In their ongoing quest to make themselves appear more cosmopolitan than their peers and pamper their fragile egos, elite German people have achieved good results by preposterously associating themselves with some kind of external entity, often a foreign country. Any German person who has stayed in another country for more than two weeks straight will readily be considered an expert by his peers, and, what may be even more remarkable, take up that job without significant self-doubt.

Between Woodstock and the 1980s, the United States had been the favorite ego proxy for elite German people. However, by the time the 1980s came to a close, the association with American pop culture was taken over by “boring” and “mainstream” people like MBAs, lawyers, and bankers, and suddenly elite German people were forced to gather all the creativity they could muster and look for another, more obscure country to have a contrived relation to and again be able to feel superior to those irritating “Normalos.” Elite German people were never able to forgive the professional German people this expulsion from paradise and therefore still have hard feelings towards them.

Except for India’s 15 minutes of fame due to Bollywood movies, the number one country had been Japan - a dependable source of obscure and edgy culture for white people all over the world to misconceive, steal, and exaggerate, and German people were no exception. The unique selling point of Japan had always been its obscurity. Unlike the over-explored USA, elite German people could rest assured that Japan provided them with a multitude of quirky and edgy cultural tidbits to safely impress their peers with. Questioning or challenging the German person’s half-baked expertise wasn’t an easy task as Japan always had been sufficiently arduous and expensive to travel to. More importantly, the self-proclaimed Japan pundit was kept safe by the social conventions of the German elite: Publicly doubting iffy trivia such as “Dude, no Japanese person actually eats the ginger served with sushi — that’s soooo not authentic, you know” would paint the naysayer as being “simply jealous” and complicated.

If you are now thinking, “Great, so I’ll be able to impress my German acquaintances by telling them about all those totally C-R-A-Z-Y and unbelievable things that happened during my stay as an English teacher in Tokyo”, the following will surely disappoint you:

You’re way too late, dude. Elite German people have once again been forced to deny any interest in Japan, the former paradise of obscurity. With the internet becoming increasingly ubiquitous thanks to new technology like the iPhone, any member of the plebs can now easily fact-check the expert German person’s every statement in an instant. Because nearly 100% of elite German peoples perceptions of Japan are of course irreversibly distorted by their western upbringing, keeping up an interpretative authority would require a true interest in the culture reaching beyond food, quirky encounters, and artsy underground movies. As elite German people must always exude an aura of non-commitment, they usually shy away of anything that requires an actual effort or might be seen as non-ironic geekery.

The demise of Japan as the number one source of superiority-by-obscurity is actually applauded by the most advanced Germans. Many aspects of Japanese culture were never really compatible with these peoples’ worldview — heck, it even ridiculed some of the most highly regarded concepts of elite German people:

• Giving a frig what Greenpeace thinks about whaling and justifying it by such lame concepts as “cultural differences”. That’s right — in some cases, Germans will make an exception from their usually ubertolerant approach of cultural differences.
• Quickly embracing and adapting new technologies instead of aiming for an ironically retro lifestyle with 70s TV-Sets made of leather and Leica cameras that weigh in at 6kg.
• Putting up vending machines with used schoolgirl’s knickers for dirty old men to buy. Ok, those probably never existed, but don’t bore your German acquaintances with such a pesky obsession with details.
• Being, at best, indifferent to the social security of 30- and 40-somethings who freelance in “design”, and glorifying uncool and probably reactionary ideals such as “hard work” and “making lots of money in the corporate world” instead.
• Reckless and abundant wrapping of items in plastic and putting these in another plastic bag, only to put them, you guessed it, in another plastic bag. All that evil plastic! The thought alone will make elite German people shiver with disgust
• Sweeping ignorance of Takeshi Miike, who is the most important Japanese movie director ever, at least according to elite German people.
• Having no qualms with downright evil concepts such as capitalism, conservatism, or shark-fin soup.

It is easy to see why the elite German peoples’ relationship to Japan has always been a troubled one. Luck has it German people just recently discovered a new, emerging player in the global marketplace to pretentiously associate themselves with: China.

The transition to China as the new superpower of obscure subculture to pamper the western ego with is a really exciting time for elite German people. Most importantly, China can still be considered a communist country. Since the assimilation of east Germany and the sellout of Cuba, elite German people have never given up hope for communism to return and provide them with more products that have an amateurish yet irresistible “planned-economy” charm, and therefore are a powerful symbol against capitalism and can charmingly stress one’s personal individuality.

“Wait a minute,” you might say, “German people hate China for its politics toward Tibet”. Well, not necessarily. Elite German people love to take sides in foreign country’s political issues. Talking about these at parties, rallying against them on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and then soon forgetting about the whole mess is an important aspect of the political life of every elite German person. Hence a completely faultless political track record would actually be detrimental to China’s rise to the top. There would be no reason to be offended. German people hate it when they have no reason to be offended.

But the most attractive feat of China is its censorship of the internet. Elite German people can rest assured that their bold exaggerations about their experiences in China cannot easily be falsified by, well, basically anyone who knows how to use Google.

It is highly recommended for you, dear Auslander, to not waste any more time and make good use of the mystery still surrounding China. It is a surefire way to impress German people. Now is the time to lay some foundation to your claim to expertise on all things Chinese. If you are one of those poor losers who work in a proper company or don’t have the funds to spend three weeks in Shanghai, here are some talking points to add to your daily routine. Just ask your German acquaintances to join you for dinner at that interesting new Chinese restaurant you recently discovered, and try a few of the following proclamations while keeping a stern and straight face:

“This Sichuan restaurant is okay, I guess, but back in China, we were real fiends of the Cantonese cuisine. I guess you guys will get it here in a few years time.”

“The lack of a proper Yumcha place in Kreuzberg is a real shame. Oops, I guess around you guys I should use the more layman term ‘Dim-Sum’…isn’t that what you still call it over here?”

“Back in Shanghai, I was invited to DJ some electronic music at this totally intense night-club full of Russian oil barons and their model girlfriends. A strange scene, yeah, but also a total surreal experience. You should have been there.”

“I brought back a huge stack of DVDs of never-heard-of-movies by these really obscure but genius Chinese directors. One part of me wants to tell you about them, but then I kinda also want to protect these great, authentic people from the Western eye and ultimately become spoiled by Hollywood…let me ponder this thought a little longer, just ask me again later and I might let you in on the secret.”

Don’t worry about sounding like a preposterous idiot. Your German acquaintances will be so embarrassed by their lack of experience they will be thankful for any bit of information they can get from you which they will then use to impress their even less cosmopolitan peers with as soon as you are not around.

A word of warning: You might have noticed that the attention of elite German person works like that of multinational corporations. Once they have seen enough of a certain country’s underground movies, they start to get bored by the whole culture and will soon abandon that country. Anything that would require a bigger effort than watching some DVDs and now and then visiting an ethnic restaurant isn’t necessary and deemed non-spontaneous.

Don’t ever speak out this inconvenient truth, as it would make you look nerdy in a non-ironic way, and you would lose all the respect gained through your cursory expertise on a foreign country’s subcultural banalities.