A note to the Danish-minded among you: This is just one of my typical e-mails in which I give my impressions of a place and try to get a few chuckles. This time, the Danes have fallen into the crosshairs. Get over it. I don’t want any e-mails with complaints like: “It’s not true! You don’t have to cut your rye bread before eating it!” Or, “But my family doesn’t consider the local graveyard to be a major tourist attraction!” If you’ve got any complaints, write your own damn blog.
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After that sort of lead-in, I might as well dive right into one of the most divisive issues confronting Danish/American relations. That’s right, I’m talking about down comforters.
Danes believe few things as strongly as the superiority of the two-comforter system. For those not familiar with the concept, Danes fervently believe that each member in a couple should have his or her own single-sized comforter; they look at me like I’ve lost my mind when I express my preference for one bed-sized comforter. In support of their position, Danes argue that the two-comforter system allows each member of a couple to wrap a comforter around themselves when the winter chill sets in, and eliminates the possibility that your bedmate will steal the covers. I stand alone in this country, fighting for all that is good and right in the world – including a bed-sized comforter (to Annette’s credit, she has refused to take sides in this dispute).
To put it bluntly, the two-comforter system is a nightmare. Not a night goes by without the phrase “fucking country!” involuntarily exiting my lips as I wrestle with the mounds of fabric and feathers, trying both to get within striking distance of Annette and also keep my appendages under at least one of the comforters. I can tell you, it isn’t easy. Either Danes – contrary to rumors of sexual promiscuity – don’t like being close to the person with whom they are sharing a bed, or they don’t mind it when their ass, leg or arm is out flapping in the cold night air.
Having tackled that difficult topic at the outset, I feel emboldened to move onto another of the Danes’ sacred cows: food. I should start out by saying that the charms of Danish food, though elusive, have begun to reveal themselves to me. But there is no denying that traditional Danish cuisine – to which I am subjected when staying with Annette’s parents – is nothing if not a vascular surgeon’s dream.
Annette’s father’s plate, for example, is never far away from both a tub of margarine and a container labeled “pig’s fat with fried onions.” Generous portions of one or the other are spread as a base on bread, which is then topped with meat, herring, cheese or jam (the fat precedes meat or herring; the margarine, cheese or jam). Yet I can’t see trying to change his diet. Almost 85, he is as thin as Annette and spends most of his time cutting lawns and tending gardens for the dozen widows he has as clients (a few of whom he even lets pay). And when he has errands around town, he rides his bike. Clearly, fat is working for him.
Perhaps his secret is the Omega-3’s that are included in the barrels full of herring that are part of a traditional Danish diet. Unfortunately, we’ll never know for sure. In the Danish countryside, doctors are avoided if humanly possible. Annette is confident that neither of her parents has ever had their cholesterol checked, and it is only a few years ago that Annette’s 82-year old mother announced that she’d had her blood pressure taken for the first time since she was pregnant. With Annette. You do the math.
Okay, back to the food. It should come as no surprise that a country that produces oceans of milk is a wee bit dairy-obsessed. Cheese and ice cream are particular favorites. But I am still surprised by the container for a popular brand of Danish milk. It announces that the milk is organic and non-homogenized, and then details the percentage of fat. It then informs the consumer that the milk contained within its walls is half from Jersey cows (who, it explains, produce a lower volume of more dense milk with a superior taste) and half from the more typical Guernsey cows. Lest you be unsure of the difference, the carton has a photograph with one cow of each type gazing contentedly out of a farmhouse-style window. And if that isn’t enough, the most important information is also set out in Braille. Can suggestions of a hint of citrus in the milk’s aroma, or a description of the light received by the hill on which the cows grazed be far off?
Then again, perhaps it is just that my palate isn’t sufficiently sophisticated to appreciate these subtleties. I know that’s the case when it comes to potatoes. Danes LOVE them, which is fair enough – they are to traditional Danish food what rice is to Asian food. But no food has as special a place in the Danes’ heart as the spring crop of “Danish new potatoes.” People have stars in their eyes when they talk about them. Yet their mystique is lost on me – to me, they seem like perfectly fine little potatoes. And that is considered an unacceptable opinion.
Okay, onto a more weighty topic: the innumerable rules that govern Danish behavior. [My self-anointed ‘Fact-Checker of All Things Danish’ requires that I point out that these rules are unwritten. She thinks that makes the situation better. I would argue the opposite, because the compliance expected with these rules is even greater than what is expected for, say, the speed limits on the highway. And at least those are posted.]
What follows is a smattering of the rules. Violate any one of them, and you will be regarded as the unknowing foreigner that you are:
1) When eating breakfast at home, eat the oatmeal first. Then pour and drink your coffee. Then eat some toast with jam or cheese. Do not vary the order of these items. (I have been given papal dispensation from this rule, and am allowed to drink my coffee first.)
2) When a breadbasket comes around with both light, fluffy rolls and dense, dark rye bread, you must take a slice of rye bread first. Then, before doing anything else, you must cut the piece of bread in half. After the bread has been cut in half, you should begin loading one of the halves – but only one of the halves – with toppings. After loading the half piece of bread with toppings, do not pick it up. Instead, struggle mightily to cut it with a fork and butter knife. Then pile a piece of the bread and toppings onto your fork, and see how much of it can make it to your mouth. Repeat.
3) When a breadbasket with rolls and pastries comes by, you must take a roll first. Before doing anything else, cut the roll in half and load it up with toppings. This time, you may use your hands to propel the bread towards your mouth.
4) When at a Danish luncheon with herring, you must eat the herring before any of the fifty-seven other items on the table. If multiple varieties of herring are served, you must eat them in the following order: plain, red and then curry. Once you’ve moved onto one of the many other foods on the table, you may not go back to the herring although it continues to sit on the table. How could you think otherwise?
5) At those same Danish luncheons, liters of ice-cold aquavit (tasty caraway-flavored snaps) will be served. But you may not drink the aquavit whenever you want, nor may you drink it alone. Aquavit may only be drunk as part of a toast, for which you usually needn’t wait too long. If truly parched, a foreigner may try to initiate a toast on his or her own, but everyone will know it’s just an excuse to drink more aquavit.
6) A toast begins with the initiator shouting “skol.” Everyone must then promptly pick up their snaps glass and hold it in front of themselves at the height of their lips. One-by-one, each person at the table must make eye contact with each of the people at the table, smiling or nodding along the way. Everyone then drinks, and returns the glass to the height of their lips. Everyone must then once again make eye contact with everyone else at the table. (This rule is so important that Norwegians and Swedes say that failing to make eye contact the second time results in seven years of bad sex. It seems like an unduly severe punishment if you ask me.)
The bottom line: the dinner table is plagued with potential pitfalls. And you are not informed of the many pitfalls into which you have fallen until the Danes have had a sufficient number of years to laugh at you.
Yet the most important unwritten Danish rule has nothing to do with food or drink. It is the Jante Law. (To be technically correct, the Jante Law is written down, but only in an old Danish novel. Yet the novel so perfectly captured this inherent aspect of Danish society that everyone calls the ‘rule’ by the name it was given in that fictional account.) In its fullest form, the Jante Law consists of ten different admonitions. But all are really variations of the first:
“Do not think you are anything special.”
Violate that law, and people are sure to talk. And so pervasive is its grip that the Jante Law is often cited as the reason that more ambitious Danes sometimes leave the country.
But the Jante Law does not apply to the fact of being Danish. If there is one thing on which all Danes agree on, it is this: Denmark and the Danish people are something special. I am not alone in this observation. A cousin of Annette’s lent me a book written by three Brits who live in Denmark, titled “The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Danes.” The Guide puts it thus:
“The Danes’ mission in life is to help the rest of the world see just how wonderful Denmark is. They feel sorry for all the poor souls who aren’t Danish . . . However, they cannot bring themselves to boast about how fantastically talented they are, so they spend an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to get others to see the light.”
The most obvious example of Danish national pride is their ever-present flag – a white cross on a red background. They are absolutely mad about it (which, I guess, is fair enough, since it fell from heaven during a battle in 1219, and inspired the nearly defeated Danish army onto victory). Every Danish family has either a flagpole outside their house, a four foot high flag pole near their front door, or a one foot high flagpole on a table (many have all three). They fly the flag for birthdays, weddings, confirmations and the like, or when honored visitors are visiting. They waive it at airports when greeting relatives returning from week-long package tours. They post it in shop windows, on every Danish product, and on the back of letters to friends. Basically, they post it to anything that can hold an adhesive surface and that will sit still long enough to be branded. (Even that isn’t a true limitation – Danish soccer fans are credited with being the first to have painted their faces with the color of their flag). But unlike in the U.S., there is nothing militaristic about the Danes’ flying of their flag (which is a good thing, considering the size of the Danish military). Instead, it is more of a “Don’t we just love being Danish!” sort of thing. And they do. In fact, Danish pride even extends to the specific area of the country in which people live. I recently asked Annette’s mother if there is any region of Denmark whose residents do not think their region is the best in the country. She conceded there is not.
But perhaps all that Danish pride is not unwarranted. Although Denmark has no significant natural resources, it has one of the highest living standards in the world. And yet another study has come out concluding that the Danes are the happiest people in the world. I guess at least a little chest-puffing is in order.
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Okay, that’s enough for now. In a few days, perhaps I tackle other hard-hitting issues, such as the Danish infatuation with graveyards and their relentless pursuit of “hygge.”
Hils (“bye-bye”) for now,
Neil
Friday, September 21, 2007
Nothing’s rotten in the state of Denmark
A Danish joke:
Dane #1 (reading an article on religion in Denmark and shaking his head): “It’s really terrible that the churches are so empty on Sunday.”
Dane #2: “Yes, one day we’ll have to go and see it ourselves.”
Although there is an official state religion – Lutheranism – and over 90% of Danes are members of the church, it is hard to say that religion plays a major role in Danish life (with the exception of strongly conflicting opinions about the influx of Muslim immigrants and, of course, the little issue of those cartoons depicting Mohammed).
