“The mayor is going to meet me at the railway station?”I was reading the itinerary for my stay in the Hamburg area, which had me being met at the station in Stelle (a town of some 11,000 people about 30 kilometers south of Hamburg) by Mayor Bernd Degel. I was a journalist officially invited to visit Germany, and the courteous receptions I was getting made me a tad uncomfortable. It was such a reversal of roles for a journalist used to tracking or waiting on other people.

　　And sure enough, there on the platform was the smiling Herr Degel with his wife. As we gotsintoshis car, we began to talk.

　　“You know, to me you look like a teacher, not an official,”I said.

　　“I am a teacher,”he replied.“I teach geography in a school in Hamburg.”

　　I was confused.“But you're the mayor too?”

　　“Yes, I'm the mayor. I teach in the morning and I attend to my duties as mayor in the afternoon.”

　　This was impressive.“So you hold the two jobs concurrently, or are you a volunteer mayor?”

　　“I suppose you could say that,”he replied.“But simply wanting to be mayor isn't enough; you have to be elected by the voters of Stelle.”

　　“So you campaigned for the post?”

　　“Of course!”

　　“And are you paid for serving as mayor?”

　　“Well, I receive an allowance, but my main income is from teaching,”he said.

　　Talking with the mayor, I quickly came to respect him. He was a man infectiously enthusiastic about public affairs.

　　Mayor Degel conducted me to the local fire station,swheresthe firemen were preparing for a drill. When they found out I was from China, they asked me to write“fire brigade”in Chinese on their blackboard. Then they examined the three characters.“Very interesting,”one of the men commented.

　　“Do you carry out these drills every day?”I asked.

　　“We don't have a fixed schedule. We drill on weekends or after we get off work.”

　　After getting off work? Are these fellows volunteers too, I wondered. My hunch proved to be correct: The firemen all have regular jobs and get together in their spare time to hone their fire-fighting skills. However, anyone seeing them don their fire suits, leap on their fire engine and roar off has to admire them. There is nothing amateurish about these volunteers; they seem completely professional. Mayor Degel remarked that they contribute a lot to making Stelle a good place to live.

　　Then I heard music and, following the sound, I saw a band playing for an old woman in front of her house. It turned out she was celebrating her 90th birthday, so I walked up and wished her a happy birthday. When she found out that I was from faraway China, she shook my hand again and again.

　　The music started up once more and everyone was in a happy mood. The band? Volunteers, of course. Whenever someone has a special birthday, they come over to liven things up.

　　The town was full of voluntary clubs, societies, associations and groups of all sorts. I met some members of the shooting club, for instance. They don't hunt; they just shoot at paper targets, a popular sport in Germany. Each year the club even has its own parade. One member helped me to put on soundproof earphones so I could try shooting at a target: a big bang, but no luck - my score was zero.

　　I also visited the association of farm wives (symbol: a hard-working bee), who were holding a general meeting in a large hall. Watching from the back, I saw a beautiful assemblage of wavy hair, blond, brown, grey and white. At the local Red Cross I saw old people playing chess and cards, and once again volunteers were there to help out.

　　What about activities for children? In a dance studio I witnessed Mayor Degel handing the teacher a contribution. I'm not sure how big the sum was, but it did show the mayor's regard for children. Elsewhere some children were learning how to make pottery from a teacher who had devoted her whole career to the art.

　　In Munich two days later I received a copy of the Stelle newspaper with an illustrated article describing my visit. It made me think back on what I had observed there: a place full of decent people doing what they want to do, enjoying themselves, often working for the common good as volunteers. Is Stelle a town? But what about those farmers? And what about all the residents who commute as far as Hamburg? Another thing that struck me was that one can't tell the mayor from the local farmers by their houses. In this harmonious German community, the difference between town and village has vanished.