Return to Normality

Posted on 2020-05-14 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels.

We can go into town again. The barrier tapes have been removed from the parks, as if the crime scene has been cleaned up. The doors of the shops are wide open. Some of them have a sign, suggesting that only one customer should be inside at any time. The way banks do it, for fear of robberies with hostage situations. The Post Office is particularly strict, to prevent some crazy from going philatelistic.

The streets, the sidewalks, everything is as full as it hasn’t been in a long time. Fuller than I remember it ever having been, to be honest. Maybe because some people aren’t back at work yet (teachers, flight attendants, students), squeezing into the city instead. Some people wear the facemask, some have it dangling pointlessly from one ear, others stuff it into the back pocket as soon as they leave the supermarket, making sure to show their disdain.

Cars have been allowed outside, too. Every single parking space is occupied. The streets are filled with smoke and screeching and honking and fender benders. And dogs, worst of all.

It all comes upon me like an avalanche. The noise, the moving parts everywhere, people even want to talk to me. I have to be careful again to not get run over. What happened with the primacy of human life, forgotten so soon?

Frankly, it’s too much for me. I am sweating, and not only because of the facemask. My heart is beating faster. You have to keep your eyes everywhere, and everywhere at the same time. I just want to go back home as soon as possible. This is so much stress compared with the previous months. The town has become too busy and bustling for me.

The town is Horta, with a population of about 6000.

Horta Gesamtansicht

Horta von oben

I can’t even imagine how I am supposed to survive this once I’ll be back on the continent.

Most likely, I am going to shoulder my backpack very soon and hike off into the Central European forests.

Links:

  • More reports from the increasingly stressful Azores.
Posted in Azores, Photography, Portugal, Travel | Tagged | 20 Comments

How I got a Facemask on the Azores

Posted on 2020-05-12 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieser Geschichte.

When I flew to the Azores from Lisbon on I-don’t-remember-exactly-but-some-time-in-the-beginning-of-March, there was this person at the airport who was probably just snickering disparagingly about people with facemasks. And maybe eating a Snickers bar under the hood, just for the pun of it.

Corona-Schutzanzug

At that time, a mere two months ago, although it may seem slightly longer, that person already knew something. I can just assume that he/she was a virologist or the Portuguese Minister for Health.

Elsewhere in the world, you might have worried that the hoodie was with the Ku Klux Klan. But this was in Portugal. There are no radicals in Portugal, no extremists, no terrorists. Everybody and everything in Portugal is moderate. “Even our communists are moderate,” my friend Romeu had explained in Lisbon, almost with disappointment because, in a way, it moderates even his staunch anti-communism.

Anyway, you are not here to read about politics, and it was time to get on the small plane that would hover me to the island of Faial. That flight was quite something, but remind me to tell you about that in another story, for we shall keep the digressions to a minimum or we are all going to die because we forget to protect our respiratory system.

I survived the flight (Portuguese airspace has only moderate turbulences), and as I left the harbor (that will be explained in the flight story, but stop being interrupted, will you?), I did see a few people, mostly ladies, it seemed, who were apparently conscious of the virus and already wearing facemasks.

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Strange fashion, it may seem to you, but the islands are thousands of kilometers from the mainland, and time moves differently here. Faial was last struck by the bubonic plague in the winter of 1717 and 1718, but when people told me about it, it was as if they had been there. “It killed Henrique,” they would say about one of their forefathers, wiping a tear. Or “Maria Luísa never got over the loss of Cajó.” Of course people still had the old anti-plague suits at home, ready to be utilized after only 13 generations.

When I said that I was going to stay in the municipality of Cedros, people would inform me with a ghastly look: “Oh, Cedros, they suffered the most from the plague,” as if nothing remarkable or disastrous had happened in the 300 years since. In reality, hundreds of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis and hurricanes have occurred since.

I am digressing again, am I not? So let’s wind our grandfather clock forward to 2020, the year of the Corona plague. I rarely saw anyone with a facemask, because there are not many people here anyway. And people are very reasonable, not hugging and kissing anymore. (The Azoreans who were into that kind of behavior all emigrated to Brazil a long time ago.)

But last week, I went to the supermarket and realized that I was the only one without a facemask. Everything had changed from one day to the next. I felt weird, almost naked. But they still let me in and gave me chocolate and stuff.

As a guest on the island, I want to fit in. So I went to the pharmacy, hoping they would have a facemask. But already at the door, a handwritten note said that they were out of masks until the next ship would arrive. I did learn that it was now required by law to wear a facemask in supermarkets and on the bus.

And then, friends, or shall I call them “friends”, wrote me with “helpful” advice on how I could make my own facemask. “It’s very easy: You just take a piece of cloth, preferably cotton and not used, you cut it this way, fold it that way, iron it, attach some rubber bands and sew around the edges, and there you go.”

I couldn’t even follow the instructions, let alone imagine where I would get cotton, an iron, a sewing machine and rubber bands. What do people think I have in my backpack? If I had that kind of equipment with me, I might as well build a spaceship.

