Treffen mit deutschen Schülern (Meeting with German Students)

On Monday (9/19) the UMD students visited Berufsfachschule für Sozialwesen (Professional School for Social Workers) in Berlin Charlottenburg. The purpose of this meeting was to take our students out of their daily English-speaking environment and to offer them an opportunity to make acquaintance with local students of their age.

The meeting started with individual introduction of 8 American and 10 German students. As ice breaker, all students played a Bingo game while the German students asked questions in English and UMD students in German. The first four winning students received prizes.

Then, students matched with their speaking partners by name lottery, started their first conversation and exchanged contact information for future meetings through the semester. The UMD students are encouraged to visit their speaking partners' school, living district, or family. They also can invite these German students to FU, to their host family, or to their apartment quarter.

Through this acquaintance, our students will have the opportunity to meet more German locals, to participate in a reading club, sport group or a volunteer organization. In addition, they can closely observe the German culture and collect materials for their semester report. Hopefully, this initial meeting will flourish into interesting cultural encounters and develop into productive experiential-learning explorations.

Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin

This year's International Literature Festival takes place from 15th to 25th of September in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. It is the 10th anniversary of the festival.




The emphasis of this year is "Eastern Europe." however, when I read the program brochure of the festival, I found that one Chinese poet was included in the program. I didn't understand how a Chinese writer can be involved in the eastern European literature, so I decided to visit his session.

Since I am from Taiwan and not from China, I don't know the writer or his work. After googling about him, I realize that he has been quite famous in the European literal circle.

Liao Yi-Wu, a Chinese writer, poet and musician who has been denied permission by Chinese authorities to leave the country for years, wrote a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel seeking intervention. The German government's persistence has finally paid off, and Liao has become an honored guest at Berlin's International Literary Festival.


In his session Liao played music and sang, and two German gentlemen, one author and one actor, read his poems and proses. His provocative poems landed him in jail for four year, and his proses records and chronicles the lives of people living at the bottom of society.


The sound of the Xiao, a flute-like instrument that Liao had learned to play while in prison, was full of philosophical sadness. Despite of his 52 of age, Liao's music sounded like a song played by a 90 year-old, full of life experiences. It's really special for me to witness a Chinese writer being honored in a German literal festival.

Die Erste Woche (The first week)

School started on Monday (8/30). Both students and myself all tried very hard to adjust to the serious semester routine. Students have 17.5 hours weekly course load, which is not easy to fiddle with after a long summer.

In the morning, students attend their German language classes. In the afternoon, they have three content courses in a week. Students all reined their tourist's mood and concentrated in the class rooms. Nonetheless, we were excited that on Friday (9/3), we would have a whole-day field trip to Potsdam.

Potsdam is a small town in the southwestern urban area of Berlin. Who would think such a peaceful place, with a traditional German palace, which was a former Prussian crown prince's resident, would become a historical place? The two "eyes" on the roof seem to remind us to WATCH OUT!

In 1945, Winston Chirchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin
met in Potsdam Conference to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi Germany.

credit to http://euroheritage.net/Potsdam_conference_1945-6.jpg

A totalitarian dictatorship of Nazi Germany left horrible memories to the German people. However, more and more Germans are willing to face the truth of the past. In the city center of Berlin, an outdoor museum was built on the ground of the former Gestapo and SS headquarters, the principal instruments of repression during the Nazi era. It is called the "Topographie des Terrors".

The street next to this museum happens to be a part of the Berlin Wall, which was never removed from the site. The cellar of the Gestapo headquarters, where many political prisoners were tortured and executed, were found, excavated and designed to be the underground memorial site.


The buildings behind the Wall were constructed during the Nazi time and were used by the East Germany after the war. However, although buildings in the western side were only damaged, they were demolished intentionally. The area was used as a bumper car site.













The design of the "Topographie des Terrors" reminds me of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Both were chosen through architectural competitions. The construction was finished and the new building was opened to the public on May 7, 2010. I feel lucky to be able to visit the new memorial after only four months of its completion.