Final writeup
Merging in as a refugee
Ying Wang
I spent amazing four weeks in Berlin and have been boombasted by the notion of identity there. The West side, the East side, what does it mean to be a German, and as a immigrant or a refugee. I met many people, and our swift conversations brought me many suprising realizations about the lives of the refugees in Germany. To study how to merge into Germany as a refugee, I need to understand both the country and the people.
My curiosity of Berlin was based on the initial readings written by authors living in Berlin or had experience with the city. “Its status as a magnet for immigrants, artists, intellectuals, and the young; the opening up of social, economic, and ethnic divisions as sharp as the one created by the Wall.” (Berlin, David Clay Large, pp3, introduction)I do not know what to expect in Berlin in terms of “a magnet for immigrants, artists,…”. The tags for people serve only as a categorical rather than a descriptive introduction. Everything was different since the moment I stepped out of the airplane arriving in Berlin. If anyone ever asks me how do I describe my experience in Berlin, I would say as I wrote in my Berlin story: “it was my beginning of crossing through different types of borders.”
“Crossing the border was the most common crossing I did in Germany.” The biggest theme that is perpetual in Berlin is the Berlin Wall and the history of division. The visit to Palace of Tears highlights the entirely different life styles in the divied Berlin. “Walked into the museum I felt like reliving the life under 1980s.” as I wrote in my journel, I watched videos recording people talking about their lives in East Berlin. How they thought they would not have a future under the regime of GDR, how they fled to West Berlin and never saw their family again thereafter and how they got past the border through the station. The letters written by people from the West to the East, the gifts exchanged through family members on both sides, the uniform worn by officers at the station of Friedrichstrasse. The suffering from the division is so real and touching and I can see why no one forgets this part of history. The most striking crossing is “one picture depicting a little boy playing a ball under the Wall in West Berlin while on the other side of the Wall two soldiers are watching a worker repairing the border barricades” I crossed two different social structures. The oppression in East Berlin, the separation of families, in contrast with the freedom in West Berlin were all captured by this picture. The museum presents the situations of the divided Berlins from both the East and West’s view and walking through it was fascinating to me. “I crossed different styles of living as a passerby”, I saw gentrification and listened to people talking about how it influenced their life. The “During the journey in the underground tour, I felt like I was crossing history.” I am facinated by German history and its role in World War I and II. To many Germans the two wars were sacres, but they still choose to comemerate that part of history. I visited many museums like Jewish museum, where I understood the long history of Jewish development, and the Topography of Terror, where I saw the remaining of Berlin Wall and the detailed history of Hitler’s regime…These “walks in the past” presented the rich German history in front of me.
A huge part of my commitent in Berlin was at my community partner place. It was an engretic and extremely welcoming place. Our works at the coop campus include helping with the gardening and various workshops. For example we helped mow the lawn, cleaned up the dead grass to make room for the 48 hours activity, and moved the excess woods under the peppermint arena. We also made a fighting mask out of old socks with Shanna and helped her fixed the willow structure. Doing actual work in the garden gives us a sense of being part of this community, and we also learnt some basic carpenter and skills. Besides, our main responsibility here is to make an eco path of the garden that serves as an information map for people coming into the camp. We used graphical representation so that the language barrier can be overcome and everyone can understand the function of each location on the eco path. We also created a website with detailed information of many important points on the eco path and generated QR codes for each subpage, so when people scan the QR codes, they will be led into the specific page about the location.
To me, the most valuable part of my internship at the Garden is the access to refugees and people working closely with them. This access allows me to see beyond my own imagination of what would be like to be a refugee and reveals the real life situation of refugees in Berlin. My initial research focus is on analyzing the artful representations used by refugees to reflect on their self-identities. The representations are like literature, ceramics, dance and graffiti. I want to study how do the refugees, migrants and original residents in Berlin perceive their own identities through artful expression. But after working closely with my community partner at the garden and getting in touch with the refugees, I am changing the direction of my individual project. It occurs to me that under their situations, where they felt not accepted by the community and wanted to prove themselves, art can be a luxury to them. So instead, I tried to focus on the coexistence of refugees and community through different platforms and the realization of self-identity through different forms of expression. To try to understand how effective those platforms are in helping the refugees to engage and to give them a sense of belonging.
Besides the work that reshaped my research initiatives, the workshop we participated at Maxim Gorki also helped me relate myself with the feelings and lively situations of the refugees. Being a refugees means I have to give up my former identity, to abandon everything that I originally have, and to be forced to go to a foreign place. I have never given much thought of where I would go as a refugee because freedom of choice was so common to me. Naturally, I mistakenly neglected the inner state of the refugees where the sorce of their agnoy was that they were coreced to leave. I love Traveling and studying abroad, but leaving your home for good and may never be able to go back is a totally different thing. We were asked to list six things that we can bring with us. And gradually abandoning one of them when crossing the boarders. I still remember the struggle I had when deciding which one to give up. And during my interview with a refugee at the coop campus, Bisow, he had given up a lot more that just six things. He was a business man running a nationwide air conditioner company, in charge of more than three hundrad employees. “My business was successful and I was irreplacable in my country, but here I am trivial.” Indeed, that is a common struggle for many refugees: to prove their value in the new society, to make their existing meaningful instead of just taking shelters. My classmates also had their takeaways about the workshop. “And yet I’m sure at least some of the people encountering problems with refugee status in Germany have impressive educations. The concept of being reduced to a paperless, unwanted statistic is so foreign to me I can’t even truly entertain the idea, which surprised me about myself.”
(Zosia, Journal #2) After the workshop, my classmates and I we saw the play called “Winterterise” where the refugee actors display their stories to the audiences through acting, dancing, and using projector to retell their stories of fleeing Damascus to Europe. The seven actors are from Syria, Pakistan and Palestine. The bus trip, rather a cultural class trip, leads in total to ten cities. In this play the actors want to actively let their stories be heard, which again suprises me with my newly-set opinion that the refugees may not be willingly to talk about their “wounds”. Why would they want to open their heart to the audiences? Why do they want their stories to be heard? What is unique and effective about choreography in helping them tell their migratory stories? Do they think these plays will help people, especially the Berliners understand what the refugees have gone through? Sadly I do not have the chance to disucss in depth with the actors, so I researched by myself the interviews with either the producer, the director or audience feedbacks of the play. “Particularly exciting for German viewers, it is certainly when the difficulties of locals are revealed, who want to help, but do not know how. This happens, for example, right at the beginning of the evening, when the exiles ask their German colleague Niels Bormann not to talk about them and their destinies in an anointing way, but also to tell them about themselves, to open themselves and give them the chance, German everyday life really close.”(http://www.zeit.de/news/2017-04/09/theater-jubel-fuer-die-winterreise-am-maxim-gorki-theater-09103203) The play delievers indirectly the message to the German audiences about the help and support needed from the refugees. “Memories can be a potent force.”(The ghost of Berlin, Brain Ladd) I believe the memories that the actors showed to the audiences are important, though sometimes painful in helping them acquiring the identity as “refugee”, and are significant in helping the German people to begin an understanding of refugee life.
I am interested in the topic of finding self idendity and how to be part of the new society because when coming into a new country, many of the migrants are confused, perplexed, and can feel rejected as an outsider. As an international student, I had similar experience struggling with my place in the U.S. That is, I want to relate to my own story and to try to find useful and reasonable ways to . So my initial works included understanding Berlin’s current refugee situation by doing research online. And the media addresses that the influx of 90,000 refugees has left Germany’s capital facing humanitarian crisis. Then here in Berlin, I worked with the refugees and participated in various workshops.
In general we had great time here working at the camp. The biggest challenge for us is the language barrier. Most people in the camp are refugees coming from different countries and they speak Persians, Portuguese, Arabic or German and other languages. It can be hard to have a direct conversation in English while we tried to do practical tasks like doing the interviews about the community, or even simply having a chat with them. But this barrier of language also showed me one of the major problems that hinged the refugees. During my interview with Bawsim, a refugee from Syria, he told me he taught himself English. He was lucky in that he can communicate with people in a language other than his mother tongue that can be understood. “Many of us are old, and leaning a new language is very hard.” He told me even his son struggles with language barrier. “He used to be top student in Syria, and he was very outgoing. But here he failed many classes and had a hard time at school.” Bawsin said for such a young kid, adjusting to a new language environment is already difficult, and imagine the situation for a man in his thirties or forties. I caught a glimpse of sadness in his eyes. To him, he was once a business man, now a refugee, but the fact of being a father remains.
The coop campus offers many skill-orientated tasks such as building the wooden structure, recycling materials to make home decoration, German language summer class, building the green house, raising the bees. Also there is a café around templeholf that is hiring refugees. Another organization called Migration Hub is offering online trainings for the refugees and helps build networks of social entrepreneurs and organizations for them. These workshops give the refugees a chance to meet with friends that have similar backgrounds to relate to, to work as a group and to learn practical skills. Because of the scope of my research, I do not want to expand it to include too many organizations and workshops, so my main focus is the garden and the work there.
During the research, I had some brief interviews with refugees at the camp and also talked with people working as employees at this organization. These talks gave me insightful understanding of the refugees’ thoughts. I chose personal interview as one of the main methods for my research because I hope to get more “inner sorce”. That is, despite the subjectiveness that may affect the response of the interviees, the feedbacks I get would still be more relavant to the real situation than my own online reading or my presumption. Many details of the interviews were mentioned above, To summarize the feedbacks I received, the refugees have positive feedbacks about the workshops and the camp, but they still feel socially weak. Even though they are learning skills, they feel most of the time they are just finding a way to spend their time instead of doing works that cannot be replaced. They feel their works are and they are confused about the priority of their lives. Also the bias against their races and identities are troubling them deeply.
