As Zhang Danhong came to Germany, she had a priority list in your head. At the very top driver’s licence state:. You then went, after everything was settled with the study, and the first carnival to have survived.
When I told a German that I can’t drive as a native Chinese bike, he has believed me, not a word. No wonder, because everyone here had filled before his mind’s eye the images of hundreds of thousands of cyclists, in dense racemes, the streets of Beijing. Pictures from the good old 1980s, when China was still referred to as the Kingdom of Bicycle riders. And so the stereotype was that every Baby can travel in China by Bicycle. So Yes, every Chinese toddler is able to solve highly complicated math problems. This has at least shown Michael ende in his classic “Jim button and Luke the engine driver” as a matter of course.
A Beijing Bicycle formation in a unit of clothing from the year 1984
But back to the driving wheels is Exactly these dense clusters were triggered by my mother’s anxiety. You don’t want to know your daughter one day in such a grape. So, I missed it in the age of the child, to learn Cycling. At Beijing University, this Handicap had fatal consequences: I had to walk the huge Campus while all the others were up to and following a Bicycle. A friend wanted to show me that I was able to be this two-wheeled mistress. So he ran round and round on the sports field next to me, while I felt on the bike, always safer. One day I dared to leave the sports field and noted in horror, that had lost a couple of pedestrians on the Campus. I wanted to avoid them and went straight on to you. Just before I went around someone, I jumped from the wheel. In order to spare both of my nerves, as well as the innocent people, before I moved it, again on my own legs to move.
This disgrace has not let me go. After my arrival in Germany, I thought, just a driver’s license could save my honor. The country people told me to driving school instructors, the Chinese a lump-sum price offered: 1200 D-Mark to the driver’s license. The average license cost of a average IQ-equipped German at that time amounted to about 1500 D-Mark. The instructor speculated that it would create the ambitious Asians faster than the German.
Theory hui – practice ugh
In my case, his speculation proved to be a hit, as far as it concerned the theoretical part of the training. Who had passed the University entrance examination in China with flying colors, for the learning by heart was the rules of the road is a children’s game. On the road everything will go like clockwork, until I realized that the teacher for me, steered and braked.
The theory part was for the author a trifle
The instructor was in her mid-fifties, and belonged to the variety of men, which no woman of joy wakes up. When he smiled, exposing two rows of unsorted dark yellow teeth. Each driving lesson cost me to Overcome. I said to myself: “You learn to have a car and are not looking for a husband.” This self-discipline helped. I focused on the road and made progress.
One day, the instructor had me in front of a high-rise Parking. “I live here. We go to drink me a Cup of coffee,” he suggested. For me, all of alarm were heard bells, until I saw his wife in the apartment. Back in the car, he asked me: “My wife or your coffee – what’s worse?” “You have a sense of Humor,” I answered, a little embarrassed. “I’ve never been kissed by a Chinese,” he said and put his Hand on my as if he wanted to help me Switch. “This will remain so”, I would have said the most. Instead, I asked a distracting question: “when are we driving on the highway?” “Now.”
Finally, a test I was told appointment. On this day, the teachers took place in the passenger seat, the examiner sat behind us. After a few minutes I should be driving on a main road. A truck came from the left. The instructor slowed down. “If I had sat behind, would we be in now.” The test ended abruptly. The teacher patted me on the shoulder: “don’t worry. Many fall through the first Time.”
Women and reverse Parking
On the second try I believed to have the driving license already safely in the bag. Until the last task had: reverse parallel Park. Head to the right, take diagonally backward, angle to take, and then the steering Wheel control. The second Time it worked. Then I should be Parking all of a sudden on the left side of the road backwards. Infinite Emptiness I felt in my head. Three times I failed. To my displeasure I was able to press little: “Why I must also be able to Park on the left of backward sideways? On such Parking I can do without.”
That women can’t reverse Park a car, in the case of the author not a rumor
I had heard that you have to undergo in Germany, a idiot test, if you fall in the driving test three times. So I took deadly serious the last Chance – as seriously as the high school entrance exam. I prepared myself thoroughly, went through all the contingencies again in my head and focused on me during the examination to act with foresight.
As I held the driver’s license finally in the hands, I had the twinge of a bad conscience: After the experience with me the special offer to the Chinese would be deleted, guaranteed!
Today, the shame, the bike is forgotten to for a long time. With the car I can not move me only independently, where I want to go. For over 20 years I am as freelancer also a driver of my children. Only one I’ve actually never: on the left, reverse parallel Park.
Zhang Danhong was born in Beijing and lives since 30 years in Germany. In the series “English is not a bed of roses” is, she writes once a week about your first contacts with the German language and their Integration in Germany.