The same cannot be said of graveyards – Danes love them and frequently visit them. So much so that graveyards have bike racks. In fact, I was stunned that we spent over 48-hours in Denmark before our traditional walk to the village graveyard with Annette’s parents, and not surprised at all that we walked to the grave of a recently deceased uncle when visiting his wife. But – and I’m not even joking here – I sort of understand the Danes’ obsession. First, the tiny “locals only” graveyards are lovely – they resemble nothing so much as a finely manicured formal garden. Second, for people like Annette’s parents, who are in their mid-eighties and whose family has lived in their town – which is only now booming to a population of 2,000 – for five or six generations, visiting the graveyard means seeing old friends. This is especially true because families reuse their graves, so the small, discrete headstones one sees are for only the most recently interred (the reuse of graves, and the fact that each of Denmark’s many churches has a graveyard, also explains why graveyards are so small in Denmark and not the golf course-sized behemoths we have in the States). Third, having a modest white-washed church from the late 13th century in the background, which most graveyards do, well . . . it just adds a nice touch.
Does all this help to explain the seemingly relaxed attitude Danes have towards death? Or is that because their strong connection to farming continually reminds them of the way of all things? Or is it all just a front? Whatever the answer, they don’t seem to take it all that seriously. Annette’s family still talks about my first visit to the local graveyard, when I asked what an inscription on the top of a headstone meant. “Former farmer,” was the answer. “That’s a little redundant,” I retorted. We all had a good laugh.
Now for a Danish factoid: “Kirkegaard” means both “churchyard” and “graveyard.” It helps to explain the philosopher’s outlook on life.
Okay, onto the Danes’ relentless pursuit of “hygge” (pronounced “hueggah”). It is all-consuming. But what is “hygge”? Typically it is translated as “coziness,” but Danes insist that is a grossly inadequate translation. Truth be told, I’m still a little unsure as to the difference. And even a Dane would have to concede that if a Venn diagram was drawn, “coziness” would be a large part of “hygge.” But hygge-ness, I’m told, goes far beyond the Danish obsession with things such as drinking coffee with friends while surrounded by an Ikea store’s-worth of candles. It can be hygge to have a nice little conversation with a friend on a street corner. Or a picnic in a park. But whenever possible, add candles – nothing adds hygge to a situation like candles. (Speaking of candles, many of you heard about my two Christmases in Denmark, when we danced indoors around a real pine tree that was covered with ornaments and lit with live candles. I remain convinced that the dancing was solely to whip up the flames, but am told that is incorrect. My fact-checker also insists that I note that Danes don’t bring their Christmas trees into the house until a day or two before the festivities, thereby reducing the need for a holiday visit from the local fire department. You can imagine how that reassured me.)
The Danish obsession with hygge reflects an important aspect of Danish society: they are exceedingly gracious hosts, and expect visitors – even friends of friends of friends – to stay at least one night and also consume large quantities of homemade food at three-hour intervals. Danes are also, on a societal level, exceedingly generous towards those they do not know. For example, those that work pay high taxes – for incomes over $55,000, 65% goes to the government – so that those who are not working (including those who never work) can receive legendary unemployment and related benefits.
This is not to say the Danes don’t complain about their taxes, or that outwitting the taxman is not the Danish national sport. But almost everyone is in favor of the benefits the government provides, and they are not afraid to take advantage of them. A friend of Annette’s has decided to take a year leave-of-absence from her teaching job and will get 80% of her normal salary. And parents, in addition to generous paternity and maternity benefits, take a year off work at 80% pay for each child, and they can do so any time between the child’s first and tenth birthdays.
All of this kindness to others makes the Danes’ treatment of strangers encountered in one-on-one interactions all that much more surprising. Danish queue-culture, for example, is severely under-developed – if a Dane can get ahead of you in line, he will. And don’t even think that a motorist might slow down so that you can change lanes to get to an exit – it’s not going to happen. There are also basically no words in Danish for either “please” or “excuse me.” So, unlike in the U.S., where people say “excuse me” to anyone within earshot when walking down a supermarket aisle, Danes simply push by you (or into you) without a word.
All of this can, well, make the Danes who’ve not yet met you (and hence not yet invited you to their home so that you can be fed like a goose being raised for foie gras) seem a tad rude to Americans. Annette keeps telling me that I need to keep in mind that for a Dane their actions are not rude, because there is no tradition of saying “excuse me” and no one expects it. And she’s probably right. I’m also sure Cambodians think me incredibly rude because I do not bow deferentially when passing anywhere near them. But when someone bumps into me and then just keeps on walking, all that is still a little hard to remember.
Fairness requires that I now reiterate that Danes are mind-bogglingly gracious in their dealings with friends. For example, despite the absence of words for “please” and “excuse me,” there are 2,139 ways of saying “thank you.” Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. But Danes give numerous, repeated and highly specific thanks whenever there is an opportunity. It is, for example, inconceivable that you don’t say “thanks for the meal” after every meal, even one served at your parents’ table. It is similarly inconceivable that you wouldn’t say “thanks for the coffee” after each of the day’s innumerable formal servings of coffee, or “thanks for the evening” as you leave someone’s house in the evening, or “thanks for last time” the first time you talk to someone after having socialized with them. And that’s only the beginning. There’s “thanks for today” which is said after a visit made during daylight hours, “a thousand thanks” which is used with store clerks and whenever a more specific “thanks” doesn’t spring to mind, and “thanks for that” (which is my favorite, since it can also be used sarcastically, such as after someone makes a joke at your expense). The list could go on and on. The Danes’ graciousness is also apparent when you leave a Danish house. The hosts come out and waive, waive, waive goodbye. They then stand and watch as you drive away, giving one last waive as you drive out of sight. Of course, considering that Danish guests rarely get up from the dinner table before 11 p.m. even on a workday, the hosts may just be making sure you actually leave.
The Danish love of socializing is nowhere more apparent than at functions commemorating “round birthdays” (e.g., 40, 50, 60 . . .), weddings or confirmations. To say the Danes don’t want to miss a moment of a party would be an understatement. Years ago, Annette’s father’s birthday was called for 6:00 p.m. When we showed up at 5:30, there was already a crowd. Those who arrive at the appointed hour are all-but late.
On arrival, every invitee must go around the room and shake hands with every other person there. There isn’t a lot of chit-chatting done, just an obligatory “hello” and onto the next one. This process is repeated when each guest leaves. But you're lucky if you recognize any of the guests when you shake hands a second time, because there’s been such a long time between the handshakes. You see, Danish parties go on forever, and something has gone terribly wrong if guests start to leave a 6 p.m. function before 2 a.m. In fact, Danes are such “partyholics” that “go home food” (sometimes referred to as “fuck-off food”) – typically soup and bread – is served around 1:00 or 1:30 a.m. so that people get the idea they should leave before the next full moon. It doesn’t always work, though – at a birthday party for Annette’s father, I once threatened to turn off the lights. But it all depends what you’re used to, and Annette still cannot get over how quickly American parties are over.
Another reason Danish parties go on so long is that there are many speeches and songs written for the honorees. It is a very sad birthday, wedding or confirmation party where at least six people haven’t written songs about those being honored. There are even professional song writers to help out those who cannot write a song of their own.
A far more major difference between the U.S. and Denmark is their relative emphasis on “freedom of choice” versus “acceptance of the norm.” For example, Danes visiting the U.S. are stunned by choices we confront. If you order a salad in Denmark, it comes with salad dressing – you do not get nineteen choices as to which kind. And although a few types of toothpaste are available in Danish stores, you do not have the 113 options that we must choose from in the U.S., each with a different size, flavor, type (gel or paste) and focus (whitening, fluoride, fresh breath, anti-tartar). To be honest, I prefer the Danish approach.
There is also a difference as to the societies’ emphasis on individuality versus consensus. In the U.S., people want to think they are unique (even if it means buying the exact same thing thousands of others are buying, each thinking they are unique). Such aspirations are rare in Denmark. Virtually all of the stores carry the same items, and almost everyone of a certain age has similar possessions. Before even entering the house of Danes in their 40’s, you know you will see one of two Royal Copenhagen porcelain patterns (which came from a grandmother), a Danish-designed Stelton coffee thermos, and Danish-designed stainless steel serving pieces. And the Danes tend to like it that way. It is comfortable, it is familiar, and it comports with the Jante Law – everyone has about the same education, about the same wealth and about the same possessions.
Could the Danes’ focus on consensus and acceptance help to explain their high scores on the happiness scale? Even experts disagree as to why the Danes are so contented, but I think it possible. Of course, another possible explanation is that biking through the Danish countryside in the late afternoon of a beautiful spring day, the country seems to live up to its fairytale reputation. Fields of young green grain sit next to a sea of the brilliant yellow flowers of rape seed plants. Horses and centuries-old villages of half a dozen thatched-roof houses can be seen in the background. It’s pretty hard to miserable at such times.
///
Once again, I’ve rambled on too long while still having much more to say. I’ll close with one last thing, a correction to my last e-mail: As you probably guessed, it is a tub of butter, not margarine, that sits on Annette’s parents’ table. I was confused because the butter is so spreadable (thanks to added oil), and the product name includes the word “gården” in it. But “gården” only means “the farm” in Danish. My sincere apologies to the entire Danish dairy industry for erroneously reporting that margarine was found on the table of a former dairy farmer.
More down the road,
Neil
Dane #1 (reading an article on religion in Denmark and shaking his head): “It’s really terrible that the churches are so empty on Sunday.”
Dane #2: “Yes, one day we’ll have to go and see it ourselves.”
Although there is an official state religion – Lutheranism – and over 90% of Danes are members of the church, it is hard to say that religion plays a major role in Danish life (with the exception of strongly conflicting opinions about the influx of Muslim immigrants and, of course, the little issue of those cartoons depicting Mohammed).
The same cannot be said of graveyards – Danes love them and frequently visit them. So much so that graveyards have bike racks. In fact, I was stunned that we spent over 48-hours in Denmark before our traditional walk to the village graveyard with Annette’s parents, and not surprised at all that we walked to the grave of a recently deceased uncle when visiting his wife. But – and I’m not even joking here – I sort of understand the Danes’ obsession. First, the tiny “locals only” graveyards are lovely – they resemble nothing so much as a finely manicured formal garden. Second, for people like Annette’s parents, who are in their mid-eighties and whose family has lived in their town – which is only now booming to a population of 2,000 – for five or six generations, visiting the graveyard means seeing old friends. This is especially true because families reuse their graves, so the small, discrete headstones one sees are for only the most recently interred (the reuse of graves, and the fact that each of Denmark’s many churches has a graveyard, also explains why graveyards are so small in Denmark and not the golf course-sized behemoths we have in the States). Third, having a modest white-washed church from the late 13th century in the background, which most graveyards do, well . . . it just adds a nice touch.
Does all this help to explain the seemingly relaxed attitude Danes have towards death? Or is that because their strong connection to farming continually reminds them of the way of all things? Or is it all just a front? Whatever the answer, they don’t seem to take it all that seriously. Annette’s family still talks about my first visit to the local graveyard, when I asked what an inscription on the top of a headstone meant. “Former farmer,” was the answer. “That’s a little redundant,” I retorted. We all had a good laugh.
Now for a Danish factoid: “Kirkegaard” means both “churchyard” and “graveyard.” It helps to explain the philosopher’s outlook on life.
Okay, onto the Danes’ relentless pursuit of “hygge” (pronounced “hueggah”). It is all-consuming. But what is “hygge”? Typically it is translated as “coziness,” but Danes insist that is a grossly inadequate translation. Truth be told, I’m still a little unsure as to the difference. And even a Dane would have to concede that if a Venn diagram was drawn, “coziness” would be a large part of “hygge.” But hygge-ness, I’m told, goes far beyond the Danish obsession with things such as drinking coffee with friends while surrounded by an Ikea store’s-worth of candles. It can be hygge to have a nice little conversation with a friend on a street corner. Or a picnic in a park. But whenever possible, add candles – nothing adds hygge to a situation like candles. (Speaking of candles, many of you heard about my two Christmases in Denmark, when we danced indoors around a real pine tree that was covered with ornaments and lit with live candles. I remain convinced that the dancing was solely to whip up the flames, but am told that is incorrect. My fact-checker also insists that I note that Danes don’t bring their Christmas trees into the house until a day or two before the festivities, thereby reducing the need for a holiday visit from the local fire department. You can imagine how that reassured me.)
The Danish obsession with hygge reflects an important aspect of Danish society: they are exceedingly gracious hosts, and expect visitors – even friends of friends of friends – to stay at least one night and also consume large quantities of homemade food at three-hour intervals. Danes are also, on a societal level, exceedingly generous towards those they do not know. For example, those that work pay high taxes – for incomes over $55,000, 65% goes to the government – so that those who are not working (including those who never work) can receive legendary unemployment and related benefits.
This is not to say the Danes don’t complain about their taxes, or that outwitting the taxman is not the Danish national sport. But almost everyone is in favor of the benefits the government provides, and they are not afraid to take advantage of them. A friend of Annette’s has decided to take a year leave-of-absence from her teaching job and will get 80% of her normal salary. And parents, in addition to generous paternity and maternity benefits, take a year off work at 80% pay for each child, and they can do so any time between the child’s first and tenth birthdays.
All of this kindness to others makes the Danes’ treatment of strangers encountered in one-on-one interactions all that much more surprising. Danish queue-culture, for example, is severely under-developed – if a Dane can get ahead of you in line, he will. And don’t even think that a motorist might slow down so that you can change lanes to get to an exit – it’s not going to happen. There are also basically no words in Danish for either “please” or “excuse me.” So, unlike in the U.S., where people say “excuse me” to anyone within earshot when walking down a supermarket aisle, Danes simply push by you (or into you) without a word.
All of this can, well, make the Danes who’ve not yet met you (and hence not yet invited you to their home so that you can be fed like a goose being raised for foie gras) seem a tad rude to Americans. Annette keeps telling me that I need to keep in mind that for a Dane their actions are not rude, because there is no tradition of saying “excuse me” and no one expects it. And she’s probably right. I’m also sure Cambodians think me incredibly rude because I do not bow deferentially when passing anywhere near them. But when someone bumps into me and then just keeps on walking, all that is still a little hard to remember.
Fairness requires that I now reiterate that Danes are mind-bogglingly gracious in their dealings with friends. For example, despite the absence of words for “please” and “excuse me,” there are 2,139 ways of saying “thank you.” Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. But Danes give numerous, repeated and highly specific thanks whenever there is an opportunity. It is, for example, inconceivable that you don’t say “thanks for the meal” after every meal, even one served at your parents’ table. It is similarly inconceivable that you wouldn’t say “thanks for the coffee” after each of the day’s innumerable formal servings of coffee, or “thanks for the evening” as you leave someone’s house in the evening, or “thanks for last time” the first time you talk to someone after having socialized with them. And that’s only the beginning. There’s “thanks for today” which is said after a visit made during daylight hours, “a thousand thanks” which is used with store clerks and whenever a more specific “thanks” doesn’t spring to mind, and “thanks for that” (which is my favorite, since it can also be used sarcastically, such as after someone makes a joke at your expense). The list could go on and on. The Danes’ graciousness is also apparent when you leave a Danish house. The hosts come out and waive, waive, waive goodbye. They then stand and watch as you drive away, giving one last waive as you drive out of sight. Of course, considering that Danish guests rarely get up from the dinner table before 11 p.m. even on a workday, the hosts may just be making sure you actually leave.
The Danish love of socializing is nowhere more apparent than at functions commemorating “round birthdays” (e.g., 40, 50, 60 . . .), weddings or confirmations. To say the Danes don’t want to miss a moment of a party would be an understatement. Years ago, Annette’s father’s birthday was called for 6:00 p.m. When we showed up at 5:30, there was already a crowd. Those who arrive at the appointed hour are all-but late.
On arrival, every invitee must go around the room and shake hands with every other person there. There isn’t a lot of chit-chatting done, just an obligatory “hello” and onto the next one. This process is repeated when each guest leaves. But you're lucky if you recognize any of the guests when you shake hands a second time, because there’s been such a long time between the handshakes. You see, Danish parties go on forever, and something has gone terribly wrong if guests start to leave a 6 p.m. function before 2 a.m. In fact, Danes are such “partyholics” that “go home food” (sometimes referred to as “fuck-off food”) – typically soup and bread – is served around 1:00 or 1:30 a.m. so that people get the idea they should leave before the next full moon. It doesn’t always work, though – at a birthday party for Annette’s father, I once threatened to turn off the lights. But it all depends what you’re used to, and Annette still cannot get over how quickly American parties are over.
Another reason Danish parties go on so long is that there are many speeches and songs written for the honorees. It is a very sad birthday, wedding or confirmation party where at least six people haven’t written songs about those being honored. There are even professional song writers to help out those who cannot write a song of their own.
A far more major difference between the U.S. and Denmark is their relative emphasis on “freedom of choice” versus “acceptance of the norm.” For example, Danes visiting the U.S. are stunned by choices we confront. If you order a salad in Denmark, it comes with salad dressing – you do not get nineteen choices as to which kind. And although a few types of toothpaste are available in Danish stores, you do not have the 113 options that we must choose from in the U.S., each with a different size, flavor, type (gel or paste) and focus (whitening, fluoride, fresh breath, anti-tartar). To be honest, I prefer the Danish approach.
There is also a difference as to the societies’ emphasis on individuality versus consensus. In the U.S., people want to think they are unique (even if it means buying the exact same thing thousands of others are buying, each thinking they are unique). Such aspirations are rare in Denmark. Virtually all of the stores carry the same items, and almost everyone of a certain age has similar possessions. Before even entering the house of Danes in their 40’s, you know you will see one of two Royal Copenhagen porcelain patterns (which came from a grandmother), a Danish-designed Stelton coffee thermos, and Danish-designed stainless steel serving pieces. And the Danes tend to like it that way. It is comfortable, it is familiar, and it comports with the Jante Law – everyone has about the same education, about the same wealth and about the same possessions.
Could the Danes’ focus on consensus and acceptance help to explain their high scores on the happiness scale? Even experts disagree as to why the Danes are so contented, but I think it possible. Of course, another possible explanation is that biking through the Danish countryside in the late afternoon of a beautiful spring day, the country seems to live up to its fairytale reputation. Fields of young green grain sit next to a sea of the brilliant yellow flowers of rape seed plants. Horses and centuries-old villages of half a dozen thatched-roof houses can be seen in the background. It’s pretty hard to miserable at such times.
///
Once again, I’ve rambled on too long while still having much more to say. I’ll close with one last thing, a correction to my last e-mail: As you probably guessed, it is a tub of butter, not margarine, that sits on Annette’s parents’ table. I was confused because the butter is so spreadable (thanks to added oil), and the product name includes the word “gården” in it. But “gården” only means “the farm” in Danish. My sincere apologies to the entire Danish dairy industry for erroneously reporting that margarine was found on the table of a former dairy farmer.
More down the road,
Neil
Dansk for Beginners - 5/15/07
To describe Danish as an impenetrable European language is like saying Moby Dick was just a whale.
It’s not just that the Danes don’t pronounce every third letter, though that's true. (For example, Annette’s hometown of Vig is pronounced as if there is no “g.” She objects vehemently when I say this, claiming that the “g” is soft but there; that her town is pronounced “vee,” whereas a word spelled “Vi” would be pronounced “vee.” If there is a difference, dogs don’t have as refined a sense of hearing as the Danes.). And it’s not that consonants often have sounds far different from what we think they should be. Or that non-Danes are completely incapable of forming many of the sounds that spoken Danish requires one to make (though that hurdle is a big one). It is the combination of all those, plus the fact Danes combines multiple words into one whenever possible, so that a single word can be almost a paragraph in length.
That’s only a slight exaggeration. Yesterday I was intrigued by a billboard that had a picture of a bike rider passing to the right side of a car. I asked what the word “højresvingsulykker” meant. The answer: “accidents caused when making right hand turns.” I swear I’m not making that up. For years, I joked that Danish had a single word for “the coffee cup on the top shelf, towards the back.” Now I can see I wasn’t that far off.
But “højresvingsulykker” isn’t as bad as many – it is only eighteen letters, and twenty-five letter words aren’t uncommon (which is why I quip that spelling bees in Denmark must run out of time after the first contestant). And even Annette, a former translator, concedes that everything I’ve mentioned pales by comparison to the words in insurance documents.
Perhaps the difficulty surrounding Danish vocabulary explains why the Danes decided to keep their names so simple. Eliminate the Hansens, Jensens, Petersens, Olsens and Nielsens from the phonebook and there isn’t much left. This I proved through a rigorous scientific examination in 1992. In the phonebook for Copenhagen, a city of one million people, there were over 31,000 listings (I reiterate, phone listings, not people) for “Jensen.” And there were 931 listings for “Annette Jensen.” It also explained why the international operator was so befuddled when I tried to get a listing for Annette a few years earlier. [FYI: violating the Jante Law, it has become popular – primarily among “Copenhageners,” a word non-Copenhageners say with a tinge of disgust – to buy the right to use a homemade last name so that they can be a little different.]
Onto matters of a financial sort . . .
Everything in Denmark is damn expensive. Admittedly, Northern Europe was never a bargain-hunter’s dream, but with the dollar in the toilet this place is brutal. Adding to the costliness, Danish merchants seem to insist on selling quality goods. There are no cheap, crappy clothes or electronics that you're supposed to use a few times and throw out – things are well made and they’re expensive. For example, Annette’s parents just bought a new “Swissvoice” corded phone with an answering machine – the cheapest telephone with an answering machine in the store. The cost: $200. Haven’t these people heard of China?
Cars are even worse. Because of high import taxes, even the crappiest tin box with an engine smaller than many motorcycles in the U.S. costs $50,000. And gas is currently $8 per gallon. On top of that, everyone must take a minimum of sixteen driving lessons – at a cost of almost $3,000 – before they can take the test for their license. All this helps to explain the Danish fascination with bicycles. (You all know about the 2000 distinctively painted bicycles that anyone can use for free in Copenhagen, right? You just take one wherever you find one, and leave it when you get to wherever you’re going. Supposedly, they’re not stolen.)
Up until recently, I never fully understood what was behind the Danes’ environmentally-aware attitudes towards the internal combustion engine and mass transit. But it is simple: Denmark has neither an automobile nor gas industry to protect. Take a moment to imagine how different policies in the U.S. would be if that were the case. (On an energy-related note, Denmark aims to have 20% of its power from windmills within ten years, even though the country has no windmill farms only random windmills here and there.)
Despite (or because?) of Denmark’s attitudes towards cars, there is a car rental agency here unlike any other: “Bo Biler of Herning” (the equivalent of “Bob’s Cars of Sacramento”). It’s a small fish in a small pond, but still impressive.
Bo rents only to expat Danes, because that limitation allows it to buy cars with much lower import taxes than would otherwise be imposed. Three years ago, the only other time we rented from Bo, you could only get his prices on the web and had to call Denmark to make reservation; now, you can make a reservation by exchanging e-mails. When you make a reservation, you do not give a credit card number and do not get a confirmation number. You give just your name, and that’s it.
Bo’s cars are available in only a few locations. The two times we’ve rented from him, we met the representative at Copenhagen’s international airport. But Bo has no desk or kiosk; you set a time to meet him and he stands by the information counter with a briefcase at his feet saying “Bo Biler.” Yesterday, we picked up a car that we'll have for a week. Here's how it went:
At the appointed hour, we walk up to the briefcase and introduce ourselves to Bo’s man-on-the-ground. We get a warm greeting and a handshake. We walk out to the airport's short-term parking lot, chatting all the way. “Bo” pays the fee for parking the car in the lot, and gives us the ticket.
On the way to the nice shiny car, we (truthfully) tell Bo that we couldn’t get cash to pay him for the rental because of problems with Annette’s bank card. But we offer to give him one-third of the rental price in cash, and a credit card for the balance. Although Bo has a credit card machine in his briefcase, he says not to bother – we can just pay when we drop off the car. This, although the only thing Bo has from us is our California drivers license numbers which, incidentally, list only a post office box we no longer use. (The suggestion that we might pay in advance is still more than Bo asked when we rented from him three years ago. Then we were told to simply leave the money in the glove compartment when we dropped the car off at the gas station next to the airport.)
Signing the paperwork takes about 5 seconds, but the chit-chat takes so long that I wonder whether our time to get out of the parking garage has expired (I’m still waiting to be invited home to dinner; coffee at the minimum). Nothing on the form is computerized, there are no waivers, no gas options, no extra insurance options . . . nothing. Just a signature. We take the car and go.
But soon we fear a cloud has fallen over us. After stopping at a friend’s, we notice a fairly serious scrape on the car that could not have happened in the time since we had it. We are annoyed that we didn’t walk around the car before accepting it, and wonder if our honeymoon with Bo will soon be over. We call and tell him about the scrape. His response? “Oh yes, the car has a few little dings, and if it has a few more little dings when you bring it back don’t worry about it.” He then congratulates on having such good weather for our drive, hopes that we enjoy our time with the car, and gives us his good wishes. Just like renting from Hertz. It's all so bizarre that I speculate we're unwittingly being used as drug-runners.
A few more items from the category of “Danish Automotive Miscellany”:
-- When you are driving down the highway and see a yellow sign announcing “Fart Kontrol,” it is not a warning related to the digestive system of middle-aged men. It means “speed control.”
-- All Danish cars have a small plastic “clock” on the windshield. When parking somewhere that the parking time is limited, you “set the clock” to the time that you parked. That way, when the parking police come around (as if there was such a thing; I’ve never even seen a regular policeman outside of Copenhagen) they can see if you’ve been parked longer than you are allowed. The whole practice cracks me up, and I constantly amuse myself (and only myself) by shouting “Oh, we’d better set the clock!” as we barrel down the highway at 120 km per hour, and then moving the hands on the windshield. The system seems so quaint in its assumption that people will set the “timer” to the actual time that they parked (of course, you could get caught setting the clock at a time later than when the meter person ambles by, if there were such a thing). The Danes, not surprisingly, cannot understand my amusement.
-- Denmark is in the midst of a major campaign to get people to wear seatbelts. But unlike in the U.S., the campaign is not based on the threat of fines; it is based on love. Thousands of small ‘black & white’ posters dot highways. Each has two people on it: a child leaning over his father, a husband leaning over his wife, a girlfriend leaning across her boyfriend. In each poster, the person in the foreground is wearing white. The other, who wears black, leans lovingly over the first person in such a way that his/her black arm comes across the first person’s chest in the shape of a shoulder belt and also a half-heart. The text says: “Persuade others to wear seatbelts.” But compliance seems imperfect. Annette’s father only begrudgingly wears a seatbelt on the highway, and takes it off when he gets 5 km from town. What I haven’t figured out is whether he thinks that accidents cannot happen that close to home, or that he’ll know the police officer if stopped and be able to get out of the ticket. It’s probably both.
A few more food-related items:
-- Organic food is completely mainstream here – almost the norm. For example, although decaf coffee can almost not be found, even a small market carries multiple varieties of organic coffee (which, instead of decaf, is put in bags trimmed with green).
-- There are no “danish pastries” in Denmark. Instead, what we call “danish” is called “Viennese bread” here; thankfully, “Wienerbrød” bears little relation to the junky stuff sold as “danish” in the U.S. But I am worried that no country wants to take responsibility for clogging the world's arteries.
-- Although the pastries are good, they are not the finest baked goods that the Danes have to offer – instead, that honor goes to the butter cookies. But not that crap in the blue tins that the rest of the world thinks of as Danish butter cookies. I’m talking about homemade butter cookies. My favorite is the “lace cookie” – thin wafer-like cookies with lots of irregular air holes. When I asked Annette’s mother how she made them so, she responded matter-of-factly that there was too much butter for the flour to stick together. [Please refer back to the discussion on a vascular surgeon’s dreamland from a previous e-mail.]
On to Danish kids:
Passing a nursery school, the children appear to be the product of some “Boys of Brazil”-like experiment. There are a dozen or more youngsters, each with perfect corn silk-like hair, playing well together. (In Copenhagen, it is always such a contrast to see the jet-black hair of a Turkish immigrant’s child occasionally scattered into the mix.)
But the Danish children are not quite so well-behaved when they get older – nor do people seem to particularly mind. Annette’s nephew’s high school has a fortnightly get-together in the school’s gym, where the 16, 17 and 18-year olds can hang out and drink beer. In theory, teachers supervise the proceedings. But this past Christmas, nobody stopped a group of students that decided to get on stage and perform a striptease, until the girls were down to just their G-strings and the boys down to their underwear. The exhibition, recorded on someone’s cell phone, was posted to YouTube and a dozen other websites (“Silkeborg gymnasium” should get you there). No one, not even the teachers, was disciplined.
Lastly, a brief introduction to Danish politics. You know how Eskimos have seven words for snow? Well Danes have seven words for “leftist.” With the exception of a recently formed political party, all but one or two of the Danish parties are to the left of the Democrats in the U.S. And to the extent that there is a distinction between the leftist parties, their names give little indication as to their positions on the issues.
Starting at the left end of the political spectrum is the Communist/Left Socialist party. Then there are the Socialist and Social Democrats parties. Next, in the middle of the spectrum, you have – what else, the Radical Left. After that there’s the New Alliance and the Left (which, relatively speaking, is practically Right). Finally, there is the Conservative party (probably the equivalent of the Democrats) and the Danish Folk party (about the same as the Republicans, without the abortion issue). It’s that last party that has much of Denmark in an uproar. It started about fifteen years ago as the party of lower taxes, but soon morphed into a strongly anti-immigrant party. It is now the third largest party in Denmark, behind the Left and Social Democrats (one of which is almost always the ruling party), and has influence far beyond its numbers because it is needed to form a ruling coalition. The rest of Denmark is mightily unhappy about that.
///
Okay, that's all for now. And I swear I’m stopping for a while – we’ll be traveling.
Best until next time,
Neil
It’s not just that the Danes don’t pronounce every third letter, though that's true. (For example, Annette’s hometown of Vig is pronounced as if there is no “g.” She objects vehemently when I say this, claiming that the “g” is soft but there; that her town is pronounced “vee,” whereas a word spelled “Vi” would be pronounced “vee.” If there is a difference, dogs don’t have as refined a sense of hearing as the Danes.). And it’s not that consonants often have sounds far different from what we think they should be. Or that non-Danes are completely incapable of forming many of the sounds that spoken Danish requires one to make (though that hurdle is a big one). It is the combination of all those, plus the fact Danes combines multiple words into one whenever possible, so that a single word can be almost a paragraph in length.
That’s only a slight exaggeration. Yesterday I was intrigued by a billboard that had a picture of a bike rider passing to the right side of a car. I asked what the word “højresvingsulykker” meant. The answer: “accidents caused when making right hand turns.” I swear I’m not making that up. For years, I joked that Danish had a single word for “the coffee cup on the top shelf, towards the back.” Now I can see I wasn’t that far off.
But “højresvingsulykker” isn’t as bad as many – it is only eighteen letters, and twenty-five letter words aren’t uncommon (which is why I quip that spelling bees in Denmark must run out of time after the first contestant). And even Annette, a former translator, concedes that everything I’ve mentioned pales by comparison to the words in insurance documents.