The more “advice” people gave, the madder I got. It was as if someone complained that they are bored, and I told them: “Oh, just write a script, hire a few actors, set up a movie studio, shoot a film, and by tonight, you will have a movie to watch.” Seriously, it’s annoying to assume that everyone has practical talent – and tools to match. I don’t go around assuming that everyone has a penchant for constitutional law or the history of Montenegro, do I?

So I was already rationing food, thinking about putting a sack over my head and cutting two holes for the eyes, when one of the maxims of my life proved true again: If there is a problem, just wait. Somehow, it will be resolved.

Today, as I was going back home from having studied by the sea for a few hours, I had to pass the mail delivery van. The lady who distributes not only letters, but also her heart-warming smile wherever she goes, waved at me to stop. I obliged, naturally, and she handed me a package, saying that it was a gift from the government of the Azores.

facemasks (1)

In it, there were not one, but three fresh facemasks! With instructions.

facemasks (2)

This may be moderately socialist, but I just love it when governments, upon making it mandatory to wear a facemask, mail a box with enough facemasks to everyone in the country, including to people living on a small speck of volcano in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Especially when the mail person flags me down in the middle of the road to make sure that I get one.

It reminded me of my friends in Lisbon, Romeu and Mafalda, again. When we met, they took me to a mural about the history of Lisbon, which you can find if you are at the Portas do Sol viewpoint and ask for the bathroom. They used the cartoons on the wall to give me a very quick overview of Portuguese history. As they got to the time when Portugal was somehow united with Spain (from 1580 to 1640, I believe), Romeu said, jokingly of course, for he is a (moderate) patriot: “We sometimes wish we would have stayed in the Iberian Union because Spain is so much better organized than us.” I, knowing only little of both countries, felt that I had to object. From what I had seen, Portugal is superbly organized. As this episode confirms, one could easily call Portugal the Switzerland of the Iberian peninsula.

Links:

Posted in Azores, Portugal, Travel | Tagged , | 21 Comments

The Smoking Snakes

Posted on 2020-05-09 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels.

These days, eurocentric Europeans are celebrating the end of World War II, although in Asia, that show didn’t get cancelled until a few months later. The surviving US-American, British, French, Belgian, New Zealand, Australian, Indian, Canadian, Soviet veterans and even the partisans are commemorated with parades and marches, the dead ones with visits to cemeteries.

But every year, the soldiers of one country are completely forgotten.

No, I am not talking of our grandfathers in the Wehrmacht. Most of them really don’t deserve any celebration.

I am talking about the Brazilian soldiers who helped the Allies to liberate Europe from fascism.

You never heard of them? See, that’s exactly what I mean. They always get overlooked. And it wasn’t just a handful of Brazilians who served in the US-American or British military. No, Brazil dispatched a whole division to Italy in World War II. That was 25,000 soldiers.

As the Second World War began, Brazil wanted to imitate Switzerland, remain neutral and continue trading with both sides. At that time, Brazil was a dictatorship once again, which did have some sympathies for Nazi Germany (although the melting pot of Brazil managed to be fascist light without the genocidal-racist element). But the North-American charm offensive was simply too convincing, and in 1942, Brazil allowed the USA to establish military bases for the war in the Atlantic.jornal_o_globo_1942

Neutrality became untenable when, in the same year, German submarines sank 13 Brazilian merchant vessels and hundreds of people died. Actually, the government of Brazil still didn’t want to enter the war against Germany. The calls to do so came from the people and became ever louder. Protesters demanded an entry into the war and smashed  German restaurants. On 22 August 1942, Brazil declared war on Germany, Italy and Japan.

That step was becoming increasingly popular in South America at the time. Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Chile, Venezuela and Uruguay followed suit, in that order. Oh, and the heroic nation of Argentina took the bold decision just in time before it was too late, on 27 March 1945; it was the last declaration of war against Germany.

But even in Brazil, nothing happened after the announcement. Public anger kept boiling, although the real reason for that may have been the cancellation of the Football World Cups during World War II. A saying at the time was that “sooner would snakes smoke a pipe” than the government would send troops to Europe, to express the skepticism whether this would ever happen. In English, one would say “when hell freezes over”, but in Brazil, nobody knows the meaning of freezing.

Finally, almost two years after officially joining the war effort – and conveniently after the successful landing in Normandy, when it had become clear to everyone who would walk off the European battle pitch as winners -, the first Brazilian troops were shipped to Italy on 2 July 1944.

175px-distintivo_da_feb“The snakes are smoking!”, the incredulous cries accompanied the soldiers, and the Brazilian Expeditionary Force self-mockingly selected that symbol for their shoulder patch. War is always chaos, and thus, it only became obvious as the troops landed in Italy that they had no weapons, that nobody had arranged barracks for them and, worst of all, that nobody had told them about winter, cold and snow.

There is no snow in Brazil. It was an unknown concept to most soldiers. And in the winter of 1944/45, these beach boys were supposed to fight the Wehrmacht’s hardened mountain infantry in the Apennines, where they had dug themselves in along the Gothic Line.

BEF soldiers in Italy

All the more surprising that the Brazilians advanced quite successfully, won battles, liberated Parma, among other cities, and took more than 20,000 soldiers, mainly Germans, as prisoners. The photo shows the German lieutenant general Otto Fretter-Pico surrendering to a Brazilian soldier.