The major takeaways I got from these talks with the refugees are that even though they have a great time at the coop camp, at the community, they are still suffering from the pressure coming from the society around them. They need not only to learn skills like sowing, To the refugees, learning a new langue can be hard, but without the language it is nearly impossible to become part of the new community. They also feel that even though they find their place in the garden, they are still isolated from the broader community. Bisow talked about a program in Hamburg where hosting families and refugees are paired up, and the refugees live with the host families, going to events with the families and begin to merging into the social network. It was like the But they don’t have it here in Berlin. From these talks, I think currently the problem with the things happening in Berlin is the lack of such inclusion with Berlin life, to really connect with the locals. Mohammod
Observation was another method that played a big role in my research. As I lived for one month in Berlin, I had my own experience of how life in Berlin felt like. Before I came to Europe, I read some written materials about Berlin. That was the origin of my contact with the . The visit to the Youth Museum was a great opportunity for me to both understand the texture of people from different backgounds and religions and also to practice detail-orientated observation skills. I remembered well the first self-curated room that I went inside. It was a plain room, not a exotic one, nor one with outstanding feature. I had a hard time deciphering the identity of the owner. But the employee there walked me through the room and pointed out some details that I overlooked. The family photo and photos of two young boys indicate the owner has a big family. The old scarf and a letter with “To Grandma” reveal that the owner is an old grandma and the two boys must be her grandsons…etc. Similiarly, sometimes obeservation is a more useful tool than listening by noticing the trivial detail the speaker does not give out obviously.
After some research both in the field and online I summuraized several platforms that provide “typical” supporting services to the refugees in Berlin.
· Providing space and shelter:
'Airbnb for refugees' group
One organization is known as Berlin-based Refugees Welcome, which has been described as an “Airbnb for refugees”, has helped people fleeing from Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria.
(“https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/berlin-group-behind-airbnb-for-refugees-overwhelmed-by-offers-of-help#img-1)
· Providing material support:
Welcome Baby Bag is run by people specifically looking to help refugees with newborns and babies under 6 months of age who have arrived in Berlin. They fill a bag with specific basics that will be helpful for young babies and these bags are then donated to those in need. People with
· Fundraising then provide material:
Rebacca D., the main executive for the orgranzation, carried out crowdfunding campaign through Betterplace.org to raise funds towards buying winter boots for “the large number of people entering Berlin with insufficient (and sometimes zero) footwear for these cold winter day and nights.” She also managed to make a brilliant deal with Deichmann for purchasing the boots at a reduced price. According to the information on the website, (https://www.betterplace.org/en/projects/36419-new-shoes-for-refugees-in-berlin) they have already raised €1,624.00 out of 45 donations.
From the breif listing of various kinds of supporting systemn that already existed in Berlin, most of them offers direct material support to improve the living condition of the refugees. The aim and goal of these organizations is definitely benefical to the refugees. But as I relate the platforms provided by the non profit organizaitons with my conversations with the refugees, I began to see that the problems were realistic and long-lasting. The most accessable yet least helpful form of supporting service is the donation of excess belongings. Yet as
“Buildings provide shelter for human activities, but it is the activities, not the shelter, that make structures and spaces important to human beings trying to define their place on this earth.”(Gohst of Belrin, pp2, )
I spent two weeks after the program traveling in Europe. And my visit to Rome and Paris made me rethink Berlin’s role. “at first I thought the service at the garden and my help there are so innovating and effective, then after some conversations I realize I was too optimistic about the effects from the organization, but now, in reminiscent, I can hold a objective view to see the work: both the good part and part that they can do better.”(Ying Wang, Jounral #5) Merging in as a refugee is not easy, but to create an equal opporturnity for the refugees to live and to be valuable as part of the society is what the receving country can focus on first.
Work Cited:
http://www.berlinforallthefamily.com/misc-info/howtohelprefugeesinberlin
Ying Wang
I spent amazing four weeks in Berlin and have been boombasted by the notion of identity there. The West side, the East side, what does it mean to be a German, and as a immigrant or a refugee. I met many people, and our swift conversations brought me many suprising realizations about the lives of the refugees in Germany. To study how to merge into Germany as a refugee, I need to understand both the country and the people.
My curiosity of Berlin was based on the initial readings written by authors living in Berlin or had experience with the city. “Its status as a magnet for immigrants, artists, intellectuals, and the young; the opening up of social, economic, and ethnic divisions as sharp as the one created by the Wall.” (Berlin, David Clay Large, pp3, introduction)I do not know what to expect in Berlin in terms of “a magnet for immigrants, artists,…”. The tags for people serve only as a categorical rather than a descriptive introduction. Everything was different since the moment I stepped out of the airplane arriving in Berlin. If anyone ever asks me how do I describe my experience in Berlin, I would say as I wrote in my Berlin story: “it was my beginning of crossing through different types of borders.”
“Crossing the border was the most common crossing I did in Germany.” The biggest theme that is perpetual in Berlin is the Berlin Wall and the history of division. The visit to Palace of Tears highlights the entirely different life styles in the divied Berlin. “Walked into the museum I felt like reliving the life under 1980s.” as I wrote in my journel, I watched videos recording people talking about their lives in East Berlin. How they thought they would not have a future under the regime of GDR, how they fled to West Berlin and never saw their family again thereafter and how they got past the border through the station. The letters written by people from the West to the East, the gifts exchanged through family members on both sides, the uniform worn by officers at the station of Friedrichstrasse. The suffering from the division is so real and touching and I can see why no one forgets this part of history. The most striking crossing is “one picture depicting a little boy playing a ball under the Wall in West Berlin while on the other side of the Wall two soldiers are watching a worker repairing the border barricades” I crossed two different social structures. The oppression in East Berlin, the separation of families, in contrast with the freedom in West Berlin were all captured by this picture. The museum presents the situations of the divided Berlins from both the East and West’s view and walking through it was fascinating to me. “I crossed different styles of living as a passerby”, I saw gentrification and listened to people talking about how it influenced their life. The “During the journey in the underground tour, I felt like I was crossing history.” I am facinated by German history and its role in World War I and II. To many Germans the two wars were sacres, but they still choose to comemerate that part of history. I visited many museums like Jewish museum, where I understood the long history of Jewish development, and the Topography of Terror, where I saw the remaining of Berlin Wall and the detailed history of Hitler’s regime…These “walks in the past” presented the rich German history in front of me.
A huge part of my commitent in Berlin was at my community partner place. It was an engretic and extremely welcoming place. Our works at the coop campus include helping with the gardening and various workshops. For example we helped mow the lawn, cleaned up the dead grass to make room for the 48 hours activity, and moved the excess woods under the peppermint arena. We also made a fighting mask out of old socks with Shanna and helped her fixed the willow structure. Doing actual work in the garden gives us a sense of being part of this community, and we also learnt some basic carpenter and skills. Besides, our main responsibility here is to make an eco path of the garden that serves as an information map for people coming into the camp. We used graphical representation so that the language barrier can be overcome and everyone can understand the function of each location on the eco path. We also created a website with detailed information of many important points on the eco path and generated QR codes for each subpage, so when people scan the QR codes, they will be led into the specific page about the location.
To me, the most valuable part of my internship at the Garden is the access to refugees and people working closely with them. This access allows me to see beyond my own imagination of what would be like to be a refugee and reveals the real life situation of refugees in Berlin. My initial research focus is on analyzing the artful representations used by refugees to reflect on their self-identities. The representations are like literature, ceramics, dance and graffiti. I want to study how do the refugees, migrants and original residents in Berlin perceive their own identities through artful expression. But after working closely with my community partner at the garden and getting in touch with the refugees, I am changing the direction of my individual project. It occurs to me that under their situations, where they felt not accepted by the community and wanted to prove themselves, art can be a luxury to them. So instead, I tried to focus on the coexistence of refugees and community through different platforms and the realization of self-identity through different forms of expression. To try to understand how effective those platforms are in helping the refugees to engage and to give them a sense of belonging.
Besides the work that reshaped my research initiatives, the workshop we participated at Maxim Gorki also helped me relate myself with the feelings and lively situations of the refugees. Being a refugees means I have to give up my former identity, to abandon everything that I originally have, and to be forced to go to a foreign place. I have never given much thought of where I would go as a refugee because freedom of choice was so common to me. Naturally, I mistakenly neglected the inner state of the refugees where the sorce of their agnoy was that they were coreced to leave. I love Traveling and studying abroad, but leaving your home for good and may never be able to go back is a totally different thing. We were asked to list six things that we can bring with us. And gradually abandoning one of them when crossing the boarders. I still remember the struggle I had when deciding which one to give up. And during my interview with a refugee at the coop campus, Bisow, he had given up a lot more that just six things. He was a business man running a nationwide air conditioner company, in charge of more than three hundrad employees. “My business was successful and I was irreplacable in my country, but here I am trivial.” Indeed, that is a common struggle for many refugees: to prove their value in the new society, to make their existing meaningful instead of just taking shelters. My classmates also had their takeaways about the workshop. “And yet I’m sure at least some of the people encountering problems with refugee status in Germany have impressive educations. The concept of being reduced to a paperless, unwanted statistic is so foreign to me I can’t even truly entertain the idea, which surprised me about myself.”
(Zosia, Journal #2) After the workshop, my classmates and I we saw the play called “Winterterise” where the refugee actors display their stories to the audiences through acting, dancing, and using projector to retell their stories of fleeing Damascus to Europe. The seven actors are from Syria, Pakistan and Palestine. The bus trip, rather a cultural class trip, leads in total to ten cities. In this play the actors want to actively let their stories be heard, which again suprises me with my newly-set opinion that the refugees may not be willingly to talk about their “wounds”. Why would they want to open their heart to the audiences? Why do they want their stories to be heard? What is unique and effective about choreography in helping them tell their migratory stories? Do they think these plays will help people, especially the Berliners understand what the refugees have gone through? Sadly I do not have the chance to disucss in depth with the actors, so I researched by myself the interviews with either the producer, the director or audience feedbacks of the play. “Particularly exciting for German viewers, it is certainly when the difficulties of locals are revealed, who want to help, but do not know how. This happens, for example, right at the beginning of the evening, when the exiles ask their German colleague Niels Bormann not to talk about them and their destinies in an anointing way, but also to tell them about themselves, to open themselves and give them the chance, German everyday life really close.”(http://www.zeit.de/news/2017-04/09/theater-jubel-fuer-die-winterreise-am-maxim-gorki-theater-09103203) The play delievers indirectly the message to the German audiences about the help and support needed from the refugees. “Memories can be a potent force.”(The ghost of Berlin, Brain Ladd) I believe the memories that the actors showed to the audiences are important, though sometimes painful in helping them acquiring the identity as “refugee”, and are significant in helping the German people to begin an understanding of refugee life.
