Chapter 98 Section 5 The Bitter Rabbit in Berlin (Kultur)

"Going to Berlin..." is probably my vision in my previous life. When I was born, my father was studying abroad in Berlin. In my hometown of permafrost in February, Berlin was my young mother’s haunted dream.Throughout the spring of 1985, I kept walking in Berlin, which was almost newly built. I often thought that the old dream of my mother 60 years ago seemed to be revived here. The frail baby who had never seen his father came to Berlin Come to serve as a visiting professor, the German insists that it is different from the Visiting professor).The formally taught literature courses for credits are printed on the heavy schedule: "Taiwanese Literature".Just half a year ago, I received a call from Director Hua Yan of the Humanities Section of the National Science Council, saying that the Freie UniVerSitat Berlin was looking for a professor of Taiwanese literature. They wanted to recommend me and asked if I could go?I was holding a phone in my hand, how can I say it?I can hardly believe my ears, such a distant and turning invitation, I am going to Berlin after my father's stormy life.When I arrived in Berlin, it was the beginning of April, and the trees in the city were all dead branches. I only saw clusters of pale yellow winter jasmine flowers occasionally. Guo Hengyu, who picked me up from the airport, took me to the single dormitory of the university and taught me how to take a bus from nearby. go to school.The name of the street I live on is Thielallee, which is pronounced "Tilallee" and it sounds so nice, so I never got lost.The next morning, I had to take the U-Bahn (pronounced "ubang") underground railroad to meet the students in the department.

The original Palin University (HambOldt-UniVerSitat zu Berlin) "fell" in East Berlin and was forced to follow the route of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Three years later, most of the students, as well as the professors, left and met in West Berlin to decide to establish a university of academic freedom.At the beginning of 1948, in the U.S.-occupied area of ​​West Berlin, with the assistance of the United States, the "Free University of Berlin" was established.In 2008, on the 60th anniversary, it was also selected as the ninth "elite university" in Germany, with more than 31,000 students.

The two key figures who set up "Taiwanese Literature" as the official course of the school, one was Dr. Dieter Heckelmann.In the 1970s, he served as a visiting professor at the Law Department of National Taiwan University twice, and lived in the dormitory of National Taiwan University with his wife and children for two years. He was very friendly to Taiwan.Many outstanding professors from National Taiwan University, such as Weng Yuesheng, Dai Dongxiong, Liao Yinan, Chen Weizhao, Wang Zejian, etc., have served as visiting professors.I was often his guest at Palin, and he often came back to Taiwan to reunite with old friends, and often took time to go to Taipei and other places for in-depth climbing.After the reunification of Germany, he served as Minister of the Interior in Berlin.The other is Professor Guo Hengniu, who is in charge of the China Research Institute. He was born in Shandong. In 1960, he left the Graduate School of the University of Tokyo for West Berlin.In early 1990, he was a visiting professor at the History Department of National Taiwan University, where he taught German history for one year.

The China Research Institute of the Free University of West Berlin is located in a celebrity mansion, with five floors, spacious and bright, and a century-old German building.I bravely found the U-Bahn station from the winter jasmine bushes in the "Tilary" dormitory, and went to No. 42 Podibielskillee Street. Professor Guo introduced me in German, and he called me "a professor from Taiwan", and she mentioned "Kultur" (kultur, pronounced "culture" in German) again and again. The sound of "Kultur" left a deep impression on me , I remember memorizing the "Ancient Yange" of the Han Yuefu in Mr. Meng Zhisun's class: "The white rabbit, the firefly and the white rabbit, walk around, the clothes are not as good as new, and the people are not as good as before." Thinking of the culture of Taiwan and even China, it has not been the same for a hundred years. Is it quite dreary?

