Berlin

Weekend Club in Berlin at Alexanderplatz ("Alexa"): A Fun Place to Party and Watch the Sun RiseDear Future NYU-Berliners,

I’ll state the assumptions I’m working with in writing this letter to you forwardly: that you are exactly like me. I know it might seem silly to tell you that I’m writing from my own perspective in such a blatant manner, but I guess I just have no way of telling how any given individual will respond. A lot of people, based on the feelings I’ve expressed in past posts and what I know from conversations with other NYU students, have had differing or even opposing experiences than what I’ve had. I’m sure it’s the case going into any study abroad program, so I guess I’ll make that be my first piece of advice: don’t make the assumption that your reaction to a new place will be the same as anyone else’s. This is along the lines of don’t bring assumptions about your abroad site to your abroad site, as NYU so often advises—but I think I’m adding an important dimension by advising you to also leave your assumptions about how your own culture will react to the place you’re going at home, in your own culture. People grow and change abroad and it’s really beautiful to watch it happen, but it’s important that you know that you won’t all grown and change in similar ways.

Moving on:

Monochrome (thumbnail): It was easy to forget Berlin wasn't grayscale and still wartorn!In his discussion of habit, De Botton is really talking about the phenomenon of desensitivity. It’s a psychological fact that things grow to be less novel, fabulous, eye-catching when you see them every single day. I experienced this in New York last semester. I was blessed to have the opportunity to live on the Penthouse Floor of NYU’s new Gramercy Green, in a corner suite, with floor-to-ceiling windows. My view included the Empire State building and the Chrysler Building. I cannot explain how ecstatic I was for the first three weeks, but as time wore on, I just began to take it for granted. I was living the New York dream as a mere student, not paying nearly what I would’ve had to for such a space in any other circumstances. And the truth of the matter is, I’ll probably never be in a position to afford something that amazing ever again, or maybe even anything in Manhattan ever again. And still, the glitter settled, and I stopped caring. How, though, could one possibly manage to just be re-invigorated by the same view, over and over again, when nothing about the view changes? By the end of the semester, I just smiled politely anytime someone who hadn’t been into my room before came in and got excited for me. The habit of life, of sensing, of seeing overcame me and I became spoiled, as it were. I just took it for granted.

German Characteristics....I think that this post is going to be short because it’s really hard for me to articulate who people are and what they’re all about, on a personal or demographic level. From what I’ve read or know about Germans: they come off as unemotional, their humor is unintelligible to many other Western cultures, they take pride in their engineering, and they listen to a lot of hard rock and electronic music. Oh yeah, and recently, in a class I’m taking I learned that Germans hate debt more than anything and that’s why they take credit cards absolutely no where in Berlin. I’ll say more about the whole credit cards thing in my advice post that’s soon to come.

Anyway, working from these stereotypes of German people, let me introduce Hannes. Hannes, a friend of a friend of mine on the program, is a 21 year old full time student at the Humboldt, the university that we NYUers are currently studying at/using the facilities of. The way Hannes and my friend became friends, though, is interesting: Hannes decided that he wanted to go to school at NYU for a year, and so he enrolled and dropped out as planned, and returned to Berlin, and has no regrets whatsoever. He’s a really easy going guy, he likes to play jazz music, and he drinks pretty heavily.

An Old Image of My Classroom Building: Invalidenstrasse 110It always starts on Tuesday. I have to tell my friends that I can’t go out for a nightcap with them because I have to get all my work done for the next day and I have to go to bed early because I have to get up early.

On Wednesday, my alarm goes off at 7:30 in the morning. I unintentionally snooze it until about 8:15 if I’m good. I leap out of bed and run to the shower. Showering takes some time, drying takes some time, and packing my book bag always takes some time, time that I need to budget so I can run down the street the two blocks it’ll take me to catch the bus. The bus only comes every 20 minutes.

I take the bus to Franzosischerstrasse. That’s “French Street” for us, the Americans. From there I run down the nearest set of stairs and get on the subway, usually a quick transfer to make. I ride the subway for three stops, until I reach Zinnowitzerstrasse. I don’t know what that translates to for us, the Americans.

photo courtesy of the author

BEGINNINGS

When I arrive at Arwobau Apartments in 63 Adalbertstraße in the East-Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, I feel perfectly at home. I meet my roommate—a pink-haired and petticoat-ed artist from L.A. who calls herself Fiasco—and her best friend, who treat me to a just-cooked meal of vegan pasta, having already grocery shopped. I know instinctively that in this place, I will feel challenged, but never miserable.

