Foreign Service life in Copenhagen: Like something from a fairy tale

Part 1: Learning a language almost no one else bothers to speak

Life as a Foreign Service Officer means checking things off a career “bucket list”—including acquiring fluency in at least one language, even if that particular language—like Danish—has almost no relevance to the rest of your career, beyond getting off language probation.

In early 1985, I was settling into life in Rosslyn, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. My jet-setting new wife, Margaret, had gone back home to conclude the last six months of her own career as a flight attendant for Air Jamaica, visiting me periodically while I studied, diligently, this strange new language—or “disease of the throat,” as many Danes laughingly called it. Almost all Danes speak English now—and at least one other European language—because they know global communication demands knowing something besides the nearly useless language of their Viking ancestors.

No one in my father’s family had spoken Danish in decades, having been thoroughly assimilated culturally soon after arriving in the mid-19th century. I had toyed with taking beginner’s Norwegian in graduate school—a very similar language on paper, at least, if “sung” differently—in deference to my trip there in 1972. But it was all strange to me. And although I eventually mastered reading Danish well enough to pass the fluency exam—a 3 each in speaking and reading, on a 5-point scale (halfway between 1=complete novice, 5=native speaker)—my brain never did become comfortable with speaking it. For one thing, my reproduced speech was too slow and much too clear in enunciating the words—Southerners tend to “hear slow and speak slower,” I used to say, only half in jest.

I think my ears simply refused to cooperate. Had I learned another language at an early age in school, the process might have been less difficult, one language teacher once told me. But by the time I started learning my first “other” language—French, in high school—it was almost too late, and by the time I was 35, the ship had simply sailed for Danish (and, as I would learn a few years later, had almost sunk by the time I attempted Russian). I know that many adult learners often have the same problem, getting over that hurdle of “thinking” in another language, rather than always translating the English in your head, word for word, and speaking that. Mastering the idiomatic flow of another language is a critical skill. Some people do it effortlessly, but I never mastered it. I could learn to read anything they threw at me—but hearing it spoken and assimilating it, then conversing, was another matter entirely.

I never lost my “American accent.” That is one reason, I think, that FSO’s who come in with another language—whether acquired in early childhood or in adulthood—had far less trouble with future languages. But the classes themselves were still entertaining, and the cultural seminars were great. The books they used were quite good, and the classroom conversations more than helpful. My main instructor, Lilian Jorgenson, was a delightfully cheerful Dane who had married an American and moved to the States years earlier. Her infectious humor and smiling but dogged persistence made learning Danish less of an obstacle and more of a rewarding challenge—even if I was never her star pupil!

By the time I finished my 6 months of training, I had reached a 2+/3 level—not quite enough to get off probation, but enough to the land of my ancestors, where they figured being immersed in Danish culture, television, and appealing surroundings would drag me over the finish line to a 3/3. That, in itself, became a kind of long-running joke.

In Copenhagen, I tried to engage Danes at every level—at work, at parties, and on the street—in productive conversations, to speed up my ears and achieve a kind of linguistic equilibrium. But Danes, for all their other excellent qualities, are not terribly patient with folks who struggle to “get it out.” Invariably, they switched to English midway through the conversation—and defeated the whole purpose. After all, most of them spoke English as least as well as I did, already—if often with a British accent, betraying only their childhood school instructors’ background.

Eventually I flew home to Washington, about a year into my tour, and took the test again. Amazingly, this time I got a 3/3—although I still suspect it was awarded, in large part, out of pity …

* * * * * * *

Down in Jamaica, Margaret was going through all the preparatory steps—including a formal application for an immigrant visa (IV), as my wife, before moving to the U.S. permanently in early August, after taking her last flight as an Air Jamaica attendant. Before she immigrated, she decided to visit some old Caribbean friends—a radiologist and his wife, a nurse—who lived outside Toronto, Canada, and had already visited us once in Virginia. I agreed to fly up from Washington to meet her there, for a pleasant summer weekend holiday. She had worked a flight to Miami, I think, then taken another flight to Toronto for her weekend visit.

My return itinerary, however, was more complicated. The plane I needed to be on was full in Toronto—completely booked!—but a seat was available on that same plane after its one stop in Buffalo, New York. So Claude and Betty agreed to drive me the short distance from Ontario to Buffalo, allowing me to fly home from there. Margaret accompanied us, before planning to return to Toronto for her own flight back to Miami and Kingston.

We did not realize what a problem we had inadvertently created when we tried to cross the land border. My passport was fine. Claude and Betty were Canadian citizens. Their passports were fine. Margaret had all the proper U.S. visas—for work, temporary transit, and tourist purposes—in her Jamaican passport. But she also had a tiny notation on the back page of her passport, indicating an application for an immigrant visa. Normally, when that occurs, all the applicant’s other tourist and work visas are then canceled—and replaced with the packet of IV paperwork allowing her to enter the U.S. from Jamaica and establish residency. So until she takes the final flight, she is theoretically not allowed to travel into the United States.

The officer who processed her IV application in Kingston, however, knew me and understood our situation. Because Margaret was continuing to fly in and out of the States for work, he would not cancel her existing visas, even though she had now applied for permanent residence, until she came to get her paperwork packet and take her farewell flight. So far, so good.

The customs/immigration officer in Buffalo did not see it quite so favorably. He immediately denied her entry into the U.S., as an intending immigrant, even though she had been there days earlier, and indeed, at least monthly as a tourist and more often as a working crew member since our marriage six months earlier. He was convinced we were attempting to sneak her across the border … to this day, I am still speechless at that.

Rather than argue, Margaret agreed to wait on the Canadian side of the border, and let Claude and Betty drop me off at the airport, then return to pick her up on the way home. But I was not going to stand for that. I tried to explain the admittedly unorthodox situation to the border control officer—after all, we worked for the same U.S. government—but he rejected my explanation and lost his temper. “You State Department people are all the same, always doing what you want,” he fairly yelled at me, “but not today.”

That is when I almost lost my own temper—back then, a real rarity for me—and demanded to see his supervisor, to whom I explained it all over again. She overruled her own officer, and let us all through—she could see that all the visas were, indeed, valid, and had obviously not been canceled when Margaret applied for her immigrant visa—while the officer in question just stood there, glaring at me. If looks could kill … I glared back triumphantly.

* * * * * * *

We had one more hiccup on Margaret’s final flight, when she flew back into the United States, this time to Baltimore, with her IV paperwork packet. Because she was due to be naturalized expeditiously in less than two months, before we flew to Copenhagen, my State Department contacts gave her special instructions: do not relinquish that paperwork packet, whatever you do. Tell them you are being naturalized expeditiously, and you must hand it directly to us. Otherwise, it will get delayed and your naturalization cannot take place on schedule. Ask to speak to a supervisor if you get any negative feedback, and repeat these instructions.

The processing officer at Baltimore did not agree, and said she had never heard such an improbable request. Ha! Margaret politely asked to speak to her supervisor—who said, as I recall, something like, “Yes, yes, I have heard of that procedure—doesn’t happen often—let us process it quickly, and you can keep your paperwork. Otherwise it will get lost in the system …”

I was waiting outside for her at the Baltimore airport, and could not overhear the conversation. But Margaret was indeed smiling happily as she came through the international arrival doors—IV packet in hand!—and we were now one step closer to our new European posting.

She had already begun studying for her citizenship test, which she still had to take, and which she soon passed with flying colors. (Easy, she said!) Two days before the naturalization ceremony, she actually received her “green card”—her legal U.S. residence permit—in the mail at our Rosslyn apartment. That was the missing required piece of the puzzle—the reason why she had been asked to hand onto the IV paperwork in the first place, so it could be processed separately without delay—and she literally exchanged it for her naturalization certificate days later.

I had by now completed my language training, and after a few weeks of consultations on other personnel matters and other short training courses at the Department of State, we were ready to take off for Copenhagen. En route, we stopped off for a few days in London to visit an old friend of Margaret’s—giving her the opportunity to visit Vidal Sassoon’s styling salon one more time—and giving me my first, and only, view of the ancient capital of the United Kingdom. (I never did get to see the Queen, darn it.)

Next time: Part 2: Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen …