"So formal? Were you bullied on the Reeperbahn? You shouldn't be. The security there is very good. The St. Pauli Police Station is right in the middle of the street." Marx reacted immediately after hearing Hong Tao's words.
"Oh, it's not that question, it's about... How should I put it, today when we were eating by the lake, we met a German young man..." Hong Tao thought about it for a moment, and then repeated the young man's original words.
Read it again.
"Oh, let me answer these questions for you. Marx and Schweide are Germans. I am afraid they will not evaluate their motherland fairly. And I am Norwegian, so my views are more neutral and fair. You said
What about Marx?" After listening to Hong Tao's retelling, Pan immediately became excited, as if being able to bury her husband's motherland was her greatest honor.
"No problem, dear, Schweide and I are not nationalists. The current problems in Germany are also very troublesome. Although we are not politicians, discussion is still necessary. I also want to know whether China has any problems in these aspects.
A better solution." Marx was quite generous and did not blame his wife for exposing the shortcomings of his motherland, and it seemed that he planned to hold a seminar on Germany's domestic problems.
Most people are very interested in criticizing others, at least Hong Tao and Wang Jian are happy to do this kind of thing. Although Marx and Schweide are rich N generations, their thinking patterns are very simple, and there are some things that Hong Tao seems not to have thought about.
Comprehensive. Pan is simply a female Nazi. The questions she raises are sharp, the solutions are straightforward, and she has serious violent tendencies.
The four of them talked a few words and I asked a few questions. They chatted until midnight without clarifying a single question. In the end, it was Pan who did not want to stay up late because of her appearance, so this seminar at the level of the prime minister of the country was temporarily ended.
However, she also put down her words and will continue the conversation after dinner tomorrow. The conversation is not complete until it is thorough.
After returning to the room and lying on the bed, Hong Tao couldn't fall asleep for a long time. Maybe it was because his brain was too active during the chat just now, so he didn't feel sleepy at all. Since he can't fall asleep, don't get tired of the bed. The more tired he is, the more he will fall asleep.
No, the best way at this time is to let yourself be quiet. At the same time, stop the fast-running brain, and wait until you feel a little sleepy before going back to bed to sleep.
Hong Tao put on the big nightgown prepared by Pan, walked barefoot to the balcony, sat on a wicker chair and lit a cigarette. He looked at the Elbe River in the night and the brightly lit Hamburg port area on the other side of the river. Not only did his brain disappear,
It stopped spinning. Instead, the topics I just discussed came to mind again, and I couldn't erase them even if I wanted to.
In fact, Hong Tao didn't need to be so concerned about the problems existing in Germany, but these things touched him too much, or were too unexpected, whether he was surprised, surprised, or shocked,
Anyway, it somewhat subverted Hong Tao's original views on Germany and even Europe as a whole.
Originally, Hong Tao's understanding of Europe or Germany was pieced together from many indirect, abstract, and scattered information sources, and this view is generally recognized by Hong Tao or many Chinese people. But through talking to that German guy
and the conversation between Marx and his family. Hong Tao felt that there was a gap between his original views on Europe and Germany and reality.
Originally, Hong Tao believed that Europe, as the continent with the most developed countries, experienced the devastation of World War II and was hijacked economically and militarily by the United States. However, a skinny camel is bigger than a horse. It should be better in terms of technology, economy, culture, and social welfare.
It is at the forefront of the world, and even in some aspects it is by no means lagging behind the United States.
But the Germany that came out of Pan's mouth was completely different from this, and it was not Pan's family opinion. Both Marx and the Schweide brothers also recognized it, and everyone was talking about these things that night.
The first is the problem of rich and poor Germans. Of course, I am talking about most ordinary Germans. We cannot use rich generations like the Marx Brothers as examples.
According to Pan and the German guy who smoked cigarettes, most Germans are very poor. Pan also gave an example of this. A German research institution once conducted a survey. On a random street in several big cities in Germany
We stopped a hundred people and checked the cash on them. As a result, Hamburg, the richest city in Germany, ranked first, with a total of 1,997 euros. In other words, the money of these 100 people together did not exceed 2,000 euros.
Some people may have said that foreigners don’t like to carry cash with them, they all swipe cards. Hong Tao also refuted this just now, but he was laughed at by the Marx brothers. They said that it is an American habit, and Europeans like to carry cash as well as swipe cards, especially
Middle-aged and elderly people in Europe, like the Marx brothers, unless they want to buy something very expensive, such as a car, they are still willing to pay cash as long as the other party does not forcefully ask for a credit card.
In addition, Schweide also added that even if they swipe their cards, ordinary Germans don’t have much money in their cards. Many employees in their company often ask him to borrow money to buy things, and then return it to him after their wages are paid on Monday, so Monday
When wages are paid, it is not a time for Germans to be happy, at least in Schweide Company, because they have just received their wages and their debts have been paid off. There is still nothing left on hand, so it is like working for a week in vain.
Then someone said again that they wouldn’t save any money!
This sentence is nonsense. If you don’t have much money left every week, how can you save it? And in Europe, just like the United States, you can pay in installments for anything. Even if you repair a faucet, you can also pay in installments with the repairman. This way of stimulating consumption allows
Most European people have become singles without savings.
But Europeans obviously earn more than us Chinese, so why can’t they spend enough and save savings? Hong Tao thinks this is very unscientific!
Indeed, other European countries don’t know that, at least in Germany, the salary of ordinary people is indeed much higher than that in China. In cities, the average monthly salary is about 2,000 to 2,500 euros, which is almost 20,000 yuan in RMB. This is
In any city in China, in any company, there is also high income. Please note, this is the average salary!
But here comes the problem. Not to mention that Germany’s consumption level is many times higher than China’s (Europe’s consumption level is getting higher and higher from south to north, from west to east). It is this tax that is killing ordinary German working-class people.
Damn it. Germany is a high-tax and high-welfare country, and taxes account for half of your income. So even if you work in the city and earn 2,000 euros a month, you will only get 1,000 euros, or even less.
I got 1,000 euros, of which 300-400 euros need to be paid for rent. A month's Hamburger Card costs another 60 euros. It costs about 300 euros to cook for myself for a month. Plus other pocket money, there is basically nothing left.
Unless your parents leave you a property or something, but most people can’t afford this inheritance tax.
As for the price level in Germany, there are both cheap and expensive ones, and it is generally higher than that in China. Milk, juice, beer, chocolate, and wine are very cheap, even cheaper than in China, and the quality is very good. The cows are really milk, and the juice is really good.
Juice, never add anything else.
Except for these things, everything else is basically much more expensive than in China. For example, when going to a restaurant, the price of a dish is basically the same as the cost of a meal for two people in an ordinary restaurant in China. This is not a high-end restaurant. The price of dishes in high-end restaurants is generally
When a dish costs between 45 and 150 euros, even a wealthy person would feel bad eating it every day.
High taxes, high consumption, and high welfare have caused more and more young Germans to be unwilling to go to work and would rather rely on government relief to survive. The young man Hong Tao met by the lake in the afternoon was this kind of person.
, I am lazy and poor, I don’t work and I don’t have pocket money, but I still want to smoke, what should I do? I have to go to tourist areas and ask foreign tourists for cigarettes. Anyway, they don’t cheat on me, they are very polite when I ask, and I will give it to you if you want.
Don't be pulled down.
The German government's work efficiency is not very high, and in some places it is even more procrastinating and bureaucratic than China. Let's not make comparisons on this issue. This thing is quite sensitive, and it is not good to say too much.
