What does shaving my legs have to do with saving the planet?

This weekend I went shopping and shaved my legs.

To those of you who don’t know me, you might be thinking to yourself, “That’s not interesting. That sounds like a normal weekend to me.”

But to those of you who do know me, you know that is abnormal behavior for me. Not only do I abhor shopping, but I have not shaved my legs in four years.

Why am I blogging about this? Because I am fascinated by what motivated me to commit these abnormal behaviors: social norms.

In other words, my abnormal behavior is actually normal for most people, and therefore I felt compelled to change in order to fit in.

An affluent city, Munich is crawling with trendy people. Thus, since arriving, I have felt like a frumpy American with my slowly out-dating wardrobe, which has motivated me to acquire the trendy European look.

As for the shaving, sure, both German and American women shave their legs. So the normative pressure to do so is no different here than when I was in the US. But what probably motivated me to “become normal” in Germany is tied to my self-consciousness as “foreign” and my desire to draw as little attention to myself as possible.

So, what does shaving my legs have to do with saving the planet?

My prosaic anecdote was intended to set the stage for what I really want to talk about: social norms and environmental behavior. If we apply social norms to motivating people to adopt planet-friendly habits, they can work pretty much the same way.

In fact, there is a growing body of research to back this up. Perhaps the most well-known scholar to unearth the power of norms in environmental behavior change is psychologist Robert Cialdini. For example, he and his colleagues found social norms to be the strongest push for Californians to use less energy in their homes and for hotel patrons to opt to reuse their towels to save water and energy.

Social norms are not just an American thing. German researchers found that, in a variety of contexts, Germans were most influenced by the people around them in their environmental behavior choices, and a Michigan State researcher suggested peer pressure motivated Chinese farmers to convert cropland back to forests.

If we all were to do a little self reflecting, we might recognize how our own behavior–environmentally related or not–has been influenced by our family, friends, colleagues, neighbors and community members. If social norms continue to prove to be a potent factor in encouraging environmental behavior, the possibilities for creating a mainstream transformation in how humans treat the planet are abundant (I think so, at least).

That said, I do recognize the irony that both shopping and shaving aren’t considered “environmentally friendly” activities…

Further Reading

“Shaping Pro-Environment Behaviors”

“Social Norms & Social Networks”

“Social Norms: An Underestimate and Underemployed Lever for Managing Climate Change”

“Social norm strategies do work — but there are risks involved”

On becoming a more assertive bicyclist

As a dedicated bike commuter, I was overjoyed when the weather became tolerable enough to get back in the saddle. However, I quickly realized I was mentally ill-prepared to take on Munich’s streets. Even having learned to maneuver the Calcutta-like masses of students on UW-Madison’s campus, I have never before experienced a magnitude of bike traffic like Munich’s.

On one hand, it is a beautiful thing that so many people get around by Radl (the Bavarian version of the German word for “bike”). Munich’s diversity of bike commuters is much richer than the mostly young and (0ften) liberal crowd typical of most American urban biking scenes. To add to the expected herds of university students and young professionals, the biking population also consists of business men and women in suits (and sometimes pumps, if the latter), elderly women with shopping bags, elderly men just putzing along, chic middle-aged ladies with designer bags, and kid-toting parents.

Of course, the magnitude of bike commuters is likely due to the fact that Germany, in general, is a much bike friendlier country than the US. Biking is so much more engrained in its culture and its infrastructure. For example, Munich has a remarkable network of bike paths and lanes (and many of the latter are placed on the sidewalks, rather than in the streets), which makes navigating the city much easier on bike than by car. I have also found drivers to be much more mindful of cyclists than in the States; in other words, they actually look for cyclists before making a turn.

On the other hand, the popularity of biking creates a hazard of its own: more cyclists.

Having never before shared the road with so many bikers, I was a nervous wreck during my first couple of weeks in the saddle, as I acclimated to the ways of the road. I was that annoying slow biker that swerved or stopped at any sign of confusion. I felt like a skiddish horse every time a biker would narrowly whiz past me in the bike lane, sometimes so close I was surprised I wasn’t knocked over.

