The German-Indian-Mexican-Iraqi Connection

In case I have never made it abundantly clear, I would just like to state for the record that I LOVE beer! Thus, when my mother proposed we attend Oktoberfest, I did not hesitate to reply with a resounding affirmative. The celebration of German-Austrian culture is a thin disguise for the main event - the mass consumption of huge amounts of alcohol. Huge amounts.






Along the periphery of the venue, I was vaguely aware of the presence of food and entertainment, mostly in the form of bratwurst, potato pancakes, and men clad in leiderhosen slapping themselves to the strains of an accordion, but I was hard pressed to distract my attention from the joyous opportunity to become outrageously intoxicated in the company of 10,000 people wearing silly headpieces such as felt hats, Heidi wigs, and a full American-Indian head dress. I'm not clear on the Indian-German connection, but then neither did I comprehend why a full mariachi had just taken the stage. The reasons were irrelevant. I was so damn excited for a little taste of Mexican culture, even in the midst of schnitzel and Jaegermeister, that I immediately jumped up to stand in the front row and smile at them encouragingly.





It was from this vantage point that I immediately became aware that something was desperately out of whack. Maybe it was the fact that the music started a split-second before the band had lifted their instruments, or the fact that the suspiciously Caucasian-looking trumpet player (whose Pancho Villa mustache was clearly made of shoe polish ala Grouch Marx) was fingering violently despite the fact that no trumpet sound was coming out of the speakers, or maybe it was the hearty scream of "Ai, Ai, Aiiii" that seemed to come out of no-where, since no performer was making any overtures that could have possibly created such a ululation. Sadly, and with no small amount of disappointment, I realized that I was watching the Milli Vanilli of Mariachi Bands. I applauded graciously, but the magic of the moment had passed and I was now ready to go home.

But, oh we were very far from home. The festival was deep in the heart of the Western suburbs, and if the long train ride didn't confirm this, the abundance of neck tattoos and mullets certainly did. My mother has proved to be very popular with drunk Australian men, and she had soon made many new friends on the shuttle bus returning us to the train station. They soon convinced us that we would be much more comfortable waiting for the train at the pub across the street. Three beers and two trains later, we finally stumbled onto the platform and had a spirited exchange of taunting and trouser dropping with our new friends across the tracks. I defer detailed descriptions of this aspect of the evening to my mother's new blog, because after all, a video is worth ten thousand words and is just damn hilarious.





Not so funny, however, were the group of young Iraqi boys congregating on the platform next to us. As we traded jeers with the men across the tracks, it seemed at first that they were joining in the spirit of fun, but quickly did the tone of their taunts change, and soon they erupted into angry Arabic chants aimed at our friends on the other platform. They were clearly very amused at their own cleverness in being able to hurl insults at others in a language they couldn't possibly understand. Brimming with a confident curiosity born of alcohol and sauerkraut, I diplomatically interrogated the gang for a translation. They were clearly reluctant to tell me, a "foreigner" and a woman just what unpleasantries they had been yelling, but I eventually wore them down, despite their claims that it wouldn't translate well into English. I reassured them that even white people are cognizant of the subtleties of threatening anal rape.





Of course, I am still very disturbed by this scene for more reasons than I can articulate, but I am also very happy to be back in the safe happy melting-pot of the leafy Northern suburbs. I heard on the news this morning, that there was some sort of brawl downtown last night, in which several young men had been stabbed. My thoughts immediately turned to the group of agitated youth who had boarded our train, and I will confess in the pages of this public journal, that I half hope it was them.