I take my own trip to Kaisers, the market that lies just beyond the perfectly square reservoir and sloping green banks of Engelchen Park, where I find myself strangely drawn to German adaptations of American favorites—Special K with chocolate and strawberries, and the like. I buy my first canvas shopping bag, which depicts a frog kissing a lipstick-ed tortoise, encapsulated by a circular rainbow. “Schützt unsere Umwelt!” they say—Protect our Environment.

Later, downstairs in the room that looks just like mine, two floors down, I define NYU culture for Sean, a Duke student on the program. Having been thrown into a pool of what Sean is now calling “hipsters,” and having just drank the amount of vodka one might drink when you’re a Duke student with all NYU kids, Sean decides he’s going to style himself as one. He won’t be wearing underwear, he proclaims, since this is “what hipsters do.” He puts on a striped cashmere sweater—it gets a 4/10 from me and I beg him to put on my try putting on my wayfarers and flannel shirt. Instead, Sean moons me and twenty others. We talk and eat Haribo gummy bears, a German candy—not Japanese, like I thought. We research Kreuzberg bars on Time Out Berlin.

Babelplatz, Berlin, Book Burning MemorialWhat struck me most about Paul Auster’s “City of Glass” was how absent the “city” seemed to be from the narrative itself. Especially for a book titled as Volume One of “The New York Trilogy”, an anthology that based on the title would seemingly be very rooted in place, Auster story could really take place in any city. Perhaps this is where the title comes from, a city of glass implying a see-through city, one without distinctive character or feeling. It isn’t until addresses and street names are included that you gain a sense of where the book is located, yet the romantic and nostalgic descriptions of New York that are found so commonly in literature about the city are missing here. As a resident of the city, I got excited during the chapter where Quinn, the protagonist, takes a long walk down Manhattan, making his way down to Washington Square and Canal Street and back up through Union Square. Though it is only because I myself can evoke an image of these places in my mind that I was able to conjure up a sense of the backdrop for the mystery, but for most readers this would not be possible. Even during Quinn’s walks where he is hired to follow Mr. Stillman, Auster does not give us much rich description of the surrounding, he instead deals more with Quinn’s inner experience of how to keep his mind focused, with the occasional drop of the name of a restaurant or coffee place or park (96). Auster’s narrative in fact is pervaded with themes of the “nowhere” and a lacking of a sense of place, or displacement. After camping out on the street for months watching the Stillman’s apartment, Quinn comes back to find his furniture and belongings gone and somebody else moved into his place, any signs of his own life once made there had disappeared. He then goes to the Stillman house to find it completely bare and empty, devoid of any signs of inhabitants. Taking refuge in a back windowless cubicle, he begins to shut himself off from all sense of place, with night and day merging, the darkness eventually taking over as he fades away. He becomes consumed in this nothingness and in himself and his writing, and it is presumed he eventually dies there, though his fate is unclear.

When I thought of this empty room within which Quinn gradually deteriorated, the first image that came to mind was the Book Burning Memorial in Bebelplatz off the Unter den Linden in Berlin. Intended to memorialize the first Nazi book burning on May 10, 1933, it is an empty underground space lined with shelves, intended to look like a library, a sealed white room that can be viewed from a glass plate in the ground. For me, the memorial always conjured up an eerie feeling of nothingness and emptiness, of isolation independent of the outside world and devoid of any identity to where it seems Quinn has disappeared into.

Middlesex: Jeffrey Eugenides' 2002 NovelFor my second reading this semester, I am reading Jeffrey Eugenides’ 2002 novel, Middlesex. Again, I had planned to post about my reading of the complete volume of the Art of Travel, the book that we’ve been reading throughout this semester and for a portion of my related blogging class last semester. As it seems, we’ve read and discussed almost all of my favorite parts of this book, and I feel that the way we’ve done it (that is, in relation to/reflection on our actual experiences abroad), is probably more effective than just writing a critical review on the book. In any case, I fell into a copy of Eugenides’ Middlesex in the course of the past couple of weeks and have not been able to put it down. No, Middlesex is not a traditional travelogue, nor does it hone in on the importance of Berlin, but I aim to use this review to read Berlin’s importance into Middlesex.