I am interested in the topic of finding self idendity and how to be part of the new society because when coming into a new country, many of the migrants are confused, perplexed, and can feel rejected as an outsider. As an international student, I had similar experience struggling with my place in the U.S. That is, I want to relate to my own story and to try to find useful and reasonable ways to . So my initial works included understanding Berlin’s current refugee situation by doing research online. And the media addresses that the influx of 90,000 refugees has left Germany’s capital facing humanitarian crisis. Then here in Berlin, I worked with the refugees and participated in various workshops.
In general we had great time here working at the camp. The biggest challenge for us is the language barrier. Most people in the camp are refugees coming from different countries and they speak Persians, Portuguese, Arabic or German and other languages. It can be hard to have a direct conversation in English while we tried to do practical tasks like doing the interviews about the community, or even simply having a chat with them. But this barrier of language also showed me one of the major problems that hinged the refugees. During my interview with Bawsim, a refugee from Syria, he told me he taught himself English. He was lucky in that he can communicate with people in a language other than his mother tongue that can be understood. “Many of us are old, and leaning a new language is very hard.” He told me even his son struggles with language barrier. “He used to be top student in Syria, and he was very outgoing. But here he failed many classes and had a hard time at school.” Bawsin said for such a young kid, adjusting to a new language environment is already difficult, and imagine the situation for a man in his thirties or forties. I caught a glimpse of sadness in his eyes. To him, he was once a business man, now a refugee, but the fact of being a father remains.
The coop campus offers many skill-orientated tasks such as building the wooden structure, recycling materials to make home decoration, German language summer class, building the green house, raising the bees. Also there is a café around templeholf that is hiring refugees. Another organization called Migration Hub is offering online trainings for the refugees and helps build networks of social entrepreneurs and organizations for them. These workshops give the refugees a chance to meet with friends that have similar backgrounds to relate to, to work as a group and to learn practical skills. Because of the scope of my research, I do not want to expand it to include too many organizations and workshops, so my main focus is the garden and the work there.
During the research, I had some brief interviews with refugees at the camp and also talked with people working as employees at this organization. These talks gave me insightful understanding of the refugees’ thoughts. I chose personal interview as one of the main methods for my research because I hope to get more “inner sorce”. That is, despite the subjectiveness that may affect the response of the interviees, the feedbacks I get would still be more relavant to the real situation than my own online reading or my presumption. Many details of the interviews were mentioned above, To summarize the feedbacks I received, the refugees have positive feedbacks about the workshops and the camp, but they still feel socially weak. Even though they are learning skills, they feel most of the time they are just finding a way to spend their time instead of doing works that cannot be replaced. They feel their works are and they are confused about the priority of their lives. Also the bias against their races and identities are troubling them deeply.
The major takeaways I got from these talks with the refugees are that even though they have a great time at the coop camp, at the community, they are still suffering from the pressure coming from the society around them. They need not only to learn skills like sowing, To the refugees, learning a new langue can be hard, but without the language it is nearly impossible to become part of the new community. They also feel that even though they find their place in the garden, they are still isolated from the broader community. Bisow talked about a program in Hamburg where hosting families and refugees are paired up, and the refugees live with the host families, going to events with the families and begin to merging into the social network. It was like the But they don’t have it here in Berlin. From these talks, I think currently the problem with the things happening in Berlin is the lack of such inclusion with Berlin life, to really connect with the locals. Mohammod
Observation was another method that played a big role in my research. As I lived for one month in Berlin, I had my own experience of how life in Berlin felt like. Before I came to Europe, I read some written materials about Berlin. That was the origin of my contact with the . The visit to the Youth Museum was a great opportunity for me to both understand the texture of people from different backgounds and religions and also to practice detail-orientated observation skills. I remembered well the first self-curated room that I went inside. It was a plain room, not a exotic one, nor one with outstanding feature. I had a hard time deciphering the identity of the owner. But the employee there walked me through the room and pointed out some details that I overlooked. The family photo and photos of two young boys indicate the owner has a big family. The old scarf and a letter with “To Grandma” reveal that the owner is an old grandma and the two boys must be her grandsons…etc. Similiarly, sometimes obeservation is a more useful tool than listening by noticing the trivial detail the speaker does not give out obviously.
After some research both in the field and online I summuraized several platforms that provide “typical” supporting services to the refugees in Berlin.
· Providing space and shelter:
'Airbnb for refugees' group
One organization is known as Berlin-based Refugees Welcome, which has been described as an “Airbnb for refugees”, has helped people fleeing from Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria.
(“https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/berlin-group-behind-airbnb-for-refugees-overwhelmed-by-offers-of-help#img-1)
· Providing material support:
Welcome Baby Bag is run by people specifically looking to help refugees with newborns and babies under 6 months of age who have arrived in Berlin. They fill a bag with specific basics that will be helpful for young babies and these bags are then donated to those in need. People with
· Fundraising then provide material:
Rebacca D., the main executive for the orgranzation, carried out crowdfunding campaign through Betterplace.org to raise funds towards buying winter boots for “the large number of people entering Berlin with insufficient (and sometimes zero) footwear for these cold winter day and nights.” She also managed to make a brilliant deal with Deichmann for purchasing the boots at a reduced price. According to the information on the website, (https://www.betterplace.org/en/projects/36419-new-shoes-for-refugees-in-berlin) they have already raised €1,624.00 out of 45 donations.
From the breif listing of various kinds of supporting systemn that already existed in Berlin, most of them offers direct material support to improve the living condition of the refugees. The aim and goal of these organizations is definitely benefical to the refugees. But as I relate the platforms provided by the non profit organizaitons with my conversations with the refugees, I began to see that the problems were realistic and long-lasting. The most accessable yet least helpful form of supporting service is the donation of excess belongings. Yet as
“Buildings provide shelter for human activities, but it is the activities, not the shelter, that make structures and spaces important to human beings trying to define their place on this earth.”(Gohst of Belrin, pp2, )
I spent two weeks after the program traveling in Europe. And my visit to Rome and Paris made me rethink Berlin’s role. “at first I thought the service at the garden and my help there are so innovating and effective, then after some conversations I realize I was too optimistic about the effects from the organization, but now, in reminiscent, I can hold a objective view to see the work: both the good part and part that they can do better.”(Ying Wang, Jounral #5) Merging in as a refugee is not easy, but to create an equal opporturnity for the refugees to live and to be valuable as part of the society is what the receving country can focus on first.
Work Cited:
http://www.berlinforallthefamily.com/misc-info/howtohelprefugeesinberlin
Journal #5
What additional learning have you gained through the process of finishing your research project? What aspects of our program are still on your mind two weeks later?
After the program ended, I flew directly from Berlin to Rome. The contrast between these two capitals of two important countries again highlights my understanding of Germany learned during the program. I mentioned several times during my previous posts that Berlin is a city that never forgets. As Dr. Christine’s lecture addressed, Berlin carries its history to the modern world and the monuments, the stumbling stones, the perseveration of concentration camps are all living memories. In Rome, I also felt the history it carries along. The ancient remains are standing right in front of me, and I had an odd feeling of walking past time. But it was different. Rome prefers to immerse in its glorious feats and stories, and the city gave me a sense of “outdated”. I am not using this adjective in a criticizing way, but to me, the city preserves too much of its old part and the development of new things can only find their way in between of the long-standing history. On the contrary, Berlin is actively making progress, moving forward without living behind its responsibility. Some may say that this difference can be traced back to the two cities’ attitudes towards their histories. Dr. Viola talked about the responsibility passed along generations to make amends for the hurt done to Jewish people by one particular generation. “The guilt made me feel like a true German.” Doing goods and remembering past misdeeds are part to German identity. I know it would be superficial to say that helping refugees has much to do with this feeling of making things right, but I walked past one old shelter for refugees in a narrow street in Rome, and in comparison the various organizations for helping the refugees are in much better conditions. This brings me to realize the complexities of the nature of the organizations that I studies in my research. I am constantly searching for things they neglect, parts that they can improve, but the truth is that the problem is too complicated to be solved purely by the efforts from the non-profit organizations. How to resolve the conflicts between residents and refugees concerns cultures, social status, economic structures…etc. Those large-scale problems cannot be determined by the NGOs alone, and to be honest, even the government cannot solve them easily in the near future.
Despite the difference in attitudes towards history, the two municipals also differ in city construction. Gentrification is happening rapidly in Berlin and in a very obvious way. Modern buildings stand among ancient architectures in a very balanced way. It is hard to find clear division between the new and the old. While in Rome, the old outside appearances are well preserved with narrow alleys, dark orange wall, and old style window shutters.
My work on finishing my research was mostly based on online research and summarizing contents gathered from previous interviews and I did some additional readings related to the expression of refugee identities. To be honest, my findings were not very sensationally new, nor did them give me more decisive insights. But they indeed deepened my understanding of my research process and purpose. Finding ways to improve the work done by non-profit organizations aiming to help the refugees is a good intention, but we need to first be clear about one thing: that the work, no matter it solves the refugee crisis in some way, or it has slight or minor influence on improving the conditions for the refugees, is to be appreciated and honored. Reflect on my own attitude: at first I thought the service at the garden and my help there are so innovating and effective, then after some conversations I realize I was too optimistic about the effects from the organization, but now, in reminiscent, I can hold a objective view to see the work: both the good part and part that they can do better.
One month in Berlin was so short, but I am glad that I have utilized the time to the maximum to really feel and understand the city. And I enjoy the company with my fellow friends from UW honors program.
