‘Why aren’t the Romanians like the Germans?’ by Jan Cornelius and Adina Popescu

I wanted to buy this book not only because one of the authors had impressed me dearly with another book, but because for some years now I’ve been trying to debunk prejudices. The one regarding the superiority of the Germans is the most heavy burden on Romanians’ shoulders. Somehow, someday I will tell you about my experience living in Germany.

‘Why aren’t the Romanians like the Germans?’ presents an epistolary exchange between the two authors, making it a stimulating, sometimes funny, sad or puzzling reading. I resonate with Jan Cornelius, being often subjected to bizarre, nonsensical and funny happenings, whether in Romania or abroad. This is the story of how ‘Adventures of tourists’ was written, to amuse other people – besides friends and family - with the crazy things happening to me.

My experience has taught me to question the saying that ‘in Germany punctuality and everything working smoothly is a given’. Delays in the schedule of means of transportation (in my case, the train because I was using it to get from a smaller town to a bigger, universitary one) exist in Germany. And this happens not only because some people have decided to jump in front of a train. And talking about strictly complying with the rules (as it happens everywhere in the world, actually), when people are given a procedure to observe and different situations occur than presented in the procedure than everything is stuck.

I cannot remark the fact that, generally, Adina Popescu idealizes living in Germany and the ‘civilized’ state of everyone living there. Also, I cannot but remark the fact that Jan Cornelius also describes situations that are not ‘civilized’. And this is good because the reader can grasp the fact that there is no ideal way of living and that there is no synonymy between Germany and perfection.

Moreover, no matter the place one lives in, one always better notices the issues where they live at and idealizes the green grass in the neighbor’s garden.

Oh, and speaking of this. When one goes beyond, into the green grass mentioned above, one realizes that everything is cool with the things missing from one’s garden, but one will eventually fuss about the things not missing from one’s garden but nowhere to be found in the neighbor’s. Just a mere observation for those interested in the neighbor’s green grass concept.