ZE GERMANS: An expat‘s guide to living in Germany

As a British national living in Germany, Fadi did not find it easy to adapt to the German way of life at first. He constantly bemoaned their lack of a sense of humour, the overly-direct approach; the lack of tact, the non-existence of customer-service, the staggering bureaucracy and many other aspects of everyday life one faces in the Bundesrepublik. However, where many of us expats would have packed our stuff and left, Fadi decided to examine things that were bothering him, and find out why. Tired of banging his head against a wall he quietly decided to write a book. “It was an epiphany. All of a sudden if I was frustrated with something, instead of venting it at other people, I wrote it down on a piece of paper - it was like meditating”. It turned out that Fadi was very frustrated indeed – 300 pages of it. His style pays homage to Bill Bryson; written with a light anecdotal tone, often mixed in with a dollop of self-mockery, giving a vivid account of German society as a whole. The Difference At a glance, this book seems like any other satirical guide to Germany, of which there are aplenty. However, after reading a portion of it we discover that the author goes much deeper into the ‘source of the problem’; linking different points to socio-economical, cultural, and other aspects of German life, thus helping the reader to really understand the mentality in this country. “ I had been planning for a long time to write a story, or a series of blogs about my experience in Germany, but never got round to it. One fine day I realised that it’s now or never. I had come to a conclusion that I myself was mutating into a German, and if I’d wait any longer, I would not be able to write this book at all”.