Adventures in cross-cultural gynecology

Posted by Jul on 6 August 2008
blog

Two short stories for you from my recent trip to the gynecologist in Munich:

Story #1: The waiting room was quite full, and the women were getting restless. Glimpsing the crowd, the doctor came out to loosen us up with a joke (here translated by me from the German): “What’s the difference between an Ossi* and a Turk?…. The Turk has a job and speaks German.”

I wondered if there were any Ossis in the crowd.

Story #2: My name finally gets called, and I go in to see the doctor. Upon hearing my accent (or perhaps from reading my name off the chart), he asks where I’m from. “New York” I say. His response: “The pretzels in New York City are awful! So soft! Horrible!”

At least he didn’t try to blame me for it.

* Ossi is slang for a person from East Germany.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,

Comments (10)

  • Global Librarian
    August 6th, 2008 08:46

    C’mon, Jul. You know that you are personally to blame for the soft pretzels in NYC. Would you please just live up to it and apologize to all Germans everywhere so that we can all just move on?

  • Anon
    August 6th, 2008 15:19

    my ossi boyfriend replied, “is that supposed to be funny?”

  • headbang8
    August 6th, 2008 15:34

    He was actually your dentist, but you just wanted to post that picture of the vaginal-looking pretzels. Am I right?

  • Diane Mandy
    August 6th, 2008 16:44

    We must be on similar wavelength today. Can you believe I also posted a story today about my trip to the German gynecologist? Weird!

  • Jul
    August 6th, 2008 21:37

    GL – Never! But Hollywood movies and the death penalty are totally my fault.

    Tessa – Judging by the hysterical laughter that erupted, I would guess yes. But as someone who feels herself more Ossi than Wessi, I totally know where he’s coming from. :)

    Diane – too funny! I think we should start an annual international gynecological visit blogging day.

  • Jul
    August 6th, 2008 21:39

    Anyone else get the feeling that it’s been a reaaaaaaly long time since Headbang has seen a vagina?

    I mean, not that that comes as a surprise or anything. Just sayin’.

  • headbang8
    August 6th, 2008 23:46

    Oh, come on. It’s as plain as the nose on my face.

    Which has been in close enough contact with vaginas to have made a serious study.

    In fact, it’s been eskimo-kissing a clitoris or two longer than I personally think was strictly necessary, but one does that to be a gentleman.

  • Jul
    August 7th, 2008 08:38

    Well, I will agree with you on one point, Headbang. You are nothing if not a gentleman.

  • Angela
    August 8th, 2008 03:09

    LOL oh my goodness, whenever I think of how awesome it would be to live in Switzerland, my adopted favorite country, something like this reminds me that I would be very afraid to deal with medical attention where there’s a language barrier. Yikes! But that is too funny about the pretzels!

    PS – I tagged you for a meme. Have fun!

  • Jul
    August 8th, 2008 20:11

    Angela – don’t let me scare you too much. It’s actually pretty easy to find English-speaking doctors in Switzerland – at least in Zurich it was. :)

    And just to warn you, I tend to be pretty bad at meme follow-up. But thanks for thinking of me.

Do you have anything to say?

« 
 »
Powered by Wordpress and Stripes Theme Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS)