Fragments of Memory Under the Berlin Wall: A German-Chinese Elder's "Dual-City Joss Paper"
03 Dec 2025
In late autumn Berlin, fallen leaves swirled in the wind at the Wall Memorial Park. Hans Wang squatted in front of a faded brick stele, gently brushing dust off it with a dead branch. A blurry East German house number was carved on the edge of the stele—something he'd spent three years finding in the yellowed files of the Federal Archives. This was once the former residence of his father, Wang Tieshan, in East Berlin, and the starting point where his parents were separated forever on that morning in 1949.
Seventy-four-year-old Hans had two names. "Hans" on his passport was given to him by his mother after she took him to West Germany post-war, while his father always called him "Jianguo" (meaning "building the nation") in his letters. In 1949, his father, a railway engineer, stayed in East Germany with his work team. His mother, holding the one-year-old Hans in her arms, tearfully took half a mooncake from his father at the Allied checkpoint. From then on, the embryonic form of the Berlin Wall became an insurmountable chasm between the family. "My father's last letter was written in 1961, saying he wanted to send me newly made cotton shoes. But soon after, the wall was completely sealed off," Hans took an iron box from his canvas bag, inside which were neatly stacked black-and-white photos of his parents. The young couple in the photo stood in front of the Berlin Cathedral, their smiles still free of the heaviness that would come later.
In the late autumn of 2023, Hans finally stood in the old neighborhood of East Berlin. The old house had long been renovated into a café, with only the stone pier at the corner still bearing the carvings of that era. He spread a blue cloth and placed three things on it: the mold for half a mooncake that his mother had cherished until her death, the railway worker's badge left by his father, and a stack of "dual-city joss paper" he had designed himself. On the front was the famous "Brother's Kiss" graffiti from the Berlin Wall, with tiny gear patterns hidden in the brushstrokes—symbols of the steam locomotives his father had repaired. On the back was the powerful Chinese character "Tuanyuan" (meaning "reunion"), the word his mother had most often written when she taught herself calligraphy in her later years.
The flame of the lighter trembled in the autumn wind, and the soft crackle of burning joss paper mixed with the rustle of fallen leaves, standing out sharply in the quiet neighborhood. "Dad, Mom, I found the address. You must receive this this time," Hans' German carried a faint Chinese accent. He took two yellowed letters from his pocket—his parents' last words. His father had written, "I want to eat the mooncakes your mother makes one more time," while his mother had said, "I wonder if Jianguo's father is cold." In the firelight, he seemed to see his young parents walking through the shadow of the wall: his father holding cotton shoes, his mother holding freshly baked mooncakes.
"Sir, are you commemorating your loved ones?" An elderly lady passing by stopped with her cane. Her husband had been a mason who built the wall. Hans handed her an unburned piece of joss paper and pointed to the "Brother's Kiss" graffiti: "This is a feeling that people on both sides of the wall understood back then, just like we Chinese say 'blood is thicker than water'." He then turned it over to show the character "Tuanyuan": "My parents lived on opposite sides of the wall their whole lives and never saw each other again. This money is a 'cross-border remittance' for them, so they can meet in heaven." The old lady's eyes turned red as she took out an old photo from her bag: "This is my husband and his brother—one in the East, one in the West back then."
That encounter inspired Hans to create the "Berlin Wall Commemorative Joss Paper". He collaborated with the Berlin Wall Memorial to reproduce historical photos from the archives on the backing paper of the joss paper—scenes of chaos when the wall was first built in 1961, celebrations when it fell in 1989, and group photos of separated families like his own. Each stack came with a Chinese-German bilingual story card, with the words "No wall can withstand longing" printed on the back.
This late autumn, Hans returned to the old spot, accompanied by several people holding the commemorative joss paper—a Polish girl honoring her grandfather who died on opposite sides of the wall, a Chinese international student remembering her grandfather who had helped build infrastructure inside the wall. Hans lit a new stack of joss paper. Suddenly, the wind changed direction, and the ash drifted along the outline of the wall ruins, like an invisible golden bridge. "You see," he said to the young people beside him, "Walls fall, but memories remain; people separate, but longing can reunite them."
The setting sun stretched Hans' shadow long, overlapping with the shadow of the wall ruins. He put his parents' letters and the joss paper ash into the iron box together, with new inscriptions carved on the lid: "Wang Tieshan and Li Xiulan, separated in 1949, reunited in 2024". The bells of the Berlin Cathedral rang in the distance, and Hans knew that this wait spanning half a century had finally found its warmest conclusion in the swirling ash and fallen leaves.
Interactive Topic: Do you know a story of kinship bridging historical divides—separation and reunion amid war, migration, or era changes? Share below
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