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So, the German propaganda had remained ineffective, although there had even been a radio program in Portuguese for the enemies from Brazil: “Hora Auri-Verde”. These broadcasts probably tried to frighten the South-Americans more deeply of even more snow, ice and frost, recommended a return to Rio, and threatened a severe drubbing in football should they not heed the advice.

In their propaganda directed at the Italian population, the Nazis also used the fact that many Brazilian soldiers had darker skin. They tried to incite fear of rape and murder, their work now being continued by Italian parties like the Lega.

During the long winter months in the trenches, the Brazilian soldiers had time to think. They realized that it was weird, fighting for democracy in Europe, while being governed by a dictator at home. Thus, it was also under the influence of the returning soldiers, that Getúlio Vargas announced elections in 1945, allowed parties to be formed and promised not to run for office anymore. But to be on the safe side, he was removed by a military coup, but then re-elected in 1950 and finally, in 1954, confused by the constant back and forth, he shot himself.

Links:

  • More about World War II.
  • More about Brazil.
  • And more about Italy.
  • If you are from some country whose contribution to world history hasn’t been appreciated, let me know! For a little bribe, I’ll make your country great again, too.
Posted in Brazil, History, Italy, Military, Politics, World War II | Tagged | 34 Comments

Wait, when was World War II again?

Posted on 2020-05-04 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels.

A strange questions, it seems, especially coming from someone studying history. But the more you travel in the post-Soviet world, i.e. in the countries that became independent after the end of the Soviet Union, the more doubts you will have.

Before you read on, please pause for moment and try to pinpoint the beginning and the end of World War II. And then look at the dates on these memorials:

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The photos were taken in Uman, in Kyiv and in Odessa in Ukraine and in Sukhumi in Abkhazia. But you will find such monuments in most post-Soviet countries.

If you went to a school that taught something similar than my high school in Germany, then you probably let World War II begin in 1939 and end in 1945. Why are the first two years omitted from the Soviet monuments? Was the Soviet Union not yet involved in the war at the time?

Oh yes, it was. Very much so! Just before the German attack on Poland, Germany and the Soviet Union had concluded a non-aggression pact in 1939. In a secret protocol, they did however agree on quite a lot of aggression against the Eastern European countries situated so unluckily between the two major powers.

Already in September 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Poland and occupied the east of the country. Two months later, it attacked Finland, and in 1940 it gobbled up Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and parts of Romania.

Molotov-Ribbentrop-EN

But these years, in which the Soviet Union made common cause with Nazi Germany, dividing Eastern Europe among them, are sidelined so much by the second half of World War II that they seem to have been completely removed from public memory. When people who grew up in the Soviet Union speak of World War II, they mean the German-Soviet war, which began with Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 and ended in May 1945.

Obviously, everyone prefers to see themselves as the victim rather than as the aggressor, as heroic defenders of the motherland rather than as heinous Nazi allies. If your historiography begins on 22 June 1941, it’s easier to maintain the narrative of the “Great Patriotic War”. That image is carried over until today. The families of the Soviet soldiers killed in 1939 and 1940 have no memorial, where they could lay a wreath. The veterans from the Finnish campaign remain at home, lonely and sad, when everyone else is out for the victor parade on 9 May, unless the were “lucky” enough to have fought in Stalingrad or in Kursk later.

From the Soviet point of view, this is no surprise. But why are the successor states sticking to this tradition of memory? Because the photos above do not depict some historical monuments. I have taken them in recent years. These monuments are still taken care of, with candles burning eternally and flowers being placed.

Russia does not only regard itself as the geopolitical successor of the Soviet Union, the president recently defended the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. No trace of distancing, historical reappraisal or self-criticism. History is being abused for contemporary interests, it is part of hybrid warfare.

In other countries, changing the 1941 into 1939 also only looks easy in theory. In practice, it would have consequences if a memorial suddenly does not only commemorate the heroes, but also the aggressors. What would the old veterans say? When the young are leaving the country in droves, the votes of the oldest generation are important. Thus, they are allowed to keep their traditions.

In Ukraine, I found this conflict particularly interesting:

On the one hand, the country sees itself as a counter-example to Russia, even fighting a little bit of a war with the ever-annoying neighbor. You don’t hear much positive about the Soviet Union around here, quite the contrary. The Holodomor, the famine caused by the Soviet state is a central building block of Ukrainian historiography. Or in the dispute about languages, it is always mentioned that it was Russian tsars and Soviet communists who oppressed Ukrainian culture and language. During World War II, Ukrainian rebels tried to obtain independence, for which they even cooperated with the Nazis for a while.

But then, on the other hand, the whole country is full of Soviet memorials. Red flags, hammer and sickle, the Lenin Order, all of them recently painted, not decaying since 1991, as one might have assumed. And of course the monuments for World War II, engraved with the distorting years 1941-1945, as everywhere.

