At the language party on a boat-cum-hostel in East Berlin, everyone asks for Charles Clawson.


Eventually, the “English Party” host is found lingering inconspicuously around a group of chatting people. He is not the centre but merely part of everything he has created, moving from table to table on the 30-foot boat, introducing perfect strangers who a few hours later are still chatting like old friends.


It is here that Clawson is in his element, in the middle of a group he has assembled, orchestrating Americans, Brits and other English speakers to mix with Germans as well as the French, Israelis and other nationalities that attend weekly – all in English – to promote language and culture and nurture new friendships.


“I think that most people who come down have been living here for a few years and have developed a need for something outside of German culture,” he said. “Berlin really needs this kind of thing.”


The mystery


Clawson’s English Party has come a long way since its kickoff in 2004. Beginning with a handful of people who found his flyers posted around Berlin, it has changed locales a few times, from small bars in Mitte to its latest home, the Eastern Comfort boat hostel where the host offers his homemade hummus, live music, tandem partners and now a smoke-free atmosphere. Clawson also puts on special events such as comedy evenings or talks by expatriates on their travels or life in their home country: Expat Margaret Nathan recently spoke at a brunch, Clawson's other regular expat meeting, at Ars Vini restaurant about growing up on a sheep farm in her native New Zealand.


As one German attendee, a medical student from the south Berlin suburb of Steglitz said, “The parties just allow me to get away from Germany and speak English for a few hours in a natural way.”


Still, while dozens attend the parties, some more regularly than others, most find Clawson a mystery.

The most anyone seems to know is that he is American, quite possibly from Seattle, a writer and has been living in Berlin and organising the parties for a few years. And that is about all.


An ‘intuitive’ decision


There are far more flamboyant characters on the boat this evening and Clawson melts into the background easily, eventually settling on the aft deck of the Eastern Promise as the sun sets over the Spree for a chat. His casual shirt and greying shoulder-length hair conform to the stereotypical artistic expat and he speaks in a soft and relaxed tone, which sometimes vanishes completely in the bustle of the party


What people have said about Clawson is largely true. He is a native of Seattle and is indeed a writer, having earned a masters degree in creative writing from the University of Houston. In the US, he had written for weeklies as a freelancer. He also was a science writer with Stanford University, which later led to his current work as an editor of medical papers for journals alongside his creative output. Still, he says he has cutback on this since moving to Germany 6 years ago.


He talks about eventually tiring of his native city, which he describes as pleasant but not that exciting. So he packed up and moved to Berlin, a decision he believes was “intuitive” after coming into contact with Germans abroad and attracted by the mystery of the city: “German culture is largely unknown to a US audience.” The sense of mystique no doubt appeals to his literary tendencies. “There is no better place for a writer to be,” he said.


An interesting aside from the archives of a now-defunct Berlin website, and one which Clawson failed to mention, is that he moved to Berlin to aid therapy on a condition which made him lose his voice, learning another language being a way to stimulate his brain into speech, according to his doctors.


‘I don’t get out much’


More personally, Charles lives with his girlfriend of five years, a German doctor, and he admits to a degree of settledness saying he generally feels quite at home in Germany. But if German culture is so intriguing, how is it he came to host parties which are so international?


“I wish it were a more interesting story” he said. “German culture has a dark sheltering nature while the international culture is more open.” He started the parties as a means for those who have been living in Berlin a while to kick back in a specifically non-Teutonic setting and get away from Germany for a few hours. The majority language here is English but around and about, snippets of French, Spanish and Chinese mingle in. Germans come down to get a few hours of English in after work and all around, there are people gushing unrestrained in their native tongues.


There is also a more personal reason for Charles assembling his multinational congregation once a week, he says. “A very opposite impulse from being a party or events organizer, writing fiction is maybe one of the purest forms of working in one's head, the solitude, the element of fantasy and what cannot be directly communicated verbally,” he said. “After doing that most of the week, I need to be something like a party host -- a small, safe stage of interaction with people.”


So, as a party organiser and writer, where are the best and coolest places to go in Berlin? Clawson's answer is telling: “To be honest, apart from the events I put on, I don't get out much.”

--Dominic Hinde