A lesson I recently learned is to avoid Munich’s bike paths on Sundays, especially warm and sunny Sundays. The paths are swarming with cyclists: from your super-sporty, why-the-heck-is-he-going-that-fast road biker to the wobbly child who leaves you guessing which way he is going to weave as you attempt to pass him.

Biking is especially tricky in the pedestrian and tourist-heavy parts of town. In these places, you have to add clueless tourists unfamiliar with Munich street etiquette to your already busy radar.

I have found Marienplatz (Munich’s pedestrian mecca) to be the worst. Beware the tourist who steps into the middle of the street looking only through his camera’s viewfinder, or the one standing in the middle of the bike lane totally unaware of the oncoming cyclists frantically ringing their bells at her! Even though biking through Marienplatz is my most direct work-to-home route, I have resorted to riding home the long way, just to avoid its mayhem.

Thus, in order to survive as a bike commuter in Munich, I am learning to become a more assertive cyclist. I can’t falter when I see that car about to turn at the intersection I am about to cross–more often than not, the driver knows I am there. I can’t panic when approaching an area congested with pedestrians and other cyclists–I have to weave my way around with confidence. I can’t startle when someone passes me too closely for comfort–I have to stay cool and move over. And I can’t get nervous when I want to pass the slow biker I’ve started tailgating–I have take a deep breath, ring my bell and hope for the best.

Slow travel: a state of mind

Last time I was in Europe (ten years ago), my traveling philosophy was quite different than my current one. I was like most college juniors on a study abroad adventure: I wanted to see as much as possible. Just about every city I visited whizzed by me, as my travel mates and I rushed about to make sure we saw every medieval cathedral, art museum, castle, and/or sculpture garden our guide books told us to see.

Probably the most extreme case was my race to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa on a one-hour train layover. I just had to cross the famous architectural blunder off my list. Now, I don’t actually remember the tower all that much. Instead, my hurried trot through the busy streets while schlepping my heavy pack and my anxious worry over missing my train connection stand out more prominently in my memory. (Fortunately, I did successfully see the tower and make it back to the train station in time.)

Interestingly, most of the sightseeing I did while studying abroad are my hazier memories of that experience. Sure, I could flip through the hundreds of pictures I took to refresh my memory; but, in reality, the photo album I had carefully pasted together has taken up a long-term residence in the bottom of a box that I never unpack. Instead, my most vivid and fondest memories were the experiences I had actually living in Freiburg.

These days, the idea of running around a new city (or from city to city) trying to see every sight listed in Lonely Planet seems very unappealing. I much prefer to linger in one place and get to know it in a more genuine way.

Recently, I learned there is actually a term for this kind of travel philosophy: slow travel. Not surprisingly, this concept is part of the whole “slow” movement (e.g., slow food).

In a sense, slow travel is about mindful travel. In “A manifesto for slow travel,” the editor of the the travel magazine hidden europe explains, “Slow travel is about making conscious choices. It is about deceleration rather than speed…And slow travel also reshapes our relationship with places, encouraging and allowing us to engage more intimately with the communities through which we travel.”

The Huffington Post‘s Omer Rosen wrote a consciously generalizing plea to globe-gallivanting college students to settle down and sit still, which I wish I could have read ten years ago (although, I wonder if the appeal of slow comes with age). He essentially places hither-and-thither traveling under the umbrella of consumerism–it’s more like crossing a place off your shopping list than actually experiencing it.

Through the narrative of my recent day trip to Dachau, I’ll offer my take on some of the basics of the slow travel philosophy.

1. Do not travel with a definitive agenda.

I toured Dachau with no real agenda other than to follow my impulse. For example, my impulse told me to buy a delicious-looking piece of raspberry chocolate cake and eat it sitting in the sunshine, even though it was before lunchtime. It also told me to wander along the footpath that ran parallel to the town’s river just to see where it went.

