2012-3-16 17:31:38 人气： 来源：http://www.thomas-school.com
德国---改变一生的旅行
作者：张栋（青岛大学国际学院）
2011年年末，我随一队中国大学生来到德国参加了一次中德文化交流活动。这是我有生以来最为难忘和有趣的一次体验。
当我得知这次活动的时候，既满怀期待，又有所忐忑。与来自地球另一端陌生国家的学生深入交流，比起获得足不出户所永远不能涉猎的知识一样令人感到激动。尽管我曾经短暂的到过德国，这个繁荣而且历史悠久的国家仍然对我有很大的吸引力。为了解开内心的谜团，我情不自禁的想再次踏上这片土地。
十多个小时的颠簸之后，熟悉又陌生的湿润空气涌入了机舱。前来接待的贝尔纳德非常热情，见到他后，旅途的疲劳烟消云散。在接下来的几里，它将是我们的朋友和可靠的导师。当我们到离机场百余公里的达比格斯学院时，天色仍然昏暗。
无论是这里的人还是环境，接下来的几天令人受益匪浅。
我仍记得在离开青岛前的行前培训时，我问领队马老师德国的教育是什么样的，他为我进行了详细的解答。7天的项目更加展示了两国教育方法不同的方面。
坦率的讲，两国学生第一次在会议室见面时还是有所隔阂的。我们尽量与自己的同胞坐在一起，避免与德国学生进行接触。初来乍到，两个截然不同的文化如此谨慎也是正常的。幸运的是，比格斯学院的教员们采用了一种全新而且有创意的方式，使得大家消除了隔阂。他们把每个人写到一张姓名卡上，并随即分配给另一个人。两个人成为一对搭档，在互相进行采访过后，要向大家介绍对方。等待搭档的过程是神秘而又有趣的。我的搭档叫罗德里格，他是一名在职大学生，脸上总是挂着微笑。我们花了一段时间进入状态，我发现他是一个知识渊博，英语流利的人。出乎意料的是，我们的谈话进行的十分流畅，并没有出现语言和文化障碍。经过深入交流，我们对对方的生活方式、习惯和思想进行了了解。在互信的基础上，我们建立了亲密的友谊。
第二天是小组任务，完成的方式是杂志拼贴。这种方法对我们中国学生来说既新颖又陌生。同国学生组成的小组拿到一摞杂志，然后在杂志上挑选符合主题的图片剪下来，以表现出自己和其他国家的优缺点。这种方式让人充满兴趣，唤起了童年的记忆。相比之下，中国的教育就显得太枯燥了。学生们被强迫背诵冗长乏味的课文，而不是各施所长。背诵意味着被动接受，而杂志拼贴和演讲则完全自由。作拼贴时，我们组的几名同学一直处在磨合阶段。并不是说相互之间有摩擦，只是缺乏团队合作精神。我们花费了很多时间让别人接受自己的意见，忽略了最后总要得出结论这个事实。当我们赶出最后一部分拼贴的时候，已经有点超时了。多年以来，我们一直在做自己的事，并且习惯了自己解决问题，当需要团队相互协作和互信的时候，自然适应不了。
最后的展示乍看上去像是一个大画廊展览，满屋都是吸引眼球的拼贴作品。更吸引人的是，在中德两国学生的思维里中国和德国到底是什么样的。3个德国小组的发言和我所想的基本一致。对待税负的态度、民族多样、贫富分化、环境问题，这些我在媒体上已经接触已久。真正吸引我的是他们的思维模式。德国人思维更直接和富有逻辑。比如说，他们眼中的婚姻是自己的事，和家人无关。面对欧债危机的时候，他们相信人定胜天，只要团结起来共同商议对策就一定能解决问题。德国小组的拼贴都很简洁，各个项目条理清晰，然而有时过于简洁。中国小组的拼贴则复杂得多，力求囊括所有重点，主次却不甚分明。
这几天最大的发现是德国人的幽默感。在我心中德国人严肃、不可接近的形象土崩瓦解。比格斯的学员的教员们十分善于开玩笑。让我有点惊讶是，他们会那几乎所有话题开玩笑，有时还会自嘲。高社会福利并不代表他们对所有事情都满意。贫富差距，高速路限速和政府都是经常的笑料。这些说明了他们对社会批判但乐观的态度。我想，在中国，被生活重担压着的中年人们并不会如此幽默。德国的年轻一族虽然保留了老一辈简单的生活方式，在思想上却更加有活力。我此次结识的很多德国朋友都早早有了自己的工作，并且对未来有明确的打算。，他们知道如何去做社会的一员。中国学生比较有野心，在家长驱使下去追求个人的成功，而德国学生则追求稳定和安逸的职业。
说句题外话，比格斯学院的住宿条件十分棒，学院配备了方便的设施，包括酒吧、壁炉、保龄球馆、几个大会议室和一个餐厅。为了保障效率，每天下午还会安排下午茶。这些设施简直像宾馆。某天在下午茶我想，中国人为什么会不惜失去生活的意思而追求快节奏的生活？为什么我们不能像下午茶这样，腾出一部分时间来思索我们要的究竟是什么？
当我们觉得接下来几天全部都是口头作业和展示的时候，学院教员们拿出了新东西，让我们不至于感到重复。每个中德混合小组会领到一盒木块和胶枪等原料，用来建造自己心目中的城市。
无论如何，在比格斯学院的7天项目将是我人生中最宝贵的财富。我不仅了解到世界第四大经济体的人们是如何生活的，更通过他们的生活方式指导自己的生活后。感谢主办方有组织和专业的工作，使此次项目得以圆满进行。
Germany - Trip of Life
作者：张栋（青岛大学国际学院）
At November and December in 2011, I, together with a group of Chinese students went to Germany for a inter-culture communication program which prove to be a most interesting and memorable experience since I was born.
