A Tale of Two Oktoberfests

As we sat at a nondescript sports bar overlooking the arrivals gate, there was little to identify our present location.  A brightly-lit Starbucks was just meters away, and smartly-dressed businessmen with blackberries and suit bags were rushing along in every direction.  But then the table next to us ordered another round of beers, a liter each, as our coffees arrived.  It was only 7:40am, and such a sight struck as overly aggressive until a young American couple dressed in lederhosen and dirndl reminded me that we're not just in any airport arrival gate, we're in Germany!

It's Oktoberfest in Munich, and we sought to embrace the culture, whether that be quaint traditional clothing or an early morning ale.  So having finished our coffees and still waiting for the arrival of Gary's delayed flight, we ordered a round of beers.  Normally I would hesitate to drink beer at 8am on a Friday but A) I am on vacation, and B) it's Oktoberfest and that sort of thing seems to fly around here.  In fact, the waiter gave us an incredulous look when we first ordered the coffees and, come to think about it, every other table was ordering beers.

Usually when prompted by a waiter to order I can quickly scan the menu and respond with something that I have enjoyed before.  But in this case nothing was at all familiar.  A Paulaner Dunkel? Or maybe a Paulaner Leicht?  A Kristalklar?  A Hell?  Well, nine years of Catholic school has conditioned me to reject the latter, so I ordered a Dunkel unsure of what would come.  Its a malted wheat beer, and not all that bad, but it's hard to appreciate a brew consumed between coffee and cornflakes.  As I enjoyed it I wondered what other elements of this trip would take me outside of the familiar.

Wurst, or course.  Pork (or swine as some of our observant coworkers refer to it as) is regarded as unclean to both Jews and Muslims, so its hard to come by in both Israel and Palestine.  Oh, of course, and the whitefish sitting out in the hot Tel Aviv outdoor market all day is perfectly clean, but I digress.  I ate more wurst (pork sausages) in the three days we spent in Munich than I had in the preceding year.  There was beerwurst, bratwurst, knockwurst, weisswurst...you get the picture.  And the sauerkraut...I was in heaven.  Well, if heaven is a place filled with beer and sausages (which it must be).

But even more impressive was the sense that this was no charade but a vibrant part of Bavarian culture.  Yes, beer and bratwurst are Oktoberfest (and German) stereotypes, but under-reported is the fact that EVERY local seemed to attend the main Oktoberfest grounds in perfectly selected lederhosen and dirndl.  Not to impress to tourists, of course, but because that is how one conducts oneself at Oktoberfest.  The best definition that I ever heard of culture is that culture is what members of a group do to show that they belong. While boarding the Munich subway en route to the festival grounds we were a tiny minority by not wearing lederhosen and drindl.  But rather than think that everyone else was crazy for wearing those outfits, I couldn't help but be impressed at the awesome vitality of the culture.

This past weekend we attended another Oktoberfest, but one much closer to home.  Taybeh, Palestine, is home to the only brewery in the West Bank and the biggest Oktoberfest in the Middle East.  There was no lederhosen or wurst, but with beer at $2.50 a pint you won't hear any complaints out of me.

The contrasts with the Munich Oktoberfest are too numerous to mention.  After all, Munich hosts millions of tourists and just celebrated 200 years of Oktoberfest festivities.  But there was one similarity that left me breathless.  Just as Munich's Oktoberfest is a visible, edible, wearable expression of Bavarian German culture, so too was the Taybeh Oktoberfest a tribute this this unique corner of Palestine.  One of the few purely Christian village in Palestine, there were olive wood nativity sets and local olive oil for sale.  Mothers shared date and fig pastries as children played with homemade toys.  And local bands blended soulful Arabic hymns with generous helpings of jazz, raggae, and rap.

Like the lederhosen in Munich, at first I thought that this an isolated and outward expression aimed at tourists.  But as my eyes panned around to the overwhelmingly Palestinian crowds, I realized that what I was watching was intended mostly for local consumption.  Commitment to family and faith, and openness to blending the best of traditional and imported styles...these are the hallmarks of modern Palestinian culture.  They lag far behind lederhosen, beer, and bratwurst as internationally recognized symbols of a vibrant culture.  That's too bad.  For these are bedrock elements of American culture as well, and symbols that Americans too infrequently associate with Palestinians.  Or other Americans, for that matter.