At first, this comes as a surprise. Until you realize that Ukraine actually gained quite some territorial weight during the time of the Soviet Union. In 1939, Ukraine benefited from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by having Eastern Poland added to its territory, later a few beautiful areas of Romania and Czechoslovakia, without which Ukrainians wouldn’t have anywhere to go hiking in the mountains. And lastly, in 1954, Crimea was transferred from Russia to Ukraine.

ukraine-growth

As much as they condemn the Soviet Union, even the most ardent anti-Soviet Ukrainians wouldn’t want to give up on Stalin’s conquests and Khrushchev’s boundary changes. Instead, they pretend that all of these territories have always been Ukrainian since the dawn of time. Obviously, that’s hard to maintain if you open up the debate about the role of the Soviet Union in World War II before June 1941.

By the way, Ukraine is also a good example to question the generally accepted end date of World War II. True, the bombs stopped falling in 1945, but the UPA, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, kept fighting against the Soviet state until 1954. They were putting their hopes on the Cold War (which they got) and on military support from the West (which they didn’t get, probably because they failed to provide the US President with dirt on his opponent).

Links:

Posted in Abkhazia, History, Military, Photography, Russia, Ukraine, World War II | Tagged | 14 Comments

Film Review: “Cast Away”

Posted on 2020-05-04 by Andreas Moser

As I am currently stranded on a far-away island myself, people have been making references to “Cast Away”, Chuck Noland and Wilson. The references seemed to increase as my Robinsonade persisted and my beard grew.

Andreas Moser beard like Captain Haddock

Finally, I felt like I had to watch the movie.

What a waste of time!

First of all, is this some bloody FedEx commercial? It sure seems like it. Even when Chuck is stranded on the island, packages continue to arrive. He is supposed to be on a deserted island, with nobody knowing where he is. That’s the point of the whole movie! How would anyone send him packages? That is not how FedEx, any other mail carrier or oceanic water currents work.

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Let me call bullshit on that, because I’ve been sitting on an island for months and I haven’t gotten a single package! (Although people know where I am and I have a wishlist of books.)

Then he somehow survives for four years. Without a sunburn. Not very realistic. I have had to find water and food on islands, and I can tell you: Banana trees don’t produce new bananas every morning. There is not enough rain every day to have sweet water. And a lot of the fish will eat you before you can eat the fish.

And why, for fried fish’s sake, can’t we have one disaster movie without a love story? Aren’t plane crashes and islands and sharks enough? Although, I have to concede one thing: The love story was at least realistic. Because the girlfriend keeps telling him that he is the love of her life, but, once he doesn’t come home from the plane trip, she gets lonely, marries and has children. After a month. That, I am sad to say, is what always happens in real life. All this “love of my life” bla bla doesn’t count for nothing if you ain’t there. It doesn’t matter if you were stranded on an island or in prison, in either case without a phone. “Well, what was I supposed to do? You didn’t message me anymore,” she will ask, putting the blame on you. “How about waiting?”, I would say, but then I seem to be too romantic to think that constant availability is a requirement for love.

Anyway, we have all experienced this in real life, we don’t need a pointless film to show us what it’s like to be punched around like a volleyball. Speaking of it, Wilson was by far the best actor in the movie.

Seriously, if you are ever on a deserted island, use the time to think of something better to do with your life than to return to your corporate job. I did.

And if you give a reception for someone who was stranded on the high seas for four years, then don’t offer him sea food! This movie was wrong on so many levels. But then, what would you expect if a shipping company gets to film a two-hour commercial?

Links:

  • More film reviews. (I am not always that critical.)
  • My TEDx talk on how I changed my life after a traumatic experience.
  • Next, I’ll probably have to tackle Robinson Crusoe, because he is the other reference that gets used all the time. Well, at least there is a book, so I don’t need to decide which of the many film adaptations to watch.
Posted in Cinema, Travel | Tagged , | 8 Comments

In the Clouds

Posted on 2020-05-03 by Andreas Moser

It was a beautiful day on the island, made all the more beautiful by white fluffy things floating through the ink-blue sky.

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clouds on Faial (4)

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“Are these air-sheep?”, I asked the farmer in the field, for who would know more about animals, land- or airborne, than someone who milked and killed them for a living.

“No,” he said, as if talking to a city guy who knew nothing about that, by which he may have been right.

“These are clouds,” he explained, which didn’t explain anything.

“They are beautiful,” I said, to which he shrugged his shoulders.

I think he was one of those people who aren’t interested in what can neither be eaten, nor counted towards the gross domestic product.

I, on the other hand, am an adventurous aestheticist, and thus, I climbed up the steep volcano which is the center, the foundation and the peak of the island, to get closer to the clouds.

Well, I did get very close. Actually, I climbed straight into the clouds. They were cold, windy and wet.

Maybe clouds, like humans and other things, are best admired from afar.

Links:

Posted in Azores, Photography, Portugal, Travel, Video Blog | Tagged , | 13 Comments

In the Foreign Legion

Posted on 2020-04-29 by Andreas Moser

Diesen spannenden Insider-Bericht gibt es auch auf Deutsch.

A few years ago, the desire for education reared its nosy head again, remembered the high school from which I had graduated decades before, and was in deep and mournful regret that I had never awarded the same attention to the language of Germany’s neighbor to the west as I had to English, which, to add insult to injury, now claimed the Romanic title of lingua franca.

