You crazy Germans!

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You crazy Germans

Most of you are Germans so this is for you. Maybe not entirly Kirby related but I hope it’s ok.

To not get this wrong I need to start to say that I believe that all people are born with the same value no matter where they come from.

You probably don’t think you have a special culture, because you live in it. Here I can tell what Swedes think about Germans. I know they are preconceptions, so no offense.

Crazy Germans and the Freedom of roam

We often have Germans coming to visit Sweden. They really like our Freedom of roam which means you can go into any forest and do almost anything you want.

Germans sometimes takes it too literally. They do crazy stuff in the forest, like swimming naked and sometimes walking around naked, just because they can.

Crazy Germans are stealing our moose signs

What seems to interest Germans much more than others are that we have moose in Sweden. It seems like Germans are crazy about our warning signs for moose. From time to time we can read in the paper of yet another German that has stolen a moose sign.

Crazy Germans are buying moose stuff

Germans are the ones who have the most interest in our moose. Therefor there are now many moose shops for Germans in Sweden with only moose souvenirs. It feels like about 80% of the souvenirs goes to germans and the other 20% goes to the rest of the world.

Crazy Germans are using green paint to hide their windmills

I went traveling to Germany in year 2000 in a bus. We looked out and every windmill we saw had a green/white gradient.

We were told that the German Green party did not like that the windmills did not fit into the rest of the nature, so they voted and now they all have green paint on them.

To save the nature… use paint!

(I hope I did not confuse you with the Danes in this case. Long time ago.)

Crazy Swedes buy alcohol in Germany

In Sweden we have a lot of taxes on alcohol. To get cheap alcohol we travel all the way down to Germany to buy it. No one seems to be aware of that the trip costs much more than the gain.

Crazy Swede tries to speak German

In Sweden me and my friends on our way down to Germany, we found a German guy on the train. We had taken some alcohol which made us talk to him in english. Then one of us wanted to impress him with german skills by saying something in german.

  • The first of us said “Danke schön”.
  • The second one of us said “Ein zwei Polizei”, probably from a song he heard.
  • Then it was my turn and I said “Luftwaffe”.

Every one just became totally silent. I did not know the meaning of the word or where I’ve heard it. I did not know it was Hitler air force.

That german guy did not speak to me again. Lesson learned.

Crazy German music taste

I’m a crazy swede that like the german music. For me, german music is all about eurodance. Scooter, Blümchen, Dj bobo, K2, Modo ect. In the 90:s about 50% of songs on the swedish CD:s contained german eurodance.

K2 Der Berg Ruft. Not an entirly normal song. Crazy Germans.

Swedes are not that great to make eurodance, but we have some artists like Dr Alban, Dr Bombay, Pandora, Ace of base and ABBA.

Dr Bombay. Not an entirly normal song. Crazy Swedes.

And no, I have not listened to music since 1994.

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Yeah, and we even have moose radio … Well, all I know about Swedish people is from Crime novels and films, what does that tell about you guys :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:?

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Haha, what a weird topic and a funny collection of preconceptions.

To be honest, I never saw Kirby as a German product. I see it as a global product. What I love so much about the web is the fact that it connects us all without any of those stupid borders. It’s a part of the fact why I’m so addicted to it. I love it when I open my support inbox and there are emails from Brazil, Canada, Thailand, Australia or anywhere else in this world — even Sweden :stuck_out_tongue:

I also never thought about hiring German folks for Kirby. That never played a role when asking Sascha, Lukas, Sonja or Nico. I chose all of them because of being heavily invested in the community and I guess that community started to grow from here first.

In fact I’d love to have a more diverse and global team in the future. What’s more awesome than working with someone on the other side of the globe? I experienced this for the first time when working on Zootool (my former startup).

One day I asked on Twitter if someone would be able to help me with an iPhone app for Zootool and a guy from Australia got back to me and we started working on the app the next day. He was actually French and moved to Norway later. We worked on the app together for more than a year without ever seeing each other or even talking to each other. We just hang around in Google chat and it turned into one of the best collaborations I ever had and a true friendship. We met later in Oslo after the app had been long finished and we are still friends years later.

