Kultur 2 Derek Emelander

In this chapter’s Kulturtexts we learned about German healthcare and education. It turns out that there are many made-up illnesses in Germany such as “Kreislaufzusammenbruch” or a circulatory failure, which in most countries would be a fatal or at least life threatening condition but in Germany, it just gets you a day off work. According to many German scholars and physicians a light draft can cause all sorts of medical ailments like “pneumonia, flu, colds, clogged arteries and just about every malady imaginable”. From this comes the phrase “Es zieht!” or there is a draft, meaning that you should immediately shut whatever window you opening before you condemn all persons present to weeks of pneumonia. Also the entire country has become obsessed with saunas ever since the 1936 Olympics in Berlin when the Finnish team requested that one be built in the Olympic village. On to education; the German education system has become clogged with “eternal students”, with the average age of a first year student being 23, and many students staying in schools until their 30’s.