It happens however that I live in the most provincial rural area in Bavaria, where people are against anything international, but in particular against anything French because in 1796 our little town blocked the path of the advancing Napoleonic army and was punished with a little bit of a shelling. Ever since, neither the Institut français, nor the Alliance française, nor a proper baguette bakery have been able to gain a foothold in Amberg.

So if I wanted to reactivate, renovate, emend, advance and polish my French, I would have to travel into the big wide world. Preferably to France.

But how to finance such an endeavor? I always found applying for scholarships too much paperwork hassle. And even if progress could be made by simply listening, reading and speaking French in everyday life, I would need to work somewhere for food, shelter and Gauloises. But, from reading Germinal, I remembered that working conditions were still miserable, despite the revolution. I didn’t want to work myself into a hunchback.

And then, maybe it was because the Vietnam, Golf or some other War was happening at the time, the Foreign Legion marched into my mind. This third French institute of culture and language, which does not not only pay its students the aforementioned basic necessities, but also work clothes and even a salary.

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So I got on the train to Marseilles. Many trains, actually, via Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Basel, Dijon and Lyon. About 30 hours. A lot of time to think, little time to sleep. The other people on the train were tourists going to the Côte d’Azur for swimming, sailing and snorkeling. Carefree and jaunty. Two weeks of holiday, everything paid already. But after that, they would have to return to the coal mine in Klagenfurt or the brewery in Dortmund, for which I didn’t envy them a bit.

I arrived in the morning.

At the station, I asked around for the Légion étrangère. Chemin de Génie No. 18, somebody said, and to me, the name of the street was waving in the wind like the flag of fate. What a fitting address. I would never be able to stop smiling when giving my postal address as the immodest “Way of the Genius”.

I had to march a few miles from the station, but I wanted to freshen up after the long train ride anyway. The sun, the breeze from the sea, the brisk walk and above all the light, that light in the Mediterranean which made me wonder why the same sun doesn’t shine the same everywhere. I had to go to the most western point of Marseilles. The neighborhood laid there almost like a peninsula, and I noticed that it was as close as one could get to Monte Cristo Island with Château d’If.

My heart beat faster, my mouth became dry, as I counted the numbers at the side of the road. 12, 14, 16, there it was. Chemin de Génie No. 18. The soldiers seemed to have really nice apartments! With a view of the island, exactly one nautical mile away. I rang the bell and I want to shorten the ensuing conversation, as it would reveal some embarrassing details. To sum it up: I had been sent to the Centre des convalecents et des permissionnaires de la Légion étrangère, to the Legion’s retirement and nursing home. Whether it had been a joke or if the man at the train station hadn’t known any better, I never found out.

But at least the convalescing combatants could give me the correct address: “For recruitment, you have to go to the barracks in Aubagne.” That’s about 7 miles outside of Marseilles, the train had passed through the little town. Had I known that, I would have jumped off there.

To Aubagne I didn’t walk. Bus lines 69 and 100 go there, I am just mentioning this in case any of you have got the same plan. Meanwhile, it had become afternoon, and I should have eaten something. Or slept. Or first eaten and then slept. But I wanted to go straight to the Legion, on the first day, instead of loitering around town and risking that I would end up at university or in a relationship instead.

In Aubagne, the Centre de présélection was in Route de la Légion, which really made more sense than the folly with the geniuses. But it looked far less noble. More like a decaying youth hostel or an old kibbutz. The ashtray in front of the door was a steel helmet turned upside down. An army with humor, that was a good sign. Maybe it would really be as funny as in The Good Soldier Švejk.

In a way, it was already my second attempt that day, so I was less nervous as I stepped through the glass door under the letters Information – Recrutement. But as soon as I had spoken my first sentence, the sergeant got up and pointed me towards the door through which I had just entered. “Why?”, I asked, not yet having learned that this is a taboo word in the military. Because I had shown up without an appointment? Or were there no job openings? Was my French too bad? But I had come exactly to repair that fault.

But the non-commissioned officer wasn’t unfriendly at all. He walked through the door ahead of me, into the garden and to something that looked like a playground. There were climbing frames, ropes hanging from beams, with a big fat knot at the bottom, and horizontal metal bars, maybe to attach swings. Only the ground wasn’t as nice as you see it at modern playgrounds nowadays, where they have this bouncy rubber, so that the child plopping from the seesaw don’t disturb his mother, who is sitting on a nearby bench, but prefers playing with her cell phone over playing with her son. There, it was only dusty, hard, dirty sand. Probably, there were even snakes.

The sergeant went straight to the metal bars, where the swings were missing, pointed to them and said: “Quatre tractions.” Now, you have already gathered that my French was rather schooled by Hugo than in the hood. I didn’t understand what “tractions” were supposed to be. But apparently, this had happened more often, because the Frenchman, who, as it only appeared to me later, must not necessarily have been French, for after all, this was the Foreign Legion, not the French Legion, stooped to the use of English, just for once: “Four pull-ups.”

I couldn’t pull them off.