Perhaps the difficulty surrounding Danish vocabulary explains why the Danes decided to keep their names so simple. Eliminate the Hansens, Jensens, Petersens, Olsens and Nielsens from the phonebook and there isn’t much left. This I proved through a rigorous scientific examination in 1992. In the phonebook for Copenhagen, a city of one million people, there were over 31,000 listings (I reiterate, phone listings, not people) for “Jensen.” And there were 931 listings for “Annette Jensen.” It also explained why the international operator was so befuddled when I tried to get a listing for Annette a few years earlier. [FYI: violating the Jante Law, it has become popular – primarily among “Copenhageners,” a word non-Copenhageners say with a tinge of disgust – to buy the right to use a homemade last name so that they can be a little different.]
Onto matters of a financial sort . . .
Everything in Denmark is damn expensive. Admittedly, Northern Europe was never a bargain-hunter’s dream, but with the dollar in the toilet this place is brutal. Adding to the costliness, Danish merchants seem to insist on selling quality goods. There are no cheap, crappy clothes or electronics that you're supposed to use a few times and throw out – things are well made and they’re expensive. For example, Annette’s parents just bought a new “Swissvoice” corded phone with an answering machine – the cheapest telephone with an answering machine in the store. The cost: $200. Haven’t these people heard of China?
Cars are even worse. Because of high import taxes, even the crappiest tin box with an engine smaller than many motorcycles in the U.S. costs $50,000. And gas is currently $8 per gallon. On top of that, everyone must take a minimum of sixteen driving lessons – at a cost of almost $3,000 – before they can take the test for their license. All this helps to explain the Danish fascination with bicycles. (You all know about the 2000 distinctively painted bicycles that anyone can use for free in Copenhagen, right? You just take one wherever you find one, and leave it when you get to wherever you’re going. Supposedly, they’re not stolen.)
Up until recently, I never fully understood what was behind the Danes’ environmentally-aware attitudes towards the internal combustion engine and mass transit. But it is simple: Denmark has neither an automobile nor gas industry to protect. Take a moment to imagine how different policies in the U.S. would be if that were the case. (On an energy-related note, Denmark aims to have 20% of its power from windmills within ten years, even though the country has no windmill farms only random windmills here and there.)
Despite (or because?) of Denmark’s attitudes towards cars, there is a car rental agency here unlike any other: “Bo Biler of Herning” (the equivalent of “Bob’s Cars of Sacramento”). It’s a small fish in a small pond, but still impressive.
Bo rents only to expat Danes, because that limitation allows it to buy cars with much lower import taxes than would otherwise be imposed. Three years ago, the only other time we rented from Bo, you could only get his prices on the web and had to call Denmark to make reservation; now, you can make a reservation by exchanging e-mails. When you make a reservation, you do not give a credit card number and do not get a confirmation number. You give just your name, and that’s it.
Bo’s cars are available in only a few locations. The two times we’ve rented from him, we met the representative at Copenhagen’s international airport. But Bo has no desk or kiosk; you set a time to meet him and he stands by the information counter with a briefcase at his feet saying “Bo Biler.” Yesterday, we picked up a car that we'll have for a week. Here's how it went:
At the appointed hour, we walk up to the briefcase and introduce ourselves to Bo’s man-on-the-ground. We get a warm greeting and a handshake. We walk out to the airport's short-term parking lot, chatting all the way. “Bo” pays the fee for parking the car in the lot, and gives us the ticket.
On the way to the nice shiny car, we (truthfully) tell Bo that we couldn’t get cash to pay him for the rental because of problems with Annette’s bank card. But we offer to give him one-third of the rental price in cash, and a credit card for the balance. Although Bo has a credit card machine in his briefcase, he says not to bother – we can just pay when we drop off the car. This, although the only thing Bo has from us is our California drivers license numbers which, incidentally, list only a post office box we no longer use. (The suggestion that we might pay in advance is still more than Bo asked when we rented from him three years ago. Then we were told to simply leave the money in the glove compartment when we dropped the car off at the gas station next to the airport.)
Signing the paperwork takes about 5 seconds, but the chit-chat takes so long that I wonder whether our time to get out of the parking garage has expired (I’m still waiting to be invited home to dinner; coffee at the minimum). Nothing on the form is computerized, there are no waivers, no gas options, no extra insurance options . . . nothing. Just a signature. We take the car and go.
But soon we fear a cloud has fallen over us. After stopping at a friend’s, we notice a fairly serious scrape on the car that could not have happened in the time since we had it. We are annoyed that we didn’t walk around the car before accepting it, and wonder if our honeymoon with Bo will soon be over. We call and tell him about the scrape. His response? “Oh yes, the car has a few little dings, and if it has a few more little dings when you bring it back don’t worry about it.” He then congratulates on having such good weather for our drive, hopes that we enjoy our time with the car, and gives us his good wishes. Just like renting from Hertz. It's all so bizarre that I speculate we're unwittingly being used as drug-runners.
A few more items from the category of “Danish Automotive Miscellany”:
-- When you are driving down the highway and see a yellow sign announcing “Fart Kontrol,” it is not a warning related to the digestive system of middle-aged men. It means “speed control.”
-- All Danish cars have a small plastic “clock” on the windshield. When parking somewhere that the parking time is limited, you “set the clock” to the time that you parked. That way, when the parking police come around (as if there was such a thing; I’ve never even seen a regular policeman outside of Copenhagen) they can see if you’ve been parked longer than you are allowed. The whole practice cracks me up, and I constantly amuse myself (and only myself) by shouting “Oh, we’d better set the clock!” as we barrel down the highway at 120 km per hour, and then moving the hands on the windshield. The system seems so quaint in its assumption that people will set the “timer” to the actual time that they parked (of course, you could get caught setting the clock at a time later than when the meter person ambles by, if there were such a thing). The Danes, not surprisingly, cannot understand my amusement.
-- Denmark is in the midst of a major campaign to get people to wear seatbelts. But unlike in the U.S., the campaign is not based on the threat of fines; it is based on love. Thousands of small ‘black & white’ posters dot highways. Each has two people on it: a child leaning over his father, a husband leaning over his wife, a girlfriend leaning across her boyfriend. In each poster, the person in the foreground is wearing white. The other, who wears black, leans lovingly over the first person in such a way that his/her black arm comes across the first person’s chest in the shape of a shoulder belt and also a half-heart. The text says: “Persuade others to wear seatbelts.” But compliance seems imperfect. Annette’s father only begrudgingly wears a seatbelt on the highway, and takes it off when he gets 5 km from town. What I haven’t figured out is whether he thinks that accidents cannot happen that close to home, or that he’ll know the police officer if stopped and be able to get out of the ticket. It’s probably both.
A few more food-related items:
-- Organic food is completely mainstream here – almost the norm. For example, although decaf coffee can almost not be found, even a small market carries multiple varieties of organic coffee (which, instead of decaf, is put in bags trimmed with green).
-- There are no “danish pastries” in Denmark. Instead, what we call “danish” is called “Viennese bread” here; thankfully, “Wienerbrød” bears little relation to the junky stuff sold as “danish” in the U.S. But I am worried that no country wants to take responsibility for clogging the world's arteries.
-- Although the pastries are good, they are not the finest baked goods that the Danes have to offer – instead, that honor goes to the butter cookies. But not that crap in the blue tins that the rest of the world thinks of as Danish butter cookies. I’m talking about homemade butter cookies. My favorite is the “lace cookie” – thin wafer-like cookies with lots of irregular air holes. When I asked Annette’s mother how she made them so, she responded matter-of-factly that there was too much butter for the flour to stick together. [Please refer back to the discussion on a vascular surgeon’s dreamland from a previous e-mail.]
On to Danish kids:
Passing a nursery school, the children appear to be the product of some “Boys of Brazil”-like experiment. There are a dozen or more youngsters, each with perfect corn silk-like hair, playing well together. (In Copenhagen, it is always such a contrast to see the jet-black hair of a Turkish immigrant’s child occasionally scattered into the mix.)
But the Danish children are not quite so well-behaved when they get older – nor do people seem to particularly mind. Annette’s nephew’s high school has a fortnightly get-together in the school’s gym, where the 16, 17 and 18-year olds can hang out and drink beer. In theory, teachers supervise the proceedings. But this past Christmas, nobody stopped a group of students that decided to get on stage and perform a striptease, until the girls were down to just their G-strings and the boys down to their underwear. The exhibition, recorded on someone’s cell phone, was posted to YouTube and a dozen other websites (“Silkeborg gymnasium” should get you there). No one, not even the teachers, was disciplined.
Lastly, a brief introduction to Danish politics. You know how Eskimos have seven words for snow? Well Danes have seven words for “leftist.” With the exception of a recently formed political party, all but one or two of the Danish parties are to the left of the Democrats in the U.S. And to the extent that there is a distinction between the leftist parties, their names give little indication as to their positions on the issues.
Starting at the left end of the political spectrum is the Communist/Left Socialist party. Then there are the Socialist and Social Democrats parties. Next, in the middle of the spectrum, you have – what else, the Radical Left. After that there’s the New Alliance and the Left (which, relatively speaking, is practically Right). Finally, there is the Conservative party (probably the equivalent of the Democrats) and the Danish Folk party (about the same as the Republicans, without the abortion issue). It’s that last party that has much of Denmark in an uproar. It started about fifteen years ago as the party of lower taxes, but soon morphed into a strongly anti-immigrant party. It is now the third largest party in Denmark, behind the Left and Social Democrats (one of which is almost always the ruling party), and has influence far beyond its numbers because it is needed to form a ruling coalition. The rest of Denmark is mightily unhappy about that.
///
Okay, that's all for now. And I swear I’m stopping for a while – we’ll be traveling.
Best until next time,
Neil
Wonderful, wonderful København - 6/1/07
I hate to be the one to inform you that not everything in a Hollywood movie is the gospel truth (“Exodus” being a notable exception), but I think it’s time you knew. That’s right, all you Friends of Danny Kaye – only invading Germans pronounce it “Copenhaggen.” The Danes say “Kuhbenhaun.” I know, it is a distinctively less fun word to sing.
But I’m not going to write about the week we spent in that wonderful, wonderful place. At least not yet. Because wonderful is boring. Or, more accurately, I can’t figure out how to make wonderful funny. So I’m going to be my usual obnoxious self. Then, if you’re still there, you can read about our time in The Land of Bikes.
