Another Branch

In 1902, a remarkable exotic exhibition opened in Tivoli. This time, the park attractions included a new entertainment: visitors could see real Chinese people. They were brought directly from Canton, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. One could observe them working, preparing food, and performing for the park's guests. The program included, among other things, the phrase: «It is astonishing and borders on the incredible how much physical suffering a Chinese person can endure.» Among the Chinese is San Wun Sun. Among the visitors to Tivoli is Ingeborg Danielsen. The relationship between San and Ingeborg draws widespread condemnation from society. Women who engage with Chinese men are branded as «unmarried women» or «half-women», and they are even accused of «betraying the ideals of their homeland.» Ingeborg reads about this in the newspaper, and her relatives tell her. But Ingeborg is Ingeborg, and it is almost unbelievable that she can endure for the sake of the man she loves desperately and indiscriminately. «Another Branch» is a love story about how one person can burn all bridges behind them to follow another person—and another, untraveled path of life. Modern Danish writer Jesper Wun-Sun has created a work of art about his ancestors, telling for the first time in a novel form about his great-grandfather and great-grandmother—a man and a woman from different cultures who had to fight for their happiness, overcoming prejudices and rigidity. And each day for them «was one big attempt to suppress the endless feeling of their otherness and deprivation.» Just as it would later be for their children. Has much changed since then?..