Katja Hoyer: preference

Transcript context

…Let’s say someone pays you a good stipend so you can live where you want. Put aside work commitments, family commitments, where in Germany would you actually want to live? That was what you had to do to get the stipend. Where would you pick? If I had to live in Germany, which I would really rather avoid—I’m very happy in Britain; that would be my first choice. If I had to live in Germany, it would definitely be somewhere northern rather than in the south because that is the second people always think of Germany, when they think of Germany in East-West terms. Actually, the North-South divide is much older and much deeper, I would say. For someone like me to go to Bavaria, say, it feels like you’re in a foreign country. You don’t really know the social conventions. They’re very conservative, very Catholic still, a very different culture compared to the northern half. Definitely in the north, I always feel more comfortable the further north I get. I like being in Hamburg, for example. I like being by the coast. People are very calm and often a bit aloof as well, but I quite like that. A very calm, to me, quite polite, cautious way of being, rather than the sort of brash culture that is associated with other parts of Germany. I’d probably end up somewhere along the coast. Hamburg, to me, is the most British part of Germany, of course.…

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