Interview with Regina Netterfield - Part 2
GW&M: A sensitive issue that people are often reluctant to discuss concerns the cultural differences in personal hygiene. What are your own experiences?
NETTERFIELD: My husband, like almost any American, showers at least once a day, every morning. Most days he also showers after exercising. That makes two showers every day. In Germany people bathe once a week on Saturday evening.
GW&M: So the old US joke about bathing once a week whether we need it or not is actually the German practice?
NETTERFIELD: I still to this day do not shower regularly every day. I wash in strategically important places every day, but usually will only bathe once a week. When my mom visits us here in the US, she even notices that most people here will not smell like old sweat, but like they are freshly washed. When you are in an elevator in Germany or any other closed confined room, you will smell stale sweat from unwashed bodies. It's just what people are used to.
GW&M: I should add that in my own experience over the past ten years or so--on trips to Germany--I have noticed what I consider an improvement in German bathing habits. More Germans, particularly the younger generation, seem to be bathing more often. The BO an American always noticed (as you mentioned in elevators, on the subway, etc.) is not as frequent. But I was a bit shocked a few years ago to read a German survey that said German men changed their underwear about once a week on average!
NETTERFIELD: Amazing! Once a week! There must be some real pigs out there, because I know there are German guys who change them every day like they should. Can you believe how seldom some of them must change their underwear to statistically average it out to once a week? Ha, ha.
GW&M: I'd rather not. Well, speaking of underwear... the German/European attitudes about nudity are more liberal than in the US. Do you have any personal examples or experiences?
NETTERFIELD: There is a definite difference in Körperkultur (attitudes about the body) in Germany vs. the US. Sometimes I have to ask myself, "Is it modesty or is it prudery?"
The Giant Wine Barrel of Dürkheim
For example, going to the sauna in Germany is a totally different experience than in the USA. When I first met my husband, he had only been in Germany a few months. One weekend I took him to a sauna in Bad Dürkheim, a town whose main income is spa guests. The sauna is located in the basement of a swimming pool right next to the famous Dürkheimer Riesenfaß (giant wine barrel of Dürkheim). We went downstairs with our bathing suits on and when I got downstairs I started taking my suit off to be naked with all the rest of the people. Nothing to it. What I did not notice was that my husband started looking around, never having seen people co-ed all walking around stark naked--like there was nothing more natural in the whole world. He proceeded to take his clothes off to blend in and I never noticed that he was maybe a little bit embarrassed never having done that sort of thing before. I only found out years later that he had written a letter to his office describing the incident and cracked everybody up by telling them that he kept looking for the guitar after he took his clothes off, like in the Pink Panther movie A Shot in the Dark with Peter Sellers and Elke Sommer where they are in a nudist camp and after Sellers took his clothes off he kept holding the guitar in front of him. Just that there was no guitar. He was a brave trooper, not telling me that this was a first-time experience for him.
Saunas here in the States are usually occupied by people in bathing suits. I have even seen some guy wearing a sweat suit--long-sleeved shirt and long pants. My eyes almost fell out of my head.
GW&M: What about at the doctor?
NETTERFIELD: Going to a gynecologist in the US is also a totally different experience. In Germany you just take your clothes off--all of them--and you stand in front of the doc as nature created you. He will then examine your breasts to see if there are lumps and then tell you to sit in the chair with those dang stirrups.
Here, they first give you a little paper robe with a tie and another paper blanket so you can cover up. The doc will only examine you with his assistant in the same room, being afraid of lawsuits, I guess. You have to lay on this chair with the paper robe on and the blanket covering your legs. What is up with that? The doc still has to look at you to examine you, so what is with this illusion that you are covering anything up. He still feels your breasts for lumps, it is just that he does it under the paper. It is not like he has never seen a naked woman before. I guess this security blanket helps some women to get over this sort of embarrassing experience. Also my doc here has little dolls covering the stirrups so they are not so cold. Can you believe that? The dolls look like Pippi Longstocking with braided hair made from red yarn. Cute, but laughable. I know in Germany they would insist on a more sterile environment. Not that it is not clean here, but you know what I mean.
GW&M: You told me you had difficulties trying to marry an American in Germany. Can you elaborate?
NETTERFIELD: Yes, I experienced some turbulence in trying to get married in Germany. My husband-to-be had to write for all his papers, like the birth certificate and divorce decree, and when he received them we made an appointment with the Standesamt (marriage bureau). They took all the paperwork and looked it over very thoroughly. Then they decided that he was not legally divorced because his divorce papers did not have a box checked. It was the divorce decree and its sole purpose was to state the judge's decision that the couple was divorced. It was one of those forms with check boxes on the sides. I guess they forgot to check the box. We tried to explain it to them, but they did not want to listen.
They told us just to request additional paperwork, of which there really was none to be requested. When we had the decree translated we told the translator to translate the statement that pertained to the missing checkmark in the box. That got her in trouble. It was really a big mess.
I had to drag my husband-to-be out of that office or he would have punched the guy behind the desk. Jim, my husband, almost could have been put in jail for Beamtenbeleidigung (insulting an official). It was really funny. At least it is now. We had to forget getting married in Germany. When we got here, all it took was a blood test to see if I had the German measles and we got married the next day. [
See links below related to marrying a foreigner in Germany or Austria.]
GW&M: How hard was it to obtain a green card? Do you have US citizenship now?
NETTERFIELD: When I applied for my (US permanent resident) green card, the immigration officer checking us out had the nerve to ask my husband, who had been married before, if he intended to stay married to me, or was he going to dump me like he did his previous wife. She wanted to see if we only got married so I could stay in the US. I'm laughing as I say this, but it was not funny when it happened. (My husband would have punched this immigration officer out, too, if she had been a man.)
I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork at the INS. They even asked what party affiliation I had in Germany. When I wrote that I used to belong to the SPD (Social Democratic Party), the officer had the nerve to ask me if this was like the communist party. Can you believe it? They really ought to educate people in positions like that more on other cultures. My husband wrote a letter to her boss complaining about her ignorance.
Because I am married to a US citizen, staying here and getting a green card really was no problem other than the paperwork. I even took the US citizenship test, but then decided that I should hang on to my German citizenship, in case we ever moved back. They do not allow you to keep both.
Part 1 of this Interview
Copyright © 1998 Hyde Flippo
