{"id":666,"date":"2014-01-23T13:15:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T18:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/?p=666"},"modified":"2014-01-24T16:18:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T21:18:21","slug":"frau-merkels-lover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/","title":{"rendered":"Frau Merkel\u2019s lover"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"16933418,14048206,highRes,1344610095\"<\/a>Sorry, there isn\u2019t one. Fran\u00e7ois Hollande, her counterpart across the Rhein?\u00a0 Sure, he\u2019s French.\u00a0 The stories in the news recently from France and Germany make it hard to imagine that the two cultures have Charlemagne (Karl der Gro\u00dfe<\/em>) as a common ancestor, or that they share much at all in terms of values and way of life. It\u2019s nothing surprising or shocking in France that a politician would have a ma\u00eetresse<\/em>, even a politician as uncharismatic and down-to-earth as Fran\u00e7ois Hollande. Just because they are elected to public office, French politicians aren\u2019t expected to stop being human or men or French.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Germany one expects politicians to be serious, that is to say, to focus on their responsibilities and to do their duty.\u00a0 Such extra-curricular activities are verboten<\/em> as an unnecessary and unwanted distraction.\u00a0 How do German leaders break the public trust?\u00a0 If they plagiarize on their university theses, as has caused the downfall of several ministers in the last few years (dishonesty).\u00a0 Or they fall behind schedule on a building project, such as the debacle over the years late new Berlin airport (incompetence).\u00a0 Or they spend an inordinate amount of public money (in this case from Church tax paying German Catholics) on luxury for themselves (extravagance), as did the \u201cbling bishop\u201d (Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg).<\/p>\n

The big news in Germany in recent days has nothing to do with lovers or sex, but instead with something much closer to the hearts of many Germans: their automobiles.\u00a0 The scandal in the news<\/a> is the sudden loss of trust in an organization Germans depend on and see as the ideal complement to their cars, namely their automobile association, the ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club<\/em>). The ADAC has served as the trusted advisor to German car owners and prospective car buyers since 1903.\u00a0 The most widely published periodical in Germany is not Der Spiegel<\/em> or Die Zeit<\/em>, it is the ADAC Motorwelt<\/i> (motor world). Now it turns out that data supplied by the ADAC (for example on the number of votes for car of the year) has in some cases been either manipulated or invented, possibly in order to inflate the importance of the organization in order to gain more members.\u00a0 This is not just dishonesty, incompetence and greed \u2013 it\u2019s all three combined to swindle Germans in relation to their prize possession, the symbol of German economic power and engineering prowess. Mein Gott, o Gott!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Unlike their preferences in cars, Germans don’t like flashy leaders. \u00a0What they do value in leaders and cars is dependability and familiarity – just the qualities the reliable and consistent Mutti<\/em> Merkel provides. \u00a0Mutti<\/em> take a lover? \u00a0No way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorry, there isn\u2019t one. Fran\u00e7ois Hollande, her counterpart across the Rhein?\u00a0 Sure, he\u2019s French.\u00a0 The stories in the news recently from France and Germany make it hard to imagine that the two cultures have Charlemagne (Karl der Gro\u00dfe) as a common ancestor, or that they share much at all in terms of values and way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,122,53],"tags":[27,38],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comparing-culrues","category-cultural-identity","category-relationships","tag-france","tag-germany"],"yoast_head":"\nFrau Merkel\u2019s lover - Communicating Across Cultures<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frau Merkel\u2019s lover - Communicating Across Cultures\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sorry, there isn\u2019t one. Fran\u00e7ois Hollande, her counterpart across the Rhein?\u00a0 Sure, he\u2019s French.\u00a0 The stories in the news recently from France and Germany make it hard to imagine that the two cultures have Charlemagne (Karl der Gro\u00dfe) as a common ancestor, or that they share much at all in terms of values and way […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Communicating Across Cultures\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-23T18:15:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-01-24T21:18:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1693341814048206highRes1344610095-300x191.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"rgjones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"rgjones\" \/>\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\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/\",\"name\":\"Frau Merkel\u2019s lover - Communicating Across Cultures\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1693341814048206highRes1344610095-300x191.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-23T18:15:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-01-24T21:18:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/#\/schema\/person\/d4cf835c69a1141ac2e2479b8813d5d1\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1693341814048206highRes1344610095.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1693341814048206highRes1344610095.jpg\",\"width\":480,\"height\":306},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/\",\"name\":\"Communicating Across Cultures\",\"description\":\"Commentary on cultural trends and language issues from Robert Godwin-Jones\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/#\/schema\/person\/d4cf835c69a1141ac2e2479b8813d5d1\",\"name\":\"rgjones\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/27fd1367a819d167f898fbf47ea46260ad3e1249738c35abb15b2120f5db3b81?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/27fd1367a819d167f898fbf47ea46260ad3e1249738c35abb15b2120f5db3b81?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"rgjones\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/author\/rgjones\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Frau Merkel\u2019s lover - Communicating Across Cultures","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/acrossculturesweb.com\/wp\/frau-merkels-lover\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Frau Merkel\u2019s lover - Communicating Across Cultures","og_description":"Sorry, there isn\u2019t one. 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