21. Blatant Discrimination
I will just describe the few instances this happened to me here, hmm…let me see the VERY first day I arrived in Germany. We had taken a long 5.5 hour drive from Austria to Badem Wurttemberg, Germany, leaving at 5 in the morning so we could register at the immigration office in time. (Because in Germany, you must register with the city at all times, so the police know exactly where you are at all times, very German) I was wearing a California uniform of Juicy-type sweats (no I did not have “Juicy “on my butt!), flip flops and had my hair up in hairclip. Not my best look, but geesh it was early and a very long drive! Well the lovely lady at the immigration office greeted us with a warm welcome hug and shouted, “Welcome to Germany!!” We’re sooo happy to have you!” NO!! that wasn’t it, it was more like the girls in school that would check you out from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, with a stern, judgmental yet disgusted look on her face. WOW! What a welcome! She was also curt, rude and dismissive to my Austrian husband who spoke perfect German. We were so polite because she had the power to let me stay in Germany and work on my Visa) She said a lot of No’s and was not very responsive to us, the process just seemed arduous and uncalled for, but the stare was the best. It felt like elementary school, I hadn’t felt discriminated since I was in 3rd grade where some stupid 8 year old kids would state racial slurs to me, “Hey chink!” But that was a LONGGGGGG time ago, and as an adult, I never felt any discrimination in a big city like Los Angeles. I would have kicked their ASS! Here in Germany, I felt like an outsider, they looked at me like I was a Vietnamese picture bride who had taken another one of their men away, but I wasn’t, I was an American citizen!! I understood why though, because there are a lot of Asian women with German men, hmmm I can’t figure out why that would be?? Subservient, sweet, Asian women v.s. the Cold Germanic women? Let’s continue, so next stop our move to Augsburg, located just an hour from Munich in Bavaria. We had frantically looked for housing online for a few months, looking at hundreds of apartments. The problem was being in a University town, there were few apartments that were bigger than 100 sq meters. Most were 40-70 sq meters= less than 500 sq ft which would barely fit our closet. (OH Closets!! More on that later!!) It took months, and many hotel trips to look for apartments that came with a kitchen, was clean, updated, had parking, some space for our furniture and within our price range. We gave up on the good neighborhood and time was of the essence. At the beginning of our search we had found what we thought was the perfect apartment. It was beautiful, modern, only 3 years old a single guy had lived there, dark wood floors, modern 2 baths, great kitchen, floor heating, balcony and only 4 other tenants on a quiet street, perfect! We talked to the owner of the Real Estate agency over the phone and after a 30 minute interview, the agent agreed we would be the perfect candidate, a couple with no kids, no pets and able to move in on their date. He promised we would be the first to see it and that it was ours and all we would have to bring was our last few paychecks to verify funds. So we made the 3 hour trek, paid for a hotel and even detoured our wedding plans, just to see this apartment!! When we showed up, we were surprised to see 2 agents there with 2 other couples showing them our apartment! The agent (who worked under the owner) seemed distant and non-engaging, did she even want to sell us the apartment?? I had a weird feeling when I left and after we requested to meet the landowner of the unit, they said they were busy and couldn’t meet us. This was almost a sure thing, till we got there, something had gone wrong, I wanted this soooo bad and was desperate, we had no other apartment lined up and we already had a move out date! I was sooo stressed out!! The day we had to leave for work, they met with the other couple and we lost our apartment, weird. Now, I had no idea what had happened and I was so pissed that guy led us on, what had gone wrong? Till the next incident, few weeks later after researching many more apts online, I finally found another nice looking apartment within our price range. Again, a conversation with a real estate agent, and a discussion with the landlord who would be there to meet us. She said we had a very good chance of getting the apartment, because the other prospective tenants had kids and all we would have to do was meet the landlord, she would also be bringing the rental contract. So the decision was ours, if we wanted it, or so I thought. It was cute, very modern, few flaws but then we met the owner, he was a gruff German man in his contractor pants, we complimented him on the construction of his unit, he owned the building and the unit. After a quick tour and him telling us we could not put any holes (not one nail) on the walls and that we had to move the 50 stacks of firewood on the balcony to the cellar, we were told we had to decide right then and there if we wanted it, I asked for a few hours to think about it but we had to give them an answer at that moment. I remember seeing the rental agreement in the real estate agent’s hands and she seemed cold and aloof the whole time to us. (More on real estate agents later!!) So we said yes, they said they would call us in a few hours on their decision, probably after another appointment, ok….then we got a call after we waited in the car for hours waiting for them, we had nowhere else to go! Then they said he wanted a few more days to think about it and would call us in 2 days, we knew that was weird again, I couldn’t figure it out, my husband said it was nothing but 2 apartments in a row? I knew something smelled fishy here! How come everything was a go, till we showed up and we arrived to meet them, an Asian girl and a white guy, then suddenly a change of plans?? I finally knew how black people feel when they are discriminated against for the color of their skin, we were perfect candidates till they saw us, it was a first in my life for me, blatant in your face discrimination, I call this more than a coincidence. We never got the return call from that agent, we gave up on that apartment too.