An Interesting Interruption

edited: I got some more details and corrected my story (wrote the changes in italic). Now it's even funnier...

A week ago my fellow student A told me an interesting story.
We had been chatting about the institute of Japanese Studies at HU and I said how much I liked the fact that I could leave all my stuff in the room when I went to the bathroom during breaks. A Denshi Jisho (small translating computer) costs easily more than 200€, but I can leave it on the table and noone would ever take it away. I also leave my wallet in the classroom, cuz there's noone who would take it away.
Everybody knows each other, and when it comes to looking after your stuff, I really appreciate that.

When I said that to A he told me the following [I hope I remembered the details correctly, but anyway, the message is clear]:
Around one week earlier [in a class that I don't attend] they were in the middle of class when someone opened the door and started to talk to them. He was a young man who looked like .... someone not exactly highly educated, more the type you'd find at a lower ranked school in one of the ghetto districts of Berlin, he held a big book under his arm, and he didn't seem to realize there was a class going on.
He asked whether this was where you could learn Japanese.
edit: Actually he said "Is this where you can get to Japan? I heard you can get a scholarship here, but down there [referring to the first floor, I think] everything's closed."
Everyone was a little unsure about how to react to this. The guy kept talking, and the teacher H made it clear to the guy that this was not exactly the right place to start to learn Japanese, so this was not what he was looking for. The guy left.
Then H said, kind of puzzled "Then what did he need this book for?"

He followed the guy and got the book back. When he returned to the room it turned out that this book had been taken from the study room, which is open during daytime, so that everyone can go in and use the books in there. The book was a big atlas, one of the most expensive books the institute owns (among those that are "public").

That freak wanted to steal the book, and hadn't he entered the room, and hadn't it been for H's quick thinking, the book would have been lost forever. What a retard.

When I heard about that, I was kind of sad. Now you aren't even safe anymore in this tiny little institute, where everyone knows everyone's face and name. That's so sad!
And I guessed I'd have to stop leaving my stuff in the rooms (though, on a second thought, as long as there are people I know in the room, I still consider it safe).



Today I had a seminar from 10:15 - 11:45. There was a report held about the alliance of Germany, Italy and Japan in the 1930s. Around 10:50 the door opened and a young man stood there, looking into the room and asking in a pretty loud voice "Is this Japanese?". Everyone looked at him with a kind of "WTF"-face.
edit: He said "Konnichiwa" with a nice german accent when he entered the room.
He continued "I'd been on the lower floor, but there they're doing Vietnamese, they said Japanese was one floor higher", and while saying so, he made his way through the room, sitting down in the last row, next to A, and as I sat pretty far in the back as well, I had a great view.
He wore his rucksack (and I wondered what he had inside. Drugs? Cell Phones? Some books from the study room?), he wore earphones, and in his hands he held several 5€ notes, maybe 3 or 4.
H asked him what he wanted, and he said "I want to learn." H said "And what do you want to learn?", he answered "What you guys are learning" (using German 2nd person singular which was kind of impolite", and so H asked something like "And what's your interest?" "Economy."

I almost laughed out loud when I heard that. Yeah, he didn't even lie on that one, I suppose. Spreading his sugardaddy's opium empire on HU's Japanese Studies Institute might be considered an economic project.
Managed to remain quiet though, this was interesting.
H, who had his seat at the door, was standing and facing the intruder in the back row, and everyone looked from one to the other. I was really curious how H would handle this situation. I mean, what can you do? You can't exactly tell him to fuck off, but actually, that's what you want....
He must've been 迷ってる(confused) like hell.
Or maybe he wasn't, but I would've been.

So, that guy had said "Economy", and the whole class was saying "Oh, then you're TOTALLY wrong here." The guy asked "What is it here?", and everyone said "History." Oh.

Then he turned to A [or maybe he did that before, I don't remember that well] and said "But hey, you know me guy, right?", and A said "I DON'T know you."

edit: When the guy had come into class for the first time a guy kind of "threw him out", or maybe just "made him leave". That guy has a bold head. Now A also has a bold head, but he was not the one who had thrown the guy out. Still, that's probably what he had been referring to when he said "you know me".

H told the guy that it might be a better idea to gain information on the taught subjects beforehand, and the guy kind of agreed and then he made his way back to the entrance.

What happened next I don't really know. I didn't hear anyone say anything, but the guy suddenly turned round to C and said to him in a really aggressive voice "YOU just wait, we'll meet at the airport!!!" and then he made his way out of the door.

edit: When the guy started to leave the room, he said something like "So you guys are all doing the wrong stuff here..." and C said "Actually, YOU're the one who's doing the wrong stuff." And then the guy turned round, took his 2 fingers, pointed at his own eyes and then at C's eyes while saying "You wait, we'll meet at the airport, Fatty." (Actually he said "Dicker", which means fatty, but it's also used like "guy" or "boy", and he probably didn't actually make a comment about C's body shape.
Still, C muttered "Hey, I'm not that fat."

I first didn't realize he had said that to C, I thought he had meant R, another student who's pretty good at martial arts, so I had hoped for R to beat the shit out of the guy, just for fun. Haha, I love action.
Yeah, but C just sat there, looking totally bewildered. Noone got it what the guy had meant, why would they meet at the airport?

Dunno, maybe the guy is usually working there, trying to sell pot to the dutch tourists.


H followed the guy to make sure he really left the building. After a short pause we continued the presentation even though H had not yet returned, but of course, there was not much concentration left. When H came back several minutes later, he said "It wasn't written in my contract that doorman was part of the job."

After the class had finished I talked to H about the incident. I asked whether the guy got violent, and H said something like "Well, he didn't leave the place unaggressively." Whatever that means... But H said he didn't have to beat him up when I asked about that.

As it seems, the "not unaggressive" thing meant that the guy kind of went through the whole institute and tried to open all the doors, but they were closed.

And I asked if he had tried to steal again. H was like "he didn't have a book under his arm this time", but I thought "You'd better checked the rucksack" (and he couldn't have done that, you have to call the police to search people or they can sue you).
I also asked what we should do about the study room. H said that the secretary closed the room after he was at her place. Now... if this guy keeps coming back, maybe it's really better to keep the room closed until someone gets the keys from the secretary. But that would be so sad. What is that strange guy thinking?
Why did he pick our institute for whatever he is planning?

I mean, he did not come there to study. That's clear.
And he looked like a criminal. Not a really dangerous one, but definitely like someone innocent.
You might say "Don't judge a book by its cover", but I disagree. I think it's just as my cop friends say: You start to look someone in the eye and you just know whether he's innocent or not. In most cases you can tell.
It's really hard to cover your inner self, and so when someone is a criminal, you can usually at least guess so.

So, I am convinced that he was looking for clients. After all, going to the universities to sell drugs makes pretty much sense, and I suppose that there's quite a huge market there. He was just unlucky to come to our institute.
He could also go to a home for blind people and try to sell photo cameras. Good idea, but totally out of place.

I named the boy "KTB". Kottbusser Tor Boy. (Kottbusser Tor is a place in Berlin where loads of drugs are dealt.)

So, let's see if KTB will come back.