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Børsen -The Most Beautiful Stock Exchange in the World
During my last year in Denmark, I lived paa Amager, in the Amager district in Copenhagen. It took me an hour and a half each way; 40 minutes by bus and 50 minutes by train, a total of three hours each day to and from school. If not to save money, nobody wanted to bear this trouble going to school. Of course the purpose of me living there was to save money.Every day after school I had to walk 15 minutes from campus to TreKroner station , “the Three Krones”station, then take the train for 50 minutes from Three Krones to Copenhagen. The trip didn’t cost “three krones”, as my classmates joked. The last part of the trip was the additional 40 minute bus trip home.
The bus route passed by the Copenhagen central station, the Christianshavn Canal, and Børsen, the Danish Stock Exchange, had a bus stop on this side of canal.
As one of the three oldest buildings in Copenhagen, Børsen began to be built in 1619, and was completed in 1625. The Scandinavian winter means endless darkness. Daylight withdraws as early as three or four in the afternoon. I had seen how and Børsen looked like when all the streets lights were on. In winter, I had seen it buried under white snow, as beautiful as Plum Blossoms held by Bao Qin, standing high up hill; it was so beautiful that even Chou Shi Zhou’s paintings could not capture her beauty. Aye! It has been more than ten years since I saw the snow the last time.
I had lived in Amager for about year. I must have passed by Børsen at least a hundred times. But even a hundred times did not provide enough time to appreciate its beauty. As all truly beautiful things in life, it can endure close examinations, appreciations, reflections, and time. All and only truly beautiful things are like this.
Cultural Notes:
1). Trekroner means “three krones” in Danish. When I lived in Denmark three krones were equivalent to 50 cents. It cost around 40 krones at time. So we all joked to each other that going to Trekroner does not cost Trekroner.
2). Bao Qin: One of the 12 heroines in A Dream of Red Mansions, the generally regarded best Chinese novel in history, known for her beauty and sweetness.
3). Chou Shi Zhou: A famous Ming dynasty Chinese painter who was famous for painting beautiful women. There is one line in A Dream of Red Mansions that Bao Qin was so beautiful that even Chou Shi Zhou couldn’t capture her beauty.
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