After the program ended, I flew directly from Berlin to Rome. The contrast between these two capitals of two important countries again highlights my understanding of Germany learned during the program. I mentioned several times during my previous posts that Berlin is a city that never forgets. As Dr. Christine’s lecture addressed, Berlin carries its history to the modern world and the monuments, the stumbling stones, the perseveration of concentration camps are all living memories. In Rome, I also felt the history it carries along. The ancient remains are standing right in front of me, and I had an odd feeling of walking past time. But it was different. Rome prefers to immerse in its glorious feats and stories, and the city gave me a sense of “outdated”. I am not using this adjective in a criticizing way, but to me, the city preserves too much of its old part and the development of new things can only find their way in between of the long-standing history. On the contrary, Berlin is actively making progress, moving forward without living behind its responsibility. Some may say that this difference can be traced back to the two cities’ attitudes towards their histories. Dr. Viola talked about the responsibility passed along generations to make amends for the hurt done to Jewish people by one particular generation. “The guilt made me feel like a true German.” Doing goods and remembering past misdeeds are part to German identity. I know it would be superficial to say that helping refugees has much to do with this feeling of making things right, but I walked past one old shelter for refugees in a narrow street in Rome, and in comparison the various organizations for helping the refugees are in much better conditions. This brings me to realize the complexities of the nature of the organizations that I studies in my research. I am constantly searching for things they neglect, parts that they can improve, but the truth is that the problem is too complicated to be solved purely by the efforts from the non-profit organizations. How to resolve the conflicts between residents and refugees concerns cultures, social status, economic structures…etc. Those large-scale problems cannot be determined by the NGOs alone, and to be honest, even the government cannot solve them easily in the near future.
Despite the difference in attitudes towards history, the two municipals also differ in city construction. Gentrification is happening rapidly in Berlin and in a very obvious way. Modern buildings stand among ancient architectures in a very balanced way. It is hard to find clear division between the new and the old. While in Rome, the old outside appearances are well preserved with narrow alleys, dark orange wall, and old style window shutters.
My work on finishing my research was mostly based on online research and summarizing contents gathered from previous interviews and I did some additional readings related to the expression of refugee identities. To be honest, my findings were not very sensationally new, nor did them give me more decisive insights. But they indeed deepened my understanding of my research process and purpose. Finding ways to improve the work done by non-profit organizations aiming to help the refugees is a good intention, but we need to first be clear about one thing: that the work, no matter it solves the refugee crisis in some way, or it has slight or minor influence on improving the conditions for the refugees, is to be appreciated and honored. Reflect on my own attitude: at first I thought the service at the garden and my help there are so innovating and effective, then after some conversations I realize I was too optimistic about the effects from the organization, but now, in reminiscent, I can hold a objective view to see the work: both the good part and part that they can do better.
One month in Berlin was so short, but I am glad that I have utilized the time to the maximum to really feel and understand the city. And I enjoy the company with my fellow friends from UW honors program.
Journey #3 Creative Writing
My Berlin Story
The sky was still azure, the wind still warm, and the sun still burning bright. But suddenly everything felt so different as we crossed the bridge. The tall buildings disappeared. My story here in berlin is all about crossing. In silence I stood on top of the symbolic wall, imaging my fate if I was here fifty years ago. The motionless woods watched over me as I looked over the surroundings in the east side and the west. The distinctions were obvious, the division was clear, and as I walked with the group further into the industrial part of Berlin, it was my beginning of crossing through different types of borders.
Crossing the border was the most common crossing I did in Germany. Everyday I got off from the S-bahn at Warschauer Strabe station, I would like to walk along the bridge to the other side of the river. Each time I walked on the center of the bridge, I looked to the left and the grand statue of the Molecular Man was standing there, sometimes under the beautiful sunset, sometimes under the drizzling rain. The statue was the union of the west and the east, but the concept of union has the prerequisite of separation. I continued walking and crossed the border, knowing that even the wall no longer existed, the trauma and marks it caused cannot be erased easily.
As a temporary tourist in this country, I crossed different styles of living as a passerby. The neighborhoods are different as well. On my way to see the Olympic Stadium, I saw different neighborhoods flashing away through the transparent glass of S5 tram. The contrast was so outstanding when the tram past the Berlin Zoologischer Garten station. It was like a transition from a noisy, packed world to a quite, undisturbed world of green. Trees were growing and the number of people you saw was dropping, the outside started to calm, and you looked into and out of the window, you saw a peaceful reflection of yourself. To me, this is the wonder of Berlin that it blended so well as gentrification and preservation were both going on. Hot topics include the coexistence of refugees and original residences, but the coexistence of both modern and antique buildings is also fascinating.
During the journey in the underground tour, I felt like I was crossing history. Going deeper and deeper down the ground, I began to feel the pressure that resulted not only from the decrease of oxygen level but also from the terror, the glimpse of hope, the chaos, the uncertainty of future, the separation from family… all kinds of feelings from people under the attacks that echoed once in these hollow rooms underground. The one-hour tour was so long to me, but never a boring one. Rather, it was long because I felt like I was walking back in history to experience and embrace the situations the people that time went through. After the tour, I went to check Hitler’s bunker in order to be closer to the history. However, as a disappointment to me was that there were none. Google map indicated I was standing right top of the bunker’s site, yet all I saw was a normal, outdated parking lot. Later I realized that this was it. This was the end of Hitler, of part of world history, of end of the suffering to many, and of the beginning of hope to many. Standing in the parking lot, I felt a surge of mixed feeling that nothing stays, no power, no glory can resist the evanesce of time. Or, more accurately, I was crossing history everyday. Just as Dr. Kristen and Dr. Viola mentioned, the city of Berlin remembers and commemorates well of its guilt, its burden and its history. The shining stumbling stones are so tiny, so unnoticeable, yet so frequent, ubiquitous, and unforgettable. They are the constant reminders of our travel through history.
Crossing time is more of a personal story. Eighteen years ago my dad went to Germany to start his study. Berlin was a city that left significant impact on him. Before I headed for Germany, he showed me a picture of a broad-shouldered man in black with a graffiti wall behind him. “This was my favorite graffiti, it may be no longer there, but pay attention to the graffiti works around you when you are in Berlin, you will be able to communicate with it and the interpretation of its story will stay with you.” He told me. So I walked on the spacious streets in Berlin, not sure I would find the exact wall he took the picture with, and not sure I understood his words. It was not until I found the graffiti on a wall of the berlin wall museum on the riverbank of east side that my dad’s words started made some sense. The graffiti was surreal: it took up an entire wall, using light but gloomy colors to depict a sense of despair, of oppression. A dying man was climbing his way out from a dark island with a black symbol of crossing on it. Two skeletons were drawn in the way of puppets. I received the fear and resistance conveyed by this graffiti directly and instantly. I never found the wall in my dad’s photo, but I began to understand why he wanted me to go and explore the graffiti works. The works were indeed talking, and the ability to feel and embraces others’ emotions was what my dad hoped me to learn. In some of the excerpts given by Dr. Viola, it was mentioned that the generations of Germans carried along with them the responsibility of the crimes done by previous generation. Crossing through time with my dad’s photo, even though I failed to relive and experience his younger time here in Berlin, I began to have an idea of what “legacy” means. It is the thing passed on you from your forerunner, and it is your duty to carry it further. Later on a sunny afternoon I went to follow the step of another picture: a photo of my boyfriend when he was ten years old and in Berlin for the Foot Cup. In the picture he was standing in front of the Kaiser William Church posing a “victory” to the camera. I glared at the photo, observing the weird angle that the photo was taken, trying to take another one at the same place. Finally I found the spot my boyfriend stood in the picture, and standing across the street, observing the point, I saw a teenager wearing green sports shirt and black shoes there, laughing. One fleeing moment I could see my boyfriend there, so youthful, lighthearted, and his happiness really touched me. I was lost in the glaring sunshine and the boy’s laughter. Then the bell from the church rang at 5:30 sharp, echoing from all directions and I was called back into reality. I could never go back to history and meet the younger version of my boyfriend, but this brief travel of time made me realize that the moments of happiness are so treasurable and
The experience of crossing language was an interesting experience to me. I have spent ten minutes “talking” with a refugee who only speaks German and Portuguese while I understand only Chinese and English. He tried to explain one photo of his family hanging on the door to me. He kept pointing to himself and the man in the picture, and I knew that they were the same person despite the fact that the man standing next to me was in his forties with a round belly while the handsome young man in the photo was energetic and vigorous. I recognized them by the smiling faces that even though time has left its mark on the face, the warm and happy feeling conveyed by the smiles is the same. He also mumbled two girls’ names and circled the two girls standing next to him. Yes judged by the age I knew they were his daughters. He also tried to introduce his work at the garden as a carpenter to me. Even we did not have any direct, word-to-word talk, I felt we had a great conversation. That was the time I also begin to realize the goal of both the coop camp and my individual research: that is to create an atmosphere that is diverse and embracive enough to overcome the barrier of language.
The workshop at Maxim Gorki also made me crossed “identity”. “Now, choose a city that you would flee to if you are a refugee.” the skinny woman with black shoulder-long hair, Mai-an, asked casually. I was mistaken by the loose group standing form and her undertone, and did not take the question seriously at first. “Mexico”, “Canada”, “London”……“Australia”, I gave my answer naturally after my classmates’ responses. But the following made me start to feel unease. Mai-an asked many practical questions such as the feasibility of the refugee country, our choice of transportation to get there, the things we bring along with us during our flee and the things we have to left behind. This new identity unsettled me, unrevealing a horrible truth that everyone can be a migrant. I would be devastated when I was actually put into this situation of being a refugee, leaving everything I was familiar with, and pushed into an uncertain future. It was hilarious for me to even try to study the issues of refugee identity if I have never really seen things from their angle. After this crossing, to be honest, I was shocked, but was also ready to have a deeper examination and reflection into my research.
So this is my Berlin story. I crossed 8100 kilometers from Being to this city, and I am glad the crossings I did here were so insightful to me.
The sky was still azure, the wind still warm, and the sun still burning bright. But suddenly everything felt so different as we crossed the bridge. The tall buildings disappeared. My story here in berlin is all about crossing. In silence I stood on top of the symbolic wall, imaging my fate if I was here fifty years ago. The motionless woods watched over me as I looked over the surroundings in the east side and the west. The distinctions were obvious, the division was clear, and as I walked with the group further into the industrial part of Berlin, it was my beginning of crossing through different types of borders.
Crossing the border was the most common crossing I did in Germany. Everyday I got off from the S-bahn at Warschauer Strabe station, I would like to walk along the bridge to the other side of the river. Each time I walked on the center of the bridge, I looked to the left and the grand statue of the Molecular Man was standing there, sometimes under the beautiful sunset, sometimes under the drizzling rain. The statue was the union of the west and the east, but the concept of union has the prerequisite of separation. I continued walking and crossed the border, knowing that even the wall no longer existed, the trauma and marks it caused cannot be erased easily.
As a temporary tourist in this country, I crossed different styles of living as a passerby. The neighborhoods are different as well. On my way to see the Olympic Stadium, I saw different neighborhoods flashing away through the transparent glass of S5 tram. The contrast was so outstanding when the tram past the Berlin Zoologischer Garten station. It was like a transition from a noisy, packed world to a quite, undisturbed world of green. Trees were growing and the number of people you saw was dropping, the outside started to calm, and you looked into and out of the window, you saw a peaceful reflection of yourself. To me, this is the wonder of Berlin that it blended so well as gentrification and preservation were both going on. Hot topics include the coexistence of refugees and original residences, but the coexistence of both modern and antique buildings is also fascinating.
During the journey in the underground tour, I felt like I was crossing history. Going deeper and deeper down the ground, I began to feel the pressure that resulted not only from the decrease of oxygen level but also from the terror, the glimpse of hope, the chaos, the uncertainty of future, the separation from family… all kinds of feelings from people under the attacks that echoed once in these hollow rooms underground. The one-hour tour was so long to me, but never a boring one. Rather, it was long because I felt like I was walking back in history to experience and embrace the situations the people that time went through. After the tour, I went to check Hitler’s bunker in order to be closer to the history. However, as a disappointment to me was that there were none. Google map indicated I was standing right top of the bunker’s site, yet all I saw was a normal, outdated parking lot. Later I realized that this was it. This was the end of Hitler, of part of world history, of end of the suffering to many, and of the beginning of hope to many. Standing in the parking lot, I felt a surge of mixed feeling that nothing stays, no power, no glory can resist the evanesce of time. Or, more accurately, I was crossing history everyday. Just as Dr. Kristen and Dr. Viola mentioned, the city of Berlin remembers and commemorates well of its guilt, its burden and its history. The shining stumbling stones are so tiny, so unnoticeable, yet so frequent, ubiquitous, and unforgettable. They are the constant reminders of our travel through history.
Crossing time is more of a personal story. Eighteen years ago my dad went to Germany to start his study. Berlin was a city that left significant impact on him. Before I headed for Germany, he showed me a picture of a broad-shouldered man in black with a graffiti wall behind him. “This was my favorite graffiti, it may be no longer there, but pay attention to the graffiti works around you when you are in Berlin, you will be able to communicate with it and the interpretation of its story will stay with you.” He told me. So I walked on the spacious streets in Berlin, not sure I would find the exact wall he took the picture with, and not sure I understood his words. It was not until I found the graffiti on a wall of the berlin wall museum on the riverbank of east side that my dad’s words started made some sense. The graffiti was surreal: it took up an entire wall, using light but gloomy colors to depict a sense of despair, of oppression. A dying man was climbing his way out from a dark island with a black symbol of crossing on it. Two skeletons were drawn in the way of puppets. I received the fear and resistance conveyed by this graffiti directly and instantly. I never found the wall in my dad’s photo, but I began to understand why he wanted me to go and explore the graffiti works. The works were indeed talking, and the ability to feel and embraces others’ emotions was what my dad hoped me to learn. In some of the excerpts given by Dr. Viola, it was mentioned that the generations of Germans carried along with them the responsibility of the crimes done by previous generation. Crossing through time with my dad’s photo, even though I failed to relive and experience his younger time here in Berlin, I began to have an idea of what “legacy” means. It is the thing passed on you from your forerunner, and it is your duty to carry it further. Later on a sunny afternoon I went to follow the step of another picture: a photo of my boyfriend when he was ten years old and in Berlin for the Foot Cup. In the picture he was standing in front of the Kaiser William Church posing a “victory” to the camera. I glared at the photo, observing the weird angle that the photo was taken, trying to take another one at the same place. Finally I found the spot my boyfriend stood in the picture, and standing across the street, observing the point, I saw a teenager wearing green sports shirt and black shoes there, laughing. One fleeing moment I could see my boyfriend there, so youthful, lighthearted, and his happiness really touched me. I was lost in the glaring sunshine and the boy’s laughter. Then the bell from the church rang at 5:30 sharp, echoing from all directions and I was called back into reality. I could never go back to history and meet the younger version of my boyfriend, but this brief travel of time made me realize that the moments of happiness are so treasurable and
The experience of crossing language was an interesting experience to me. I have spent ten minutes “talking” with a refugee who only speaks German and Portuguese while I understand only Chinese and English. He tried to explain one photo of his family hanging on the door to me. He kept pointing to himself and the man in the picture, and I knew that they were the same person despite the fact that the man standing next to me was in his forties with a round belly while the handsome young man in the photo was energetic and vigorous. I recognized them by the smiling faces that even though time has left its mark on the face, the warm and happy feeling conveyed by the smiles is the same. He also mumbled two girls’ names and circled the two girls standing next to him. Yes judged by the age I knew they were his daughters. He also tried to introduce his work at the garden as a carpenter to me. Even we did not have any direct, word-to-word talk, I felt we had a great conversation. That was the time I also begin to realize the goal of both the coop camp and my individual research: that is to create an atmosphere that is diverse and embracive enough to overcome the barrier of language.
The workshop at Maxim Gorki also made me crossed “identity”. “Now, choose a city that you would flee to if you are a refugee.” the skinny woman with black shoulder-long hair, Mai-an, asked casually. I was mistaken by the loose group standing form and her undertone, and did not take the question seriously at first. “Mexico”, “Canada”, “London”……“Australia”, I gave my answer naturally after my classmates’ responses. But the following made me start to feel unease. Mai-an asked many practical questions such as the feasibility of the refugee country, our choice of transportation to get there, the things we bring along with us during our flee and the things we have to left behind. This new identity unsettled me, unrevealing a horrible truth that everyone can be a migrant. I would be devastated when I was actually put into this situation of being a refugee, leaving everything I was familiar with, and pushed into an uncertain future. It was hilarious for me to even try to study the issues of refugee identity if I have never really seen things from their angle. After this crossing, to be honest, I was shocked, but was also ready to have a deeper examination and reflection into my research.
So this is my Berlin story. I crossed 8100 kilometers from Being to this city, and I am glad the crossings I did here were so insightful to me.
Write-up for Week 2's Readings
Arrival City
1. “And there was a contiguous, standardized pattern of institutions, customs, conflicts, and frustrations being built and felt in these places.” This is interesting in that usually when considering the issue of immigrants, migrants and refugees, we tend to focus on more the people rather than the places. However, these “sites of potential conflict and violence” are crucial in that it is the place where the mergence of different groups of people, values, cultures happen. Those are the places where the transitions happen and the backgrounds of those places really have an influence on the succession of the transition. That is the point of choosing a “arrival city”, it should be a city whose culture resonates with your own, whose pace you can catch up, and whose borders are not clearly forbidding you from getting into it. But in the chapter it seems to imply that many arrival cities share common features that thrust frustrations and failure upon immigrants. I do not agree with this narrative one hundred percent because one person I met at the Garden “moved” from another urban city to Berlin and found his way in here. There must be fundamental difference that decides whether a person migrates successfully or not?
2. “There are definitely a lot of problems with discrimination here, but people don't realize that the bigger trouble is that a lot of the people who come from the places I do, from the banlieues, don’t have a social network that connects them to French society.” Isna’s words do not just simply describe the situation in French, but in other countries, almost every country, the lack of networks is the major problem to build a life in the city. This is also the reason why many immigrants wonder about their self-identities within the new city, since they can feel that even if they are physically presented in the city, they are culturally, emotionally, and socially detached from the environment. The goal of my community partner is to help build connections for the refugees in order to facilitate their integration into the community. But what is necessary for an immigrant to really become connected with the community around him or her? When in some places where the population is not as sparse as the arrival city described in France, will the situation be the same? Will a more closely connected community somehow be easier for the people to be part of the complicated and intertwined human network there?
3. “The alien-seeming practices that arose from those policies often came to be seen as “Muslim”. People like to talk about religion, but nowadays in Berlin or even Europe, it seems to have a more or less negative connotation. Symbolic matters like headscarves, forced marriages, honour killing, and migratory people have no choice but to adopt these traditions as a way to keep some part of their identity not lost. They do not enjoy the privilege of choosing a partner at one’s free will because their lack of citizenship limits their range of choices. It is the German policy that citizenship by blood that keeps them out.
Figure of Migration
1. “At different points in history, migratory movement was the result of different types and degrees of social expulsion: territorial, political, juridical, and economic.” Indeed, the migrants are being expelled by the original country, but for different yet intertwined reasons. It is hard to discuss all four factors separately, nor is it easy to consider all at once. For every immigrant, behind his or her unique migratory story, there must be the combination of the four facets while one or two are the major causes. I wonder the do words “at different pointes in history” mean that during certain time era, the major movements of migration, the prevalence type stays uniformly the same? Or is it too simpleminded to discuss cases of migration even under similar time period together in order to find common features? People I talked to during my internship at the Garden told me their various reasons for coming to this country, some are refugees, some came here for job opportunity, some are driven by cultural attraction. So I think it is better for us to just focus on cases and do not try to generalize them.