First, some Danish factoids:
- Although normally an annoyingly practical people, Danes have the occasional odd superstition. For example, Annette’s mom was raised with the belief that if you left a tablecloth on the table overnight, someone in your immediate family would die. (And I thought seven years bad sex for failing to look people in the eye after a toast was severe!) Young women of her time also had a saying that “kissing a man without a beard is like eating an egg without salt.”
- Danes do not share the U.S.’s obsession with bathrooms. In older buildings in Copenhagen, a bathroom with shower, toilet and sink can be no bigger than your outstretched arms. When I first came to Denmark, bath towels were of a corresponding size. I could never figure out why people were giving me dishtowels with which to dry myself.
- Even now, Danish showers can be a bit of challenge. On the one hand, virtually all have a bathroom fixture that is nothing less than a miracle: one dial sets the temperature (which is at pretty much the same place no matter who last showered), and another adjusts the water flow. Is there a reason this godsend hasn’t come to America? On the other hand, even in modern U.S.-sized bathrooms, there is sometimes no lip or shower curtain between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. The result: water, water everywhere.
- The first rule of Danish tourism is: “If there’s a place to park your car, there’s a place to buy ice cream.” I’m convinced that the roadside symbol for “Point of Interest” actually translates as “Ice cream available here.” And Danes have an innate inability to pass by an ice cream kiosk without buying. This is confirmed by the symbol for “food prohibited” found on public transport; it is not the hamburger and soda you see in the U.S. with a slash through it, but an ice cream cone.
- Denmark and India are at opposite ends of the utensil spectrum. Indians never use them, preferring to eat with their hands. Annette’s brother-in-law, on the other hand, used a knife and fork to lift an olive off his pizza and then cut it into pieces.
- Tonight we will be going to “Sky Mountain,” the third-highest ‘mountain’ in Denmark. The summit is 147 meters above sea level. I’m planning on bringing oxygen. Actually, the incline at most of Denmark’s “mountain tops” is so gradual that towers are invariably built so that visitors have a view and sense of height. So much for my theory that Annette’s exceptional climbing ability in Ecuador was due to her training in the Danish alps.
- Toilet bowl brushes are a Danish obsession, on display in every bathroom. Even on ferries. Do these people really clean up after themselves in public toilets?
- We drove through a small bit of Sweden the other week, and I made this discovery: No matter how serious Swedish newscasters try to sound, they still sound like a Saturday Night Live sketch making fun of Scandinavians.
Okay, onto København:
Whatever the pronunciation, Copenhagen is bike riding heaven. People of every age, every Body Mass Index, and every stage of pregnancy are on bikes. One on a bike was so pregnant that Annette speculated she was biking herself to the delivery room. (As a sidenote, it seems that half the women in Copenhagen are profoundly pregnant. Is it reflective of the country’s current economic boom? Or is some sort of Boys of Brazil project really going on?)
But neither the bikes nor the riders’ outfits are what you’d expect from the country that produced Bjarne Riis, winner of the 1996 Tour de France (insert your own blood-doping joke here). Instead of the diamond-studded, multi-colored, carbon-fiber bikes you see around San Francisco, those in Copenhagen are almost all a variation of the black, sit-upright bike used by Wicked Witch character in “The Wizard of Oz.” Complete with a front basket for Toto. How the riders find their own amidst the sea of bikes parked at a train station remains a mystery to me. It cannot be by the lock – virtually all use only a rudimentary wheel-lock built into the bike to safeguard their chariot; there is nothing to stop a bike from being picked up and carried away.
The riders themselves are wearing everything except biking outfits – suits, party dresses and four-inch heels are not uncommon (though rarely are they worn simultaneously by the same rider). And the riders behave on their bikes the same way Americans do in their cars. They are talking on the phone, drinking their morning coffee and sneaking an afternoon beer. They are dropping their kids off at day care and bringing their cello to a performance (I saw that twice). And they are out in droves.
But all that is understandable – it is hard to believe that any other city could be as perfect for biking. At least when the weather is good. To begin with, the city is perfectly flat; our rental bikes had three speeds, but we couldn’t figure out what to do with the high or the low gears. There are also more bikes on the road than cars, meaning that the bikes rule the roost (a newspaper just reported that 34% of those working in Copenhagen get to their workplace by bicycle, and the vast majority of others commute by train or bus; that leaves only delivery trucks and a few cars on the roads). On top of all that, most streets have bike lanes on each side of the street. They can be as wide as a car lane, often have their own mini traffic lights (which may be timed differently than the traffic lights for cars), and are sometimes divided into sections for those making turns and those going straight. Best of all, to assure that neither pedestrians nor cars inadvertently wander into the bike lanes, the lanes are built at a height in between that of the sidewalk and the street.
Now since this is a country of rules, it should not be surprising that there are rules that govern bike riding. Most notably, you are expected to behave as responsibly as if you were in a car. That means stopping for red lights, using hand signals to indicate when you are turning or stopping, keeping right except to pass, not zig-zagging across intersections to make a light, and walking the bike when in a pedestrian crosswalk. It also means having front and rear lights at night, and knowing you can be ticketed for “riding under the influence.” Helmets, however, are not required, and few and far between.
The bikes comply with all these rules and, in return, the cars respect the bikes. But it cannot be easy for the cars. Although an avid bike rider, I almost lost it during the one rush hour that I drove in Copenhagen – it was like driving through the middle of a Critical Mass ride. Trying to make a right hand turn was a particular challenge. The bike lane is between the road and the sidewalk, and bikes have the right of way. Because the stream of bikes almost never ends, a car must sit and wait, wait, wait. Then again, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
A few other bike-related items:
- A popular bike for parents is a reverse tricycle, with two wheels in front. In between those two wheels, there’s a crate of sort into which two or three kids (or even an adult) can be placed. Best of all, the crate has a convertible top, complete with plastic windows, that can be put on when the weather turns bad.
- Parking garages all-but non-existent in Copenhagen. But bike racks are everywhere – even two-level bike racks.
- At least one Dane couldn’t believe I was surprised to see graveyards with bike racks. That’s because bikes are seen as a means of transportation, not something you use just for fun.
- Coming out of a side street on your bike and turning left is a bit of a challenge. With all the lanes for cars and bikes, you need to wait until there is a simultaneous break in three lanes of traffic (the bike and car lanes closest to you that are going to the right, and the car lane heading to the left). And if you’re a pedestrian and forget to look down the bike lane as you prepare to cross a street, you will be mowed down sooner than you can say “waiting in line for a Who concert.”
- For some reason, there is a near total absence of motorized scooters in Copenhagen. In a week of biking around the city, we saw thousands and thousands of bikes. And maybe a total of six scooters. Are the Danes really that health-obsessed?
- Bike shops in Copenhagen are like Starbucks in San Francisco – they are everywhere.
Okay, that’s all for now – I think we’re all getting bored. I’ll have to tackle issues like Muslim headscarves, “pacifier trees,” inter-Scandinavian rivalries, the Danes’ love of their queen, and their obsession with eating outside regardless of the weather some other day. But I’ll close with the text of a typically Danish advertisement found in a tourist brochure. It read:
Wonder Bar
Exciting shows with beautiful girls.
Girls without a stitch on their back.
A place for connoisseurs.
Free morning coffee. Open 21 – 09.”
Best,
Neil
But I’m not going to write about the week we spent in that wonderful, wonderful place. At least not yet. Because wonderful is boring. Or, more accurately, I can’t figure out how to make wonderful funny. So I’m going to be my usual obnoxious self. Then, if you’re still there, you can read about our time in The Land of Bikes.
First, some Danish factoids:
- Although normally an annoyingly practical people, Danes have the occasional odd superstition. For example, Annette’s mom was raised with the belief that if you left a tablecloth on the table overnight, someone in your immediate family would die. (And I thought seven years bad sex for failing to look people in the eye after a toast was severe!) Young women of her time also had a saying that “kissing a man without a beard is like eating an egg without salt.”
- Danes do not share the U.S.’s obsession with bathrooms. In older buildings in Copenhagen, a bathroom with shower, toilet and sink can be no bigger than your outstretched arms. When I first came to Denmark, bath towels were of a corresponding size. I could never figure out why people were giving me dishtowels with which to dry myself.
- Even now, Danish showers can be a bit of challenge. On the one hand, virtually all have a bathroom fixture that is nothing less than a miracle: one dial sets the temperature (which is at pretty much the same place no matter who last showered), and another adjusts the water flow. Is there a reason this godsend hasn’t come to America? On the other hand, even in modern U.S.-sized bathrooms, there is sometimes no lip or shower curtain between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. The result: water, water everywhere.
- The first rule of Danish tourism is: “If there’s a place to park your car, there’s a place to buy ice cream.” I’m convinced that the roadside symbol for “Point of Interest” actually translates as “Ice cream available here.” And Danes have an innate inability to pass by an ice cream kiosk without buying. This is confirmed by the symbol for “food prohibited” found on public transport; it is not the hamburger and soda you see in the U.S. with a slash through it, but an ice cream cone.
- Denmark and India are at opposite ends of the utensil spectrum. Indians never use them, preferring to eat with their hands. Annette’s brother-in-law, on the other hand, used a knife and fork to lift an olive off his pizza and then cut it into pieces.
- Tonight we will be going to “Sky Mountain,” the third-highest ‘mountain’ in Denmark. The summit is 147 meters above sea level. I’m planning on bringing oxygen. Actually, the incline at most of Denmark’s “mountain tops” is so gradual that towers are invariably built so that visitors have a view and sense of height. So much for my theory that Annette’s exceptional climbing ability in Ecuador was due to her training in the Danish alps.
- Toilet bowl brushes are a Danish obsession, on display in every bathroom. Even on ferries. Do these people really clean up after themselves in public toilets?
- We drove through a small bit of Sweden the other week, and I made this discovery: No matter how serious Swedish newscasters try to sound, they still sound like a Saturday Night Live sketch making fun of Scandinavians.
Okay, onto København:
Whatever the pronunciation, Copenhagen is bike riding heaven. People of every age, every Body Mass Index, and every stage of pregnancy are on bikes. One on a bike was so pregnant that Annette speculated she was biking herself to the delivery room. (As a sidenote, it seems that half the women in Copenhagen are profoundly pregnant. Is it reflective of the country’s current economic boom? Or is some sort of Boys of Brazil project really going on?)
