Showing posts with label Detroit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Detroit. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Apple Wonderland

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in Romania and just LOVED apples. She loved apple cider, she loved apple pie, but more than anything she loved to pick apples off the trees (preferably the neighbor's tree) and eat them until her stomach hurt. Her parents told her many, many times that it wasn't nice to steal the neighbor's apples and also that she shouldn't eat all the apples at once. But the little girl was very stubborn and didn't listen to her parents. She kept eating way too many apples from the neighbor's beautiful apple tree. Even when she grew older, the fall was one of her favorite seasons, because she could just pick apples and eat as many as she wanted. Her friends were very suspicious of her appletite, and laughed at her for eating so many apples all the time. "One day, you'll have an apple tree growing out of your belly," they said. The little girl, who was not so little any more, felt very sad and alone because nobody seemed to understand how delicious apples were that you just picked from a tree. Until one day, about 25 years later, in the city of Detroit, she discovered that she was not the only person in this world who loved apples. She went to an apple orchard, where literally EVERYBODY loved apples.


The girl had never seen anything like it before: Row after row after row after row of apple trees. All bursting with apples, ready to be picked.







And the best part: nobody would get angry at her for picking these apples or eating them. They even drove everybody around in a tractor so they could pick the apples!



The girl had found her magic apple wonderland. She picked as many apples as she could carry, and ate even more. She only stopped when her stomach hurt - just like she used to do when she was little. And the best part, at the very end, she even got to eat apple donuts!



It was probably the happiest apple day in the girl's life!



Friday, July 19, 2013

Oh Ford

After three months in Cincinnati, I have packed my backpack again, put on my traveling boots and now I am finally back on the road. First stop: Detroit, aka Motor City.
Naturally, I spent an entire day at the Ford Museum. And while the history behind the car company is really interesting and it was cool to see the assembly lines in the Rouge Factory, it was the way the brand name "Ford" was presented at the Rouge to the visitors that impressed me the most.

Ford Rouge Factory

It started on the bus on our way to the factory. We were shown a short but dramatic video about the Rouge Factory. And while we were already in the mood, the first thing we got to see at the factory was a documentary about Henry Ford and his success story. Before we actually watched the documentary, an elder gentleman (honestly, he looked like he had met Henry Ford in person) spoke a few - dramatic - opening words. Just to make sure we would all be aware of the greatness of the movie we were about to see. The movie was only 15 minutes long but it had all the tricks of persuasion that you can imagine: moving words, touching music and, of course, drama. Apparently, this wasn't enough so we were shoved into the next movie theater where we watched the making of a Ford pick-up truck on seven screens with live effects (steam, water splashing, vibrations). And somehow the very dry, sterile process of  car construction became really dramatic. Why do I keep stressing this word? Because even though I know that Americans love the pomp and the drama (at least, that's how I call it from my rather rational and serious German perspective), it never became so clear to me as it did watching the skilfully made propaganda at the Ford Museum. Believe me, if Americans want to sell you something or convince you of something, they sure know how! Long live the spin doctors! If even I had tears in my eyes and for a split second believed that American cars are better than German cars - I can see how an entire nation started believing that there is no real breakfast without bacon and eggs, I can see how so many people in the world know the slogan "yes we can", and I can definitely see how a great part of the world could be convinced to believe in weapons of mass destruction. I am not sure if this is something we should admire or something we should be scared of ...