Those are the stories that make the web special for me. Having the chance to meet each other without those preconceptions. United by the passion for something trivial as a certain programming language, a content management system or a simple idea.

P.S. I’m all up for some moose souveniers and Köttbullar :smiley:
P.P.S. you seem to share the same horrible taste in music than @distantnative (at least telling from his examples for his multi-select plugin)

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I just enjoy the thought of everyone cringing when looking at my examples way too much :wink:

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@texnixe Is that so? Maybe I’m a very dangerous person. :smiling_imp: :wink:

@bastianallgeier It took a while before I realized that most of the people are German. I think it is a global product with the roots in Germany. Then it’s only natural to have some more Germans. English as written language is extremly important to keep it a global product. Else I would not be here.

Interesting story about the Australian guy. It sums it up quite well.

@distantnative You have wonderful taste in music! I have both Vengaboys and Aqua as CD:s, for real! I also like your label “Best Band Ever”. What can be better than Barbie Girl with Aqua? :wink:

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Just to add preconception to those from @jenstornell , I would like to say that, as a french biker, I often meet German bikers (specially where I live, they are very numerous) they have the reputation to be very good riders (checked), very serious with security, even in summer with 40° in city traffic. Also, German motor bikes are so solid and powerful. Even if Bastian do not want to see Kirby as a German product, it has definitively the German touch :wink:
(Did not know about so much love for moose from German People :slight_smile: )

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I’ve been to Paris once when I was a kid. :slight_smile: I can add a few preconception about french people as well.

  • You love to eat octopus, or fish on a romantic restaurant, to some romantic music, with a glass of white wine.
  • Your work is probably as an artist in the park, or by the river in Paris, where you paint portraits of people. Analog, real paint, no iPad.
  • On the weekends you go to Disney Land if you have kids.
  • If you are bored you drive round and round in the triumphal arch.

How many points did I get? :wink:

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A lot ! more than I wished to get with my post :wink:
NB: Reallity is a bit less romantic, we prefer eating frogs’ legs than fish :frowning:

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Haha nice :smile: I’d choose snails over octopus almost any day though.

I’ve been in Sweden when I was a kid, my most vivid memory is the swarms of mosquitoes near lake Vättern. The itching was horrible :grimacing:

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@Constantin @Malvese

Snails and frogs. Sound slimy. I’ve eaten snails one time but not frogs. Frogs are cute and I don’t have the guts to eat cute animals.

I live in Kalmar and we don’t have that mosquitoes problem, but up north by the lakes they have problems sometimes.

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@jenstornell
But the Air Force of the actual germany military forces are also called Luftwaffe.
And you forget some of the swedish products what is really loved by german people, IKEA.
In my room all furniture are from there :stuck_out_tongue:

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@jenstornell I can testify: frogs legs are delicious. :wink:

And we better be careful: if we start talking in stereotypes, soon we’ll be bringing up ABBA and Wallander…

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Yes, we have IKEA. This is our commercial for it:

Every friday afternoon I buy some stuff at IKEA. I’m getting home and put on ABBA on the radio and Wallander on the TV. After a few drinks of Absolute Vodka I download some copies of Kirby CMS at Piratebay. :smiling_imp:

Ha! No, that’s not true. The IKEA is almost true, but not the rest. Moose is however one of my favourite meat. :slight_smile:

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A little late but I mentioned that we often visit Germany to by cheap alcohol. That’s because we have high taxes in Sweden.

Another thing is that there are no alcohol in the supermarket. It’s only available at Systembolaget to keep people from buying too much.

Here is a nice commercial for it and it’s in english. It’s about structure so you may like it. A little like Kirby. It’s not a sellout just to make money. It’s about something else in the core.

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Luftwaffe is still the aviation department of the german army Bundeswehr. It’s actually the german translation of Airforce. Nothing wrong there…

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BTW a nice very recent parody of everything german by a german. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMQkV5cTuoY

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