Trip to Darmstadt

On the way to Darmstadt, I sat next to an Architect who worked in Berlin and in Frankfurt (and had a girlfriend in Dresden). We talked about a few things.

One was the difference between East and West Germans. His opinion was that right now East Germany is being used to soften the west German unions. i.e. if the West Germans do not agree to terms than work is moved East. He also mentioned that for East Germans things have been difficult in three areas:
1. Trust. The GDR was not a very good environment to live in and people did not trust each other. One of his close friends was being spied on by a climbing friend of his that was working for the Stasi. This mistrust of others is still part of the East German culture. This manifests itself in business where East Germans do not want anything in writing. They prefer all agreements to be verbal, therefore harder to be tracked.

2. Savings. East Germans do not have any savings. What this means is that compared to West Germans they are very insecure about their jobs and position. Under communism you did not have to have money saved in case of hard times, like you do in a capitalist society.

3. Inheritence and inherited money. Similar to number 2 - East Germans do not have family money that the West Germans do.

He was a pretty interesting guy and was very interested in things that were timeless. For example, doors are timeless according to him. His Apple IMac that died completly was not timeless. He got rid of his TV years ago and is now memorizing poetry in his spare time. (Poetry being more timeless than TV)