When I first came to study at the University of Heidelberg in 2009, I was amazed by the campus, which was completely scattered all over the town, without gates and borders. The same is true for dormitories, which are found to be relatively concentrated in one area, but are also dotted throughout the city, some by train.
My dormitory is not on campus, but in a newly renovated building in a prime location in Heidelberg's new town. On the first day of school, I took a large bag and a small bag, went through the registration procedures in the old city, and then rushed to the dormitory in the new city. After receiving the key from the dormitory administrator, I opened the door and was delighted with the layout of the dormitory. The two rooms of myself and my roommate have separate doors facing the corridor, and there is another door in the two rooms, which is connected to the common kitchen and bathroom, and is newly renovated and has a Xiaoice box. There were already some simple utensils in the kitchen, and a nice note on the table with a German greeting - hello, I'm Anna, your roommate, welcome to our home and see you back in a week. I was happy in my heart, and I had more expectations for this roommate who had not yet met.
This is a typical German brown-haired beauty, cheerful, warm and friendly, a few years younger than me, but much taller than me. Anna studied basic education at the University of Heidelberg, not far from the dormitory, and traveled by bicycle every day. Anna, who has just entered her freshman year, is full of enthusiasm for life and is looking forward to the university studies that have just begun.
The communication between us started in the communal kitchen and bathroom area. Having such a Germany roommate made me slowly understand the quantitative German diet. On the kitchen cabinet, there are several cookbooks, and the measuring cylinders are also divided into sizes. Her breakfast is often milk bread, which is always iced milk from the refrigerator, and sometimes soaked in the flattened raw cereal that is common in Germany. The bread must be buttered and cheese or jam added. Seeing that I was nibbling on the bread, Anna insisted that I try her cream-like fresh cheese, and said proudly, "How boring it is to eat bread alone." Her main meal is often Italy pasta, or fried tortellini. Sometimes it's just a simple salad. I kept my Chinese stomach and used to make egg fried rice for convenience. Occasionally we cook in the kitchen at the same time, and once Anna witnessed me beating eggs, stirring them with two chopsticks, and stir-frying them in oil, and she was amazed that the eggs in my egg fried rice had been mistaken for cheese by her. We also learned to cook with each other, Anna's biggest improvement was learning to use chopsticks, and the most frustrating thing was that I didn't have any precise recipes to follow. I also started to learn to make Italy, and I also like to cut some cheese and put it in, it does look like eggs, no wonder my roommate mistook my scrambled eggs for cheese.
One weekend in December, Anna said she wanted to invite me to dinner. She took out her two measuring cylinders, the flour to be measured, the water to be measured, and lamented that there was no scale, and asked me to help me estimate the grams of sugar or salt together. Fry something that looks very similar to a Chinese quiche and set aside. Stir-fry the ham, carrots and cheese and wrap them in the previous quiche. After tossing and turning for more than an hour, I finally made eight burritos, arranged them on two beautiful plates, and pulled a few green leaves from the potted plants next to them for decoration. Then set up the napkins, knives and forks, and pour the wine. When she heard that it was my first birthday in Germany, she took out a small candle. Candlelight, goblets, staggered. To use the current buzzword, it is: atmosphere.
My favorite is the homemade food that Anna brings with me. She comes home once a month, and every time she comes back with her mother's food. Nectar juice in the spring, strawberry jam in the summer, canned cherries, homemade cakes and more. When we met in the kitchen, Anna would always kindly invite me to chat and enjoy a meal together. The yogurt I bought and the canned cherries I bought were mixed with a drink of nectar juice, which was really delicious. The jam is also a little better than the supermarket. Even the frozen cake is more mellow.
Because it is a small room, our kitchen and bathroom hygiene are all on our own. Just two weeks into school, Anna and I took the initiative to set up a rotation of cleaning times in the common areas and agreed on the parts that needed to be cleaned. In addition to the usual mopping and throwing out of the garbage, Anna also recommends using a rag to clean the bathroom faucet, toilet, bath, washbasin, and all hygiene, including the kitchen stove. The trouble is that it is troublesome, and over time, I have become accustomed to this kind of neatness. Thanks to this, when the dormitory was returned later, the housing management praised it after the inspection, and the deposit was also returned in full.