For clarification purposes, I will be using the term “intersexed” rather than the author’s chosen-term “hermaphrodite” (see critique in 5th paragraph), and will also use the gender neutral pronouns “hir” (pronounced “here”) and “ze” (pronounced “zee”) (rather than “her,” him,” or “his” and “she” or “he,” respectively).

In brief summation, Middlesex follows the story of an intersexed person (a person that is biologically neither male nor female, but who falls into a linguistically-undefined category of sexual genetics). Calliope/Cal reflects on hir life throughout time from a place we find out is Berlin. We, the readers, understand the heritage of Cal, the grandchild and child of incestuous heirs. Ironically, we find out, Cal’s family tried to choose and predict hir’s sex. Unfortunately for them, this went horribly wrong. Cal then traces hir life to Detroit as a lonely and confused teenager. Then identifying as a “she,” Cal undergoes the painful realization that ze is intersexed upon visiting a specialist sexologist in New York before running away, in 1974, to San Francisco, a supposed paradise for those who occupy the sexual margins, such as Cal. But, here, Cal doesn’t find more acceptance for choosing not to conform to a conventional sex. Hir love life is very complicated and often heartbreaking, constantly filled with problems and voids, confusions and running. However, one must note that Cal’s story is more than the problems and running, the “figuring out” and “transforming.” Cal’s story is about all the little negotiations that happen in the middle, the middle of place, of immigrant experience, of time, of love, of gender, and of sex. These little life negotiations, I think, are what make this book so much more memorable and human than it might have been if just left an epic story, as it sometimes appeared to be.

My view on Middlesex is that it is a story of intersections: in place, in time, and, of course, in biological sex. Herein lies the importance of Berlin to the character’s telling of the story. Because the character is in the middle of finding hirself through very specific but often overlooked narrative mediums, when the reader realizes that Cal is in Berlin, very specific meanings come to Berlin. First, it seems that Berlin is either discursively produced as a space in which intersexed individuals can negotiate their lives in relative acceptance, or the author just takes it for granted that people already view Berlin in such terms. Because this produces and/or assumes notions of progression (“progression” in terms of liberal rhetoric and freedom-from-oppression), then one would think that Berlin is to be thought of as an entirely modern, if not futuristic society that breeds utopia. But, Berlin is the cross-roads. Cal may be able to come to Berlin and find peace to negotiate, but Berlin, too, is between times. Never to be thought of as in-line with the “modern” West just as Cal’s identity also excludes her from the “modern,” the character and the place are internal and external spaces that are constantly made to come to terms with the problems that literally haunt their pasts. While, as I stated, I am reading significance into Berlin and interpreting things left unsaid by Eugenides, as I see it, almost all that Cal reflects on personally/internally can be paralleled on some level by hir external place in Berlin. Berlin, an apparent compendium of Western discursive productions, remains a space for those in the middle, those without a space to their own.

To paraphrase a man I met about a month ago at a neighborhood bar put it, “I came to Berlin because I had an empty wallet, an empty stomach, and an empty canvas. Now that I’ve come, I see why few artists leave. You don’t need much money, there’s plenty of food, and there’s constant inspiration. If I do leave, it’s because Berlin has made me know who I am.”

Just to stand on my soapbox built out of my concentration in identity studies, I offer some critique, too, of Middlesex. Eugenides, for his efforts, should, I think, have done more consulting on proper terminology and necessary specificity to use, given he chose to write about an especially confusing, often unspoken of identity. This case brings to mind the now often discussed inquiry, “Could Toni Morrison have written her novels if she were not (or did not identify as) an American black woman?” As always, and using this case as a lens, my answer is that she could not have. Here, having Eugenides represent an identity that he himself does not identify or align with brings about, firstly, the problem of the word “hermaphrodite.” Time and time again, I have heard Middlesex cited as the source for peoples’ belief that this term is, in fact, politically-correct. It is not (or at least it is not in the West). As a general rule with, I am sure, many exceptions, no modern medical institutions, political policy firms, or social advocacy organizations use this word. The term disavows the multitude of intersex genetic-makeup and replaces it with a more digestible, less critical version that allows for people to imagine there being one single way to be non-normative in sex (in this case, only 5th-chromosomal mutation), as opposed to the hundreds of ways that exist. Furthermore, the term “hermaphrodite,” implies two complete, reproductively-functioning sets of secondary sex characteristics (breasts and genitals) to be had by the person in question. As this, despite all the variety that does exist, is impossible, “hermaphrodite” is a confusing misnomer. Despite my critiques, I do applaud Eugenides efforts to open up conversation and also applaud Oprah(‘s Book Club) for making this book as big a success as she did. I hope that the intersexed and allied community finds it possible to talk through some of the problems in this book while leaving it intact as one of the few published, widely-read novels that sheds some light onto the often ignored identity that is “Middlesex.”

On one final note: I’ve volunteered as a safe-zone affiliate for NYU’s LGBT office for the past two semesters. Not only would I encourage anyone with similar interests to go to a Safe-Zone training session upon returning to campus, I would also encourage anyone reading this blog who has any questions, personal or non-specific, to be in touch with me.

"Authentic" Berlin: BerghainThere are two differing versions of the production of authenticity as I see it. One of them, on which our reading is based, involves the production of authenticity to serve as a means of drawing in “travelers,” who apparently, upon falling into this type of forged authenticity, transition to being “tourists.” Of course, this transition can’t be seen nor do I find it to be especially worth discussing at great length. However, I do feel that I could sum up what I believe happens into a simple, albeit certainly debatable and perhaps disagreeable, summation.

Reflecting on Marx, it seems that the difference between the “traveler” and the “tourist” stems out of the ongoing class struggle that came out of industrialization. The old elites, those who became those who held the means of production and were at one point the only ones who could afford traveling and seeing far-off lands. As travel became more and more accessible, “tourism” was invented as a way to distinguish those going on vacation from those who were part of the elite, cultured class and wanted to see the world. Being a tourist has been produced as linguistically negative term that no one wants to be associated with and, as such, no one wants to do anything that could be perceived as “inauthentic,” which roughly translates to anything designed for a tourist. So, anytime anyone finds something to do while traveling that has made them FEEL like they were getting an ACTUAL experience of a NEW culture by way of their own INDEPENDENT adventures and means, they’ve labeled it “authentic.” Naturally, the tourist industry has tapped into this desire and come up with ways of giving people the “illusion” of authenticity (which seems like an illusion of an illusion) while profiting at the same time.

On the other hand, there seems to be another type of produced “authenticity” that is designed to keep people out. Here, in Berlin, there are so many things that are only for “real Berliners,” and the criteria of authenticity is used to, instead of enhance numbers and profits, actually keep people out. I guess the same thing happens in New York, but I’ve never experienced in the same way that I have here (perhaps because I am DEFINITELY a “REAL” New Yorker).

So, in order to exemplify what my feelings of the two productions of authenticity are in Berlin, I will discuss restaurants (for the former/De Boton reading of authenticity) and night life (for the latter, my reading of authenticity here).

First, as for restaurants, there are two restaurants here in my neighborhood, Kreutzberg, that I’m currently working on reviews of. First, there’s Henne (pronounced “hen-UH”) that’s about a ten minute walk from my apartment. Henne is perceived to be the most authentic restaurant that we’ve gone to, despite the fact that we were all told about it and given directions there from numerous people. They are friendly to tourists. I, myself, have even been there twice, and will probably go again later in the week when I have a guest coming. It’s fun to be sure. The beamed ceilings and unfinished, hard-wood floor give this place a real Black Forest feel, while the ceramic, carved beer steins only add to the rustic feeling. It is famous for its “milchschinken,” or half-of-a-fried-chicken-served-without-sides. It’s good that it’s famous for this, because it’s the only thing on the menu besides beer and sauerkraut.

Next, we’ve got Markthalle (pronounced MARKT-all-eh), about a 15 minute walk away. No, we weren’t directly led to this one. A friend of mine on the trip brought me there, laying claim to the place, saying triumphantly, “I found this place all on my own! It looks so German! They say they have the best weiner schnitzel in all of Berlin!” The décor matched Henne’s, the menu, though with slightly more options, still had the rustic aesthetics of Henne’s, the staff, all scarily-Aryan looking, matched Henne’s. It felt like Henne. Then we sat down and got our menus-for-tourists, written in English, French, Spanish, and Italian.

So, what’re my accusations against these places? Every member of the staff speaks perfect English (and a number of other languages), the food is absurdly overpriced, we were directly led there for an “authentic” experience if not by people, by design and advertising, and no guest, that I’ve encountered at either place, speaks to the staff in German. Furthermore, at least half of the imagery that they draw upon to create the “authentic” feel comes from Southern Germany, not Berlin.

As for my reading of a second type of authenticity, I will herein discuss the club Berghain (pronounced bierk-AYN, a word only native Germans can pronounce correctly, I should add). Berghain rests on the border of Kreutzberg and Freidrichshain, and derives its name from a combination of the last four letters of both of these formerly East German neighborhoods. Like Williamsburg, East Berlin has only recently Gentrified and become trendy. According to residentadvisor.net (click picture above), Kreutzberg is now the center of Electro, and Berghain is the number one club in Berlin. An old electric factory, this place now bumps so loudly with bass every Saturday (or actually Sunday since it opens at 12am and doesn’t close until 12pm Sunday afternoon), that it can be heard from 10 minutes away in any direction. The second floor of Berghain (or Panarama bar) can, too, be seen from about 10 minutes away, with multicolored laser lights flashing from its windows. From what I was told from the one person I know who’s been inside, the place is never crowded. This is odd since there’s always about a 40 minute wait to get inside. But, this place keeps its authenticity by keeping out the riff-raff. That is, you are firmly judged by a bouncer, who in roughly 9 out of 10 cases, simply firmly dismisses you. Also according to resident advisor, the criterion for getting in does not involve looks. It involves whether or not you respond to the bouncer, who invariably speaks English to you, also in English or in German (never speak English or act like you know what he said to you), whether or not you look the bouncer in the eye (NEVER look the bouncer in the eye), how apathetic you look (the more apathetic the better), and how poorly dressed you are (the more poorly, the better). And so, this place keeps world-famous DJs fighting to play there and crowds of people fighting to pay 20 euro covers every Saturday night. I, myself, have an anxiety attack just thinking about trying to be that authentic.

Turkish Woman at the Berlin MarketTo preface this post, I’d like to say that I initially planned on only writing reviews of restaurants and bars for my open posts while I was abroad. I don’t like to give the impression that I’m strictly involved in academics. In fact, I cherish my social life much more than my academic life. Adjusting, then, to a new social climate (amongst a compendium of other new climates) has been the main source of my frustrations thusfar abroad, not to mention a main source of annoyingly late blog entries and my entire lack of comments on everyone else’s blog. That said, I’d much rather make this blog post particularly academic to make up for lost time spent in academia and as an attempt to organize my thoughts about the deviant identities I so wish to study while here. And, as I’ve already started to organize some notes on a few of my favorite places in Berlin, I will definitely put up some extra “free posts” on my own time to let everyone know what an amazing city this is!

So, I’d like to start with language and gender and move on to race and place. So, language here, as I’m beginning to understand, is entirely gender-based. It’s nearly impossible to say anything, from an adjective, noun, name, or sentence without it being entirely codified by gender. I studied Spanish for a long time, and as I understood Spanish and all other Romance languages, gender was key. However, in English, we do not have such strictly gendered language, and for whatever reason, I was quite convinced that it had to do with our language’s Germanic roots. Though, I can quite clearly see that this apparently isn’t the case in the German language. It isn’t the nouns being gendered that bothers me, though, so much as it is the names. We were made to say each other’s names in class predicated by a definitive masculine or feminine article, and later with proper terms for greeting. Therefore, made to make assumptions based on what are apparently accepted as universal cues for gendering. This was so frustrating, but I’m sure less so for me than for trans- or gender-queer people of Germany. I didn’t know what to do accept ask that before any more assumptions were made that we all designate which sex or gender we’d like to identify with before continuing the “game.” Then, it is thus proven once more that the school-house is one of the primary institutions of gendering. But, this rant does not cease there, for it is also apparently easier for men to become “du” rather than “sie” to each other, that is, move to informal titles of friendship, and it is even more rigidly guarded for women and men to not so easily become “du” without there being some type of romance implied. I find that most of my friends are women, but will it really take much longer, more confidence, more assurance to be able to speak to them as such here? It seems like it’s a dilemma that should focus more on the flexibility and instability of a language, much like English has, to appropriately enter the 21st Century.

As for race relations in Germany, what I’ve noticed has a lot to do with where I live: Kreutzberg or “Little Istanbul,” as it is colloquially known here. Yes, the Turkish population is very large and seemingly very traditional, the men and boys greet us very nicely upon entering any shop or restaurant and the women and girls generally are found elsewhere, quietly cooking or cleaning something, smiling if they happen to make eye-contact with a Westerner. Try as I may, it seems impossible to talk about “encountering” a different people, quickly being made into a different race, without talking about the adapted gender roles that come with immigration. But, then, on the other hand, walking through the Turkish market (a huge fresh produce open-air market that takes place a few blocks away from our dorms every Tuesday and Friday), the gender roles seem to disappear. Everyone is comfortable and happy to deal with one another. Westerner/Whites, from what I can tell, are treated with a level of disregard that anyone might expect from an open-air market. I try to imagine these people imagining themselves back at home, asking or telling, “Buy or leave. You buy, I smile. You leave, I smile at someone else.” Of course, this might just be me romanticizing the immigrant experience, making it seem as though thinking back and imagining someone’s life before they migrated is even conceivable. Perhaps, then, things seem more relaxed and, dare I say, authentic here simply because of the commonality of culture that people share. They, in some way, are allowed to expect what they might expect at home because there are so many people there that seem to have grown up with the same, basic cultural principles in line. I really, really love living in this neighborhood and just being allowed to observe the immigrant experience in a different country.

Munich AirportI write from the airport in Munich or Munchen, as it is known here. I didn’t plan on being here, nor did Luftansa plan on keeping me here. I was supposed to have a lay-over that allowed me to stay on the plane and continue to Berlin shortly thereafter. But, instead, I am here. I arrived to JFK at 3:45, exactly. My flight left at 5:45, exactly. My anxiety raged for 24 hours before leaving, but getting to the airport on time and talking to the Lufthansa agents made me feel better. “You will love Berlin and it sounds like you know so much about Berlin already. Don’t worry that you don’t know German.” Which, in fairness, I guess isn’t my concern. I do know a lot about Berlin, including that it’s an international city that relies heavily on English for cross-cultural, cross-national communication. I poured a lot of my energy for the past couple of months into learning about the place that I’ll be going. I feel like I’m in love with Berlin and that it might, by this point, actually entirely easy for me to navigate. But what if it isn’t? What is all I’ve learned is for naught? I read parts of the namesake for this course last semester and currently in progress reading the entirety of the “Art of Travel” (forgive the quotation marks I’m using to replace an underline or italics). I think the notion of just learning about a place and then, at the 59th hour, deciding not to go is absolutely fascinating. Maybe how I imagine Berlin will be better, and maybe it would have been best not to go. I keep thinking about how this topic so often was at the center of discussion in the seminar I took with Steve last semester, but it does me no good now. Now I am in Munich. I slept nearly the entire flight, falling asleep regretfully to Vicky Christina Barcelona, a film I’d been meaning to watch forever and one that was available on Lufthansa’s list of movies on their beautiful personal monitors. Like Jetblue but better, but international, but touchscreen. I was reminded, then, why I thought Berlin was right for me. I liked it’s “one-upping” on nearly everything American. Angles, black, inexpensive, expensive, modern. I don’t know what I mean by that exactly, but they all feel like the right words that serve as mental-queues for me to think “Germany.” After waking up to the sound of wheels hitting the ground, I felt that my anxiety had entirely subsided because what else was there to do at this point but ask kind souls if they spoke English. “Could you give me the time, sir?” “Do you know where the cabs line up, miss?” But, actually, the question was directed at me. Looking thoroughly unshaven, and, as my aunt put it just the other day when a homeless man asked me for money, “a through-and-through college student,” a flight attendant said, “We have [gold members] that need to board this overbooked flight. We will give you a 200 Euro travel voucher if you wait in Munich for two hours.” And what else would I do for two hours besides arrive in Berlin only to go to a hostel and probably feel more anxious about not knowing anyone yet. The NYU program still does not start here for another week! “Okay.” I said, and now I sit at an angular, black, modern table in an angular restaurant, knowing that my trip home, on which I plan on spending my newly-granted voucher will be inexpensive, but still feel expensive.