Then, I went to the harbor in Marseilles, got onto a ship, emigrated to South America and learned Spanish. A much nicer language anyway. And less command and obedience and parachuting and all that army crap.

Links:

To avoid that I ever have to apply as a mercenary again, I am thankful for any support for this blog. Merci beaucoup!

Posted in France, Language, Military, Sports, Travel | Tagged , | 19 Comments

German Law: What happens to Children when the Parents die?

Posted on 2020-04-27 by Andreas Moser

Recently, parents seem to be thinking about their possible early demise, because I have been getting this question more frequently: “What will happen to our children if we, mother and father, were to die?”

I don’t know why people are so full of doom and gloom, especially now in spring when the flowers are blooming, the rabbits are jumping, the days are getting longer and warmer, and the parks are full of, oh wait, I guess I do understand why people are a bit cautious nowadays and want to plan ahead.

Before addressing the issue, let me remind you that my blog is full of advice on German law and that I really appreciate it if you were to support this blog. This question falls into the realm of child custody law, on which I have a set of FAQ and a few other articles.

Milluni6

First of all, I am a German lawyer, so I will only describe the situation under German law. German law applies if the child or children has/have their habitual residence in Germany, regardless of the citizenship of the child or the parents.

Let’s start with the simple scenario: A child has two parents and both parents have custody. In this case, if one parent dies, the remaining parent will have sole custody (§ 1680 I BGB). Easy peasy, no problem here.

Milluni2

Second scenario, already more complicated: A child has two parents – and they need to be legal parents, so step-parents don’t count, unless they have adopted the child! -, but only one parent has legal custody. This is often the case when the parents are not married, but it may also be the result of a previous custody decision by a court. Now, if the custodial parent dies, the Family Court will usually grant custody to the surviving parent (§ 1680 II BGB) – unless the welfare of the child requires otherwise.

Except in grave cases of child abuse where the surviving parent can/must be disqualified, other reasons could be if the surviving parent has been absent from the child’s life for a long time, or if there is another person in the child’s life who has already been assuming the role as parent, without legally being one. The latter is typically the case if the child is growing up with a step parent. (These are usually also the most contested cases.)

How the case will play out greatly depends on the will of the child, too. The older it is, the more weight will be given to the child’s wishes. Especially if remaining with the step parent will mean living in the same house and going to the same school, whereas moving to the biological parent would mean a move to another continent, the biological parent often faces an uphill battle.

cemetery-gate

Now to the worst-case scenario: Both parents die at the same time or the only surviving parent dies. In that case, the Family Court will appoint a guardian for the child (§ 1773 I BGB).

Some people assume that guardianship will automatically go to uncles, aunts, grandparents or other relatives of the child, but that’s not the case. The court will investigate who is willing and able to carry out that job, it will ask the child (depending on its age), and if there are more “applicants” for the child, the court will first try to mediate, but ultimately it will have to make a decision. Obviously, close relatives are always an option, but the court can also consider other people, like a teacher or a neighbor or the parents of the child’s best friend.

Again, the wishes of the child itself are more relevant, the older it is. Once the child is 14, it has a veto right (§ 1783 I no. 3 BGB).

In my experience, the toughest cases are those where two family clans (maternal and paternal) are fighting over who is better suited to take care of the child. This seems to happen more when the child is the only grandchild (and when the grandparents never approved of the marriage anyway and always hated the other clan). Oh, I could tell you stories where people go all-out nasty and you just want the child to run away Tom-Sawyer-style.

cemetery-cactus-western-001

And that leads, as if I had planned it that way, to the culmination, where parents ask, worriedly: “Can we determine who will be the guardian of our child once we die?”

The answer is: Yes, with some restrictions. The way to do that is to set up a last will on child custody (“Sorgerechtsverfügung”), which according to § 1782 I 1 BGB is subject to the same formal requirement as a testament (see no. 4 of my FAQ on inheritance law in Germany). I always recommend that it not only includes the name of the intended guardian, but also a few reasons for your decision. This will come in handy in case there will be a dispute.

In this last will, the parents can also explicitly exclude persons from being appointed as guardian for their child (§ 1782 I 1 BGB).

Obviously, if both parents are alive, it would make sense if they could agree on a guardian. However, this is sometimes not possible. In that case, each parent (as long as they have legal custody) can set up his/her own last will on child custody, and the one of the parent who dies first will become irrelevant. Because the last will of the last surviving parent is the decisive one (§ 1782 II BGB). This also makes sense, as many years can pass between the deaths of the parents, so the surviving parent will gain information and insight about the child and the potential guardians that the predeceased parent couldn’t have had.

Oh, one last thing: Cats and dogs don’t fall under custody law. You can dispose of them like chattel. Just mention in your testament who should receive them.

Links:

Posted in Family Law, German Law, Germany, Law, Travel | Tagged , | 17 Comments

A Chinese in Vienna

Posted on 2020-04-25 by Andreas Moser

During some meeting of some committee of some sub-organization at the United Nations in Vienna, I got to know a young lady from China.

Qian was doing an internship as a simultaneous interpreter for Mandarin and English. Simultaneous interpreters are those super-brains who listen to several participants in a discussion about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and at the same time (!) interpret all speeches, questions, answers, interruptions and arguments into Chinese. Then, in the afternoon, they do the same about fishing policy or an agreement on tariffs and trade.

