Take 5

Entertaining Pforzhiem

I like hosting people.

I spent the past few days entertaining a german group from Pforzhiem, a town that bordered the Black Forest and a mountain chain, and is 20-30 km away from Stuttgart. They were here as part of a joint concert together with the ensemble.

Pretty nice, albeit sometimes forgetful chaps - there was nary a moment when someone or something went missing at some point of time. A german penchant for absentmindedness?

Anyhow, had a nice time playing tour guide to them together with some other chaps from Genus. I guess that once in a while, its nice to examine things in Singapore from the eyes of a visitor - they marvelled at the skyscrapers (theirs was a small town), cleanliness, cultural diversity and food choices that were present here. I'm just amazed that they had the energy to sightsee, visit pubs, watch movies alongside their jam-packed music making schedule.

They peppered me with questions, some eyebrow raising, others side-splitting. Here's a list (in no particular order)

1) Is it spicy?
A primary concern for most of them

2) What is it made of?
Most local food tends to contain unidentifiable ingredients

3) How much is an Ipod/mobile phone/movie ticket/liquor?
They usually exclaimed in delight when they discovered how cheap these were in comparison to back home. One common grouse - movie theatres here are too loud for them! Some actually covered their ears throughout the whole show! Maybe it had to do with the film genre they caught - Terminator!

4) Is it illegal to be gay?
This was sparked off by a query on the speakers corner (I had let slip that there had been a gay rights advocacy group that spoke at Speakers Corner when we drove past it).

5) How old are you?/Are you still studying?
Maybe it was the bermudas. Maybe it was the bag. Maybe it was the black hair. Or the exercise. Whatever it was, they were always surprised when I told them my age, with physiological reactions to my age ranging from Saucer-sized eyes to the quick up down glance.

6) Sind Sie ein Gitarrist? Wie können wir geben Sie die Concert Hall? Woher kommt die Dirigent lehren an? Wie viel ist ein guittaron?
These were side-splitting questions - mostly because I didn't speak german, and didn't have a babel-fish with me. I was mostly able to answer these with help from the english-speaking members. What got me was the manner in which the questions were asked - the chap would stop me (we would be walking/eating/drinking) and he would stare me in the eye and ask me the questions directly in German! Oh well, I guess its the same thing as me trying to speak english in those countries I visited and getting bewildered stares in exchange.

Through it all, I developed surprisingly strong bonds with some of them. One paid me a nice compliment - saying that if I were his history teacher he'd be a lot more attentive in class. The manager (who I had countless conversations with, a fellow educator too) also mentioned plans for the group to host us at a town music festival next year, and issued a personal invitation to me to visit and catch Turandot or some other opera with him there.

Something I learnt about myself - I can be disarmingly friendly to people whom I barely know when the situation calls for it, and distant to those who are accquaintances. A defense mechanism? Or is it just the old man in me? Hah.

posted by leo @ 10:21 AM