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| Last year in Dusseldorf. This year the beer will remain undrunk |
Many must wonder what we see in Christmas markets. The stalls sell stuff so why not visit a website and avoid getting cold? Gluhwein (mit Rhum) and potato pancakes are terrific but they may be simulated in the Robinson kitchen.
My reasons will sound grandiose, even sentimental. So be it. My bonds with Germany were born during a fortnight with a family living in the Ruhr valley in 1957. Since then they've grown.
Small moments. In Normandy there's an inconspicuous cemetery for German soldiers killed in the D-day aftermath. Yesterday the BBC's build-up to the November 11 centenary addressed German families: the perfect English of one elderly man broke down in tears. I'm reminded of the EU's primary aim - to discourage war between France and Germany. I sing magnificent songs by German/Germanic composers:
Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden,
Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
Hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb' entzunden,
Hast mich in eine beßre Welt entrückt
(You, noble Art, in how many grey hours,
When life's mad tumult wraps around me,
Have you kindled my heart to warm love,
Have you transported me into a better world.)
German Christmas markets attract three generations. The atmosphere is friendly, the spirit optimistic. It's all a bit corny; theoretically I should be above it. Instead I seek to chat in my vestigial German.
Yeah, I'm pissed off not to be there.
Sorry to hear that. Why not think of something outrageous you could spend the same amount of money on?
ReplyDeleteSir Hugh: We already have.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a possible subject for a post?
DeleteSir Hugh: This isn't about the cancellation (although I needed to mention it). It's about my feelings for Germany
DeleteSorry to hear you'll have to cancel. I like your sentimentality, by the way. It seems to come from a good place. "Corny" can be a guilty pleasure. Nothing wrong with that.
ReplyDeleteAch. I'm sorry!
ReplyDeleteColette/Beth: For me sentimentality ("exaggerated and self-indulgent tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia") is normally a sin. It hints at emotions out of control, but in a sloppy way. In this instance, however, I think I can justify my feelings. For one thing, enthusiasm for Germany is fairly rare in the UK; most sentimentality is associated with popular matters like the late Queen Mother and TV chat shows. For another, the evidence I adduce is slightly off-centre, suggesting I have at least given some thought to this piece. That it does, as Colette says, come "from a good place".
ReplyDeleteAs to corny there are two levels. Superficially and from a distance the appeal of German Christmas markets might seem obvious, hence corny. From within - as part of the seething mass - things are different; these are real people, their happiness is unfeigned and is communicable. And although the stallholders are there to sell things there is no sense of commercial exploitation.
This may seem a bit heavy-handed. But I feel I owe it to Germans to open up a bit on their behalf. More typical UK attittudes towards the country are to be found in the jeering headlines of The Sun and The Daily Mail, our more rabid newspapers.
An inclusive and appropriate post for the 100th Armistice Day, RR. Let's not hate the Germans. (Sun and Mail to note)
ReplyDeleteI am sorry that you will not be taking your usual Christmas jaunt to the markets (is it the sciatica?). My son was in the army for 12 years (Royal Tank Regiment/Intelligence Corps) and he and his family spent 3 years at Fallingbostel. They love the Christmas markets over there and return most years for a couple of days.
Avus: It was more or less accidental that I posted this piece so close to November 11. However I was pleased that on this Armistice Day, the German ambassador to the UK (I think) was for the first time invited to the observances at the Cenotaph. Even more significant was a photo in yesterday's Observer of Macron and Merkel hugging each other in a clear moment of emotion.
ReplyDeleteAfter most wars those who started them get to write their memoirs. But a huge percentage must - perforce - remain silent. During National Service I had the tiniest taste of warfare (ie, the Malayan "emergency"), at virtually no risk to me. But enough to decide where my sympathies would lie in the future.
I am sorry to read this, not because of you missing a German xmas market but that there is a reason to cancel (sciatica?).
ReplyDeleteThe German xmas markets are more and more - if not completely - reserved for gullible tourist and in my opinion, which is based on a lifetime of experience, are always the same and that repetitiveness makes them boring and perfunctory.