She suggested that we should meet for dinner or something like that.

Because Qian had mentioned that she had only arrived in Vienna a few days earlier and because I wasn’t quick enough to think of anything smarter, I asked if she already knew her way around the city.

“Of course, it’s a really small town.”

There are around 2 million people living in Vienna.

“Ehm, it’s the largest city in the country,” I replied, not really trying to correct, but to understand her.

“Oh yes, you are right,” she said with a smile, “I am sorry, I still have to get used to that.” The look on her face was like that of a titan who had come to a country full of mini-dwarfs, accidentally stepping on some of them, and fretting about it terribly.

She was from Qingdao, a name which didn’t ring any bell, until Qian patiently explained that this was Tsingtao, the capital of the former German colony of Kiautschou, and that they still had the best beer in China. More than 8 million people live in Qingdao.

There are hundreds of cities in China larger than Vienna. I could name only two or three of them, which shows that despite all my travels, there are still very large white spots on my map of the world. And Hainan province alone, one of the smallest provinces in China, has as many people as Austria.

China map population

Links:

  • In this article, you can find out how I ended up in Vienna in the first place.
  • And if I ever go to China, it will definitely be by train. I already have a savings piggy for the train tickets, but any support for this blog would be of great help.
Posted in Austria, China, Language, Travel | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Strangers in the Park

Posted on 2020-04-21 by Andreas Moser

Hier geht es zur deutschen Fassung dieser Geschichte.

I had two days left in Boston before returning to Germany, and I didn’t know anybody in the city. The year was 2009 and, as far as I knew, the internet hadn’t been invented yet.

For dinner, I got a pizza and a copy of the Boston Globe. I went to Boston Common, a park, to sit on a bench and eat and read. Alone, as I often do. I had already finished half of the pizza and decided to leave the rest for later (American pizzas are made for American stomachs), when a young man walked by. He continued for a few meters, or yards, as he would call them, paused, turned around and came up to me. I quickly analyzed the situation, saw that it had gotten dark, that I was rather alone in the park, and that I hadn’t even taken a plastic knife from the pizza parlor. There are about 50 homicides per year in Boston.

“Excuse me, Sir. I am sorry if I am disturbing you.” He sounded and seemed polite. I was ready to hand over the rest of the pizza, should he pull a gun. (Americans are crazy about guns and pizzas.)

In my repertoire of facial expressions, I have one that says “I’ll give you a few seconds to explain what you want, and depending on what you say, I will be your best friend or I will tear you to pieces.” It was the moment to use it.

The young man, whose name I have sadly forgotten, and whom out of journalistic integrity I cannot simply refer to as David, Michael or Jonathan, although it would make the story much easier than these convoluted insertions, was either quite honest or quite clever in his approach. “I was wondering if I could ask you a question, because you look intelligent.”

I had to laugh before I could say “thank you” from the bottom of my heart. “Why do you think I look intelligent?”

“Because you are reading a newspaper, Sir.”

I was still smiling and pointed out that reading a newspaper may not qualify me to answer any question, but I asked the young man to take a seat. I did not offer any pizza yet because that would depend on the type of question. If it was a stupid one – yes, there are stupid questions – I wanted to be able to get rid of him and return to the pages that made me look so erudite.

“So, I have this problem with a girl,” he began. How convenient that I was a family-law specialist, although he couldn’t have possibly known that or known that I was a lawyer at all. Would the lawyers of Boston Legal ever sit in a park late at night to eat pizza? Probably not. In any case, I was relieved. This was my area of expertise and I had already helped hundreds of men regain their freedom. I could liberate this young man as well.

“She likes me and she told me that she wants to be with me. I also like her as a friend, but I am just not that attracted to her.” So far, it sounded like a surprisingly teenage problem for someone who looked like he was at least 21 or 22 years old. “But I am attracted to another girl. Now the matter gets complicated: the girl who likes me is white, and the girl I like is black. The white girl now accuses me of racism. And I find this thought quite disturbing, because I never thought of myself as a racist.” And, ending with a poignant question like a high-school essay paper: “Do you think I am racist for liking a black girl and not the white girl?”

That was a new question, which I liked. (One reason why I quit my lawyer job later that year was that clients rarely came up with new questions. I was getting bored.) A question that deserved a lot of thought, but I couldn’t let the young man wait, or he would sign up with the wrong girl. And I wanted to give him a positive answer, to be honest, so my thoughts were not swirling around completely free, as they should have. I also realized that he wanted practical advice, not a sociological discussion about race. After all, one could argue that everyone is a little bit racist, at least sometimes. (Just stop for a moment to realize how you have been imagining me and the young man in this story, although I haven’t given you any indication about the color of either.)

“I don’t think that you are racist. First of all, if you are in love, I am not even sure it’s your own decision. Sometimes, it just happens, and we don’t really have any control over it.” In the 16th century, love was seen as an illness by some, necessitating medical treatment. And who hasn’t ever wished that there was a vaccine against it?

