Nothing but the round thingy

(one peculiar thing about local pedestrian traffic lights in Dresden: As long as I can think back, East German ‘Ampelmännchen’ (traffic light figures) wore a hat; even female ones were possible. The typical German sense of order tried to harmonize the outlook of these figures everywhere in Germany just after the reunification in 1990, which of course meant to apply the non-hat west figures also to the East and abandon our beloved ‘special version’. As one can imagine this highly important issue was cause of a big discussion. To prevent civil war, it was finally agreed that traffic law allowed both versions. Still, you will only be able to find the prettier figures if you travel towards the East :-))

ASIA AND FOOTBALL?

[yes…another post about Football. It’s not over yet..]

You might wonder why there are no Football pictures in this post. Well, I could say that I try to contradict the content and the pictures in an artistic way, that it's all on purpose. But I could also tell the truth that there is not enough crazy Football stuff going on in Dresden...After all, it is not a World Cup city and therefore does not host any matches. The atmosphere is crazy though, especially during the Germany games...but who wants to see pictures of boozing German students going nuts? However, I just arrived in Munich today. Expect something soon....:-)

Well, the moment of my departure back to Asia is closing in. I did not believe that it could annoy me so badly to leave just DURING the World Cup. Well, I am wondering about the atmosphere in Singapore towards the end of the tournament. What team are Singaporeans generally cheering for? Asian teams? Also, might there be a concealed compassion for Ghana because of the compatible climate? I have no clue but will investigate first-hand soon..

(Why do I bore you with traffic lights? Just for completeness: double red lights on some spots in Dresden can be taken as an indicator that someone has died / been run over by a tram at that precise location; might help you some time in the future..)

Frankly said, there are not much of Asia left in the World Cup…Japan is already out and according to what I read the other day on a Singapore newsletter, their brutal occupation of the city state of Singapore from 1942-45 still clouds the mutual relationship and considerably sets a limit to respective smiling efforts. Btw, have you noticed that in the match Brazil vs. Japan, the Japanese fans were cheering for BOTH teams? That is one really polite and disturbing thing…almost too magnanimous for me :-). I guess the term ‘Japanese Hooligan’ will not make it into the news soon (this sad title might to some otherwise tea-drinking nation that does not really want to belong to Europe)

PRODUCTIVITY KILLER

It is generally perceived here that if the German team does well on the tournament, it will boost overall morale or even increase some productivity (and yes, improve all our lifes). By the way, at the Campeon Infineon headquarter in Munich, one should not schedule an appointment at the time of a Germany game, since everybody might watch in on the big public viewing in the cafeteria ('This does not count as working time!' runs through the lower part of the screen though :-))

However, I am wondering about Germany's possible sobering up IF we gracefully allow Argentina to move on without us later this week (Of course, this is just a mind play that WILL NOT COME TRUE). This might especially be followed by the late realisation that the whole class of German politicians currently seems to use these weeks of total media non-presence to rush through with unloved reforms. There could be a ‘rude awaking’ ahead!

(something totally unrelated, but nonetheless possibly interesting: a Dresden student's typical cafeteria food example. What you see are some baked spinach-thingies..(don't ask me how to translate)..with some pasta and cabbage; all in all worth about 3-4Euros...quite affordable and not too bad for a mass production product like that!)

I'm off to the match Spain vs. France now..Will hopefully report soon!

Maik-In-Crazy-FOOTBALL-Country!