You can walk into a situation where ten Germans are sitting in a pub, and some American topic comes up, and suddenly you realize that seven out of the ten can name two or three of the Supreme Court Justices....while they can't name a single on on their own Constitutional Court.
Or you discover that the same seven can name five US governors, while they can't name more than one or two Premier-Presidents of the sixteen German states.
Or you might discover that the group can name a dozen NFL football teams.
I always considered this odd part about the German public TV business.
If you sat in a US pub, and brought up Germany.....probably fewer than 10-percent can name the Chancellor (fifty-percent might still name Merkel). Naming any German soccer club? That's going to be awful rare.
I had a co-worker once (in my military years) to ask if Germans are this way with the Brits or French. I sat for a while and pondered over this. I'm not sure today (2023), if more than 50-percent of Germans could name the French President, and I doubt if more than 20-percent could name the new Brit PM.
There seems to be some fascination with all things US, and there's hardly a night skipped with the 8 PM news.....where one or two US bits of news is dished out.
2 comments:
Have you seen this?
https://youtu.be/ja5wpk7LMBg
I've seen it....having read the original article in its whole content. The strength of the story? There's probably somewhere in the range of 50 to 100 topics that he touches on. The weakness? A very small number (seems like 1 to 2) witnesses that tells the story.
I'll say more to the subject tomorrow.
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