they acceptforeigners more readily than the people from the East who never had a lot of contact withforeigners. The GDR employed people from North Korea but they were never allowed to mixwith the general population but were housed in special compounds. Therefore, people in the Eastview foreigners with lots of suspicion and mistrust. Also, the West Germans are much moreconsumer oriented people and do not understand the ?simple? way of life of the East Germans,who are happy and content with little things in life and do not share the ?buy, buy? menatality ofthe Westerners.According to the West, the Easterners have an ?ancient? way of thinking. It reminds the peoplefrom the West of a past they had successfully coped with on their own, transforming them into amodern nation [Feiwel Kupferberg]. In the beginning, the West Germans were so overcome by emotions, that it took a fewyears for the harsh reality to set in. This being: that they would have to pay for the price of thereunification, the country is going to be flooded with immigrant and that in reality neither sidehas much in common with the other. The End ResultThe reunification process was a learning opportunity for both sides. If there had been a transitionperiod for the two economies to become closer together, the process might have run a bitsmoother. Given sufficient time, the economical and political problems will be solved and thecountry will be a new Germany. But this will take at least one generation. According to professorDr. Max Kaase, a social scientist at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, there is no group worthmentioning in either Eastern or Western Germany that wants to reverse the unity or thatdissociates itself from the unity. No-one questions unity any more- as painful as it may be....
