berliner

Ma Shuang (马爽) only goes by her Chinese name now, but it wasn’t always that way. In the past, she introduced herself with an English name but stopped using it once she moved to Germany.

Marjan grew up with her grandmother until the age of six and even before she was born, her grandmother was already calling her by a different name. Her parents chose Marjan in the end, but the name her grandmother gave her stayed in the family in more than one way.

In a sunny apartment off Sonnenallee in Neukölln, Jöran Mandik has a theory that when you look at a person, you can see their name on them.