德國：詭異的幽默感 Germany: Peculiar sense of humour
凱碧歐拉有一頭直順光滑的金髮，明亮有神的碧眼，還有健壯的一米八身高。凱碧歐拉是我在盧森堡四大之一的會計事務所打工時所認識的同事，她在稅務部，我在審計部。她時不時會邀我去她的公寓吃飯，而我也挺沒臉沒皮的，人家招啊我就吃。她當時是已經當了十幾二十年的素食主義者，招待大家的都是一桌西方的素菜。必須得說，以一個亞洲人（鄙人我）的口味而言，還是台灣的素食有滋有味得多。凱碧歐拉幾樣菜色裡我印象最深的是甜甜的草莓沙拉，雖然稱之為沙拉，可能應該就是草莓切開混著糖水……吧？
Gariella has beautiful straight blonde hair all the way to her waist, bright and joyful blue eyes, and a strong built body at 180 cm height. Gariella was my colleague in one of the big four audit firm which I worked in; she was in tax department and I was in audit department. Gariella hosted lunch or dinner catch up at times, and me being shameless, dined as offered. She had been a vegetarian for couple of decades by then, so the meals were always vegetarian dishes. I have to say, my personal preference (being an Asian) would still be the vegetarian dishes from Taiwan. From the dishes Gariella offered, what I remember the most was a strawberry salad — despite calling it salad, it’s more likely just cut up strawberries in sugary water?
凱碧歐拉閒聊著跟我說了她打算報考德國稅務顧問的證照，打算在上班之餘報個為期兩年的線上課程來準備這個考試。相較於我自己報考美國會計師執照的準備時間，兩年的課程似乎相當漫長。凱碧歐拉於是解釋道：我們德國人凡事喜歡有個制度，這考試我最多只能重考兩次，也就是說我終其一生一共也只能考三次。如果三次都沒過的話，就算哪天我五十來歲稅務經歷充足想要重新考個證照，我是連報考都沒得報。
In our chitchat Gariella told me that she planned to sit exams to become a German certified tax advisor (Steuerberater), and would participate in a 2-year long online course to prepare for the exams after work. Comparing my own experience in sitting US CPA exams, a 2-year course seems to be a rather long time. Gariella explained: Germans like rules. I can only resit this exam twice, so for the life of me, I can sit this exam for 3 times. If I didn’t pass for the third time, it means that even if I was in my fifties, had plenty of tax rulings experiences, and decided I was ready to sit the exam — they would not even let me register.
德國的民族性的確非常有趣。她又跟我說德國政府不允許父母幫自己的小孩取一些莫名其妙的名字，用意是要減少小孩子們在同伴們中因為少見的名字受到排擠。比如說 Beyoncé 的愛女 Blue Ivy 這麼個名字，如果是德國人要用的話不知道能不能註冊上出生證明。還有一回我在鄰近盧森堡的一個德國城鎮的藥局裡買止痛藥，藥局的店員問我我的地址登記，才賣止痛藥給我。我丈二金剛摸不著頭腦的和當時身邊的友人說了，他解釋道，有些歐洲國家為了降低有人拿這些成藥來嗑藥的可能，會監管居民買藥的頻率。我簡直匪夷所思，咱以前在美國住的時候止痛藥一次都買一桶的（沒有誇張，真的可以在超市一次買一小桶一兩百粒的止痛藥），在德國我買個十粒止痛藥都要登記地址？
Germany does have an interesting culture. She told me that German government does not allow parents to give their kids some random names, with the intention to reduce the peer bullying from having a less common name. For example, not sure if German parents could successfully register their daughter’s name using Blue Ivy (same name as Beyoncé’s daughter) in the birth certificate. Even more, once I bought painkillers at a German town nearby Luxembourg, and the clerk would only sell me the painkillers after registering my address. I had never been asked for my address while buying painkillers, so I mentioned what happened to my friend who was with me then. He explained that some European countries want to reduce the possibility of people get high on this type drugs, they’d monitor the frequency of people who buy painkillers. I was gobsmacked. When I was living in the States, I would buy painkillers in a jar — literally, a bottle of 100–200 pills of painkillers — in the supermarket. And when I wanted to buy 10 pills of painkillers in Germany, I had to register my address first?
我住在盧森堡的四年多半是和義大利人往來，和德國人接觸的並不多，唯一一次算是被丟到德國人的圈子裡是當時公司送我們剛升上經理的同事們和其他 EMEIA區 (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) 的新升經理一起去荷蘭受訓。我被編排到受訓的班級裡接近有三十位同事，就有印象的同事中德國同事就佔了五位，高達整班人數的十七趴。和德國同事的交流中最有印象的是在受訓結業派對裡，其中一位喝醉了的德國同事跟我說了一個在德國聽說是家喻戶曉的卡通 ，他說；這卡通裡有一隻猴子還有一隻馬，有一天馬來找猴子，跟猴子說，我們得趕著去什麼地方，快走吧！猴子說；好。就要上馬的背，但是馬卻一口氣跑走了。同事百思不得其解；為什麼馬撂了話就走了，不是該等猴子一起去嗎？我看了他一眼後說；應該是不想被猴子騎吧。他頓時茅塞頓開，笑到不能自己，還跑掉嚷著要跟其他的德國同事分享這個新發現。我卻是深深地不能理解德國人的笑點。之後和其他的歐洲人討論德國人的幽默感時， 大家都有志一同的肯定我的觀點；德國人的幽默感不是凡夫俗子可以領悟的。
My socialised group was mostly consisted of Italians during my four years’ tenure in Luxembourg, not many Germans. The only one time when I was surrounded by Germans was when all newly promoted managers in EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) area got sent to Netherland for a training course. The group I was assigned to was of roughly 30 managers, and from what I could remember, 5 of them were Germans, approximately 17% of the total class. The most vivid interaction I had with German colleagues was at the after-training party, a drunk German colleague told me about this allegedly well-known cartoon in all German households. In the cartoon there were a monkey and a horse, and in one of the episode, the horse came to find the monkey and told the monkey ‘we have to rush to get to somewhere, let’s go!’ the monkey agreed but before he could get on the horse, horse had left without him. This colleague was deeply perplexed as to why the horse left without the monkey. I looked at him and said, likely because the horse doesn’t want the monkey to ride on him. This apparently dawned on him, and he was laughing hysterically. He ran away exclaiming that he was going to share the eureka with other German colleagues. I was left profoundly confused as to what I actually said being considered humorous. Later whenever I discussed German’s sense of humour with other non-German Europeans, all of them confirmed my viewpoint — German’s sense of humour cannot be comprehended by commoners.
無三小路用通識之猴子與馬 Useless Common Sense of Monkey and Horse
