Towards forests, night and fairy tales

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The scenery outside the train window

This was my experience on a slow train from Berlin to Munich nearly two weeks ago. My life in Germany started with this slow train journey, which made me felt that I had been to the right place.

My name is Xinying, which means “pure heart” in Chinese. I am a 22-year-old girl from China. My hometown is Kaifeng, which has served as the capital of the country many times in the history of China. So there are a lot of monuments and legends in my hometown, which is one of the things I like very much about my hometown. I love reading all kinds of stories, especially fairy tales, in which the fantasy world always fascinates me. The Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which I read over and over again as a child, have undoubtedly become an important part of my life. And it aroused my desire to visit Germany, where these fairy tales originated. I also love watching Japanese anime, which is commonly referred to as fairy tales for grown-ups. Many popular Japanese anime such as Attack on Titan, Violet Evergarden and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End are based on Germany or at least contain a lot of German elements. German is often used as the language of magic spells in Japanese anime. All of these made me long for a visit to Germany. However, the most important reason why I come to Munich for a one-semester exchange study is related to my research field. I am pursuing a master’s degree in communication and my research field is philosophy of media. When reading books in this field, I was most touched and inspired by some German scholars, such as Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin and Friedrich Kittler. I want to come to Germany to see the scenery in their eyes and experience the environment they lived in, which might deepen my understanding of their theories. Moreover, LMU is excellent in both media studies and philosophy, where I will certainly gain a lot through my study. Therefore, I come here!

During this semester of exchange study, I hope to gain more knowledge about media and philosophy, make friends from all over the world, get a deeper understanding of life in Germany, and explore more places around Germany. I have taken some courses in the Department of Media and Communication and the Department of Philosophy, which I am very interested in. Since my English is not very good, these courses are a bit difficult for me and I need to put in a lot of effort to learn these courses, which will probably take up most of my time this semester. Besides my studies, I have a special trip plan: A trip through the fairy tale lands of Germany! I will explore locations in Germany that are related to Grimm’s Fairy Tales or Japanese Anime and record my experience through words and photos. I will go to a lot of forests, which are always where fairy tales happen. I will still take the slow train that run from day to night. I will spend many different nights in different places – night is always the best time to conceive fairy tales. I will recall a lot of fairy tales along the way, and I will create a lot of my own.