Hello,

let me explain you my background. I have a daughter, who is already in Kindergarten (3 yo).

we have been living here in Germany for almost 4 years.
We are coming from Asia (developing country).

From the first sight, everyhing looks fine.
My work is fine. The work enviroment is ok. My salary is fine (more than 50K). I have a nice car.
My child is ok. She has friends in KiGa.

My wife works from home. She did some of her hobbies.

Now the difficulties.
We have no problems with our neighbors. It is only saying Hello, but no more.
On the weekend, we feel terribly lonely.
Why is it so hard to have german family as friends.
I don't think the language is a key. Yes it is correct with language you can communicate, but i found it is not only language you need.
Sometimes we think that the local people is too cold, make distance.

Do you have this kind of problem?

We are not people who seems not educated. We act pretty well, dressed also like the German.
Why is it so hard to integrate to the community.

We know that we cannot speak very well German.
Is it normal, isn't?
The community should at least appreciate what we have done.

We plan to leave DE somewhere next year.

I don't think that other countries are better than DE. It could be that life is harder, but at least you are part of community. you will be treated as family.

The other solution could be to get connected only with people from the same country. But it is not life, right?

What about you guys?

In one sentence "most of the germans do not welcome foreigners and this is the fact" but I personally have german friends even in the age 60's and 30's so it all depends whom you meet and you should be lucky here because they are very few and sadly we don't have another way .. bingo!!!

Just curious, why do you need German friends when you can find someone from you country living here? this is the best way to fil your weekends I guess!

Hi,

where do you live in Germany?

Did you try our...

http://www.trust7.com/en/forums/gcs_in_your_neighborhood

What about cooking something special from your home country and inviting some of your German neighbours?

Your message makes me sad, I will think about it and how I can help. You are welcome to call me at my office.

Do not give up :-)
Detlef

there you go now he (Mr. Detlef) is the one whom you can consider as a good German friend but he lives in Berlin .. if you can catch him do it immediately otherwise you will miss such friends here ... am I drunk .. puuhhhh!!

Hello,

I got suprised regarding the response i got here.
this forum helps a lot.

we do have a german family (60 years old), who gave a lot of attention to us. He was living in Asia for more than 6 years. He lived ca. 200km from us.

Good question, why do we need german friends, we can just go to our country friend.

Basically if you do that, it is the same like you live in your own country.
You will not learn new values. you are not sitting inside the community and just become audience.
That's what we don't want.
Sometime it is hard to describe the feeling.
Saying hello is maximal, you cannot come more.

I don't say that people in my neighbor/community is not nice. They are nice. We don't have any problem with them.
Just you cannot go further. There is sometime a border.

Hi,

do what everybody else is doing, work 12 hour days from monday to friday! On the weekend you are so tired you don't even want to see your wife ;-)

Just kidding .. but it really depends where you live, and btw, sometimes even germans have the same problems. The best is to join some kind of group activity or take some course in a non work related area.

Do you live an a big city?

cheers,
-a

Hi confuse,

You don't seem to know German culture very well. German culture is not only associated with how you dressed or beer and sausages but the way they think (and talk).
Instead of cheap propaganda by politicians and the press about foreigners (I said cheap propaganda because it has tendencies to take a small bad example and then tell it to the public as if the wholes act like that), Gott sei Dank we have some good neighbours. We make hourly conversation, make some nice barbeques, we feel just in our country. We also come from Asia, precisely from Indonesia, and it doesn't seem to be a problem, till now, I hope.
Just think about it...

Regards,
EE

There are different people everywhere, so in the Germany :-) I do not drink coffee with my neighbours, but we do some small talk now and then. Actually they are very polite and they do not avoid us. Some people helped us a lot, for example to find the appartment (and it was/is a big problem in Munich). But if you speak German it really helps a lot. Otherwise you will be always "outsider". What I however noticed that Germans generally do more "mind their own business" than others. In my old company there were many French people, and I established contact with them more easily, actually I do not have any German friends :-(. So you can find some other "Ausländer" - not necessarily from your country :-))

Well, its called a culture wave thats also predominent geographically.
Its something like this,the norther you go, colder would it be, both weatherwise as well as humans too ;)
In Europe, its easy..(sage aus erfahrung)..
to interact with people from the south (italy, spain..),,move li'l bit north to Switzerland, and there you would start noticing the change.
I would say Germany in in between, its cold as well as warm ( dependent on the city).
Move more north, Sweden, there you would notice that its very difficult to interact on peronal level.
This geographical shift in interacting ability is the fact.
But again, since we are already here, we got to try our best to initiate interaction from our side.Like Sales, there would be hits and misses.
Even if you have 30% success rate, then you got lot of friends in Germany soon ;)

ciao
GnR

Hello,

thanks for the reply.
the statement that with german will help. I definately agree with that. We always speak german with them. They understand what we said.
As i told also, the neighbors are nice. Until now we have not got any problem with them.
but as i told you before, we cannot reach the friendship level suitable to say we have friends.
The friends that you can talk to (even talking problems), the friends that can help to find solution etc. the friends that you can share your laugh with.
It could be friends is a wrong word. It should be 'close friends' or 'close family friends'.

It could be that i am too idealistic. It is just something i feel missing here.

Bye.

Man you are confused!...What are you telling us? that you don't wanna be just neighbers with your neighbers but best friends? what's wrong with you? I the whole Europe is not the case and has nothing to do with Germany. I come from Romania and I can tell you that is the same. It changes maybe only if you live there like 20-30 years or so and grow up with their kids. I have no clue how is in asia but I can't believe that all of you are best friends over their. You are like a small child that cries for mama. If you can't make friends than it's something wrong with you boy..not the world. We should be more direct in this forums and tell people and germans that read this that we also think that if peoples can't integrate than RAUS. What do you wan't ? money from the state coze you don't have friends? A shoulder to cry on? lately there is so much bullshit on this forum. All kind of peoples come here and fell opressed by the society..IT'S YOUR FAULT! If you came and say that beamten from Ausländeramt are stupid and have no common sence I believe you but if you say that siciety is opressing you...comon man!

test to see if my picture is uploaded....just ignore this post...or look at the picture

All kind of peoples come here and fell opressed by the society..IT'S YOUR FAULT!

vchira, you are rude in your posting man! these complaints are usual for any newbie and how can you call it one's FAULT? of course making friends depends on the mentality of the stranger you meet with and it also depends on the culture of that person and the culture of Germans is quiet different from other European societies, it not like you are telling us although you are coming from Romania. What the topic starter is expressing has some truth in it and your argument is just negative in this case that's all! but of course there is also some truth in your message that it needs some time to get a close friend.

I expres exactly what the german state is saying and a lot of peoples from this forum don't wanna hear. If you can't integrate yourself here don't complain...just go home and have fun. What should hapend to make things good? educate germans to be more opened? It's like visiting some friends and telling thm that they are not really good hosts coze they don't pray before a meal like you do.

vchira,

your post made me a little bit upset, but don't worry i have got used to it.
Sometimes you have to hear critics from someone, who maybe does not understand about the problem.
I don't want to cry about what happened here.
Germany has given me a lot, but material and working experience. I just want to tell you there is something missing here. It could be that i miss my home country so much.
All i want is to share the feelings i have. so i can analyze what should be changed in the future.

i also know that to build relationship needs time and effort. Send this message is also to test if i have given enough time and effort.

First we would need to begin by defining what integration means, IMHO.

How can we objectively determine how well integrated someone is.. is it perhaps the command of the language? Is it the number of german friends?

And just to begin with, is it at all possible to integrate? To which degree? If not we must begin to clear which are the "borders", can we make any exceptions? How well integrated do you consider yourself?

For me the question is not so clear, and in my opinion it also isn't for a state.

In my opinion well integrated is having a normal life without beeing frustrated about things you can't do because you are a forigner. I can't really tell you how integrated I am coze the life from my home country is with nothing diferent than the life here in germany. The food is the same, music is the same, partys are the same, TV channels are the same..etc. The only problem was for me german language which I learned(in 3 years) and speak with great plasure. So everyone should decide for hemself how well integrated he is and think about the differences between hes habits and the habits from germany and if the 2 can't be made compatible is better to leave(if he has an alternative) not because german state will throw him out but because he won't be happy here..never. I heard a lot of indians for example telling storys from US where there are indian comunitys or in Canada where indians formed comunity as well, but I think in germany there will never be such thing and this is exactly the problem that German state wants to solve now. It is proven that such a concept doesn't work in Germany. Integrated is the one that feels that he can have a normal life without having this comunity. Integrated is the one that when verbaly assalted by an antiausländer german can say "stupid man" and not "stupid germans". Integrated means knowing hes rights(laws) and getting hes right. INtegrated is the one that when becomes a citizen knows what political party offers what and what political party offers the other. In many cases not only ausländers must integrate in german society but also a lot of german relics..and the german state knows that and admits the problem as I see it. If hes neighbours don't wanna be friends than that is it..he must accept it and find other friends...that is integration. I never heard somone saying that he must work harder to make friends...hmm. Go to partys, discos, clubs, vereine, bowlling saloons,.. .etc!! how many have you vistied? coze their you make friends.

