The Dong Xuan Center lives on the eastern outskirts of Berlin, just shy of the Germo-Vietnamese border. Three huge hangars house hundreds of vendors hawking every oddball item you never realized you needed, along with some excellent viet-food.  You will be immediately bowled over by the scope and scale of odd, seemingly useless stuff for sale. These products make you feel very close to the sweatshop–as if perhaps in order to cut costs, some vital voice of reason has been eliminated from the value chain, leaving the misguided factory bosses to churn out thousands of wildly inappropriate statuettes, insane toys and eccentric clothes. Between the fake flower stalls and nail salon supplier shops there are a couple of fine supermarkets with huge tanks of leaping carp that splash passers by. After having your mind blown, and perhaps picking up a musical-LED–birdcage-lighter, be sure to settle in at one of the Dong Xuan’s excellent restaurants for one of the best dishes in Berlin: Bún Thịt Nướng (marinated barbecued pork with rice noodles and vietnamese-style sweet and sour sauce).

Dong Xuan Center‎

I thought I’d share my review of Herr Lehmann, an entertaining German film I might never have discovered were it not for my classes at Deutsch Akademie.Der Film Herr Lehmann von Leander Haussmann öffnet ein Fenster zu der Welt Berlin Kreuzberg vor dem Mauerfall. Christian Ulmen spielt überzeugend den melancholischen bier-süchtigen Herr Lehmann der versucht die chaotischen, bunten Leute und Situationen seines Boheme-Lebens. Aber der echte Hauptschauspieler des Films ist die Stadt-selbst. Wir sehen viele gut entworfene Szenen der grauen Berliner Strassen wie es im Jahre 1989 war. Diese Strassen, wie Herr Lehmann-selbst, scheinen zwischen der alten und neuer Welt verloren, aber Veränderung bestimmt.