2.“In this sense, the figure of the migrant is not ‘type of person’ or fixed identity but a mobile social position or spectrum that people move into and out of under certain social conditions of mobility.” The identity as migrant is just a transitional status, and it should not stay permanent, for otherwise the figure of migrant will always be an outsider in the receiving city, and this feeling of exclusion and foreignness is forced to the generations thereafter. People migrate and the freedom of mobility grants them the right to merge into another environment. So when studying the figure of the migrant, we should see it as a constantly “updating” identity and see how it evolves in the society. In working with my community partner
3. “it has left out the rich history and contemporary analysis of many other migratory figures much less intensely or dramatically expelled from their social status. ” When studying the issues concerning immigration and migration, we need to be objective and inclusive. It is without doubt that the figures discussed in this book is of typical characteristics, but in a broader and more general sense, the identity of “immigrant” is a less intensive and extreme one. We cannot overlook the fact that many migratory movements are voluntary, beneficial and commonly seen. Tourists, businessmen, diplomats, as mentioned in the article, are the positive side of such migratory movements. Federica is a roman architect who came to the Garden purely for a two months’ program, and her experience is definitely different than the refugees’.
Some general thoughts:
In the Arrival City Alima talked about their experience of living in the city while being excluded by the city. The housing rent is high, and it is extremely hard to acquire your own house. That reminds me of our talk with Kotti cofounder where the guy talked about their experience and struggle with the government in order to get the house. The government policy, indeed, makes it hard to live as an outsider in the city. In the story of Alara it is also mentioned the German visa was acquired by her husband marrying to a Turco-German woman. The comparison between Pakistanis in British and Turks in Kreuzberg also reflects the problem within the system: licensing and bank policies that prevent the Turks to start new businesses. It is self-contradictory for a nation to grant citizenship to a group of people while denying their transition into true part of the citizens. “German policy seems almost hard-wired to produce a failed arrival city”, indeed, the original influx of labors from other countries was meant to have them return to the original countries, but the exposure to a well-developed nation results in the reluctance to go back. In this case an exile is forced to the people. Also in Figure of the Migrant the notion of “immigrants as a failed citizens” is introduced. That is the main concern I received when working at the Garden, that the refugees there fear their existence here is not accepted or even welcomed. During the talk with Mohammed at Kotti, he also touched on what it means to be a citizen, even if he has a German visa by now, he cannot live as “justified” as a German-born white man can.
1. “And there was a contiguous, standardized pattern of institutions, customs, conflicts, and frustrations being built and felt in these places.” This is interesting in that usually when considering the issue of immigrants, migrants and refugees, we tend to focus on more the people rather than the places. However, these “sites of potential conflict and violence” are crucial in that it is the place where the mergence of different groups of people, values, cultures happen. Those are the places where the transitions happen and the backgrounds of those places really have an influence on the succession of the transition. That is the point of choosing a “arrival city”, it should be a city whose culture resonates with your own, whose pace you can catch up, and whose borders are not clearly forbidding you from getting into it. But in the chapter it seems to imply that many arrival cities share common features that thrust frustrations and failure upon immigrants. I do not agree with this narrative one hundred percent because one person I met at the Garden “moved” from another urban city to Berlin and found his way in here. There must be fundamental difference that decides whether a person migrates successfully or not?
2. “There are definitely a lot of problems with discrimination here, but people don't realize that the bigger trouble is that a lot of the people who come from the places I do, from the banlieues, don’t have a social network that connects them to French society.” Isna’s words do not just simply describe the situation in French, but in other countries, almost every country, the lack of networks is the major problem to build a life in the city. This is also the reason why many immigrants wonder about their self-identities within the new city, since they can feel that even if they are physically presented in the city, they are culturally, emotionally, and socially detached from the environment. The goal of my community partner is to help build connections for the refugees in order to facilitate their integration into the community. But what is necessary for an immigrant to really become connected with the community around him or her? When in some places where the population is not as sparse as the arrival city described in France, will the situation be the same? Will a more closely connected community somehow be easier for the people to be part of the complicated and intertwined human network there?
3. “The alien-seeming practices that arose from those policies often came to be seen as “Muslim”. People like to talk about religion, but nowadays in Berlin or even Europe, it seems to have a more or less negative connotation. Symbolic matters like headscarves, forced marriages, honour killing, and migratory people have no choice but to adopt these traditions as a way to keep some part of their identity not lost. They do not enjoy the privilege of choosing a partner at one’s free will because their lack of citizenship limits their range of choices. It is the German policy that citizenship by blood that keeps them out.
Figure of Migration
1. “At different points in history, migratory movement was the result of different types and degrees of social expulsion: territorial, political, juridical, and economic.” Indeed, the migrants are being expelled by the original country, but for different yet intertwined reasons. It is hard to discuss all four factors separately, nor is it easy to consider all at once. For every immigrant, behind his or her unique migratory story, there must be the combination of the four facets while one or two are the major causes. I wonder the do words “at different pointes in history” mean that during certain time era, the major movements of migration, the prevalence type stays uniformly the same? Or is it too simpleminded to discuss cases of migration even under similar time period together in order to find common features? People I talked to during my internship at the Garden told me their various reasons for coming to this country, some are refugees, some came here for job opportunity, some are driven by cultural attraction. So I think it is better for us to just focus on cases and do not try to generalize them.
2.“In this sense, the figure of the migrant is not ‘type of person’ or fixed identity but a mobile social position or spectrum that people move into and out of under certain social conditions of mobility.” The identity as migrant is just a transitional status, and it should not stay permanent, for otherwise the figure of migrant will always be an outsider in the receiving city, and this feeling of exclusion and foreignness is forced to the generations thereafter. People migrate and the freedom of mobility grants them the right to merge into another environment. So when studying the figure of the migrant, we should see it as a constantly “updating” identity and see how it evolves in the society. In working with my community partner
3. “it has left out the rich history and contemporary analysis of many other migratory figures much less intensely or dramatically expelled from their social status. ” When studying the issues concerning immigration and migration, we need to be objective and inclusive. It is without doubt that the figures discussed in this book is of typical characteristics, but in a broader and more general sense, the identity of “immigrant” is a less intensive and extreme one. We cannot overlook the fact that many migratory movements are voluntary, beneficial and commonly seen. Tourists, businessmen, diplomats, as mentioned in the article, are the positive side of such migratory movements. Federica is a roman architect who came to the Garden purely for a two months’ program, and her experience is definitely different than the refugees’.
Some general thoughts:
In the Arrival City Alima talked about their experience of living in the city while being excluded by the city. The housing rent is high, and it is extremely hard to acquire your own house. That reminds me of our talk with Kotti cofounder where the guy talked about their experience and struggle with the government in order to get the house. The government policy, indeed, makes it hard to live as an outsider in the city. In the story of Alara it is also mentioned the German visa was acquired by her husband marrying to a Turco-German woman. The comparison between Pakistanis in British and Turks in Kreuzberg also reflects the problem within the system: licensing and bank policies that prevent the Turks to start new businesses. It is self-contradictory for a nation to grant citizenship to a group of people while denying their transition into true part of the citizens. “German policy seems almost hard-wired to produce a failed arrival city”, indeed, the original influx of labors from other countries was meant to have them return to the original countries, but the exposure to a well-developed nation results in the reluctance to go back. In this case an exile is forced to the people. Also in Figure of the Migrant the notion of “immigrants as a failed citizens” is introduced. That is the main concern I received when working at the Garden, that the refugees there fear their existence here is not accepted or even welcomed. During the talk with Mohammed at Kotti, he also touched on what it means to be a citizen, even if he has a German visa by now, he cannot live as “justified” as a German-born white man can.
Journal #2 Jun. 26 - Jul. 2
It was week two in Berlin. The day before Sachsenhausen visit I went to the Jewish Museum and experienced the history and culture of a different group of people that have a close connection as the victims of concentration camps. Next day we headed for Schsenhausen camp in Oranienburg. It was not the same as I expected. Actually, despite the deaths it carried in its history and the sufferings people endured there, the camp felt quiet, lonely and unnoticeable as if it is as normal as any building.
Its triangle shape resonates well with the triangle symbol marked on the prisoners. We heard about stories of different people being held in the camp. The striking ones to me were the medical experiments on human, especially kids, which were cruel and brutal. I have learned in high school history class the inhumane experiments carried by the Nazi, but standing actually in the place where those experiments were conducted felt different. The place was renovated so that no trails of the old deeds were to be tracked, yet just the imagination was cold enough. It hurt me most in hearing story of the man being released while suffered in his freedom and died tragedy. Indeed, under that time, freedom did not mean survival, and the regime of Hitler made sure of that for his political opponents. How intimidating it would be to invite people from allies of Germany, like Italy and Poland, to come and visit this camp. Presenting the capture and torture of the opponents would be a showoff as well as a threat to those countries. We learned about how people here were treated, the shave of body hair was a total humiliation because it deprived a human of his every inch of privacy. The exposure would be devastating. As we walked further into the area, we went into the tower where now documents and objects from the time when the camp was operating were presented. On the wall there were detailed information of the “perpetrators”. The men were handsome, young, strong and healthy. They looked no different from anyone, but they were marked as a black spot forever. Why did they do what they did? Was it because of the trend of everyone going to the army? Was it because they had to act in certain ways under the pressure at that time? Or did they truly hold belief to Hitler’s ideas and were willing to carry his order voluntarily? What will their descendants think if they ever come to this place? I do not know. But just as Dr. Viola showed us the feedbacks given by people went to the camp, one was especially remarkable to me. He said that it was the guilt he felt when being in the concentration camp that made him feel so German for the first time.
The camp was huge and many buildings were hiding behind the pouring rain. I was reminded of the famous news that “No News from Auschwitz”. It felt to me that this rain fitted suitably with this place. No history can be washed away, but the sunny day here would be too bright to not bare enough sadness and grief of what had happened.
It kept raining the next day when we started our trip to Hamburg. The rain followed us all the way along. Exhausted from yesterday’s flooding experience, I felt asleep as soon as I got on the train and the next thing I knew, I was standing in the grandeur central train station of Hamburg. To be honest, the station does not feel much different from the central train station in Berlin, but the city started to have its distinct style as we walked to the ground. It is more gentrified than the neighborhoods we usually visit in Berlin, and many buildings are of typical European style.