They asked me to introduce myself and explain the teaching plan.I thought I would just meet and get acquainted with about 20 students who took my course, but now I have to give a speech to more than 100 people in the whole department. Of course, the content and tone are different.Let me first state that when I was born, my young father had just transferred from the University of Berlin to the University of Heidelberg to study philosophy. He wanted to understand history and life, and how to use education to help China become prosperous and strong.The situation in Taiwan is well known to the whole world, and the cultural significance we represent should be best understood at the Free University in West Berlin.I am here today hoping to use Taiwanese literary works as a spiritual exchange, to deeply sympathize with the life attitudes and joys, sorrows, sorrows and joys of the people in the two divided countries of East and West Germany...The National Taiwan University students I teach are academic youths who pursue free thinking just like you. I hope that I can really know Germany, and you can really know us Taiwan.Professor Guo later mentioned it again and again, saying that my engagement speech was affirmed by the students, which was a successful start.Before I went to Germany, I sent more than 300 Taiwanese literary works, all of which were donated to the Department of Chinese Culture of Liberty University, and their library made a stamp: "Donated by Professor Qi Bangyuan, 1985".

The textbooks for my class are mainly novels, including Lai He's "A Steelyard Boy", Wu Zhuoliu's "Mr. Mom" ​​and Bai Xianyong.In addition to the anthology works edited by me, works that had been translated into English before 1985 were also added, including Yuan Qiongqiong's "My Sky", Xiao Feng's "My Son Hansheng", etc.According to the requirements of the school, a syllabus will be issued every week during class.I teach in English, and the title of the book must include the Chinese translation.The department asked the lecturer Che Huiwen to assist, translate into German when necessary, and use German, English and Chinese for further communication between teachers and students during discussions.Che Huiwen, a native of Northeast China, studied in the English Department of Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences in Taiwan 20 years ago. She married Erik von Groeling, a young German who came to Taiwan to study Chinese at the Language Center of Normal University. She returned to Cologne with her husband, but the young Zhang Tian died unexpectedly on the operating table, and she traveled to Berlin to raise her four-year-old and one-year-old child on her pension.Such a life course.Make me sympathize with admiration.During my time in Berlin, she also assisted and took care of me in and out of class, so we became good friends.She is also my tour guide in Berlin, so that I will not stumble there, like an old horse who knows the way, and takes me to know the real Berlin.

After two weeks of class, I decided to find a place of my own. Huiwen took me to look around for houses according to the advertisements. That was really the best way to get to know a city.My only hope is a desk with a yard outside the window.I thought Berlin was an ancient cultural capital, and of course everyone read books, but to my surprise, none of the six or seven rented houses I had seen had desks. When I was about to give up, I came to a small street with long shades of trees. A small building in a garden-like alley. There are two big rooms downstairs, a small kitchen, and a dining table. When you walk into the inner one, you will see a big, real desk at first sight!

Full windows by the table, outside is a real courtyard surrounded by flowers and trees! The rent is double that of other places, but this is the most ideal place for me to stay in Berlin.During those four months.Every day, I watched the different flower beds all over the street change from budding to full bloom, and walked in and out of the shade of the trees.During the first few weekends when I arrived, I heard the church bells from far and near, received a book published by "Pure Literature" from Haiyin, and wrote to her: "Sunday, the city is full of bells." Ji Jingfeng quickly replied: "I wish I could come to Berlin too!"

On May 8, Professor Guo told me that all students in Berlin had to watch a documentary film "Forty Years after the Fall of Berlin".I went to the gate of the KaDeWe department store on Kudang Street in the city center where I depended for food and clothing. The station and the street were filled with various parades, quietly holding different slogans. An impassioned speech.This documentary is surprisingly complete and clear, from the beginning of Hitler's inspiration to the start of the war, important scenes of the war and people's lives; most of it is the end of the Nazis and the defeat of the European battlefield.The air forces of the Allied countries systematically bombed Berlin according to the city map, and they announced in advance which streets to blow up tomorrow if you still do not surrender.The video shows the map area and the real situation before and after the bombing day by day. It can be said that the bullets are raining down. I can see that the entire row of streets was wiped out and turned into rubble under the Allied bombs. destroy.On May 2, the day when the Allied forces entered the city, the surviving civilians hid in the basement, and were dragged out by the Russian soldiers who preemptively occupied them, stabbed and raped them. Be on the lookout..., the picture is clear and detailed, you have to watch it if you can't bear to watch it.This is a record made by the Germans themselves and left for future generations to read.

