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35 I Am Going Home Duncan Zheng It is windy. The sun hides behind a dark gray ceiling and lets people outside shiver. It will rain soon. From an invisible loudspeaker a voice penetrates my inner silence: “Last call for Lufthansa ›ight 443 from Berlin to Boston.” My parents help my eighty-four-year-old grandmother to stand up. They say, “Take care of yourself. Be careful with new people and call us as often as you can.” They speak without looking in my eyes. But I can see their eyes; they are red and wet. My grandmother’s lips are shaking. She touches my face with her tender but cold hand and says, “Study hard, and if you can, come to China to see me!” Outside, it starts to rain. I pick up my drawing portfolio and stand there motionless, voiceless. Then the word “good-bye” slips from my lips and, in what seems a second later, I am in the sky. I feel a hard object in my pocket and discover a platinum ring. It is my grandmother’s ring. My nose becomes sour and I close my eyes. Hitler’s favorite architect, Albert Speer, designed the building of the Immigration Bureau of Berlin—sharp-edged concrete in cold gray, magni‹cent windows three times as tall as they are wide, and a marbled foyer so lofty and vast that inside it one feels like an ant in a Gothic church. An androgynous voice calls my name but only the echo is audible. From behind a wooden door whose nameplate reads “Frau Herzog,” a middle-aged blond woman with green eyes appears. “So, Mr. Zheng, your application for a German student visa has been rejected,” she says. “I don’t see any reason why you should continue your education further in Germany. You have been allowed to stay here for ten years and now you have the German high school diploma, which allows you to study elsewhere. Within the next thirty days you must leave the country; otherwise the police will take care of your transportation back to China—at your own expense, of course.” I am enraged, but I say in a calm voice, “My parents have German citizenship . Why can’t I at least receive a student visa?” “I can explain this to you,” she answers. “Your parents came before the German reuni‹cation, and have paid taxes for ‹fteen years. This fact allowed them to receive the German passport. Your case is quite different. You came after the reuni‹cation, when laws concerning working permissions for foreigners were changed. As a foreign high school student you were not allowed to work here. Thus you couldn’t pay taxes, which means you don’t have the right to apply for a passport. We let you stay here to complete your high school studies. Now you are done, so I don’t see any reason why you should be here in Germany any longer.” The explanation is so inhumanly logical. I’ve lived in Berlin for ten years; I won a nationwide architectural competition and graduated from high school with the fourth-best GPA in my class—and there’s no reason why I should be allowed to continue my education in Germany? It’s even more inhuman to compel me to leave my German friends, and my parents. My German friends accept me as one of them, as a German. We go together to the Oktoberfest each year; we talk about German politicians and celebrities; we all dream in German. Before each exam, I realize how much they perceive me as a German. My phone does not stop ringing until they have all called to ask questions about German literature, grammar, and spelling. I make fewer grammar and spelling mistakes than they do. I understand German literature and can analyze it more deeply than they can. My teachers call me “a Chinese tutor for German students.” I appreciate this opinion because it means my German friends trust me. I help them with academic problems; in return they af‹rm that I belong with them, in their lives, in their country. Considering myself a foreigner is actually quite unfamiliar to me, because my whole environment con‹rms there is a German inside of me. Of course, my parents do not think so. They see in me their Chinese son, as ever. We talk in Chinese, in our northern dialect. We eat only Chinese food because it is...

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