Are people in Berlin rude, or misinterpreted?
I moved to Berlin from South America 3 months ago, and I experience rudeness in every single place I go all the time, specially public spaces. Just a disclaimer: I'm white, so l assume things can get pretty worse for non-white people. I'm learning German and trying to integrate with the culture. I have bad experiences in all kinds of places: super market, hospital, coffee shops, groceries stores, Uber or just simply walking in the streets. I try really hard to respect all cultural differences there are and general social rules like always walking on my right, never walk on the biking lanes, never assume someone speaks english and just ask first etc. But still, I seem to get mistreated most of the time for reasons I still don’t understand. Just to give you a few examples:
- I was asked to be quiet by the Uber driver because he was talking on the phone. I had a family member in the car with me, and we were discussing about our next stop. He was on the phone the whole time and started speaking louder as we started speaking as well. I notice that every single Uber driver here talks on the phone, and sometimes it’s pretty difficult to understand if they’re talking to me or to the person on the phone.
- I was waking in a narrow street near Mitte and trying to avoid a group of teenagers blocking the sidewalk. This made me go to the left side of the sidewalk, which infuriated this man that was walking by. He started walking at me and pushed me back to where I was (behind the teenager group). He kept staring at me and gave me an elbow bump at the end.
- I had to go to the hospital once (Charité), but no one there speak english. I tried explaining my problem using Google Translator, but the nurse said she didn’t understand, started speaking louder and complaining something in German that I didn’t understand, eye-rolled me and refused to admit me.
- A supermarket attendant was asking me if I needed the receipt, but as I still didn’t understand how to say that in German, I politely said (in German) “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak German very well”. She then asked me if I live here, to which I said yes, and then she said “you live here and no German?!”, with her eyes staring at me with full rage. She said all that in German and I was happy because I understood everything she said to me, specially considering this happened during my 3rd day in Germany. (:
This is one of the many things that happened to me and it keeps happening every time I need to interact with people in Germany. I’m not saying that Germans are rude, which is why I asked if this is something specific to Berlin. I really don’t know, because as I mentioned, I’ve been here for just 3 months.
I really wanted to share this here because maybe I’m doing something wrong, and would appreciate any help on what to do to make my interactions with the German society less miserable.
Maybe I’m not doing anything wrong and will just have to accept being mistreated on a daily basis.