But neither the bikes nor the riders’ outfits are what you’d expect from the country that produced Bjarne Riis, winner of the 1996 Tour de France (insert your own blood-doping joke here). Instead of the diamond-studded, multi-colored, carbon-fiber bikes you see around San Francisco, those in Copenhagen are almost all a variation of the black, sit-upright bike used by Wicked Witch character in “The Wizard of Oz.” Complete with a front basket for Toto. How the riders find their own amidst the sea of bikes parked at a train station remains a mystery to me. It cannot be by the lock – virtually all use only a rudimentary wheel-lock built into the bike to safeguard their chariot; there is nothing to stop a bike from being picked up and carried away.
The riders themselves are wearing everything except biking outfits – suits, party dresses and four-inch heels are not uncommon (though rarely are they worn simultaneously by the same rider). And the riders behave on their bikes the same way Americans do in their cars. They are talking on the phone, drinking their morning coffee and sneaking an afternoon beer. They are dropping their kids off at day care and bringing their cello to a performance (I saw that twice). And they are out in droves.
But all that is understandable – it is hard to believe that any other city could be as perfect for biking. At least when the weather is good. To begin with, the city is perfectly flat; our rental bikes had three speeds, but we couldn’t figure out what to do with the high or the low gears. There are also more bikes on the road than cars, meaning that the bikes rule the roost (a newspaper just reported that 34% of those working in Copenhagen get to their workplace by bicycle, and the vast majority of others commute by train or bus; that leaves only delivery trucks and a few cars on the roads). On top of all that, most streets have bike lanes on each side of the street. They can be as wide as a car lane, often have their own mini traffic lights (which may be timed differently than the traffic lights for cars), and are sometimes divided into sections for those making turns and those going straight. Best of all, to assure that neither pedestrians nor cars inadvertently wander into the bike lanes, the lanes are built at a height in between that of the sidewalk and the street.
Now since this is a country of rules, it should not be surprising that there are rules that govern bike riding. Most notably, you are expected to behave as responsibly as if you were in a car. That means stopping for red lights, using hand signals to indicate when you are turning or stopping, keeping right except to pass, not zig-zagging across intersections to make a light, and walking the bike when in a pedestrian crosswalk. It also means having front and rear lights at night, and knowing you can be ticketed for “riding under the influence.” Helmets, however, are not required, and few and far between.
The bikes comply with all these rules and, in return, the cars respect the bikes. But it cannot be easy for the cars. Although an avid bike rider, I almost lost it during the one rush hour that I drove in Copenhagen – it was like driving through the middle of a Critical Mass ride. Trying to make a right hand turn was a particular challenge. The bike lane is between the road and the sidewalk, and bikes have the right of way. Because the stream of bikes almost never ends, a car must sit and wait, wait, wait. Then again, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
A few other bike-related items:
- A popular bike for parents is a reverse tricycle, with two wheels in front. In between those two wheels, there’s a crate of sort into which two or three kids (or even an adult) can be placed. Best of all, the crate has a convertible top, complete with plastic windows, that can be put on when the weather turns bad.
- Parking garages all-but non-existent in Copenhagen. But bike racks are everywhere – even two-level bike racks.
- At least one Dane couldn’t believe I was surprised to see graveyards with bike racks. That’s because bikes are seen as a means of transportation, not something you use just for fun.
- Coming out of a side street on your bike and turning left is a bit of a challenge. With all the lanes for cars and bikes, you need to wait until there is a simultaneous break in three lanes of traffic (the bike and car lanes closest to you that are going to the right, and the car lane heading to the left). And if you’re a pedestrian and forget to look down the bike lane as you prepare to cross a street, you will be mowed down sooner than you can say “waiting in line for a Who concert.”
- For some reason, there is a near total absence of motorized scooters in Copenhagen. In a week of biking around the city, we saw thousands and thousands of bikes. And maybe a total of six scooters. Are the Danes really that health-obsessed?
- Bike shops in Copenhagen are like Starbucks in San Francisco – they are everywhere.
Okay, that’s all for now – I think we’re all getting bored. I’ll have to tackle issues like Muslim headscarves, “pacifier trees,” inter-Scandinavian rivalries, the Danes’ love of their queen, and their obsession with eating outside regardless of the weather some other day. But I’ll close with the text of a typically Danish advertisement found in a tourist brochure. It read:
Wonder Bar
Exciting shows with beautiful girls.
Girls without a stitch on their back.
A place for connoisseurs.
Free morning coffee. Open 21 – 09.”
Best,
Neil
The Non-Blondes - 6/12/07
Though born with hair colors that cover the entire spectrum from “albino white” to “corn silk yellow,” most Danes don’t stay that way. And they are not happy about it. Many, many Danes – and not just women – lighten their hair. And I’m not talking highlights; I’m talking serious blondification. Still, few Danes have truly dark hair. I first realized this when I came across an old passport of Annette’s. Instead of having blanks that could be filled-in with her hair and eye color, it had options from which the Passport Office could choose. The options for hair color were: light blond, blond, dark blond, light brown and brown. Brown was the darkest option available, and no one thought anything strange about it.
But that wouldn’t do anymore. Now there are many Danes who are non-blondes. They’re called Muslims. Originally invited into Denmark in the 1960’s because the country needed cheap labor, much of Denmark now wishes they could send those immigrants – and their children and the relatives they brought over – back where they came from. The Muslims, mainly Turks, seem to feel differently.
I will tell you that I do not have a good grasp of the issues concerning Denmark’s immigrants. But it seems that many Danes feel that the Muslim community (which represents 2% of Denmark’s population, but a much higher percentage in Copenhagen) has tried hard to not integrate into Danish society, that much of the community chooses to take advantage of Denmark’s generous welfare benefits instead of working, and that a disproportionate percentage of crimes in Denmark are committed by them. I have no idea as to whether these claims are true. But what I do know is that the issue that many “mainstream” Danes have chosen to focus on is the Muslim tradition of headscarves. And they are against them.
When asked about the headscarves, most Danes give one of two responses. Some feel it emblematic of the Muslim community’s desire to remain outside of the society in which they have chosen to live. They feel that if the Muslims want to remain in Denmark, they should try to look and act like Danes. Invariably, this reminds me of the t-shirt I saw just days after moving to San Francisco, while I waited in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. It read: “I DON’T MIND STRAIGHT PEOPLE, SO LONG AS THEY ACT GAY IN PUBLIC.”
I choose not to point out that these same people seem to have no problem with the thousands of Danes who live in Sweden, just across a bridge from Copenhagen. Those Sweden-based Danes live in housing developments consisting almost exclusively of Danes, and make no effort to learn the language or integrate into the Swedish society. And while the difference in Danish/Swedish cultures is minute when compared to the Danish/Muslim divide, it could be argued that is all the more reason that the Sweden-based Danes should better integrate into their new home country.
Others who oppose the headscarf feel it should be prohibited because it is repressive of women. I point out that many orthodox Jewish women choose to cover their hair, and say that – while I think that a woman should never be required to wear a headscarf – a woman may want to wear one, either because she believes it is mandated by her religion or because she has been raised to believe that is an appropriate form of modesty – the way non-European women feel they should cover the top half of their body at the beach.
In general, I find the whole headscarf debate a little strange. For one thing, I am not used to defending Muslims about anything. But because the arguments against headscarves could so easily be used against orthodox Jews, and because – as an American – I am so used to a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society, I cannot help but do so. (Don’t worry, Mom, I’m not pissing anyone off.) Conversely, having not grown up in a society where people have looked, thought and acted the same for a thousand years, I cannot appreciate the impact these immigrants are having on Denmark’s social fabric. But it seems incongruous to me that a society as tolerant as Denmark’s – one that allows abortion, gay marriage, nudity on its beaches, the open sale of hash in a small anarchist community in Copenhagen, and government-funded fertility treatments for homosexual couples – should view headscarves as over the line. But I should also point out that the Danes seem to have absolutely no problem with the fact that Muslims practice a religion other than Christianity. It’s just that they want Islam to be as unimportant to the Muslims as Christianity is to the Danes.
Onto a lighter subject: pacifier trees. That’s right, pacifier trees. Maybe such things exist in the U.S. and, as a non-parent, I am unaware of them. All I know is that we were walking through a park in Copenhagen and suddenly came across a tree laden with thousands – and I mean thousands – of children’s pacifiers. They had been tied to the tree’s branches with string or ribbon. Some had clearly been there for years, the beige sucking part now dark brown and cracked. Others were almost dripping with spittle. And many were accompanied by laminated notes from the children.
One read:
Dear Pacifier,
Goodbye and thanks for this time. Now I am four years old.
With love,
Celina
Another read,
Dear Pacifier Tree,
Please take good care of my pacifiers, because I have been very happy with them.
Bye,
Storm
I couldn’t stop snapping pictures. Could anything be more charming? I’m told there are other pacifier trees scattered around Denmark.
Now onto inter-Scandinavian rivalries. I know that you probably think the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians all spend their summers sitting around campfires together singing “Kumbaya” and “We are the World.” I’m here to tell you it’s not true – there are serious rivalries amongst the brothers. For example, Danes are unified in their belief that Norwegians are nice but a little naïve, and that Swedes are cold, arrogant drunks. Let me announce (especially to any Norwegians or Swedes who get a hold of this e-mail) that I am sure both characterizations are grossly inaccurate. That being said, I know where at least part of the Swedes’ reputation comes from: For years, there have been severe controls on alcohol in Sweden. Individuals looking to circumvent those regulations often come over to Denmark, where alcohol is plentiful and relatively cheap. In fact, in the port town of Helsignor (yes, the one in “Hamlet”), probably every third store near where the ships from Sweden come in is a liquor store. And before they get on the ship home, those budget-conscious Swedes have a tendency to sample more than a few of their purchases and act accordingly. Those Danes who don’t own the liquor stores are not amused.
Inter-Scandinavian rivalries also show up in other ways. For example, I’d long noticed that many Danish companies include either “Dan” or “Den” in their names. I’d also noticed that Danes paint everything they can the colors of their flag, red and white. But it wasn’t until this trip that I realized national pride even worked its way into road signs. In the U.S. signs that indicate a sharp turn or merging traffic are yellow and black. In Denmark, they are red and white. For years, I thought this was the European way, the result of some study on visibility in road signs commissioned by the EU. Then, we drove into Sweden. There all those same road signs are in the colors of their flag – blue and yellow. It is yet another example of the fevered pitch to which inter-Scandinavian rivalries have risen. And don’t get me started on the recent Denmark/Sweden national soccer match – it wasn’t pretty.
