It’s no secret that I’m a Munich gal. And proud of it. Not that it is a personal achievement that I happen to have been born there, but I do think that Munich is so beautiful because the people there make it beautiful. One of those things that make Munich so special is that it’s a big city (with a population of 1.3 million people) but it still has that small town feeling. There are many residential areas that probably don’t look different than anywhere else, but the entire downtown area is just really beautiful. And Munich offers a lot, parks, museums, movie theaters, stores, almost all of the things you could ask for. At the same time it does not feel as busy as most big cities which in my book is a good thing. I think you get my picture: Munich is a beautiful city, a very popular city to live both for people from there and people moving there, as well of a very popular city to visit for German and international tourists. Unfortunately that is what makes it the most expensive city to live in Germany but I suppose you can’t have it all.

Munich is the capital of Bavaria which I like to refer to as the Texas of Germany. It is in the south, quite conservative, and we like to say that it is the best state in Germany. High schools in Bavaria are (or used to be?) considered the best ones in Germany and a high school diploma from Bavaria would usually give you a big plus when applying to a job or university (because the final exams are considered to be harder). At least that’s what everyone says. I am not sure how true it actually is in reality. Most people from Bavaria are pretty freakin’ proud of being from Bavaria.

I personally am not all that Bavarian. Of course I am Bavarian, having been born there (though my heritage is not so if you asked an old-school Bavarian they’d probably wrinkle their nose), but neither do I speak Bavarian (as everyone I meet points out right away), nor am I conservative. Nor am I from small-town Bavaria and thank God for that. You see, small-town Bavaria is conservative and narrow-minded (much like small-town everywhere else I suppose) and that is not the kind of environment I want to live in. But Munich is so different from the rest of Bavaria so I identify with the city over the state. As that, I do not fit the image of the stereotypical Bavarian who speaks a dialect no one can understand, who’s Catholic and conservative (and no offense, but the conservativeness of Bavaria is the thing that is most off-putting to me about my home state).

So much about me. Now, Bavarians have somewhat of a reputation to be cocky about their Bavarian-ness, and that they consider themselves to be better than others. I do think that is true for many. But this has turned around in a way that I cannot even make an innocuous comment about my home state or city because as soon as I say the words Bavaria or Munich (or even just ‘back home’ when the other person knows where I am from), it can happen that they will just disqualify my statement with a “yeah, whatever, we already know everything’s better in Bavaria.” Which of course it is, duh! Okay, I’m kidding … I may have said things like this before but I usually say it tongue-in-cheek. I do think there are nice places to be from and, well, not so nice places, and I do happen to think Bavaria is one of the nicest places to be from, but everyone has to realize that first of all, I am biased, and second, I also like the state I live in right now. And third and most importantly, I do not think any less of a person because of the place they are from. But as a Bavarian, to say something like that, you are automatically labeled as one of those Bavarians who are full of themselves.

And I really hate that. I want to be able to say something good about my hometown without anyone thinking I am trying to put down theirs. Of course this says more about their own insecurities than it does about me, but it can be a real conversation killer. This happened to me here when I went out with two roommates and a friend of one of them where we were discussing how elementary school is handled in Germany. The details are not that important but essentially what he was criticizing was something that is definitely not done in this way in Bavaria so I said that ‘back home’ it was different for us (I agreed with him on his criticism but it doesn’t apply in my home state), at which point he decided to end the conversation with a “yeah whatever …” This was after he had already spent some time hating on one of Munich’s soccer teams (which also happens to be the one German team with continuous international success, Bayern Munich). Which is a whole other story, and in a way much the same (popular, successful, rich, hated by everyone who doesn’t love it).

Last weekend when I went to Passau with a friend to see my best friend, we went to a café. The waitress said something to me which I did not understand (they speak a really strong dialect there which I am not used to), so I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand, I’m from Munich.” My point being that that is why I lack the ability to understand a strong Bavarian dialect. The guy standing next to me then said, “well but you do have to pay for stuff in Munich too, right?” Ummm, yeah, smartass, that was not my point. This made me realize that maybe to small-town Bavarians, people from Munich exude the same kind of arrogance that Bavarians seem to have when you ask any non-Bavarian

Now don’t get me wrong, I would not want not to be from Munich. I love my hometown (despite the conservativeness of Bavaria), and I will just have to live with the fact that some people will be like this. I just wish they weren’t. I wish they would give me the benefit of the doubt. I am Bavarian, I am proud of it, but that does not mean I feel superior to them or that I want to make them feel inferior. In fact, my love for my hometown doesn’t say anything about them, until they decide it does.

Are there any stereotypes about people from a specific region where you live? Do you ever have to deal with any preconceptions like this?