2. Move slowly.

In other words, walk (or bike) as much as you can. My day in Dachau was a “spazieren gehen” sort of day. It helped that the town has a fabulous network of walking paths conveniently labeled with signs to help you steer yourself around. I ended the day with a solid set of blisters–it was the seasonal debut of my flip-flops, which tend to always punish me for banishing them to the closet for months.

3. Experience everyday, local life.

A tiny taste of Dachau's charm. Image by Unknown

This can mean many things. Suggestions I’ve seen include taking a cooking class from a local chef, learning some phrases in the local language, and volunteering with a local organization. Since I was only in Dachau for the day, I count my walk around the main city cemetery as my everyday life experience.

While walking around a cemetery might sound like a morbid activity, German cemeteries can actually be beautiful and peaceful places. Some of the ones I’ve seen are more like forests with grave sites as underbrush. This cemetery was one such cemetery. Its graves were incredibly well cared for; nearly all of them were neatly landscaped and adorned with fresh flowers. Burning candles even stood watch at some of them. And I witnessed a couple dozen people carefully tending their loved ones’ resting places. Perhaps it was the sunshine, or the flowers, or my general mood, but I felt very moved by the experience.

4. Do what you really want to do, not what you think you should do (or what the guide book tells you to do).

You might have heard of Dachau because of the darkest part of its history: it hosted a former Nazi concentration camp. While this association taints its name, the town is otherwise very charming.

I actually chose not to go to the concentration camp. Among my reasons, the day was ridiculously gorgeous and I decided I’d rather enjoy the beauty of the world. (Also, for context, I have previously visited another concentration camp, Buchenwald; and as German major in undergrad, I quite-intensely studied the Holocaust and Germany’s coming-to-terms-with-it. So I wasn’t feeling a lack of exposure to that history.)

However, this is not to say you should totally ignore your guide book. If you really want to see a certain sight, do it. But only if you really want to.

I ended up visiting a sight mentioned in Dachau’s tourist brochure that was not what I really wanted to do, but what felt I should do: the city history museum. When I wandered into the small museum to check out how much it cost, the reception area was empty. Upon realizing my presence, a women walked in from outside, where she was gardening, and gave me a very friendly greeting. After asking her the entrance cost, I felt guilty saying “no thanks” and bought a ticket. I think I might have been one of the few, if only, museum visitors that day.

The museum was not a waste of time. I saw some interesting Bavarian artifacts, and the exhibits offered good language practice, since they were in German. It was just not what I really wanted to do, which brings me to…

5. Revisit a place that makes you happy.

What I had really wanted to do was revisit the garden of Dachau’s palace. I had already meandered through it that morning (I had eaten my cake at the palace’s cafe, which overlooks the garden), and I found it so beautiful that, once I had done everything else I felt like doing, I wanted to return to it. So, after I finished with the museum, I did.

The garden was bursting with tulips and other flowers and bordered by pink-blooming trees. Since it sits atop a hill, it offers an amazing view of the Bavarian landscape, which the day’s clear sky made even more spectacular. Munich’s cityscape poked out in the distance, and the Alps loomed in the horizon (I think they might have been under the influence of the Foehn, a warm wind that makes the Alps look larger than usual).

For about an hour, I sat on a bench under one of the blooming trees with my notebook and my thoughts, alternately writing and gazing over the landscape. I was fully content.

A glimpse of Dachau Palace, but not from the same month, so the flowers I saw were a little different. Image by Adele Claire

6. Be a resident of your destination, not just a visitor.

At its core, slow travel is about becoming a temporary resident of your destination, not just a tourist. The slow traveler learns how the locals live, does what the locals do, and savors the time it takes to get acquainted with the place and the culture.

So, as I plod along in building a connection with Munich and the rest of Bavaria, with no departure date in sight, I guess you could call me an extreme slow traveler.

A few resources to read slowly…

“The Art of Slow Travel,” from the Independent Traveler

Slow Travel Europe delves into a deeper explanation of slow travel and provides other relevant links

Another take on slow travel by a grassroots organization dedicated to all things slow

Berlin has its own slow travel website…I wonder if I should start a Munich satellite site?

The World Institute of Slowness offers info on other things to do slowly