2024-01-04
This moment
Tina's first year was at an all-female school. I didn't ask why she changed the school to ours. I think her mother wanted her to know how boys are. I didn't know there was a difference in how we behave. But that was the moment i realized they are special.
I used to tap the shoulder and look away, like someone else was doing it. I think Esrin liked things like this about me. I cared about the reaction, but not the end result. I used to build cardboard castles in the garden, and didn't care about the rain.
They were big enough for me to get in, thanks to those vegetable boxes. Our restaurant in Ratingen gave me these pieces to play with for six years, till 1998. The garden was not exclusive to us. Above the restaurant were others, like my neighbour Hedda.
After my uncle left in 1996, to go back to Hong Kong, after 3 years, my parents got me a rabbit. He wanted to stay, and my parents wanted him to stay to help my father in the kitchen, but Germany didn't let him. We could have run the restaurant longer with his support. These days, it seems Germany doesn't care if someone stays or works at all.
She was black and white, and my first pet not living inside an aquarium. We got her from a store in Düsseldorf near the old town hall building. That was fun, but a lot of work too. She was a princess. We did everything to make her happy. Fresh vegetables, water, cleaning her space and surroundings. She often tried to dig through the floor of her cage and made a mess outside too.