Berlin

There’s been a lot to my first week in Berlin. For instance, when the IES Abroad staff took us to an O2 outlet on Friedrichstraße for German SIM-cards, one of the employees nodded towards our group of confused, tired, and mildly hungry American students. He pleasantly reminded us that they would be able to speak to us in English, politely gesturing us to enter the building.

Plopping myself down at the service desk, though, I impulsively chirped in German when handing the man my passport, dooming myself to an attempt at conversing in a foreign language. “Hier ist mein Ausweis.” Here’s my identification. The man handled it with care, rifling through it until he found the page with my information.

As he looked it over, I summoned the best of my rusty German and added, “Manche von uns Deustch verstehen, aber nicht alle.” Most of us understand German, but not all.

Continuing his pleasant tone, the O2 worker replied, “Ja, aber Sie sprechen gutes Deutsch.” Yes, but you speak good German.

“Wirklich?” I conceded, “Also, ist Deutsch meine dritte Sprache, so, es ist manchmal nicht so gross.”
Really? Uhm, German’s my third language, so, it’s not always so great.

“Dritte Sprache? Welche andere Sprachen kennen Sie?” Third? What others do you know?

“Natürlich Englisch. Aber auch Tagalog, eine Sprache von der Philippinen.” Of course, I speak English. But also Tagalog. It’s a language from the Philippines.

“Von der Philippinen?” He furrowed a brow. The Philippines?

“Ja, genau. Meine Familie kommt aus der Philippinen.” Yeah, exactly. My family’s from there.

He smiled under his mask, handing me a digital form on a tablet for me to sign. As I hastily scribbled my name in cursive, I noticed the flag of Russia sitting next to the Union Jack on his name card, his surname above noticeably coming from somewhere east of Berlin. 

As this interaction easily demonstrates, Berlin has made itself apparent as being an international city—a true Weltstadt. The kids on the street praise each other’s style with "no front", show their gratitude for life with a “mashallah”, and are equally likely to bid one another farewell with a “tschüs”, “ciao”, or a “see ya.” This is in part the result of many, many waves of immigration to the area over a period of many, many years. 

For example, Berlin holds what’s cited as the largest Turkish population existing outside of Turkey. The community finds its roots in the employment of Turkish “Gastarbeiter”, or “guest workers”, workers from outside of Germany who were systematically recruited to fill the labour shortage during the nation’s era of reconstruction. Their children became educated in German schools, forming a generation with cultural ties to both their parent’s country of origin and their country of birth.

Turkish German culture continues to permeate the city, most apparent in the form of the ever-popular Döner. Döner kebab, a dish of Turkish origin, often takes the form of a sandwich in Germany, with Döner-dedicated stalls available on almost every other block in Berlin. This localized incarnation is an undeniable fusion of influences, rotisserie meats paired with salad and sauce(s) one is obligated to request in German.

Truth be told, my parents actually came to the United States during a labour shortage. In the wake of the first years of the American AIDS epidemic, New York found itself desperately searching for qualified medical workers to fill roles in many hospitals founded during the 1980s. English having been their language of education, and, quite frankly, underpaid in the country of origin, Philippine nurses were incredibly suited for these positions. My mother was one of these many nurses, first settling in the East Village of New York in 1987. Her husband then also immigrating, and her children born as Americans by birthright, she joined the ever-growing Filipino American community of the East Coast.

That being so, there’s a sense of familiarity for me in Berlin’s ethnic enclaves—in their residents dipping in-between languages, lands, and loyalties, and in these communities’ children crafting an identity neither here nor there.

There’s a lot of other stuff that’s happened to me in Berlin since getting here—figuring out how to navigate the city in spite of a S-Bahn worker strike, growing my German vocab, journeying with fellow students to explore the city’s vibrant nightlife, befriending both locals and other international students, and most definitely, eating a lot of Döner since moving in. 

But getting not just familiar, but comfortable with Berlin, has probably been the biggest thing I’ve done so far. And I’m sure it can only get better from here.

Hi. I’m Avery. I'm gonna be in Berlin for Fall 2021.