The first time I was introduced to this program, the instant feeling tends to be rather mixed with both anticipation and reluctance. The prospect of meeting students from a remotest, unfamiliar country on other side of the earth was as striking as communicating with them and obtain knowledge you would never encounter being a couch potato. Though I once was a short visitor of Germany before, the prosperous, storied European country remains attractive and mysterious. You just couldn't help set your feet on it for a second time since there are tons of emerging question to be answered.
After a weary trip of a dozen hours, the mild air flushing into the cabin reminded me of a tourism experience just several months ago. The receptionist, Bernd, who in the coming days proved to be a good and reliable guide, was very hospitable. He tried his best to erase our fatigue. It was still dark when we arrive at the dedicated venue, Akademie Biggesee, hundred of kilometers near Frankfurt Airport.
The coming days were an amazing experience. It means both the German people and environment.
I still remember that in our preliminary gathering in Qingdao, I asked Ma, the head of our team, about how do German education look like and he responded me at length. Our 7 day program showed me a further difference to that of Chinese.
Frankly speaking, you can clearly feel the gap between two groups from two countries after our first meeting in the main conference room. In an awkward way we sat with our compatriots, trying to avoid any eye contacts or communications with the people sitting opposite to us. For two startlingly different cultures meeting in one room, this seems quite common. Fortunately the staffs in this institution adopted a totally refreshed and creative way of getting you into it. They tag each of us in several papers, and randomly distributed them to another people. The two people became a pair, and they are required to introduce each other to the presented after doing a mutual interview. The fun and mystery of waiting for partners really dilute the awkwardness. Everybody picked up a place for their interview and I got my own. My partner, Florian Rodrigo, was a part time college student with a shy smile. We spent some time to switch to an air of conversation, and I found him pretty knowledgable and fluent. To my surprise, there are nearly nothing between us and our conversation went smooth as silk, the language and cultural barrier didn't seem to present. During the talk, we got a rough view of lifestyles, habits and thoughts of the other side. Friendship and intimacy began to develop in mutual understanding and successive jokes that brought the house down.