After getting along for a long time, we often cross the kitchen and bathroom area and visit each other's doors. It's the same room, the same furniture, but the feeling is completely different when you go in. My room is a dormitory-like simplicity, except for the curtains, the quilt on the bed, the books and computers on the desk, and the clothes in the wardrobe, there is no extra furnishings. In Anna's room, in addition to many items that her parents drove when school started, there are also decorations that she has added one after another. The windowsill was covered with flowers, the room was covered with a beautiful carpet, the walls were covered with decorative paintings and maps, and the wardrobe doors were covered with pictures of myself and my friends and family, as well as photos of me enjoying a meal. The most special thing is the small lanterns made around the window. It was around Christmas, and she spent the weekend installing these little bulbs, which seemed complicated to me, and fixing them in the window for a week, and when they were lit, the lights were staggered and flickering, which was quite fairytale-like. When I returned from school in the winter evening, I got off the bus and walked to the dormitory, and when I looked up and saw the illuminated window on the third floor, I felt very warm.
Although we like to cook separately, we will drink tea and chat together, often go to the supermarket together, and occasionally go to the university sports center to do sports together, and our lives are simple and regular. In the second semester, I cried as soon as I entered the room, faced with various difficulties such as the approach of closed-book exams, the failure to complete various assignments, and the unsatisfactory development of doctoral projects, as well as the troubles I encountered that day. Anna came over and knocked on the door to ask. At that time, I had a lot of headaches, and I didn't want to speak German. Anna didn't say anything, patted me on the back and kept comforting me and saying, "Alles Gute" (everything will be fine).
I admire this girl who is almost five years younger than me. After graduating from high school, German boys usually serve in the military for a year, while Anna volunteered for a year at a blind primary school in Cameroon, Africa. She lives in the home of a teacher at a school for the blind, gets along well with his wife and four children, and carries her own water from a bucket every day. When asked if the living conditions were suitable, he just said lightly that it was not very convenient to take a bath and go to the toilet, and he didn't care.
As a girl, Anna is super hands-on. When I came back once, I saw a huge bicycle tire in her room, and I didn't wonder about it. Upon inquiry, it was found that the tire of the car had been punctured. I don't know if because of the high price of repairing bicycles in Germany, Anna bought new tires and had to install them herself. When I went out again, I saw downstairs that Anna had disassembled her bicycle and was installing new tires in a professional manner, and I sighed in my heart that it was not easy for a little girl in Germany.
Anna's major is basic education, but she has learned a lot of things, such as Braille, sign language, abacus, and even carpentry and electricianism. The tea boxes I made by myself look great in the kitchen, and I also made a few wooden insulating pads. Before parting, she made a practical wooden document box for me, and although it was bulky, I finally brought it back to China. Since the second semester, my roommate has been interning at a nearby elementary school, teaching twice a week. During the summer of his freshman year, he also contacted a school for the blind in France to teach a summer course on a voluntary basis. Later, during the junior year vacation, I went to Africa and brought more than a dozen Chinese-style abacus, saying that they could teach mathematics to blind students. It seems to me that her work is like an angel to help these children.
Anna and I were roommates from the fall of 2009 to the summer of 2010. Later, when my husband came to the small town of Heidelberg, I moved out of the dormitory. Later, Anna also moved, partly because our little suite didn't have an oven, and secondly, it was more lively to live with friends.
But we've been in touch. I went to the large apartment that she shared with her classmates, and learned how to make applesauce together, making six cans in one go and taking them home to eat slowly. I also invited her to come to my house to make dumplings together. It's a pity that Anna, who is only a beginner, is no less than a veteran of me, whether it is rolling dough or making dumplings. After that, we would always meet at Christmas for several years to talk about what had happened during the year and to encourage each other to make progress in our studies. The year I graduated with my PhD, she also graduated with honors.
Anna later invited me to her home in Nande. To this day, this is the only time I have been to the home of a friend in Germany. It was an ordinary Germany family located near the Black Forest scenic spot in Baden-Württemberg, where his father worked, his mother stayed at home, and there was a younger brother who studied engineering drawing at a vocational school, and the family was very welcoming. My roommate's younger brother also went to Shenyang and Beijing with his classmates to participate in exchange activities and play music on the Great Wall. Before leaving, my roommate's mother did not forget to give the freshly made peach jam at home, which was warm and kind.
Anna has a quiet temperament, is simple and lovely, does not smoke, does not drink heavily, and does not even fall in love. I also joked that she would be a good wife and mother in the future. In 2016, just before I returned to China, I received a letter from Anna, who had officially become a nun and lived in a remote monastery in Baden-Württemberg. The letter talks a lot about her life in the monastery, from her daily religious work to planting flowers and plants, and even baking bread. The letter also included a photograph of her, in black and white Anna wearing a black nun's dress, with clear and determined eyes.
To this day, I still feel fortunate to have met a good roommate, a rare friend, in Germany, in a foreign land, across thousands of rivers and mountains. It is difficult for me to understand that such a simple, ordinary girl next door would suddenly choose to spend the rest of her life in a convent, although I also understand that everyone has their own choices and beliefs......
June 26, 2024