Bull

As you might know already I live in Germany, and I have never been to the USA.
So please allow me to ask some questions I have about America. Please do not feel offended by the questions I ask - I do not have the intention to provoke or offend, I only wish to learn.


As far as I know in the USA there are several black-areas. What will happen when a white person enters one of those?

Some years back in school one girl told me about her experiences in America as she was over there for vacation: she was told some Americans believe Hitler was the german president of today. Have you ever heard something like that?

What is bigger in the USA - basketball or football?

Is there an American Mafia?


I will probably add some more questions later on ... thank you!

Nick the Quick

Most black areas are Compton, Inglewood, Oakland, East Palo Alto, they are not as bad as they are led to believe. Just don't hang out at night time around places like that. Its not cause its a black area, we have lots of cultures here, they all have gangs. I would be more worried about getting lost in some rednecks backyard, they shoot first ask questions later.

No Americans don't believe Hitler is the president. Most Americans know that the German public had know idea who Hitler really was, he was a monster, thats why we socked it to him. We like German people, beer and brats, whats not to love. Just don't ask us who the current president of Germany is cause we won't know or care.

Football is bigger in TV audience, but basketball is played a lot in parks. And do you mean soccer or american football? Cause Soccer is popular sport for kids to play, growing really fast, I think more kids are on soccer teams now then they are on football and baseball teams. But not many people watch soccer here.

American Mafia, yeah Microsoft. You don't hear about too much. But I would imagine so. Nothing like the old days or movies though. But I'm not sure on that, so many different groups of gangs and such.

I actually took german in high school. I can't remember that much, but I remember it was pretty easy to learn since its really similar to english (Both germanic).

Where would you like to visit in the United States? Northern California is really nice, Hawaii, So Cal, New York, Lake Tahoe, Vegas for a UFC event.

Weasel

I also have a question - It's only a minor one and very trivial, but the other thread with the fighting at Denny's brought it back to mind lol

What is a 'short order cook'? what's the difference between that and just being a cook?

This is a good idea for a thread Bull - It may help clear up a few questions I have as well

AikaImmortal

Good question, is it Merkel or Schroder??

A short order cook is someone who usually cooks at a fast food joint.. a regular cook usually prepares dishes rather than dump frozen fries in a bucket of grease

Most of the 'mafia' in my part of the states is Emme, the Mexican Mafia. Pretty much drug trafficing. The west coast has some Yakuza cells (Japanese mafia) and some Triads (Hong Kong).. as for the mafia families you see in the movies, most of the Italian mob located in NYC has been 'broken up' or so we are lead to beleive. I dont know much about the russian mafia though.

(i love gangster films so that lead me to do some research on what actually does happen.. dont think im a bad guy!)

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Nick the Quick

Short order cook makes things like french fries, grilled cheese, tuna melt. They don't make complete meals like you would order at a restaurant. At least thats what I think they are, I have never worked in the food industry.

Yeah I'm set to fight Chuck "The Short Order Cook" Kiddell this weekend at DPLFC 55.

Weasel

Thanks, I got it now

Weasel

Like I said before, watch out for that pencil he uses, it's sharper than Loiseau's elbows!

IrishLaoch

I have to add some more in about the 'Black Areas'. Black areas when rap first emerged in the late 20th century were struck with poverty. But i think now the black ghettos are shrinking, and its becoming more white along with black. Around my hometown black and white people are accepted as ghetto/gangsters/ drug dealers. Im not sure about else where in the country because just going a hundred miles south or north things change alot.

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Laoch-Warrior

angryjonny

One thing I would like to know about Germany and U.K. and any other country if there are any that post here.

In the US they will show gratuitous violence over sex/nudity. Also this is only as topic of the conversation I am not actually saying them (you guys know I don't swear) bitch, ass, and damn are all words that are acceptable on basic television programs. Sometimes even worse. What is it like in your countries? Similar or completly different?

IrishLaoch

I got a question. How popular is American Football over there(if you even play it that is). And how popular is baseball, and MMA.NHB events. Id say in America NHB evnts are very unpopular.

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Laoch-Warrior

Weasel

In the UK we have what is called a 'watershed' on TV whereby after 9 pm at night anything goes as far as language and violence is concerned. It's certainly not uncommon to hear the F word. You can't have any bad swear words before 9 though, although the 3 words you mention jonny would be considered okay.

Sex is a slightly different matter as we're still uptight about showing full on sex on the normal channels, but if you have satellite and you don't mind paying extra, anything goes! (not that I've ever watched anything like that you understand *cough*)

Weasel

In the UK I would say American Football is not very popular, although it has grown in popularity over the last few years as Channel 4 and 5 do cover some games, and the Superbowl is televised live but suffers from the time difference with it being shown in the early hours of the morning. It is more of a spectator sport though and is hardly played at all.

Baseball has even less coverage than American Football and is therefore not popular at all.

Since you mentioned MMA I could go into a long rant about how it doesn't get the coverage it deserves, but then I'm biased because it's a passion of mine

It really is quite popular over here though, and thankfully is starting to get more coverage, but only on satellite. It will be a long, long time before the BBC shows MMA. Infact I think I can safely say it never will, no matter how popular it becomes. I think it still suffers from the early days when it was percieved over here as having no rules and being illegal and barbaric, and it was almost if you were caught with a copy of UFC 1 you could be arrested!

angryjonny

Haha, I bet you don't. I wouldn't imagine that stuff being popular.

Thanks for the info. I've always been curious. Now to elaborate a bit more. What kind of stuff is acceptable during the daytime on basic channels, not cable? Also what does your news channels show? Our stuff has no problem with showing graphic pictures and violence. For instance the 9/11 disaster was showed an exhaustive amount. They showed the planes directly crashing into the towers over and over and over. It was really disturbing. Finally enough people complained about it that they stopped actually showing the planes going into the building. They will also show videos of people being brutally beaten on hidden cameras and such. There is still an incident that sticks in my mind as something I wish I would have never seen. It was a dash camera of a female police officer being brutally beaten by this really large black man after she pulled him over, while his kids were in the car screaming at him to stop it while he was hitting her. It still bothers me to this day and it was many years ago when I saw that. I think she nearly died from the beating she took.

Weasel

On daytime on the basic channels, things are a lot more strict. You can't really get away with showing anything violent or having any swearing. Not that there's a great deal of anything worth watching at that time of day anyway, just soap operas and chat/talk shows - and if its old Jerry Springer stuff the swearing gets beeped.

The news channels sound to be fairly similar to yours, they certainly showed 9/11 exhaustively and they will show things like gangs of youths beating up on people and stuff. One thing they will do though before they're about to show stuff like that, or especially stuff like dead bodies or animal cruelty, is the newsreader will say something along the lines of, 'please be warned the following images some of you may find disturbing..'

[Danny]

Bulle ist am kühlsten

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SeikanJudanski

Well, you can say anything you like on german television, words don´t get cut out. Just recently I noticed they are starting to beep out certain words in talk shows, but I think they do it out of fun, not because they are worried about the graphic language.

Violence, yeah they do cut some stuff out, but not like in the states, and after 10 they show the R versions.

Sex/Nudity .. ok that one shocked me too when I came here. Almost every TV station except the big ones.. (sorta like ABC or NBC) shows graphic sex movies, and you don´t need cable for that. Almost every TV channel shows soft pornos at 11, some of the regular channels even turn into sex channels after 11. lol. Telephone sex comercials are everywhere, that´s how they make their money. The only thing they don´t show is the actual intercourse, but they will show pornos shot with a different angle, so you can´t really see "it". All in all, germany has no problem at all with nudity, if they did, they wouldn´t show all that stuff.

If you ask me, it´s sick. Any kid can turn on the TV after 10 or 11, and watch this stuff.

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Bull

[Danny], you cannot translate "Bull is the coolest" like that. LOL You are saying I was sort of frozen, you know. "Bull ist der Coolste" - that's it.

Thanks for every response. That is very interesting to read.

Seikan, I got to disagree with you there in some points.
We in Germany do have very strict censorships: all day long you can see programs for kids and the ones suitable for people of age 12. From 8pm to 6am you can see the 'harder' programs suited for children of age 12. From 10 pm on, you can see programs suited for people of age 16, from 11pm on the prgrams for people of age 18. Very brutal movies such as the original version of "From Dusk Till Dawn" are "indiziert" (meaning: it endangers the youth and promotes violence, it may not be made accessable to persons under 18, and you may not advertise for the product) and will not be shown on TV (only on pay-tv with a certain permission, sometimes). Even tougher movies get banned. "Indizierte" movies are shown on TV in some cases, they just cut out some or maybe even all of the brutal scenes - so you have an idea about the plot, but not about the faked death scenes. It is different when it comes to the News or some certain reports I think (not exactly sure what the rules are).
In TalkShows every f-word gets cut out and some other very bad words - not sure about the talkshows at night. But they do not cut it out when a person gives someone the finger (I have seen that on American TV). What will get cut out are the female breasts and human genitals - unless it is for medical reasons. They even censor some songs and/or music videos at a certain time of the day.
Sex movies may be shown, it depends on how explicit they are. Porn movies on the other hand can only be seen on pay-tv and Austrian TV.
Seikan is right about the phone sex commericials - all night long, some of them are like 20 minutes long.
Oh, and we got dubbed versions of your American commercials such as the one for "Power Juicer". LOL

Soccer is the most popular sport in Germany. You probably cannot even imagine how popular it really is over here. And beer. LOL
American Football, Baseball and MMA is kind of popular here, but not very much, if you ask me. We "like" Basketball more. It is not that easy to say because it probably depends on where exactly you are.

Hope the information I just gave you is correct. If not, I apologize.

Seikan, why do you think they are just starting to beep some words? They have been doing this for quite some time. And what exactly do you mean by R-Versions? - you know of our FSK.

Bull

We don't know yet.

[Danny]

I'm taking German II this year and I'm really really dusty with it. My bad.

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Bull

If you ever need help with your homework .... LOL