I think Vchira is wrong.
It is nothing wrong with you.
It's just a different mentality. You can propbably ge beter along with your country people than with germans.
So try to find them. Your country church could be the best place for start.
When I got here I did not have people to talk to.
Now I have to many of them.
So many that I can not get enough time to keep those friendships.
From my country but also germans.

Quite oposite from Chira I think you should not push. Important is not to find anybody but somebody who is convenient to you and vice versa.

Btw, smarter you are, less choice you have, because there is only small % of people like you.
It is best if you are average, for friends I mean.

So too much brain can be a big problem sometime.

Ofcourse it's hard to be integrated in Germany. Here common people are very conservative. They like to be circled or grouped. They do not want to keep some rooms for some new friends into their groups. They want to be happy being within their own cirlce. I think it takes lots of time to get close to them. Once you are close to them, it generally does not break.
I know many of my country people, who have been living here for 20/30 years. And they are not happy being here – just because of integration problem. They advise me to move to some other developed countries. This is what they say from their experience. We can hear their experience and decide what we should do and when!
Friendship or being close is a two way entity, not one way. Only one side can’t build it up. Let’s say about trust7. Here people in trust7 are very close to each other. When we get a problem, we come here to share our feelings and get advice. Or sometimes we just discuss about something. One approaches and the others come to help or join him. If one comes to trust7, he posts his message and does not get any feedback, he can’t get close to the group. It should be two way!
I agree with the point that as we are here we should have more patience to adopt here. We face lots of difficulties regardig integration. I appreciate the discussion about difficulties. Once we know the problems, it should be easy to overcome. It should be easy to handle!

regards,

mk

Hi All ,
I just came upon this chain and then was prompted to write to vchira ..and all i can say is please do not bring "communities factor " in this ... all one was discussing abt was what are more ways to solve problems in communication with a German family .You can keep save your ultra firebrand ideas but please dont feel free to pass verdicts !!!....
As for "Confuse " i can feel your problem and one of the things to take a step closer is that since you understand the problems try to take steps in the manner the germans like ( i mean try to get closer their way).. they have their own ways of socializing and u have to accept that ... dnt apply your socitey socializing and think they should respond ..

why was I wrong? I still don't understand why you don't agree with me? Do you think that is better to form comunitys of asians or africans? Don't you think that germans make friends by going into discos, bars, clubs,etc? To say that one must find the problem before deals with it in this context does not apply I think coze the problem are peoples and peoples don't change or at least not as much to be able to accept something they believed their all life to be false. If you can't adopt the lifestile that germans have than there is no way you will feel happy in here. This leitkultur that everyone is talking about is exactly what I am saying. You wanna foul yourselfs that is fine with me but if you look around the reality looks like I discribe it. To WORK ON A FRIENDSHIP?!?!? HA?!?! Friendships for naturally or don't form at all...no work is ncessary. Is the situation in your countrys so desperate that you are willing to accept a unhappy life and waste all your good years? If you are willing to accept the german way of life which is more or less european way of life than deal with it and don't come here and cry like a baybe and ask for advices about how to make friends...integration must come naturaly to you or it won't come at all(except the language knowledge).

just my two 0.01$ ....

I think you are wrong because you forget one thing. Germans also do not get along with all germans perfect.
Thing is that it is same were you are, you have to find your own kind. You do not have to make ANY adjustment. You can just live as you are.
In mean time people that are of your kind will see it and they will like you. And you them.

Of course one should know the language to achieve it.

I am not wrong..I actualy said that many germans have problems with integration in the society also. exactly my point one should not try to change himself because it is impossible. One should try other alternativers if after a few years he feels that he can't be happy here coze he doesn't have any friends or because they way of the german litekultur are not compatible with their ways... like drinking Weizenbier if living in bayern.. .

Hi ,

I just came here for my usual reading and I caught up with this thread. I am living in Germany since 4 years now and I should say I have only minimum level German language. But this was never a barrier for making friends. Actually I have some real good friends whom I know for a couple of years. I don't find any difference in the friends from my home country and here. I would agree to the point that Germans are bit conservative. But not everyone. You should come out of ur shell. Language ofcourse has an important role in integration in to the community but I guess you could make friends even without that. The point is how open are u..I also have some contacts with my country people. Making friends is something you have to initiate. You would never get one if u wait for one to come along your way.

Regards

Faisal