20100412

Today I knew the Germans are generally thought to be cold, which is new to me. Here, “cold” indicates a personality of someone who doesn’t often express his/her feelings. Both of my host mom, who is an old French woman, and my host mate, a young South American, said Germans are cold.

From my seven-week experience in Germany I don’t think they are cold. More precisely, I didn’t notice that they are cold. This is firstly because the friends I met there are mostly from other countries; I didn’t have so much interaction with Germans that I could notice their average personalities. Secondly, the Japanese might be as cold as the Germans, so I, Japanese, could not notice their cold personality. And, in retrospect, when I try to remember German people, it seems true that they are LESS cheerful than the French.