I spent a summer in Japan when I was 15 and discovered that Japanese chefs can take any foreign pastry– Italian tiramisu, French puff pastry, and even Spanish churros– and improve on perfection. The Japanese versions of western style cakes tasted lighter and more flavorful. And boy were they pretty. But try as they might, the… Read more »
In April of 1990, I was 20 years old and studying abroad in Vienna. I took a trip with a classmate to Berlin and Prague for the weekend. At that time the city was still divided by the wall, and the currency was still separate as well. We were stopped by the East German border patrol and… Read more »
In a city where so little of daily life feels specifically German, the supermarket is always there to remind you that you’re foreign. Walk into a typical Berlin supermarket and you will first notice that it is small by American standards, the aisles about two shopping carts wide. With space so limited, you may be… Read more »
A heavy-set Mediterranean man with salt-and-pepper gray hair taped me on the shoulder and began asking questions about the Anmeldungs form. In broken German with a mottled accent he began pointing at the different portions of my form and mumbling his questions is a low voice: “and this section, I am not moving with my… Read more »
Sitting downstairs in the food court of the 205 cantonment consumerplex in Friedrichstraße – I only come here because I don’t know where else to go – between bites of the lunch and the reading of the Tome I’m startled out of my book-induced reverie by a curious sound. “And is it not a fine… Read more »
Paul Beatty is the author of three novels: White Boy Shuffle, Tuff, and the recently published Slumberland, which takes place in Berlin. He is also the editor of Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor.
Photo courtesy of Dan in Antarctica
Image courtesy of Paul Mannix
