Welcome to Germany

 There are lot of myths my people believed about Germany. Some are funny, that Germen drink beer and eat sausage every day. Some are unrealistic, for example, people can maintain a delightful lifestyle by receiving social welfare (the famous Hartz IV). And some are scary. Unfriendly faces to immigrants, glass celling in leadership roles, and racial discrimination.

It's true to all immigrants, in fact, no matter where you choose to go to. You are now part of the minority. That means, you concern lies on the margin. The public focuses are somewhere else. No one (or very seldom) sees your pain, you struggle. 

What's worst. You do everything to survive. You sense the inconvenience every day. The unfriendly look on the street, sometimes escalating into a loud shout, which can be occasionally, as you don't understand the cursing, so you can comfort yourself that it is NOT meant to throw on you. You wonder, you ask yourself: IS THIS ON ME? Did I do anything wrong, which this society does not accept? One time a cashier in the bakery repeated angrily my order and only then I realized I've pronounced the bread wrong. I was first humiliated, but the sentence "Hey, that is really unfriendly to laugh about it" choked me. It appears that I made a mistake first, but does it deserve to be mocked? 

I bet all local claims that most of them are "open-minded". I do agree that it is already a big progress that people realize revealing their hatred toward new-comers by throwing eyeballs are inacceptable. But what they take for granted is the passive ignorance. Go to a party hosted by the majority ethnic and you will find out that if you don't speak the local language, people will just consciously leave you alone. 

Even you do speak the language fluently, you can be still not interested in their topic and be the silent and boring one in the group. Because, like I said, your focus drift to somewhere else as your background are completely different. You, trying to get your driving licenses, because before you find your job you are not even sure whether you can even stay here legally, while the most of your co-workers get theirs at 16. Your search and your story with the coach is boring, as most of the peer are past that stage, especially when you are unable to tell stories in the most vivid way due to the lack of the fluency. Your weekend sounds boring too, as you don't have a car which takes you the mountain, and you can't afford skiing in the winter time. But from the others perspective, they are kind enough to give you the opportunity to take part in the conversation, to let you convince them that you are one of the group, disregard of you come from completely different places. The only way they accept is still to behave like rest of them, that means talk about the next holiday location in the break, eating salad for lunch and avoiding bring unfamiliar eastern food to avoid possible strange question, drinking alcohol and organizing partys in the weekend. Your unique story, your perspective is not particularly interesting, simply because they can't or even don't want to relate to it.

Again, this article is not a complain of how arrogant or self-centered the majority are. I'm just humbly suggesting that the so-called "inclusiveness" is far more than satisfying. When I walk in the city, I can tell the immigrants look almost right away, the fake smile on their face. They are anxious all the time. They are always ready to say sorry, to nod, to agree. They are not confident to be themselves, because they sense the impatience on other's face when their tongue tied as they are tying looking for the appropriate words. 

I can almost see your eyebrow raising, if you are a native and you are patient enough to read until here. Well, if it is that bad, if it makes you that isolated, why don't you just go back? You ask, with a friendly smile. Yeah, I scoff, you make it sound like going back is an option. You just don't understand where we comes from, what we saw, and how desperate we were to realize we can't live there, the place we used to call home, for the rest of the life. 

And escape to another country is not a panacea. We quickly come into realization of our destiny of being a stranger. I started few weeks ago a stupid fight on a forum with some girls who married local, only because I shockingly find out that they don't seem to realize how their marriage help them out when it comes to inclusion. They seems to believe that if you try hard enough, people just magically accept you, though from where I see, is that they feel home here because their husband introduced them into the circle. See? Even among our own people who share more common traits, we split, we disagree.

I have to conclude pessimistically, for most of immigrants, we are the outsider, a drifting soul, for a very long time. People praise us to be hardworking, never fighting back, quiet, as if we know our position and are grateful enough to be allowed to live here. We don't dare to ask if it is fair, at least not before we become flawless.