For all the hullabaloo and vehement rejection by many of my compatriots of what is considered the "Germanification of Greece" (under the pretense of saving the country from bankruptcy), Greeks are showing increasing signs of not only becoming more like the Germans, but also of enjoying the transformation.
There is not a single Greek who hasn't poked fun at the archetypal German shopper, who, as the anecdote goes, visits his local supermarket and buys one slice of watermelon and exactly four tomatoes. In pre-crisis Greece, such behavior, especially in food shopping, would be frowned upon and considered a source of great embarrassment. The average Greek would go out of his way to avoid demonstrating any kind of thrift, even in the cases of households where four tomatoes would make much more sense than two kilos of tomatoes that may ultimately end up in the garbage.
Since the early 80s, Greeks were conditioned to favor as a role model the luxurious living of the ancient Sybarites of Magna Graecia over the Germanic lifestyle of the ancient Spartans: an apparent hallmark of progress which signalled an end to the deprivation that had been the hallmark of long stretches of modern Greek history.
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