Dortmund

The Vietnamese journalist Hung Nguyen Viet is a guest of our editorial office in October thanks to the Goethe-Institut’s Close-Up exchange programme. Here he reports on his impressions of discipline in traffic and the relationship of the citizens to the police.

“The thing that surprises me the most when I take public transport in Germany is the fact that I can easily access the underground trains without having to pass through a control gate, as one must in most countries. In Japan, Singapore, France, Italy and in America there are automatic turnstiles.

The fact that these do not exist in Germany reveal great self-discipline. Once I saw an older man miss his train in the Berlin underground because his hands were shaking so hard that he could not insert his ticket into the slit on the validation machine. He would rather miss his train than break the law. I then helped him stamp his ticket so that he could take the next train.

A Vietnamese man who has been living in Germany for over 20 years told me that he ‘caught’ German correctness to such an extent that when he accidentally once dodged the fare he had the feeling that huge rocks in his shoes prevented him from getting on the train. The way that all citizens, from pedestrians to drivers, strictly follow the traffic rules also shows how well organized society is. Even when the light has turned red and people nonetheless cross the street, the motorists allow them to do so by waving their hand in a friendly manner.

This kind of behaviour is hard to imagine in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, where traffic is rather chaotic and everyone tends to fight the others for the right of way. They even drive over red when there is a police car in the area.

Friendly conversations

In Dortmund, Bochum or Berlin, where I spent a great deal of time, I have never encountered a traffic police officer. In Vietnam, traffic police are always present on the streets.

Only recently, however, I saw a number of people in uniform at once in the pedestrian zone in the centre of Bochum. They are all friendly; they can even make music and sing very beautifully in the middle of town while the citizens stand around them and applaud. There is an information booth for citizens. I observe as many passersby and residents stop and talk cordially with the police officers there.

It is also a good opportunity for the citizens to speak directly with the police and express complaints if needed. In this way, the citizens are given the impression that the police are friendly and approachable.