Hamburg was vivid, inclusive and expressive. I met Chinese people for the first time in German, as well as people from Australia, Russia, Korean and many other places. What was more astounding was the degree of tolerance of the street graffiti. The graffiti here is brighter and more expressive than those I have seen in Kreuzberg. There is one interesting street that really draws my attention. On one side of the street is an extremely old building covered by colorful graffiti, and it is rusty, partly dismantled, and antiquated; while on the other side, standing right across the street is a gentrified building with nice, clean windows, modern design, neat and spacious. The contrast lies not only in the style of the two buildings, but also in that one building is so private that even the plants are within the transparent glass window, and the other is not barricaded at all that everyone one can access the yard. We also walked past some really huge murals that extend the whole wall. Many of them were sponsored by big company as a way of advertising, and some were commissioned by department of government. This way of letting mural and graffiti to go beyond self-centered expression and let it carry certain messages or signs is smart and efficient. It combines art, economy, social and many other factors altogether.
Just like in Berlin, the city of Hamburg was also under construction: antiquated churches, buildings are mixed with tall buildings with wide windows, and buildings being built and renovated among them. The ports and the boast, ships and storages everywhere also demonstrate its identity as a harbor city. (Also see the Daily Dairy for more of my experience with the graffiti. I did not include that part because I was afraid it would be redundant.)
Its triangle shape resonates well with the triangle symbol marked on the prisoners. We heard about stories of different people being held in the camp. The striking ones to me were the medical experiments on human, especially kids, which were cruel and brutal. I have learned in high school history class the inhumane experiments carried by the Nazi, but standing actually in the place where those experiments were conducted felt different. The place was renovated so that no trails of the old deeds were to be tracked, yet just the imagination was cold enough. It hurt me most in hearing story of the man being released while suffered in his freedom and died tragedy. Indeed, under that time, freedom did not mean survival, and the regime of Hitler made sure of that for his political opponents. How intimidating it would be to invite people from allies of Germany, like Italy and Poland, to come and visit this camp. Presenting the capture and torture of the opponents would be a showoff as well as a threat to those countries. We learned about how people here were treated, the shave of body hair was a total humiliation because it deprived a human of his every inch of privacy. The exposure would be devastating. As we walked further into the area, we went into the tower where now documents and objects from the time when the camp was operating were presented. On the wall there were detailed information of the “perpetrators”. The men were handsome, young, strong and healthy. They looked no different from anyone, but they were marked as a black spot forever. Why did they do what they did? Was it because of the trend of everyone going to the army? Was it because they had to act in certain ways under the pressure at that time? Or did they truly hold belief to Hitler’s ideas and were willing to carry his order voluntarily? What will their descendants think if they ever come to this place? I do not know. But just as Dr. Viola showed us the feedbacks given by people went to the camp, one was especially remarkable to me. He said that it was the guilt he felt when being in the concentration camp that made him feel so German for the first time.
The camp was huge and many buildings were hiding behind the pouring rain. I was reminded of the famous news that “No News from Auschwitz”. It felt to me that this rain fitted suitably with this place. No history can be washed away, but the sunny day here would be too bright to not bare enough sadness and grief of what had happened.
It kept raining the next day when we started our trip to Hamburg. The rain followed us all the way along. Exhausted from yesterday’s flooding experience, I felt asleep as soon as I got on the train and the next thing I knew, I was standing in the grandeur central train station of Hamburg. To be honest, the station does not feel much different from the central train station in Berlin, but the city started to have its distinct style as we walked to the ground. It is more gentrified than the neighborhoods we usually visit in Berlin, and many buildings are of typical European style.
Hamburg was vivid, inclusive and expressive. I met Chinese people for the first time in German, as well as people from Australia, Russia, Korean and many other places. What was more astounding was the degree of tolerance of the street graffiti. The graffiti here is brighter and more expressive than those I have seen in Kreuzberg. There is one interesting street that really draws my attention. On one side of the street is an extremely old building covered by colorful graffiti, and it is rusty, partly dismantled, and antiquated; while on the other side, standing right across the street is a gentrified building with nice, clean windows, modern design, neat and spacious. The contrast lies not only in the style of the two buildings, but also in that one building is so private that even the plants are within the transparent glass window, and the other is not barricaded at all that everyone one can access the yard. We also walked past some really huge murals that extend the whole wall. Many of them were sponsored by big company as a way of advertising, and some were commissioned by department of government. This way of letting mural and graffiti to go beyond self-centered expression and let it carry certain messages or signs is smart and efficient. It combines art, economy, social and many other factors altogether.
Just like in Berlin, the city of Hamburg was also under construction: antiquated churches, buildings are mixed with tall buildings with wide windows, and buildings being built and renovated among them. The ports and the boast, ships and storages everywhere also demonstrate its identity as a harbor city. (Also see the Daily Dairy for more of my experience with the graffiti. I did not include that part because I was afraid it would be redundant.)
Journal #1 Jun. 17 - Jun. 25
Berlin is an amazing city in that you fell in love with things that you used to hate. I used to hate being disconnected with the world that I am familiar with and hate the feeling of out of control. With the grudge of not having my SIM card function normally, I started my first day of exploration in Berlin by walking to Checkpoint Charlie. Without Internet connection my phone long was surprisingly yet reasonably quiet for the whole morning, and without the reassurance given by Google map, I tried so hard to memorize the landmarks and street names that I came across. Sunday in Berlin is like a travel through time because most stores are closed on this day. Unlike in Beijing, where everything is dense and crowed, the streets are almost empty with only few pedestrians passing by. It is also unlike in Seattle, where everything is sparse and separated, the city is designed to . I walked pass buildings of different architectural styles. One that looks like from the movies in 1980s sits right next to one that is typically ‘modern’. I used to hate long walk as well, but one evening when getting off the S-bahn and seeing the beautiful sunset, feeling the cool breeze touching my face, I chose to walk back to the hotel through the bridge across Spree instead of taking the transit to U-bahn.
This city is so vigorous and vivid. I spent most of my first week in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg and the graffiti is ubiquitous. It is so artful, expressive and you can actually feel that the graffiti wants to tell you something. I have seen portraits of political people such as Trump on the street walls, also have seen realistic depicts of either famous buildings like the parliament building or the community of Kreuzberg. The art here is bold and free and expressive.
This is a city that is so different from Seattle that even the rain here feels different. In Seattle, where the rain is gentle, dripping from the sky continuously and patiently without even bothering the thunder to make a sound. Unlike that peaceful rain, the heavy rain in Berlin accompanied by thunder and lightening is so compatible with the city’s dynamite.
When I first arrived in Berlin, my friend asked me which side of Berlin was I at. I told them that I was not sure, but after a trip to the east side I realized how extreme the contrast was between two sides. To me, I can receive the strong message constantly conveyed by Berlin that this city remembers. It bears German history, not as a burden, but as part of itself that is inseparable from its present, and also its future. It does not even try to cover the division by trying to reconcile the contracture styles of the “two Berlins”. The island of museums near Humboldt University attracted me with its grand architectures and extraordinary collections of artifacts. One sculpture that drew my attention was a sculpture of lion situated in front of the Alte museum. The bronze lion stands in the shadow of the bush, surrounded by a pebble path that let me walk from the main road towards the sculpture. Under the lion is a stone marked with dark grey letters “A. Gual Lowe”. Löwe is a sculpture by August Gaul, installed in the Kolonnadenhof outside the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Germany. I fond this lion really interesting in that it is the only “non-human” sculpture near the museum, and unlike the scary, cruel lion people normally think of, it does not scare people off. It feels more like a guardian, a watch-out for the museum.
About ten-minutes’ walk from the lion sculpture there is the Palace of Tears. It is a free museum where the lives before the unification of Berlin are documented and displayed to nowadays audiences. Walked into the museum I felt like reliving the life under 1980s. I watched videos recording people talking about their lives in East Berlin. How they thought they would not have a future under the regime of GDR, how they fled to West Berlin and never saw their family again thereafter and how they got past the border through the station. The letters written by people from the West to the East, the gifts exchanged through family members on both sides, the uniform worn by officers at the station of Friedrichstrasse. The suffering from the division is so real and touching and I can see why no one forgets this part of history. One picture depicting a little boy playing a ball under the Wall in West Berlin while on the other side of the Wall two soldiers are watching a worker repairing the border barricades really high lightens the two different social structures. The oppression in East Berlin, the separation of families, in contrast with the freedom in West Berlin were all captured by this picture. The museum presents the situations of the divided Berlins from both the East and West’s view and walking through it was fascinating to me.
This city is so vigorous and vivid. I spent most of my first week in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg and the graffiti is ubiquitous. It is so artful, expressive and you can actually feel that the graffiti wants to tell you something. I have seen portraits of political people such as Trump on the street walls, also have seen realistic depicts of either famous buildings like the parliament building or the community of Kreuzberg. The art here is bold and free and expressive.
This is a city that is so different from Seattle that even the rain here feels different. In Seattle, where the rain is gentle, dripping from the sky continuously and patiently without even bothering the thunder to make a sound. Unlike that peaceful rain, the heavy rain in Berlin accompanied by thunder and lightening is so compatible with the city’s dynamite.
When I first arrived in Berlin, my friend asked me which side of Berlin was I at. I told them that I was not sure, but after a trip to the east side I realized how extreme the contrast was between two sides. To me, I can receive the strong message constantly conveyed by Berlin that this city remembers. It bears German history, not as a burden, but as part of itself that is inseparable from its present, and also its future. It does not even try to cover the division by trying to reconcile the contracture styles of the “two Berlins”. The island of museums near Humboldt University attracted me with its grand architectures and extraordinary collections of artifacts. One sculpture that drew my attention was a sculpture of lion situated in front of the Alte museum. The bronze lion stands in the shadow of the bush, surrounded by a pebble path that let me walk from the main road towards the sculpture. Under the lion is a stone marked with dark grey letters “A. Gual Lowe”. Löwe is a sculpture by August Gaul, installed in the Kolonnadenhof outside the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Germany. I fond this lion really interesting in that it is the only “non-human” sculpture near the museum, and unlike the scary, cruel lion people normally think of, it does not scare people off. It feels more like a guardian, a watch-out for the museum.
