{"id":78187,"date":"2014-10-17T18:25:07","date_gmt":"2014-10-17T22:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=78187"},"modified":"2014-10-18T11:00:10","modified_gmt":"2014-10-18T15:00:10","slug":"globalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/","title":{"rendered":"Globalization"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Berlin-Cab-Driver\"<\/a>

A German cab in 1971. Photo: Eugen Nosko<\/p><\/div>\n

You expect to feel humbled when you travel. Strange public transit, alien customs\u2014add a language you don\u2019t speak and it\u2019s an immediately chastening experience. When the residents are so inured to your national arrogance and laziness that they don\u2019t even visibly resent conducting transactions in English, it is more galling still. It\u2019s sort of like being a baby\u2014helpless, barely verbal, sleep deprived\u2014except you can\u2019t throw a tantrum. On the contrary, you are often expected to conduct business.<\/p>\n

All this I expected. I was even impressed and charmed, on my first visit to Berlin, to find people eager to discuss Spinoza in restaurants and quote Schiller on the plane. Here is what (or who) I did not expect: my cab driver to the airport. It\u2019s not that I was shocked by his exquisite English, his verbatim recitations of Kleist, or his strangely in-depth knowledge of the Frankfurt Book Fair (\u201cI wondered about the Finnish literature they featured \u2026 Well, I try to keep up with such things.\u201d) Here is what was deeply intimidating: he had actually read Patrick Modiano<\/em>. And not just La Place de l\u2019\u00c9toile<\/em>! \u201cBut not all thirty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On the plane, I was seated between the aforementioned Schiller scholar and a teenage girl. I watched Maleficent<\/em> and devoted considerable thought to the derivation of the term fruits of the forest<\/em>, as used to describe that one mix of luridly red berries occasionally found atop old-looking tarts and cheesecakes. The teenager appeared to be writing diligently in a journal; I felt abashed anew. Then I glanced down at the page and, from her rounded, teenage-girl handwriting, I could see that it was a list of German words: a food diary. Before I looked away, I clearly saw a sentence beginning \u201cMein chicken nuggets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You expect to feel humbled when you travel. Strange public transit, alien customs\u2014add a language you don\u2019t speak and it\u2019s an immediately chastening experience. When the residents are so inured to your national arrogance and laziness that they don\u2019t even visibly resent conducting transactions in English, it is more galling still. It\u2019s sort of like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[15225,6397,15695,15697,158,834,15696,15199],"class_list":["post-78187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-airports","tag-berlin","tag-cabs","tag-drivers","tag-encounters","tag-patrick-modiano","tag-taxis","tag-traveling"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGlobalization in Germany<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on the humbleness felt when traveling and cab drivers who have actually read Patrick Modiano.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Globalization by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"October 17, 2014 \u2013 You expect to feel humbled when you travel. Strange public transit, alien customs\u2014add a language you don\u2019t speak and it\u2019s an immediately chastening\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-17T22:25:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-10-18T15:00:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/berlin-cab-driver.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"474\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Globalization\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-10-17T22:25:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-10-18T15:00:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/\"},\"wordCount\":319,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/berlin-cab-driver.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"airports\",\"Berlin\",\"cabs\",\"drivers\",\"encounters\",\"Patrick Modiano\",\"taxis\",\"traveling\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/\",\"name\":\"Globalization in Germany\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/berlin-cab-driver.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-10-17T22:25:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-10-18T15:00:10+00:00\",\"description\":\"Sadie Stein on the humbleness felt when traveling and cab drivers who have actually read Patrick Modiano.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/berlin-cab-driver.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/berlin-cab-driver.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/globalization\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Globalization\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. 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