City Wall | K.Sn

| 4 |

I can only describe the West, where I live, out from what I've heard about the East... so here goes nothing.

We don't see the wall as some big obstacle, we have a road out of West Berlin that leads straight over into West Germany, so we can get out. We don't visit communist countries that much, out of pure fear that we would be sent to East Germany by accident, most people here go to the nearby countries on holidays. France, Spain, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark. Sometimes also England, but most of my friends go to either The Netherlands or Denmark, they say they remind a lot of each other, but my family and I usually go to France. It's really pretty there, we prefer going to Lille, it's a small town but it's really pretty. I'll show you if we ever meet in person.

I heard your light signals in the DDR are different from the ones we have, so I'll try and draw how ours look compared to yours. (Please bare with my quick attempt).

So this is our stop man: 

                  O
                   |
                   |

This is our go man:

                 O
                /|\
                  |\

These are not drawn that well... but I hope you get my point. I heard your lightsignal man has some name... I think it was Ampelmann (?), please correct me if I'm wrong.

Excuse me if it seems rushed and confused this letter. I'm trying to remember all the things I've been told about East Germany. 

I heard you can only see Communist TV channels in DDR, it's not like that here. We can take the BBC (A British News channel) and even some channels all the way from the United States! It's really good television they have, there's a TV-show called Seinfeld, it's all new from July, and so far I really like it! I wish I could show it to you. There's also a cartoon series called The Simpsons, that's airing in December, I really want to see it. I've heard it should be funny from what the reviews says. I wonder what kind of TV it is you see, but I'm sure you'll tell me one day when we meet.

One of my friends visited East Germany once with his parents, something with their work I don't remember. He said there was these police like men, clad in grey (maybe green) uniforms walking around the streets, looking intimidating. He said it was only in some specific parts he saw. Maybe they're some special forces ensuring extra safety in the more dangerous spaces, I'm not sure. But he said they looked really scary and made him feel safe when he saw one of them beating down a criminal with their batons. We don't have that kind of safety here. The police patrols on a daily basis to ensure safety, but they don't patrol around in the street on foot or in bigger groups than two. I've rarely even seen a police officer without it being in connection with something we learned at school or an intruder by our neighbour's door. I wonder if you see those police officers everyday and how they're like.

I don't know how much there is to say beside the biggest difference being that you're communists and we're under democratic ruling... but I hope you can cross the wall soon so we can meet and I can show you all the pictures from my holidays in France and we can maybe watch Seinfeld together.

-Sunoo