It was already dark when I returned to my residence, the whole building was not lit, and the landlady who lived upstairs suffered from asthma.live in hospital.Sitting alone under the lamp at night, I repeatedly reappeared the scenes of the destruction of many cities in "Forty Years of the Fall of Berlin". I couldn't help but think of the years when Chongqing was bombed by Japanese planes. We had to take a helpless attitude towards death.After looking at the map of the bombed area of ​​Berlin, I realized that this beautiful new city was originally built on the ruins! Could it be that under this desk and this bed was the burial place of the previous generation?Terrified and frightened, I couldn't sleep for several days and nights.

The theme of that week's "Time" magazine was the 40th anniversary of the surrender of Palin, and there was an editorial "Unprecedented Disaster", to the effect that when Germany surrendered, Soviet Russia killed 200,000 soldiers and buried them in the graveyard that flowed from Hamburg to the Czech Republic. Along the Elbe River: Before Japan surrendered, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs. Both countries thought they were the worst disasters, but didn’t the people who suffered the biggest disasters were millions of Jews who died? In fact, disasters are incomparable, yes For everyone who suffers, his calamity is the greatest. Nearly a thousand books have been written about the grief of the Jews in the past half century, while the grief of the Chinese during the eight-year war of resistance is almost unknown remember.After the CCP occupied the mainland in 1949, it was the Kuomintang that fought against Japan in those eight years. Those who stayed in the mainland and survived had to deny everything in the past. "Death" is obliterated and forgotten.And I, who grew up in that war, and eagerly promoted "our Taiwanese literature" in the occasion of international literary exchanges for twenty years, how did I ever write a record of blood and tears for my hometown and those who fought for her? ? From then on.There are layers of heavy meanings between the questions and answers of the students in Liberty University and me.When reading Wang Zhen and "Xiaolin Comes to Taipei", they think that you have to go to Berlin to feel the depth of modern German history. This wall that attracts tourists is just a shallow symbol.I mentioned the joy of hearing the bells in Berlin for the first time. Some people said that after the war, many different religious denominations built churches in different disaster locations, not only to pay homage to the dead, but also to pray for lasting atonement and peace in the end.You see...there are so many churches in Berlin! Since then, I have never felt the joy of hearing the bells.Back in Taiwan, there was no bell to ring the passenger ship arriving at Hanshan Temple in the middle of the night.So what if Kobayashi arrives in Taipei? Berlin recovered after the war, rebuilt the big city on the ruins, planted trees everywhere, and covered death with thriving life.West Germany occupied by Britain and the United States practiced genuine democratic elections, political stability, and economic prosperity. Her greatest wish was to restore a cultural power, so there were many international cultural activities.Not long after I arrived in Berlin, I saw the notice of the "Horizon World Literature Conference" hanging on the streets, and I knew that there would be a grand troupe of mainland writers participating.Before the meeting, I received a brief note from Bai Xianyong, who, together with Chen Ruoxi, Zhong Ling, Li Oufan and Zheng Shusen, were invited to represent Taiwanese and overseas Chinese writers.After they arrived in Berlin, Professor Guo, me and Che Huiwen wholeheartedly entertained them. However, although the organizer arranged the time for the five of them to speak and read their works on the program schedule, there were writers from mainland China on the large billboards in the conference hall, but no writers from Taiwan. Five people, we are all outraged.Although Liberty University first held a symposium on Taiwanese literature, the situation was stronger than others, and the attention and reception received by the ten mainland writers was obviously warm.Berlin, like San Francisco, was full of curiosity and sympathy for these early writers from the Iron Curtain.