After Zhang Danhong had to get a study place at the University of Cologne and a visa, state your project is “Germany”. For the arrival, she met an unconventional decision.
For the younger readers in advance: Interflug, the national airline of the former East Germany. In turn, the other was Germany, with a socialist perspective, had to be in the system competition with the Federal Republic of Germany failed. A country is run down, is placed on the airline in General, little confidence. Or you want to imagine to fly with Air Venezuela? So my decision in 1988, my life in the East German Interflug entrust was commented on by a West German with the question: “Are You tired of living?”
This provocation, I did as the usual fraternal strife. The state of the GDR was, in fact, I could not have guessed back then. I held it still for the flagship country of the socialist camp. And the decision for the inter-flight was not against the Lufthansa – I have taken purely for economic reasons. If I’m not mistaken, the cost of the flight from Beijing to East Berlin 800 D-Mark. From Beijing to Frankfurt, I would have had to Lufthansa about the Double pay.
A MeToo history, the out of the cold
I decided to go for an exceptional airline, I was the same when picking up my Tickets at the Beijing inter-flight office, as well. The only employee, an elderly German man with thinning hair and an upstream belly, went after a short exchange of words to the door, turned the “Closed”sign to the outside, lock the door from the inside, lifted me up like a trophy in the air and then sat down on his Desk. I felt like I was in the wrong movie. “You as usual?” I muttered out of embarrassment. Today I ordered this encounter as my first MeToo-story with a German, I survived without any injuries.
Your first trip to Germany with the former GDR airline has the author in good memory
The second East German, I got to know, was my seat neighbor in the inter-flight machine. He was almost the counter-concept to the unsavory employees in the office of the airline: sympathetic, intellectual and warm-hearted. We talked for hours – about my plans in Cologne, Germany, his work in the Embassy in Beijing, and Heinrich Heine. In East Berlin, his family lived, with the he the holiday the national day (7. October) wanted to spend. The nervousness of the first flight in my life, and the melancholy that I felt after saying goodbye to my parents, went on in this pleasant entertainment.
Suitcase way, the nervous blank
However, the first test of nerves had not long to wait. Mother soul alone, I stood at the empty baggage belt to the East Berlin airport of Schönefeld. Where was my dark blue suitcase? Everything I had painted to me shortly before the trip: That I would not understand in the lecture, the half of it; that I could half-starve to death, because I liked neither Butter nor cheese. But that I would lose my suitcase and quasi naked after Cologne, more trips would have to be, so I had not expected.
After I put in the service of the contents of my Luggage had described, I felt, as to me the bottom of your feet was pulled away. As an older gentleman spoke to me at once: “I think I’ve taken your suitcase by Mistake.” Me neither to Laughter nor to tears (哭笑不得, ku xiao bu de, Chinese proverb). Without a word I marched with the case to border control and stood in the long queue. I looked at the clock: The Trouble with the suitcase, had cost me a whole hour. Frauke and Hannes, a nice couple from Mannheim, which had promised me a common Transfer and train journey, no longer would wait on me.
Here, the author has landed over 30 years ago – at that time the airport was on the floor of the GDR
Soon I understood the reason for the long queue: All foreign-looking people had to open their suitcases and a thorough control of endure. My knee butter was not soft, because I brought drugs or weapons with me, but because my father had put his care in the service, and for me, the suitcase Packed. It would be at the Olympic Games of a discipline suitcase, he would be with certainty a contender for a medal. In other words: Would now ransacked my suitcase and completely resolved, I would have a Chance to put it back zuzubekommen.
The East German Gentleman
Here’s my guardian angel appeared – in the shape of my seat neighbor on the plane. At the other end of the line, behind the border guards standing, he asked loudly in my direction: “Where were You so long?” The border officials turned to him. Since the East German Gentleman showed up to me and said: “This is my wife. I’ve lost the eye.” With a pre-waving gesture that signaled for me the official, that I should come out at the queue of people over to my “husband”. All could hear the stone, the me from the heart fell. Then my guardian angel apologized to me that he had to get smart with me spontaneously. He had waited so long for me to wish me all the best and to say that he admired my courage.
If I draw a conclusion about the East German airline, so I’ve felt during the flight as safe as later with the West German Kranich. The importunate staff was a black sheep. And the temporarily-lost suitcase, it was in retrospect an ingredient to make a travel adventure yet spicy. Too bad I only found that I had not asked for the name of the East German heroes of mine had saved a lot of waiting time and an embarrassing Situation. Soon, I should not know that he was my only guardian angel.
Zhang Danhong was born in Beijing and lives since 30 years in Germany. In the series “English is not a bed of roses” she writes once a week about your first contacts with the German language and their Integration in Germany.