我的瑞典导师之一：最后的晚餐 - 别了，哥本哈根
My Swedish Supervisor: The Last Supper – Farewell, Copenhagen
The American business school I had applied to requested three recommendations. My Swedish supervisor filled out one. To confirm her recommendation, she typed an additional letter in English, which is, not an effortless task for Danish and Swedish college professors. I saw this, and without saying anything grateful, this moment was firmly imprinted into my memory. Her recommendation letter complimented me to the extreme; its copy, I have carefully kept to this day.
This Chinese restaurant, a shape of a Chinese dragon boat, floating in great canal of Christianshavn in Copenhagen was like Børsen(http://borsen.dk), where I passed by every day. Is it still there today?
It was this boat we came in and sat down, Maja, my supervisor and I, for our last supper.
It was an August day. After that day I would go to America, a place everybody says good. “America good country. People make rich money.” That is common broken English I often hear from different people, of different color, in different accents. I didn’t know whether I had a so-called American dream, yet everybody else confirmed that I did. I didn’t know whether it was worth it giving up my scholarship in Denmark to become a completely self-sponsored student in America; once again, everyone else told me it was. It was worth it, for an American dream.
Our conversations were always conducted like this: for Maja, it was always half Swedish and half English, and for me it was half Danish and half English. I had boasted about my language skills, but throughout my five years in Denmark, my understanding of Swedish remained a problem. My supervisor Maja refused to learn Danish, so we shifted our conversation completely back to English, as if time had been returned to its starting point, to five years’ ago, when I just arrived in Denmark and when I had no Danish language skills. In five years, I had developed Danish skills, to my own surprise and my language teachers’ surprise, to the top of a pyramid. Now I allowed myself to drop down from the pyramid top to the bottom again as I would completely abandon it. Did it mean I had drawn a circle in five years, returning to the origin where I started? This circle was like a dream, I had blinked my eyes and a Danish dream vanished.
The restaurant was floating by the bridge crossing Christianshavn canal. I remember each time when a ferry passed by, passengers were crowded at the two ends. For countless times I saw the gigantic bridge open from middle, being lifted, and the big five story high ferry slowly pass through.
After our last supper Maja and I hugged our last hug. Neither of us cried. I never cried when I was young. It is strange why I cry so often nowadays.
Slowly I walked to the bus stop. I didn’t look back to see if Maja had looked back to look at me.
The day was bright when we entered the restaurant and now it was all dark. In the canal, all the lights lit on the dragon boat joined the city lights of Copenhagen, and their rippled reflections magically changed everything into a surreal mirage of Consort Jiao Yuan Chun’s visit in the splendid Grand View Garden.
Once again I looked around at Copenhagen, the beautiful capital of the oldest European kingdom.
It was here where I walked all of its small alleys by foot. It was here
where my youth had wandered around. I had inhaled its fresh morning air,
walked on its quiet morning streets and was tempted by aromas of different
kinds of wienerbrøder (Danish pastry). I passed through its busy mornings,
noons, and afternoons. I knew both its prosperity and its loneliness.
I had even once slept in one of its small alleys one Saturday night when we, accompanied by that famous 1990’s song, went “downtown, downtown”…
It was here where my black hair, black eyes, yellow skin, and short figure stood out among seas of blonde hair, blue eyes, and tall Danes. Some of them, though extremely polite, threw a glance at me in a sly. It was here, in its longest pedestrian street Strøget, the city welcomed me as a warm host and again and again, I took it as my own home, guided its tourists, served them, and bargained for the good deals for them, on its behalf.
In its center, I often took my rest at Carlsberg museum, free, quiet and soothing. On Nørregade I escaped from seas of tourists and enjoyed my reading on window edge inside of Rundetårn. I had enjoyed botanic garden’s sunshine and my afternoon naps there. I had walked on Denmakr’s various kinds of beaches, sandy or rocky.
Denmark’s symbol, Den Lille Havfru, its 10-year-old boy had tour guided me and I had guided it later to countless tourists. At Amalienborg I “hurraed” to another Danish symbol, Hendes Majestæt Dronning Margrethe II. I joined my classmates in 1993 in EU vote. In 1992, I took the small ferry of my Swedish professors’ daily commute to Malmö. In 1994, I had spent whole year writing about building of Øresundsbro and got good review from the Danish Ministry of Transport. But when building was completed in 2000, broen(the bridge), Danmark(Denmark) and I were aparted by Atlantic and whole America.
It was here where I attended my new students’ orientation at Copenhagen Business School where my future blond classmates at Finance and Accounting department knocked at tables in rhythms: “Girls, please join us! We - want - girls! We – want - girls!” I remember the surprise on their faces when they saw me: “O My God! A foreign girl!” In this department where more than 90% of the students were boys, they were waiting for me to attend classes in September!
But it was the last night for me to be under its wings, as I had been under Maja’s wings for five years. I had to say farewell to Copenhagen, the city where I had been well hosted and I had hosted on its behalf. It was as if I was saying farewell to my youth.
At the last night before my departure, Copenhagen and it is city lights looked blurry in my eyes. Or is it because my blurry eyes had blurred them? Here was the place where I had spent my youth. Suddenly, on my last night it became refreshed and intriguing, as fresh and intriguing as the village opera for a sleepy young Lu Xun when they gradually drove home. At the time of my departure, it gave me an urge to go back.
Looking around Copenhagen in its twinkling lights, I was glad and sad. I had spent my youth here, a city both ancient and modern, both traditional and liberal, both international and always being itself. I was glad it was crowned the cultural capital of Europe, and I was sad I was going to leave. Copenhagen is a lot like its symbol, Den Lille Havfru, the little mermaid, tiny and gigantic, shy and brave, tiny in size and gigantic in spirit, charming to the bone. It is home of many fairytales, and many fairytales are love stories. In my sorrow I smiled, as it had made my otherwise dull youth distingué. It made my youth, in my heart, a fairytale, a love story.
