A couple years ago, I found myself in Germany for the first time, feeling like Juzo Itami. I was fresh off a 13 hour red-eye flight on Lufthansa with a German uncle squeezing halfway (!) into my seat. Note to self, don’t buy economy on cross-continent flights. Already I had my fair share of surprises. Back at the home airport, I shared my lighter with a white lady carrying a poodle and chatted about how she was going back home for summer. To my horror, she was on my flight. And the poodle barked throughout the night. A-woo-ooh!
I was on zero sleep, all gas, no brakes, running on adrenaline and cheap airport coffee. I was only getting 8 hours in Germany but I was going to make every second worth it. I got into the Schengen Zone (a miracle in hindsight, I didn’t have a return ticket), chucked my barang2 into Frankfurt Airport’s luggage storage and went straight to the metro. Oh yeah, I didn’t have data either. I just beelined to the subway.
For some reason, I ended up tagging along with two Chinese ladies on their holiday for about half the layover. Don’t ask how it happened, the conversation went something like, “你会说中文吗”, “当然会阿” and it was a done deal. They were out shopping for luxury bags. I wasn’t, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go either.
After they got their bags, we went our separate ways. They had more luxury bags to buy and I had churches and museums to look at.
The number of plazas in the city impressed me the most. There was some event happening in the city that Sunday and large sections were cordoned off but the city was still extremely walkable. That was my first impression of Europe. Lots of plazas. And instead of Toyotas there were Renaults.
Other than that, it was really just another city. Kind of like Hong Kong but less personality.
With four hours left in my layover I connected to a McDonald’s wifi and headed for ░D░A░S░ ░M░U░S░E░U░M░ ░M░M░K░ ░F░Ü░R░ ░M░O░D░E░R░N░E░ ░K░U░N░S░T░. This whole post is really about my museum visit. I got the idea to write this when I found a pamphlet from the ZOLLAMT in the bottom of my travel bag.
I got into the museum for free with my student card and walked around the white/sterilised/clean interior. Nothing that really caught my eye. At this point I hadn’t really been to any museums, besides historical ones in Korea and Taiwan. I thought they were kind of bullshit.
Then something caught my eye.
It was an exhibit called “PANS”. On a beige cream wall: Five cast iron pans stuck to the wall like pizzas on a wood-fired oven flipped ninety degrees. The middle pan had a black cable connected to it, desperate to be noticed, running into a mundane power socket near the floor. Near the pan was an inscription in German and English: Achtung! Hot, do not touch.
I stared at it for like two minutes. It was so brazen. What is this, some kind of bizarre study on human curiosity? Could I be on Just For Laughs Germany? How could anyone not touch it? Yet the audience wonders: What if it really is hot? The artist is making a fool of me. We stood there in silence for fifteen minutes, locked in an implicit zugzwang. Until I touched it. It was hot.
Art that makes the viewer participate. That was something.
I went over to the exhibition space opposite the museum called a ZOLLAMT. It was a small building hosting an exhibition about Africans getting plundered by British. The curator was a middle-aged white lady. She asked if I could speak English, I replied that I could and she gave me a 45 minute lecture about the significance and metaphors of this short film they were screening (if only my professors had been this passionate). I was beginning to regret my fluency in English halfway into the film, as I only had 45 minutes to get back to the airport. But I watched the entire thing, depressing as it was, so that she wouldn’t feel offended. When I came out, she had vanished.
I sprinted to the metro, regretting my choice to carry a backpack with a 2kg laptop in it. On the sidewalk – there she was! The traitorous Frau had made like Medea and abandoned me for her lunch break. “You can make it!” she cheered. Damn you, Scylla, you have ruined me! I cursed.
But made it I did, armed now with the knowledge of British crimes in the Kingdom of Benin.
And more importantly, not to touch hot pans.