My friends over at Williams College, (who I’m glad I was able to visit at the college's New England utopia above before disappearing to Germany for several months), sometimes joke that I live in a YA novel. A lot of my life consists of, usually pleasant, but oftentimes ridiculous things that just sort of happen to me. Of course, I try my hardest to happen back.

Let’s start with a funny story, then.

So, my full name is Avery Gene Trinidad. A fairly archetypal Filipino name for the 21st century—There’s Anglophone given names, (including the middle name, as I’m the second-born), with a Hispaniphone family name tagged on.

Avery comes from Jesuit theologian and fellow New Yorker, Avery Robert Dulles SJ. Gene, a masculinized clipping of my mother’s name, Genelene, ultimately stems from my maternal grandfather’s name, Generoso. Trinidad means “trinity” in Spanish, as in the “Holy Trinity”, meaning that someone up there in the family tree felt particularly Catholic that day when declaring a surname.

In the database of United Airlines, with whom I booked my flight to Berlin, that all gets formatted as TRINIDAD/AVERYGENE. That’s a system of LASTNAME/FIRSTNAMEMIDDLENAME. As my departure flight is a codeshare with Lufthansa, “TRINIDAD/AVERYGENE” is what enters their database.

Except, given that Lufthansa is a German airline, and German names don’t quite have middle names as their own separate legal field— their system opts for LASTNAME/FIRSTNAMETITLE. My middle name, “Gene”, was read by their computers as an abbreviation for a title.

Thus, on my ticket for check-in, I became General Avery Trinidad.

Bad news: I am not in the military. I have no desire to be. I, in actuality, have been an active college student for the past two years. I, most importantly, am only twenty years old.

Good news: When I called Lufthansa about this, they assured me it was fine—I was still “TRINIDAD/AVERYGENE” in their database,  “TRINIDAD, AVERY GENE” on my boarding pass, and my first name and last name matched my passport, which was what really mattered. (Titles, apparently, were irrelevant in the grand scheme of airline check-ins).

Weird news: The members of Lufthansa’s support center were equally befuddled as to how that error even happened, especially when considering how “general” isn’t even a publically available option for a title when purchasing tickets.

The moral of the story?

Well, one could begin by remembering the fact that cultures across the world differ in things that seem as basic as names.

German names do often incorporate what Americans would interpret as a “middle name”—one could be named “Luka Elias Schmitt”, for example. “Luka Elias”, however, would be considered one whole given name, even though the person would most likely go by only “Luka”.

Spanish and Portuguese names sometimes recognize both parents’ surnames. “Maria Santos y Guerra”, for instance, contains both paternal (“Santos”) and maternal (“Guerra”) family names.

East Asian names conventionally place the family name before an individual’s given name—and, particularly in China and Korea, many people have both an eastern (“Longmei”) and western (“Cassandra”) given name.

Several of the customs around Filipino names, historically, resulted from attempts to adapt Spanish names (and familial naming patterns) into the American “first name, middle name, last name” standard during the American colonial period. First-born children, or sometimes even entire families, adopt the mother’s maiden name as a middle name in an attempt to reconcile Spanish naming conventions. (“Mary Santos y Guerra” becoming “Mary Guerra Santos”, for example.) This is without mentioning indigenous groups in the Philippines, several of whom forego surnames altogether.

The world and its peoples are as diverse as can be, and I consider that to be a beautiful, beautiful thing. You have to really learn that when you go abroad.

I’m bent on doing that, more than I already have.

The other moral of this story, equally as important to students trying to study abroad, would be to double, nay, triple check with the airline should anything on your reservation seem the slightest bit strange. Stuff can always happen, and a lot of it can be unfortunate—and when it’s not unfortunate, it’s probably just plain weird.

Checking will save you several large headaches as opposed to inevitable medium-sized ones, and if you’re like me, it’ll also get you a funny anecdote down the road.

Friends, family, and other curious readers, rest assured: not only is life precious, but in my case, it remains frequently and overwhelmingly absurd. While General Avery Trinidad won’t be here to chronicle the rest of my journey in Berlin, Avery Gene Trinidad sure will.

Bis später!