Xin Wei THOW

Essay published October 18, 2024 in Singapore Unbound.
[Link]

Excerpt:

Early on, now buried irrecoverably beneath the pile of new vocabulary, was a video whose hazy fragments I have somehow retained: an old lady—Turkish, probably—is seated in front of the camera in a mountainous black dress merging into her headscarf. She tells the camera she has never learnt German well. A close-up on the crags of her face. She points to one ear, hier rein, then the other, hier raus. Her voice is dry and cracked with age, and yet there is something childlike about her—or childish perhaps, depending on which side of the comments you stood. I cannot remember any of them word for word, but recall their wearily predictable outrage, leavened by one commenter saying how sad and isolated she must feel, all these years, unable to fully participate in German society. Some days I imagine her floating slowly down the sidewalks in that billowing black dress, blissfully untouched by die der das… on others, she does not dawdle, because nothing catches her eye nor anyone takes her hand—she gathers her shawl around her and strides steadily forth, going about whatever business has brought her here.