Cross-cultural communication （154）　

154) Friendship forged by digital illiteracy
IIn June 2024, I visited Wurzburg, located at the northern end of Germany's Romantic Road. I had no plans to stay overnight, so I arrived at the station before noon, spent the morning sightseeing around town, and planned to take the train to Rothenburg, my next destination, before evening. I decided to store my heavy suitcase in a locker at the station before sightseeing, and found one easily. After placing my suitcase inside, I tried to lock it, but the instructions were not written in either German or English.
Assuming that I should just insert the fee, I looked around but found no credit card slot or bill slot?only a coin slot. Looking back, I noticed two white women of the same age as we struggling with the lock. They were German tourists from the countryside and seemed to understand little English. I gestured to show them where to insert the coins, and they managed to lock the locker. I explained that I only had bills and no coins, and they searched their pockets, exchanged some money for me, and we parted with a smile.

After finishing our sightseeing in the city, we returned to the station at 3 pm and tried to retrieve our suitcases for the 3:30 pm departure. However, this time we couldn’t figure out how to unlock the lockers. Just as I was about to call a station attendant, my wife noticed that the QR code for retrieving the lockers was written on the receipt, and there was also a QR code mark on the locker door, which was flashing.
When we scanned the QR code on the receipt, the locker opened smoothly. We were worried about missing the train, so we were only thinking about ourselves, but once the locker opened, we sighed in relief. As we turned around, we saw the same two German women from earlier struggling to unlock their locker. Of course, we immediately shared the magic QR code solution with them. This miraculous reunion and act of mutual assistance (maybe a bit dramatic?) made both of us very happy, and we parted ways with a hug.

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