“And then, I assume that your attraction to the lady in question is not based on the color of her skin, but on her character, on her smile, on her intellect, on what she says, does and thinks,” I possibly extrapolated from myself to him. “Maybe the way she kisses,” I thought, but didn’t mention it, because it seemed to me that he hadn’t gotten that far yet.

“And lastly, you might want to ask the white girl if it wouldn’t be equally racist against all other colors if you became her boyfriend. Whenever we choose one person only, we are disappointing dozens of others. Relationships are not the realm for anti-discrimination laws.”

“Say, do you want a slice of pizza?”, I offered, far too late.

“Oh, thank you very much, but I should actually be going. I am staying at a shelter for homeless veterans and I need to be there by 10 p.m.” It was already ten past ten. He thanked me again, visibly relieved.

It was a warm night, I had gotten hungry enough to finish the pizza, munching it while pondering thoughts about race, about love, and about how a rich country treats its military veterans.

reading park Chisinau

I don’t know what became of the young man and the girls in Boston, and chances are low that either of them will read this. (Unless you widely share the article with your friends.) But even now, ten years later, as we have Couchsurfing and Tinder and Bumble and lots of other apps to meet people, I am still thankful for that chance encounter. Because it taught me a lesson that I turned into a strategy.

Since then, whenever I have more than a few days in a city (and weather permitting), I will go to a park and just sit there for a few hours, open to any surprises that fate may throw my way. I like to read a book or a newspaper, so people see that I am not in a hurry. You don’t see that many people reading in public, so it also makes me more interesting, I imagine. And to someone who is curious, a book or a newspaper is a good conversation starter.

Once, in Belgrade, I was sitting in Studentski Park, enjoying a few sunny hours and a copy of Süddeutsche Zeitung, bought from the well-stocked newsagent just on the other side of the street, who is always my first stop after a few weeks without news in the Balkan countryside. A couple in their 60s, Miro and Maia, two chemical engineers, thus saw that I spoke German and started telling me their life story, which included working in East Germany. They were so happy to meet someone willing to listen that they were almost fighting with each other about who got to tell which story. (They were also in heated disagreement about many of the memories, as well as about the industrial policy of the GDR.)

bulevardul cetatii 3

In Targu Mures, I sat outside, reading again. On the next bench, there was an elderly man, looking as if he had just finished a hard day’s work at the chemical plant, holding on to a bottle of beer instead of a book. After a wile, apparently recognizing me as a foreigner, he asked if I happened to speak Romanian, Hungarian, English, French or Russian, for he would like to ask me a question, if I permitted. We settled on English, and he said: “I was just wondering if I could take a look at the book you are reading, because I noticed you smiling and chuckling repeatedly.” The book was “Scoop” by Evelyn Waugh, a truly funny read.

It turned out that the gentleman was a retired engineer, a good-humored fellow, and had published a collection of stories himself. (Romanians love books and writing as much as Americans love pizzas and guns.) We had a wonderful conversation, realized that we lived in the same neighborhood, and when we exchanged business cards, as old-fashioned people do, I realized that Vasile was also the chairman of the local Jewish community. Noticing my interest, he said without hesitation: “If you have time this Saturday, why don’t you come to our synagogue at 10 in the morning? I will give you a tour of the building, it’s quite beautiful, and then you can celebrate shabbat with us.” I felt the need to point out that I was not Jewish, but he cut me off, “And why would that bother us?”, as if it was the silliest excuse he had ever heard.

I did show up and met a very welcoming community of mostly elderly gentlemen and a young family from the United States, living in Romania at the time. To cut this long-winding story short, they later moved to Vienna and I became their house/cat sitter for two summers. So, if I had stayed at home that summer evening in Targu Mures, or played on my phone instead of reading a book, or ignored the gentleman’s question, I never would have had the chance to live in Vienna for a few months and I wouldn’t have discovered what is probably my favorite city in the world.

A city with quite some cute little parks, too, coincidentally.

Brunnen von oben mit Figur Schönbrunn

The people who approach me are usually older, the ones who are lonely and have time to talk. Often, it’s people walking their dogs. But I have also met interesting young people that way. They are often intelligent individuals who appreciate the sight of someone reading or writing. And of course there are the homeless and the beggars, but they have the best stories of all.

Only the Jehovah’s Witnesses can be annoying. But when I lived in Cochabamba, I even spoke with those freaks, using them as Spanish tutors sent from heaven, as much as they were threatening me with the prospect of going to hell.

14 Septiembre lively evening

There is a reason why I am tapping into these memories now. We probably won’t be able to travel far and wide for the next year or two. But, as you have seen, it’s not necessary to travel far and wide. Once you can go to the park again, just listen to people, and you may be surprised by how many beautiful souls and stories have been living around you all your life.

Links:

  • More travel stories.
  • More stories about love and life.
  • Luckily, my way of reporting doesn’t cost much, just a newspaper and a new pencil from time to time. If you enjoy stories like this, you can make sure that there will be more of them by supporting this blog. Thank you!
Posted in Austria, Bolivia, Life, Love, Photography, Romania, Serbia, Travel, USA | Tagged , , , , , | 23 Comments