in a nasty, sarcastic way. Now, I like to think that I'm fairly well-versed in using both sarcasm and irony in English, but since I can rarely figure out even the literal meaning of a conversation in German I imagine that I seem a lot like a person with a traumatic brain injury. And the fact non-German speakers seem a little brain damaged might explain the note that Jenny's roommates left for her on her loaf of moldy bread. I think it was something like "Dein Brot ist verdorben" - your bread is spoiled.

The communication failures between the city of Jena are me are usually sort of minor. Things are very similar to the way they were in my old life: I live in an apartment, I work in a lab, I spend too much time drinking coffee with people instead of working. Not to mention that Germans and American think the same things are funny, eat more or less the same foods, and dress in pretty much the same ways. And yet there are these constant little things that frustrate or surprise me. It makes me wonder how I would have survived if I had chosen to do a post-doc outside of Western Europe.