What Do You Mean?

Page 1

“Three, two, one, smile!” said Grandpa and took a shot of Ashley’s family at the airport before they got on the plane to Germany. Ashley’s father was an engineer at an American car company and he was being dispatched to a branch in Hanover for 3 years. All the family was moving to Germany for 3 years.

Page 2

Ashley felt a little nervous on the plane. This was her first international flight and she knew nothing about Germany. She heard from her father that the neighborhood she was going to live had many immigrants from different countries including Americans, so this made her relax a little bit. "Maybe I can make new American friends over there" she thought.

Page 3

Late Sunday night they arrived in Hanover and took the luggage to the apartment complex the company arranged for them. Ashley was very tired and wanted to sleep right away since she had to go to her new school the following day. When she put her head on the pillow, she remembered her friends and her dog that they had had to give to the shelter. She wondered what Fluffy was doing. Everyone except her family was far far away.

Page 4

Ashley had jet lag so she woke up earlier than everyone else around 5.00 AM. She took a shower. In the shower she thought about how the new apartment and the bathroom without a bathtub were really small compared to what she was used to.

Page 5

She turned the TV on. She was wondering if there was cable TV so that she could watch the Cartoon Network in English. There was no cartoon channel and all the German channels were talking about a dog that was being sent to a space station. She switched off the TV. She lay down on the bed and once again remembered Fluffy and the story she saw on the TV. BUT??? How come she could understand what the story was about?

Page 6

She turned on the TV again. “Ach Mein Gott” (Oh my God!) she screamed. She was able to understand everything on TV. She was like a German native speaker. She didn’t say anything to her parents because she knew that they would never have believed it.

Page 7

A little later she saw her dad in front of the bathroom and asked, “Can you speak German?” Her dad responded in German “Yah!“(Yes) and continued "this is the only thing I know in German.” He was laughing so hard “Ha Ha ha Ha!” They both were laughing. Ashley did not tell her dad about her magical power of understanding German.

Page 8

Ashley arrived at school called Grundshule (elementary school) at 7:45 AM, a bit earlier than her school in the USA. Even though she could understand German mysteriously, she was still a bit nervous but didn’t know why. The first lesson was PE. The teacher was a middle aged white skinned guy who was yelling at everybody. As Ashley had done field and track in her old school, the PE class was rather easy and she actually enjoyed it. After the first 45 minutes the teacher said, “Fin” (finish) but Ashley said “Hans! Can we run a little more, we just started? We still have 15 more minutes." Suddenly her teacher got very angry and left without saying anything. Ashley didn’t understand why her teacher did not want them to run and instead finished the class in 45 minutes.

Page 9

Her classmate came over and whispered to her.

Page 10

“In Germany you should never call people you are not close with by their first name. Mr. Schultz was angry because you called him Hans."

Page 11

The second class was arithmetic. Ashley arrived at the class first and sat all the way back. She was wondering how this class would be because she didn’t know about the education system in Germany. “I hope there is no quiz,” she thought to herself. The class started just on time 10:00:00 to be exact and everything was kind of similar to the US. Except a classmate, Luca, an Italian student, was 30 seconds late.

Page 12

“I am sorry Mrs. Spiegel, I thought the class was n the next room,” Luca said. Luca was right because Ashley had seen him in the PE class. But Mrs. Spiegel said, this time it is OK but in Germany everything is on time, everyone must be punctual or face the consequences. I will only allow this once. Ashley couldn’t understand why the teacher made all the fuss on the first day to someone 30 seconds late. She thought the teacher was overreacting.

Page 13

Luca was looking for a seat and Ashley beckoned her by raising her hand palm inwards and waved her fingers saying “Komm her (come here)". Luca looked puzzled and found another seat after searching for a while. Ashley was very upset that Luca didn’t want to sit next to her she thought it was because she ran faster than Luca in the PE class and Luca was jealous of her. After the class, she went next to Luca and said I am sorry if I offended you in the PE class, I have been doing field and track for years and I got to be very fast. Luca seemed confused and went “I don’t know what you are talking about. By the way I really wanted to sit next to you in geometry but you beckoned me in a way we call animals. If you want to beckon someone you have to raise your hand palm downwards. Ashley realized that she had to be careful with her body language; obviously people from different countries had different ways of using body and hand gestures.

Page 14

The bell rang and students got their seats for the English class. Ashley thought, “finally a class where I can do better than everybody else.”

Page 15

The teacher handed a worksheet about adverbs and put all the students into groups of 3. Ashley was with Ali, whose parents immigrated to Germany from Turkey and Maria whose mother was a marketing manager at the car company Ashley’s dad was dispatched to. Ashley said, “Leave this to me, I am from America, I can answer all the questions right away.” Maria said, “This is a group activity we should do it altogether. Plus I am from Mexico, which is also in continental America, you better say you are from the United States, not America. Maria was right. But Ashley felt a little uncomfortable because Maria was sitting too close to her. They were sitting at a round table and Maria was literally less than 10 inches away from Ashley while Ali was sitting at the opposite side. Maria was just too close and occasionally touching her. Ashley wanted to move away but paused because she realised that it would have been rude to Maria. Ashley remembered her Mexican neighbors in the USA. They always hung out on the patio with all the family members sitting close to each other. Ashley thought “I guess this is a common way in Mexico since people hang out with large groups and feel the sense of closeness to friends…”

Page 16

Ashley was looking at the adverbs worksheet but she had no idea about the exercises. Being a native speaker did not help her to answer simple grammar questions. “ I must study more grammar,” she thought to herself. But she must answer all the questions because she had told Ali and Maria to leave everything to her. She started circling the answers; she picked all the “A”s as the answer, which obviously were wrong. Ali had a prolonged stare at Ashley, which is a sign of discomfort in Turkey.

Page 17

He asked Ashley, “Is everything OK?”

Page 18

Ashley confidently said, “OK” and she made the OK sign: a circle with her thumb and index finger. Ali suddenly opened his eyes wide.

Page 19

“What do you mean?" he asked. Maria giggled and got even closer to Ashley and whispered to her ear “In most parts of Europe the American OK sign is considered to be obscene. Don’t think about doing the "thumbs up” sign either. Many cultures also consider the thumbs up sign to be offensive and obscene.”

Page 20

Ashley said “Everything is OK Ali, I solved all the problems as a native English speaker”.

Page 21

She made sure to not make any offensive OK sign.

Page 22

The teacher started talking about adverbs in more detail and the class continued. But there was a problem, Thanat the exchange student from Thailand, had a high fever and started feeling very bad. The teacher briefly left the class to call Thanat’s mother and then resumed the class. When the class ended Thanat’s mother was waiting in front of the door. Poor Thanat had fallen asleep and all the students had gathered around him. Seeing Thanat’s mother, Ashley softly tapped Thanat’s head to wake him up. But Thanat’s mom rushed to the desk and gave a strange look to Ashley. Ashley said to Maria “oops! I should have left the waking up to mommy, she was here already.”

Page 23

Maria turned to her, “No that is not the problem. In Thailand, you should never touch a person’s head, the head is sacred because that's where the soul rests.”

Page 24

After a serious of shocks and surprises, Ashley was happy that it was finally the lunch break. A lady in her fifties approached Ashley and said, “You must be Miss Smith. I am the Principal and the classes are over and we don’t serve lunch in this school. Your dad was supposed to pick you up but his company notified us that he would be an hour late. So why don’t you join the other kids and play in the playground? Ashley wanted to see the German playground and started running towards some kids who were waiting by the gate.