The second day came with a group work, featuring a creative way of completing assignments --- collage, which sounds alien and new to Chinese students. Groups of same nationality got their own pile of magazines and are required to show what's the advantage and disadvantage of their country, by collecting and clipping materials from the magazines. The method is obviously motivating because the process of taking colorful pictures directly from the pages is such a fun that recalls some of your childhood memory and let you want to do it again. I was thinking how dull it can be to have a education system like China, where students are forced to recite lengthy , formed passages instead of taking new way to exploit the best of themselves. Recitation means you are taking in something in a passive way while methods like collage or presentation are completely direction-free. Alongside the collage work, the six people in our group, all Chinese, had a hard time working as a team. Not that everyone showed no respect to each other but we still have a lot to learn what is believed as team spirit. We spent to much time on persuading others to accept own ideas instead of reaching consensus. As a result, time was a little bit over after we hurried up and rushed out the final part of our collage. For students encouraged to do years of individual works and form their own patterns of doing things, it's quite hard to adjust to a team-based project, which requires not only individual skills but also mutual understanding and coordination ability.
At first sight, the concluding presentation was like a gallery where every eye-catching design of collage boards are exhibited. More interesting is how different is German students from Chinese students in perceiving their own country and other countries. Not surprisingly, the speech of 3 German groups fell roughly in my own perception. Attitude towards tax, ethnic diversity, wealth gap, environment, I had been knowing them for years in both newspapers and TV programs, and the two cultures do have many in common. What really attracted me was their mode of thinking. German people tends to think more clear-cut and logic, resulting in an absence of bias and unsupported speculations in their utterance. For example, they consider marriage as an personal choice rather than a parents-concerning 'deal'. They believe that every problem have solution since they unit as one when asked about how they feel in a torrid time of European debt crisis. What happens on a German board was that every category was clearly defined and presented in an simpler way than a Chinese board. Chinese students tends to cover all relevant details, however, ends up forgetting what is more and less important to say while German group is much too simple as to coming to a point of nothing else to say.
The biggest discovery in the following days was their sense of humor, which destroyed the cliché being 'German people are all serious, humorless, unapproachable monsters'. The directing staff, particularly Bernt, were a group of engines that drove everyone to laugh. To my surprise, they would tell jokes about everything appeared in the topic, even by using self-mockery. High social welfare don't mean they are totally pleased with everything. Wealth gap, speed limit on highway, government were regular objects for taunting, showing a critical but optimistic attitude towards the society. I'm afraid that their counterparts in China, the burden-laden middle age citizens, would not be as humorous. Young people in Germany, seemingly obedient in front of their teachers, are even more energetic in thought while preserving the simple lifestyle of their predecessors. Several of my German friends are quite competent. They have a job and clear plan for the future and they know how they will act as a member of the society. Chinese students seems relatively ambitious and are pressed by the family for a much more elevated personal achievement while German students seems to pursue a peaceful and safe career, defining a competitive developing country and an advanced developed country.
For a slight digression, accommodation in the Akademie was great. The building is equipped with handy facilities, including bar, fireplace, bowling alleys, several conference rooms and a cozy restaurant. Foods really appeal irresistibly to a guesting stomach with its diversity and taste. A coffee break is arranged every afternoon for what they consider guarantee for the efficiency. Every equipment sounds like a hotel, instead of an educational institution. Sometimes in the coffee break I was thinking, is it necessary for Chinese people to choose too quick a pace, ending up sacrificing the meaning of life? What if we let down the fear of lagging behind for a savable moment to think what we really need, just like the break?
When you think the next few days will all be filled with oral work and presentations, you are wrong. Organizers in the Akademie have some tricks up their sleeves that prevent you from getting bored. They created mixed groups and require us to build a model of our own town, using raw materials like wood bricks and glue guns. Group works are needed to make the town to the exbition table. What a crazy ,initiative idea! You would never imagine such kind of funny assignments. The last time I do this dates back to primary school years, when I was curious about every materials I could lay a finger on, and it happened again, in a classroom. Cross-country cooperations add even more fun to it. Three cute German girls sitting around to help us in painting, while we were making wood bricks into intricate buildings by glue guns. Holding each turpentine flavored bricks, I was totally amazed by how creative education can be, and how such a game-like assignment can be a bridge for promoting cross culture communication. I must admit it was the most impressive task I've ever taken as a student.
On every account , the seven-day stay in the Akademie will be the biggest treasure for my life. Not only did I get to know how do people in the world's fourth largest economy live, but also how their mode of living be a reference to my own life. Thanks for the organized and professional work done by the staffs, which facilitated this program.
