ost/west

i got called a "wessi" today while waiting for the ubahn, which i must say was a memorable first. i was taking a picture of this ad campaign for berliner pilsner, a local beer that currently has billboards all over the city showing snippets of stereotypical berlin scenes with the tag line "berlin, du bist so wunderbar." this particular billboard shows a woman's hand with blue finger nails picking up a pilsner off the ground of what seems to be a kind of grimy club, and you can see her funky heels and leg tattoos in the background. it makes me smile every time i see it, even though i recognize that a)it's a beer ad, and b)i'm obviously a member of the targeted demographic. in any case, this guy walked by as i was taking the photo, and while it's quite likely that he drinks berliner pilsner, he was definitely not part of the specific demographic this ad is aiming for. he was wearing his blue worker overalls (all members of trades that require getting dirty, such as painters, construction workers, movers, etc. wear either blue or white jumpsuit/overall type things. except the really old-fashioned folks who wear black suede pants with sailor-style zippers or buttons and matching suede vests. those ones are the coolest) and looked very east german. i immediately started laughing when i heard him mutter "wessi," which is a vague insult for someone who comes from west germany or west berlin. neukölln, where i live and where i was waiting for the train, was part of west berlin but was a border neighborhood and now has a fair population of east german residents. i learned about the terms ossi and wessi during my high school exchange year, as many of my friends would casually talk shit about the way wessis acted, dressed, and most importantly, viewed themselves as better than their eastern counterparts. to be called this term was just such a funny surprise for me that i think i in turn really shocked the ossi who said it to me with my laughter. i've been called an "ami" before, which is the vaguely derogatory term for americans, but somehow the fact that he called me "wessi" instead was a rather bittersweet victory - i fooled him into thinking i was german, but still somehow out of place.

naja. berlin, du bist so wunderbar.

a version of the ad i was photographing: