Blumenau, an un-German, German town

AN UN-GERMAN GERMAN TOWN

Various Brazilians have recommended a visit to Blumenau in Santa Catarina state. It is a town that was built by German immigrants over the last one and a half century or so, and is still proud of its European roots. Its Oktoberfest attracts hoards of tourists every year, and any promotional leaflets show smiling and laughing white people drinking beer at big gatherings. I decided to check out the place myself.

I arrived in heavy rain, clearly reminiscent of what could be a normal day in Western Europe. The hostel that I had booked had Austria in its name, but I had chosen it more for reasons of location than anything else. The Brazilian owner couldn't speak German but his family name did contain a "u" with an umlaut to give away his ancestry. After having dropped off my suitcase, I grabbed a tourist map and headed for the  well-known Vila Germanica.

It turned out to be a lot smaller in surface area than expected, and a lot more touristy and commercial. More strikingly, it displayed a "typically German" culture that I'm sure would make my friends from Germany roll around the floor with laughter at the degree of kitsch. The images of their 'Heimat' were almost like a Grimm fairy tale, but definitely not like something that I recognized as a realistic portrayal of contemporary Germany. The female shopkeepers were wearing a "Dirndl", with its full skirts, its white blouses with puff sleeves, and its tight-fitting bodices. The images of men showed that the default for their outfit was leather Lederhosen with a felt, Alpine hat. Also, the architecture and figurines in Vila Germanica made me giggle, with their quaint, traditional colours and styles. So this was what visitors to this town were presented with as being characteristically German?

I chose one of the restaurants with a view of the little square. The menu was restricted to supposedly Bavarian dishes. I didn't have the choice: I had to go for beer and a dinner with some sauerkraut, potatoes and lots of meat - no less than two kinds of sausages and two pieces of pork. No salad? Looking for something green on my plate, I did find a measly, little sprig of parsley. I realized that I hadn't consumed that much meat for a long time, but hey, when in Rome....

A tour through the town showed several buildings with whitewashed walls and wooden beams. Balconies and window shutters conjured up views of Swiss and Austrian villages, albeit less authentic here. The neat flower beds, public statues and clean streets were also a reminder of many Germanic towns, as well as the look of people on the street. Still, I regretted a bit that the general population didn't show the wonderful racial mix that I had observed in big cities further up north in Brazil - or in today's cosmopolitan centres like Berlin, München or Köln, for that matter. I thought that Blumenau was a very quaint German town that was rather un-German.