So much has happened since my last (and only) Berlin post.
First: Michael Jackson died this week. What a travesty. The entire American team was so upset, and the Germans didn't understand until we explained that Michael Jackson is for America sort of like the Beatles were for the UK. Then they got it. The day after he passed away, we went to a German house party, stole a room and all the Americans (plus one German and one Bosnian) played hella MJ songs and danced the night away.
Now, to the other stuff :)
I'm feeling Berlin a lot. I've been through some ups and downs here, mostly because the program is not what I expected it to be. I've adapted, though. I think I was expecting to be more emotionally challenged, and instead I've been learning tons of information and having to reconsider the way that I approach situations and theories, since in Germany the approaches are often totally different.
Yesterday I went to a speech by Thomas Laqueur, who is a very well-known American historian and probably gonna be the next American Historical Society president. His latest book was "Solitary Sex: A cultural history of masturbation." His entire talk was in German, though, so I couldn't understand a word. Lizzie and I went, and counted the number of times the words "taboo," "orgasmus," and "masturbasion" were said, as well as the number of jokes made in German (he was on a roll!), and the technical difficulties. Good times. Then we went on a tour of the Reichstag, the main parliament building.
A few nights ago, our entire group (minus Casey, who went MIA for the weekend) went out to eat at this restaurant called "Dunkel." The restaurant servers are all blind, and the entire dining room is pitch black, so you literally can not see a thing. We broke up into groups of six to eat, and I was sitting with Jelena (who's from Bosnia), Frithjov and Julie (German fellows), Anton (one of our German staff), and Eleanor (one of the American fellow's friends, who was visiting). Eleanor joined us after we had already been seated, and none of us had met her before, so I went through this experience of getting to know someone by her voice in the complete darkness, which was really cool. When we got out into the light and I saw her, she looked nothing like what I had imagined. We all made a mess at dinner, but I successfully transferred my dessert bananas to Frithjov without spilling, and none of us ended up with stains on our clothes, so we were quite proud :).
Saturday was the Transgenial/Alternative Christopher Street Day Celebration in Berlin (basically Berlin's Gay Pride). The Transgenial Parade was created as a response to the more mainstream parade, which many people feel has gotten too capitalistic and has lost all of its political messages. The mainstream one is full of corporate sponsors and is not super inclusive of lesbians, transgender folks, gender queer folks, etc. (At least this is the message I've been getting.) I know a fair amount more about this issue now because we finally picked research topics about a week ago, and Leon (a German guy in our program who is from Colon, Germany, but goes to school in Amsterdam) and I are working on the use of the "LGBT" label on the organizational landscape in Berlin. The parade was really cool, and full of colors and signs and glitter, and made me miss Pride in San Francisco. It's also really cool to talk to people who are actively working agianst the idea that there is one normative way to be "gay." Leon and I spent time there, met up with some of the people we've been interviewing, people-watched, danced, and ate some deliciously cheap pizza, before heading to Treptower Park for a late-night picnic party with the other fellows.
Fashion in Berlin is really fun. It's pretty laid back for the most part, and everyone wears whatever they want, so everyone looks kinda funky and unique. Sometimes it just looks sloppy, but I never, ever feel like I'm being judged based on my clothing, which is so so different from New York City. Love it!!!
I've rediscovered my passion for reading novels here, but at the expense of my journal writing. I found a bookstore by Friedrichstrase that has a floor devoted to foreign language books. They have a pretty extensive English section, so I bought Girls of Riyadh, which is like a Saudi Arabian Gossip Girl and is FABULOUS (I'm almost done with it. I highly recommend it!!), and Into the Wild. Reading has now become my favorite pasttime on the S-Bahn or U-Bahn, since I typically have a 45 minute trainride into the Berlin center. This means, though, that I haven't been writing as much, which is sad. It also happens a lot in my life that I go on mental overload and can't seem to pen down my thoughts when I'm busy diving into my book/another world. I'm trying to strike a balance. I'm also having a dilemma with picture-taking. Of course I want to preserve my memories here and capture the gorgeous grafitti and museums and whatnot, but I also can't help feeling that snapping pictures from behind a camera all the time prevents me from experiencing what's in front of me. I have neglected my picture-taking duties a lot, 'cause the more time I spend here, the less I want to be a visible tourist. Silly, I know, but the important thing is that I'm enjoying my time here, which I definitely am.
I'm sitting in a Cafe right now that Leon took me to, called St. Oberholz. It is two stories and has tons of open space and millions (I know, Dad, I'm exagerating, my guess is they have maybe 3o) of windows, funky shaped lights and great music playing. Not to mention good coffee, sandwiches, and soups. This is one of the only places in Berlin where I've found free wireless and iced coffee that is actually coffee on ice-- the normal German "iced coffee" is coffee with vanilla icecream in it. A happy surprise, but not what I want usually! I told a lot of the other fellows about it, and so today 8 out of 21 of us showed up here for some paper-writing fun. We are currently in our "research-writing" period, so we're all split up into teams trying to crank out these masterpieces of sociological research that we only had two weeks to slap together. It's cool, though, 'cause we've all got super interesting topics.
To sum it up, I am currently: Listening to Michael Jackson on repeat and getting so juiced to come home to the Bay, typing a ton about LGBT and Queer Identities in Berlin, sippin' iced coffee and playing with my new beaded ring that I bought, fighting off my allergies that are buggin' out since the sun has emerged, and love love loving my new friends here.
Love and positive vibrations (Leon's expectation for the program was "positive vibrations," a hope that he shared with us the first day in Berlin. We are in hippie heaven writing this paper together) coming to you express from this Berlingirl,
Lilly
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
And it, and it begins
I am infatuated with and fascinated by Berlin. But perhaps I should start with Paris. Most of the group of American fellows from HIA (there are 54 American fellows, I believe) met up and spent the night at a hostel on the Upper West Side in NYC on June 3rd. June 4th we flew to Paris.
We stayed in a hotel in Aubervilles, a suburb of Paris. The Parisian suburbs are typically considered the "ghettos," or the less affluent areas. I was so excited and relieved to finally find a program that understands the value of staying somewhere other than the tourist traps, and I maintain that stance, even though a young woman I really like got her purse stolen as she got off the bus to return to the hotel. My roommate in Paris was born in Sri Lanka but moved to Amsterdam when she was 4. She is part of the Netherlands program, so I won't be seeing her again 'til June 5th, when all the country programs (the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland) return to Paris for the closing ceremony. I love meeting new people, but it's always a little rough for me when I get thrown together with folks for a couple of days, bond a lot, develop the beginnings of great friendships, and then realize that the future of our relationship is probably going to be diminished to a now-and-then facebook exchange. It seems like part of the focus of this trip is how to sustain transnational networking, so hopefully my fears won't be realized.
In Paris, we spent a lot of time focusing on the politics of memorialization and commemoration. The theme has carried over to the first part of the Berlin program. We have been focusing on how different themes and occurances in Berlin/German history are commemorated and memorialized. It fits that we began with the post-Holocaust German identity. From visiting a former concentration/labor camp to visiting the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe to visiting the Memorial Site for the Persecuted Homosexual Victims of National Socialism to meeting with a Holocaust Survivor to discussing how Holocaust education is and should be taught, both to "ethnically German" students and to students of "migrational backgrounds," it has been a whirlwind of a learning experience already. And that was a whirlwind of a run-on sentence, sorry people :)!
The best part of my experience thus far has been stumbling across the everyday differences between German culture and American culture. For example, in Germany, it is taboo to use the term "race" today. "Race" here implies a discourse on breeds and is underst00d as a dehumanizing term. It makes total sense that they would be so wary of the word, considering the history of the eugenics movement and the genocide linked to "racial purity" here, but my identity and my entire life is so based on the understanding that racial identity/ies and race dynamics are an inextricable part of American life. I have been raised with an understanding that discussing race is crucial to positively contributing to and participating in society. Instead of using the term "race," Germans say "ethnicity." This gets complicated, because Aryan people are referred to as "ethnically German," while everyone who is visibly "non-ethnically German" is labeled as someone "with/of a migration background."
Another word that they don't use is "leader," because Hitler was referred to as the "fuhrer," or "the leader." We have to do research projects in the last two weeks of the fellowship--we get to pick our own topics--and I'm seriously contemplating doing mine on taboo words in German culture. I'm really interested in studying how leadership development programs are limited or altered by the lack of mobility with vocabulary. How do you train someone to lead when you can not use the term "leader"? How does that impact young people's perceptions of what it means to be civically engaged?
On another note, Berlin is poppin' in terms of art. There is street art/graffiti EVERYWHERE, and I love it! The whole city has a really good vibe. Sometimes I get a little creeped out thinking about what went down on this land not many years ago, but I try to keep my head in the present. Part of what is so intense about HIA is our talks about how genocide could potentially happen anywhere, anytime. I wouldn't put it past the U.S. to be home to such an atrocity sometime in the not-so-distant future. CONSTANT VIGILANCE (any Harry Potter fans reading this?).
The train system is beautiful and so so easy to use. I'm staying in the Berlin suburbs, in Southern Berlin, in a gorgeous house with a host mother whom I adore. It's a 20 minute walk from her house to the S-Bahn (train) station. I got lost the first night trying to get home from the station, but since then I've become good friends with my walking route. We've been out a few times with the German fellows, the Americans, the Bosnians, and all of the Senior fellows who happen to be in Berlin. They really like hanging out with us, and I can tell already that I'm locked in to an amazing network of people working to change the world. Last night we all went out to a beer garten and then to a club. It was 'Balkan Beats' night, which apparently is the new hot thing in Berlin.
I had Doner Kebab, a Turkish-German lamb sandwich that's kinda like shwarma and that is so so cheap and available everywhere. That is one thing that keeps surprising me: the food in Berlin is sooo cheap! We had Moroccan food last night for 4 euros per person, and Indian food one of the first nights for about 7 euro per person. And you're not really expected to tip much here. It's beautiful. Apparently housing is ultra cheap, too. Sadly, my guess is that as Berlin gets more and more popular, this will change. Berlin has already shifted to popularity in Europe; apparently it's the hot-spot destination for most young Europeans.
I wish I had more profound reflections to share, but at the moment I am still digesting all that I've experienced thus far. When I've sat with it a bit longer, I'll share some more personal notes. For now, I hope this was a good run-down of my happenings.
Paz y amor,
L
The best part of my experience thus far has been stumbling across the everyday differences between German culture and American culture. For example, in Germany, it is taboo to use the term "race" today. "Race" here implies a discourse on breeds and is underst00d as a dehumanizing term. It makes total sense that they would be so wary of the word, considering the history of the eugenics movement and the genocide linked to "racial purity" here, but my identity and my entire life is so based on the understanding that racial identity/ies and race dynamics are an inextricable part of American life. I have been raised with an understanding that discussing race is crucial to positively contributing to and participating in society. Instead of using the term "race," Germans say "ethnicity." This gets complicated, because Aryan people are referred to as "ethnically German," while everyone who is visibly "non-ethnically German" is labeled as someone "with/of a migration background."
Another word that they don't use is "leader," because Hitler was referred to as the "fuhrer," or "the leader." We have to do research projects in the last two weeks of the fellowship--we get to pick our own topics--and I'm seriously contemplating doing mine on taboo words in German culture. I'm really interested in studying how leadership development programs are limited or altered by the lack of mobility with vocabulary. How do you train someone to lead when you can not use the term "leader"? How does that impact young people's perceptions of what it means to be civically engaged?
On another note, Berlin is poppin' in terms of art. There is street art/graffiti EVERYWHERE, and I love it! The whole city has a really good vibe. Sometimes I get a little creeped out thinking about what went down on this land not many years ago, but I try to keep my head in the present. Part of what is so intense about HIA is our talks about how genocide could potentially happen anywhere, anytime. I wouldn't put it past the U.S. to be home to such an atrocity sometime in the not-so-distant future. CONSTANT VIGILANCE (any Harry Potter fans reading this?).
The train system is beautiful and so so easy to use. I'm staying in the Berlin suburbs, in Southern Berlin, in a gorgeous house with a host mother whom I adore. It's a 20 minute walk from her house to the S-Bahn (train) station. I got lost the first night trying to get home from the station, but since then I've become good friends with my walking route. We've been out a few times with the German fellows, the Americans, the Bosnians, and all of the Senior fellows who happen to be in Berlin. They really like hanging out with us, and I can tell already that I'm locked in to an amazing network of people working to change the world. Last night we all went out to a beer garten and then to a club. It was 'Balkan Beats' night, which apparently is the new hot thing in Berlin.
I had Doner Kebab, a Turkish-German lamb sandwich that's kinda like shwarma and that is so so cheap and available everywhere. That is one thing that keeps surprising me: the food in Berlin is sooo cheap! We had Moroccan food last night for 4 euros per person, and Indian food one of the first nights for about 7 euro per person. And you're not really expected to tip much here. It's beautiful. Apparently housing is ultra cheap, too. Sadly, my guess is that as Berlin gets more and more popular, this will change. Berlin has already shifted to popularity in Europe; apparently it's the hot-spot destination for most young Europeans.
I wish I had more profound reflections to share, but at the moment I am still digesting all that I've experienced thus far. When I've sat with it a bit longer, I'll share some more personal notes. For now, I hope this was a good run-down of my happenings.
Paz y amor,
L
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)