I grew up in the city with the oldest xmas market (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christkindlesmarkt,_Nuremberg) and that was a splendid affair, from the festive opening ceremony to the local specialities only available there and then and so on. As a toddler I once got lost during the opening ceremony and was saved by a blond teenager in a beautiful dress with golden wings aka Das Christkind and for a long time believed I had been to heaven and back. My parents of course used it as an educational ruse long into my teens whereupon it became a family anecdote I could have lived without.
But these days, it's all push and shove and watch out for pickpockets. There and in Cologne, and let that be a warning for the future, the police regularly controls/closes the entryways to the xmas markets to avoid congestion, mass panic and possible loss of life.
We mere locals obviously know of secret locations, xmas markets in small villages with real carol singers and local produce, open fires and much banter. These are usually only for a weekend and so far, keeping fingers crossed, no tourist coaches have reached them.
But what a pity you are missing out on Aachen with its amazing cathedral, city of Charlemange and the birth of the European idea.
Sabine: Mark me down as a dumb tourist, then, ready to be fleeced. Lucky that I never experienced The Golden Era of Christmas Markets. For me the most important attraction are Germans en masse; fool that I am they comfort me, I tell myself I "get on" with them though no doubt I delude myself. But in what other country would I be able to say - in deliberately jocular fashion, and in poor German - that there wasn't enough Rhum in my Gluhwein and have it tripled. Or discussing with wife and daughter (in English) the whereabouts of the loo in a swanky department store next to the Cologne market and having an elderly German stand up from reading his paper and saying, "Actually, the toilets are over there." Or the others that agreed that Brexit was a shame. Possibly the reasons for this year's cancellation (multiple and bloody expensive) were a blessing in disguise and - aware of the back-story - I'll stay away for good from those echt villages and ensure they remain untainted. Though in my defence I should confess I arrive by car and not in a dreadful tourist bus.
ReplyDeleteReally, Sabine, such pessimism! Should I stop singing Robert Schumann? He was off his head, you know, and probably socially dubious.
I never said dumb!!! I have been known to send visitors and non-German relatives to xmas markets, esp. to the delightful medieval variety - best experienced after dark (e.g. Siegburg http://www.mittelalterlicher-markt-siegburg.de/web/mittelalterlicher_markt/01121/index.html).
ReplyDeleteIt's just always the same, same, same, same.
There's an annual Glühwein (note the umlaut) testing by the consumer's watchdog and you don't want to know what's in it after reading the report, better top it up with plenty of Rum (note the missing h - but never mind).
Schumann has been spoilt for me for two reasons, 1) an early boyfriend of the same name who was not up to expectations and 2) German comedian Hape Kerkeling's rendition of the aria Hurz from the famous opera of the same name, Watch here (the laughter is canned, the original broadcast was silent):
https://youtu.be/QkqjGPBchm0
Also, I live in the city where Schumann went absolutely and totally mad (finally) and where he's buried. Reasons to be cheerful?
Whatever gives you the idea of me being pessimistic???
Sabine: I don't want start a rabid argument, I treasure your cyber-friendship. But here's the thing:
ReplyDeleteYou list a whole lot of reasons for not going to what I take to be the larger German Christmas markets (push and shove, pickpockets, closed streets, potential assassination, sameness, polluted Glühwein) yet after four visits (twice to Cologne, once to Stuttgart - with a brilliant detour to Esslingen - and once to Dusseldorf) I was all set to go to Aachen before circumstances intervened. Clearly I must be dumb (ie, the US form, meaning stupid; and yes the German, except for the two ms) and/or blind not to have perceived all these disadvantages. And I compound my stupidity by not wanting to go to Aachen to wonder at Charlemagne's cathedral but simply to be among more Germans. A dumb tourist whose only virtue is to arrive by car.
And then there's your "being spoilt" for Schumann. Tell you what, I attended a concert by the Takacs of late Beethoven quartets but the seats at London's Wigmore Hall were hard and the knee-room restricted. So I've gone off Beethoven. Except that I haven't.
Hey, come on. Composers die for all sorts of reasons; Schubert unforgivably (careful, that's ironic) fell to syphilis. Forget their deaths, draw cheerfulness from their lifeworks.
I'm prepared to withdraw "pessimistic" and substitute "discouraging" if that helps.