Austrian Folk 41THE AUSTRIANS ARE AN INTERESTING but complicated people. Their
day-to-day life is conservative and quite regimented. They are
deferential to a fault, dress neatly and properly depending
on the venue, and are always punctual. Frugal and moderate,
they enjoy their children and retain close connections with
family, and like to meet their friends at the local coffeehouse.
For leisure, they enjoy the outdoors and sports related to each
of the four seasons. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The Austrian personality is a paradox. Austrian humour
and grumpiness are tied into one. Whether at home or
at work, they complain about most things: colleagues,
neighbours, their children and their health. However, they
also yearn to make good and to be accepted, and their pliancy
helps them achieve this. This manner of being makes them
appear contradictory and inconsistent at times, and they
end up saying yes and no to everything and everybody.
Some believe that this ambivalence has roots in Austria’s
landscape, ethnic mix, history, attitude toward religion and
mature civilisation.
Their sense of humour is not obvious. Austrians rely on
wit and irony, rather than on pun. The wit shines through in
their use of wonderfully vivid names. Nestroy, a comedian
and playwright, employed the word Lumpazivagabundus in
many of his works as a label for a scoundrel and vagabond.
Irony, known as Weltanschaung, is where the Austrian
tends to see the whole world in himself. Self-deprecation is