About ten-minutes’ walk from the lion sculpture there is the Palace of Tears. It is a free museum where the lives before the unification of Berlin are documented and displayed to nowadays audiences. Walked into the museum I felt like reliving the life under 1980s. I watched videos recording people talking about their lives in East Berlin. How they thought they would not have a future under the regime of GDR, how they fled to West Berlin and never saw their family again thereafter and how they got past the border through the station. The letters written by people from the West to the East, the gifts exchanged through family members on both sides, the uniform worn by officers at the station of Friedrichstrasse. The suffering from the division is so real and touching and I can see why no one forgets this part of history. One picture depicting a little boy playing a ball under the Wall in West Berlin while on the other side of the Wall two soldiers are watching a worker repairing the border barricades really high lightens the two different social structures. The oppression in East Berlin, the separation of families, in contrast with the freedom in West Berlin were all captured by this picture. The museum presents the situations of the divided Berlins from both the East and West’s view and walking through it was fascinating to me.
Wonderful photos from Week 1!
Five Senses Survey for the Neighborhood Near Die Gartenerei
The main street of Hermannstrabe is loud but not noisy, with cars passing by continuously. The engines of the cars reflect well of the livelihood of this part of the neighborhood. Walking along this street, people can easily find grocery stores, small cafes, fresh markets, dentistry, child-care, flower shop, pharmacy, coiffeur place, phone store, small clothing shops around corner…etc. Everything of daily basic needs can be find, so lives here must be convenient. Transportation here is also very convenient, the U-bahn line went through this neighborhood and cars easily
The noises fade as I walked into the neighborhood and left the main street. The buildings are modern, clean, neatly aligned, and are typical European styled. Occasionally I saw some graffiti on the wall, but generally this neighborhood has less graffiti than Kreuzberg, where our hostel is located. This neighborhood is free of the smell of beer, smoke or anything disturbing. It does not have a particular odor, just the cleanness of fresh air.
Just behind the entrance of the U-bahn station of Leinestrabe there is a small food stand for doner, fries and other fast food. The doner box was the best that I have tried so far in Berlin. Next to the front gate of Die Gartenerei there is a small store selling German food and the Falafei there was good. Within the neighborhood I also found way too many cafes, and it seems that I can run into one or two cafés in each block. Restaurants of Asian food such as Chinese Chowmin, Mexican food, pasta and pizza, ice-cream shops are all seen in this neighborhood. The diversity of restaurants is really remarkable, and I would assume that people living in this neighborhood come from various backgrounds.
The first thing I notice about this neighborhood is that there are many cemeteries. The Garden, for sure, is one. And there is Cemetery St. Jacobi-Fridehof situating right next to it. As I walked further back into the neighborhood, I found another really grand Cemetery St. Thomas-Kirchhof. At the far end of this cemetery is a small public park Thomashohe. Kids are playing at the recreational facilities, and there is even a zip-line in the park. People were chatting and walking leisurely around the park but I did not see many seniors walking around though.
Residences in this neighborhood are not as outgoing as people from my community back in Kirkland. They would not normally say hello to you as you pass by, but they are still friendly and polite and may smile back to you shyly if you smile to them. I saw several teens riding bicycles playfully and some little kids playing at the side of their parents. I felt a sense of security and belonging as I went across this neighborhood. It was like everything is “in place” at where they belongs and I was just one piece of something bigger, but was free to be myself and just wander along that area.
The noises fade as I walked into the neighborhood and left the main street. The buildings are modern, clean, neatly aligned, and are typical European styled. Occasionally I saw some graffiti on the wall, but generally this neighborhood has less graffiti than Kreuzberg, where our hostel is located. This neighborhood is free of the smell of beer, smoke or anything disturbing. It does not have a particular odor, just the cleanness of fresh air.
Just behind the entrance of the U-bahn station of Leinestrabe there is a small food stand for doner, fries and other fast food. The doner box was the best that I have tried so far in Berlin. Next to the front gate of Die Gartenerei there is a small store selling German food and the Falafei there was good. Within the neighborhood I also found way too many cafes, and it seems that I can run into one or two cafés in each block. Restaurants of Asian food such as Chinese Chowmin, Mexican food, pasta and pizza, ice-cream shops are all seen in this neighborhood. The diversity of restaurants is really remarkable, and I would assume that people living in this neighborhood come from various backgrounds.
The first thing I notice about this neighborhood is that there are many cemeteries. The Garden, for sure, is one. And there is Cemetery St. Jacobi-Fridehof situating right next to it. As I walked further back into the neighborhood, I found another really grand Cemetery St. Thomas-Kirchhof. At the far end of this cemetery is a small public park Thomashohe. Kids are playing at the recreational facilities, and there is even a zip-line in the park. People were chatting and walking leisurely around the park but I did not see many seniors walking around though.
Residences in this neighborhood are not as outgoing as people from my community back in Kirkland. They would not normally say hello to you as you pass by, but they are still friendly and polite and may smile back to you shyly if you smile to them. I saw several teens riding bicycles playfully and some little kids playing at the side of their parents. I felt a sense of security and belonging as I went across this neighborhood. It was like everything is “in place” at where they belongs and I was just one piece of something bigger, but was free to be myself and just wander along that area.
Write-up for Week 1's Readings
Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape, Brian Ladd AND Imagined Communities
The first time I realize how the notion of “divided” is reflected in the remaining landscape structure in the city of Berlin was when Manuela led us across the old borderline near the hostel of Die Fabrik. With one feet standing on the east side and the other on the west, I could not help but think that I might have already been dead if this were the time when the Wall was not dismantled. Even now when the Wall is down, the remnant of that history still can be seen everywhere. On the wall of the hotel there is a map of Berlin with red thread on it marking the locations of the Wall; walking on the street there are remains of the Wall standing among other modern buildings; even nowadays you can easily tell what part of the old Berlin you are in just by the distinct styles of buildings and environment. But in Seattle, most things are closely intertwined. It is hard to tell if you are in Bellevue or Kirkland or Seattle without looking at road mark or Google map. It makes not so much difference which part of the state you are from. It also stuck me in the reading that “As East Germany passed into history, though, the Wall’s aura faded and its price fell. In Ghosts of Berlin it is mentioned that “the idea of leaving pieces on their original sites made no sense at all to most Berliners.” But that was not what my classmates and I felt as tourists when we went out to see the remains of the Wall. To us, it is symbolic enough to mark the border of the two sides, as a reminder of the fragments that the city has once suffered. “Monuments are nothing is not selective aids to memory”, Berliners’ rejection of the Wall derived from the unwillingness to be forced to remember.
This highlighting of the “border” also reflects the struggle of definition of identity not just for the outsiders of Berliner, but residences in Berlin as well. “Some Germans fear that the weight of past misdeeds has made their fellow Germans uncertain what it means to be German and afraid to act in the name of Germany.” I wonder how Berliners grew up in different “sectors” perceive themselves even if the sectors are no longer there. Also when considering the presence of migrants, how do they find their place here in Berlin? Do they feel the exclusion caused by the barrier of language or culture? Volunteering at the Garden I met people from different backgrounds and who speak little German. Do they face more struggles trying to fit in than the others who already share the connection with German language? I believe so. Europe has more languages spoken within the region than the U.S. People from Seattle speak the same tongue as people from New York. In the Imagined Nations it is stated “it is obvious that while today almost all modern self-conceived nations and also nation-states have ‘national print-languages’, many of them have these language in conversation or on paper.” It is true that the diversity of languages somehow facilitates the process of “merging” between two cultures, and the realization of one’s identity within certain nation can be more acceptable if the person acquires the fluency in the language of that nation.
Gentrification is another typical characteristics fond in Berlin. As Professor Kristina said during the lecture, this city has been undergoing constructions ever since the unification. But they are not simply tearing down old, historical architectures just like many other cities did. Instead, they are trying to find a way to renovate the old buildings or to build new ones right next to the olds. Thus when walking in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg, I felt an odd sense of incompatibility between some buildings around the street. One building in the neighborhood of Luisenstadt is particularly interesting in that it consists of two parts of buildings connected by a central part. The left part is rusty and old-styled, covered by colorful graffiti, while the right part is modern, fancy and high-classed. The contrast is so obviously shown by the proximity of the two parts.
This highlighting of the “border” also reflects the struggle of definition of identity not just for the outsiders of Berliner, but residences in Berlin as well. “Some Germans fear that the weight of past misdeeds has made their fellow Germans uncertain what it means to be German and afraid to act in the name of Germany.” I wonder how Berliners grew up in different “sectors” perceive themselves even if the sectors are no longer there. Also when considering the presence of migrants, how do they find their place here in Berlin? Do they feel the exclusion caused by the barrier of language or culture? Volunteering at the Garden I met people from different backgrounds and who speak little German. Do they face more struggles trying to fit in than the others who already share the connection with German language? I believe so. Europe has more languages spoken within the region than the U.S. People from Seattle speak the same tongue as people from New York. In the Imagined Nations it is stated “it is obvious that while today almost all modern self-conceived nations and also nation-states have ‘national print-languages’, many of them have these language in conversation or on paper.” It is true that the diversity of languages somehow facilitates the process of “merging” between two cultures, and the realization of one’s identity within certain nation can be more acceptable if the person acquires the fluency in the language of that nation.
Gentrification is another typical characteristics fond in Berlin. As Professor Kristina said during the lecture, this city has been undergoing constructions ever since the unification. But they are not simply tearing down old, historical architectures just like many other cities did. Instead, they are trying to find a way to renovate the old buildings or to build new ones right next to the olds. Thus when walking in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg, I felt an odd sense of incompatibility between some buildings around the street. One building in the neighborhood of Luisenstadt is particularly interesting in that it consists of two parts of buildings connected by a central part. The left part is rusty and old-styled, covered by colorful graffiti, while the right part is modern, fancy and high-classed. The contrast is so obviously shown by the proximity of the two parts.