But the Scandinavians, being Scandinavian, also get beyond those rivalries. Just a few weeks ago, the Swedish king paid a state visit to his cousin, the Queen of Denmark. [Sidenote: The Danes love their queen. I’m not sure George Washington was as popular the day after the last British ship left America.] The event was covered as if it was the Academy Awards, with hours-long coverage on two consecutive days. The first night, the room and table settings for the state dinner were shown. We learned that it took eight days to set the tables. The menu was discussed. Guests were shown arriving, and there was live coverage of the monarchs’ speeches. And the Danish people sat in front of their TVs and watched. The next day a performance was held at Copenhagen’s stylish new Opera House. All of Denmark’s notables were there. One-by-one, they passed before the television cameras as hushed newscasters spoke their name. When all the guests had been seated, the royal families arrived by boat. Much excitement from the crowd. And the Danes sat in front of their TVs and watched.
Now, in fairness, I should point out that Sweden’s king had not made an official state visit to Denmark in 30 years. But then I should also point out that he made numerous less formal visits to Denmark in the intervening years, and that about two such royal functions are broadcast on television every year. And I should also note that the fuss surrounding this state visit was nothing compared to what took place the last time I was in Denmark, when the crown prince (future king) was married to an Australian he met in a bar during the Sydney Olympics. The build-up was a national obsession, reminiscent of Charles and Diana. On the long-awaited day, offices were closed. A free, sit-down breakfast was offered by the Danish farmers to anyone who happened by Copenhagen’s City Hall. Television stations provided a live broadcast of the celebration, starting in the early morning and going until late at night. And the Danes dressed in their finest to watch it all in their living room, drinking champagne and eating cakes with the royal couple’s photo on top. Like many, Annette’s mom watched it all and videotaped it as well. And while she hasn’t yet watched the tape (or the tape of the other recent royal wedding, which ended in divorce), she insists that she still might. All in all, it seems like a lot of pomp for such an egalitarian-minded country.
Okay, two more short topics. First, the Danes’ obsession with being outdoors. Now I will admit that Californians are total wimps when it comes to the weather. If it isn’t perfect, we stay indoors. But the Danes are at the opposite extreme. Hiking in the rain? No problem. Stopping half-way into the rainy hike to sit at a wet picnic table, drink coffee and eat cookies? Why not? Bottom line: if Danes can be outside, they are outside. Restaurants provide blankets, hosts provide raincoats, and plastic sheeting is taken on hikes for use at picnic tables. It makes me realize just how cooped up the Danes must get in winter, that they are so desperate to get outside during the other seasons.
But the Danes’ belief in the restorative powers of fresh air is nowhere more apparent than with their young children. Infants are often left alone outside the house in their baby carriages to nap. Sometimes, they are left alone outside a store when the parent needs to run in for a quick errand. A few years back, this practice got a Danish woman visiting NYC into a bit of a pickle. Seems the Department of Child Welfare didn’t consider it an appropriate cross-cultural exchange when she left her child in its carriage on a Manhattan street as she ran into a store. Those civil servants, so narrow minded!
Okay, last thing: a bit more on the Danish language. When I told one Dane about my fascination with “højresvingsulykker” (accidents caused when making right-hand turns), he immediately responded that things could get much worse. For example, you could easily turn that word into “højresvingsulykkesstatistikker” (statistics about accidents caused when making right-hand turns) or “højresvingsulykkesinformationer” (information about accidents caused when making right-hand turns). Now the astute among you – and those of you with far too much time on your hands – will have noticed that in both of those tongue-twisters, the “. . . kker” ending in “højresvingsulykker” changed to “. . . kkes” when a new word was added at the end. That “s,” I’ve been told, is referred to as “a binding ‘s’.” Although I’ve yet to obtain concrete evidence, I am convinced that the phrase “binding ‘s’” somehow relates to the word “sadistic.”
But, again, it is incumbent upon me to tell the other side of the story: the Danes actually have a few short words. For example, “å” means a stream (but not the smallest of streams; that’s a different word). And “ø” means “island.” How they came up with such easy words for items that don’t seem to be all that important to Danish society, I do not know.
Anyway, that’s all for now.
Best,
N.
But that wouldn’t do anymore. Now there are many Danes who are non-blondes. They’re called Muslims. Originally invited into Denmark in the 1960’s because the country needed cheap labor, much of Denmark now wishes they could send those immigrants – and their children and the relatives they brought over – back where they came from. The Muslims, mainly Turks, seem to feel differently.
I will tell you that I do not have a good grasp of the issues concerning Denmark’s immigrants. But it seems that many Danes feel that the Muslim community (which represents 2% of Denmark’s population, but a much higher percentage in Copenhagen) has tried hard to not integrate into Danish society, that much of the community chooses to take advantage of Denmark’s generous welfare benefits instead of working, and that a disproportionate percentage of crimes in Denmark are committed by them. I have no idea as to whether these claims are true. But what I do know is that the issue that many “mainstream” Danes have chosen to focus on is the Muslim tradition of headscarves. And they are against them.
When asked about the headscarves, most Danes give one of two responses. Some feel it emblematic of the Muslim community’s desire to remain outside of the society in which they have chosen to live. They feel that if the Muslims want to remain in Denmark, they should try to look and act like Danes. Invariably, this reminds me of the t-shirt I saw just days after moving to San Francisco, while I waited in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. It read: “I DON’T MIND STRAIGHT PEOPLE, SO LONG AS THEY ACT GAY IN PUBLIC.”
I choose not to point out that these same people seem to have no problem with the thousands of Danes who live in Sweden, just across a bridge from Copenhagen. Those Sweden-based Danes live in housing developments consisting almost exclusively of Danes, and make no effort to learn the language or integrate into the Swedish society. And while the difference in Danish/Swedish cultures is minute when compared to the Danish/Muslim divide, it could be argued that is all the more reason that the Sweden-based Danes should better integrate into their new home country.
Others who oppose the headscarf feel it should be prohibited because it is repressive of women. I point out that many orthodox Jewish women choose to cover their hair, and say that – while I think that a woman should never be required to wear a headscarf – a woman may want to wear one, either because she believes it is mandated by her religion or because she has been raised to believe that is an appropriate form of modesty – the way non-European women feel they should cover the top half of their body at the beach.
In general, I find the whole headscarf debate a little strange. For one thing, I am not used to defending Muslims about anything. But because the arguments against headscarves could so easily be used against orthodox Jews, and because – as an American – I am so used to a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society, I cannot help but do so. (Don’t worry, Mom, I’m not pissing anyone off.) Conversely, having not grown up in a society where people have looked, thought and acted the same for a thousand years, I cannot appreciate the impact these immigrants are having on Denmark’s social fabric. But it seems incongruous to me that a society as tolerant as Denmark’s – one that allows abortion, gay marriage, nudity on its beaches, the open sale of hash in a small anarchist community in Copenhagen, and government-funded fertility treatments for homosexual couples – should view headscarves as over the line. But I should also point out that the Danes seem to have absolutely no problem with the fact that Muslims practice a religion other than Christianity. It’s just that they want Islam to be as unimportant to the Muslims as Christianity is to the Danes.
Onto a lighter subject: pacifier trees. That’s right, pacifier trees. Maybe such things exist in the U.S. and, as a non-parent, I am unaware of them. All I know is that we were walking through a park in Copenhagen and suddenly came across a tree laden with thousands – and I mean thousands – of children’s pacifiers. They had been tied to the tree’s branches with string or ribbon. Some had clearly been there for years, the beige sucking part now dark brown and cracked. Others were almost dripping with spittle. And many were accompanied by laminated notes from the children.
One read:
Dear Pacifier,
Goodbye and thanks for this time. Now I am four years old.
With love,
Celina
Another read,
Dear Pacifier Tree,
Please take good care of my pacifiers, because I have been very happy with them.
Bye,
Storm
I couldn’t stop snapping pictures. Could anything be more charming? I’m told there are other pacifier trees scattered around Denmark.
Now onto inter-Scandinavian rivalries. I know that you probably think the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians all spend their summers sitting around campfires together singing “Kumbaya” and “We are the World.” I’m here to tell you it’s not true – there are serious rivalries amongst the brothers. For example, Danes are unified in their belief that Norwegians are nice but a little naïve, and that Swedes are cold, arrogant drunks. Let me announce (especially to any Norwegians or Swedes who get a hold of this e-mail) that I am sure both characterizations are grossly inaccurate. That being said, I know where at least part of the Swedes’ reputation comes from: For years, there have been severe controls on alcohol in Sweden. Individuals looking to circumvent those regulations often come over to Denmark, where alcohol is plentiful and relatively cheap. In fact, in the port town of Helsignor (yes, the one in “Hamlet”), probably every third store near where the ships from Sweden come in is a liquor store. And before they get on the ship home, those budget-conscious Swedes have a tendency to sample more than a few of their purchases and act accordingly. Those Danes who don’t own the liquor stores are not amused.
Inter-Scandinavian rivalries also show up in other ways. For example, I’d long noticed that many Danish companies include either “Dan” or “Den” in their names. I’d also noticed that Danes paint everything they can the colors of their flag, red and white. But it wasn’t until this trip that I realized national pride even worked its way into road signs. In the U.S. signs that indicate a sharp turn or merging traffic are yellow and black. In Denmark, they are red and white. For years, I thought this was the European way, the result of some study on visibility in road signs commissioned by the EU. Then, we drove into Sweden. There all those same road signs are in the colors of their flag – blue and yellow. It is yet another example of the fevered pitch to which inter-Scandinavian rivalries have risen. And don’t get me started on the recent Denmark/Sweden national soccer match – it wasn’t pretty.
But the Scandinavians, being Scandinavian, also get beyond those rivalries. Just a few weeks ago, the Swedish king paid a state visit to his cousin, the Queen of Denmark. [Sidenote: The Danes love their queen. I’m not sure George Washington was as popular the day after the last British ship left America.] The event was covered as if it was the Academy Awards, with hours-long coverage on two consecutive days. The first night, the room and table settings for the state dinner were shown. We learned that it took eight days to set the tables. The menu was discussed. Guests were shown arriving, and there was live coverage of the monarchs’ speeches. And the Danish people sat in front of their TVs and watched. The next day a performance was held at Copenhagen’s stylish new Opera House. All of Denmark’s notables were there. One-by-one, they passed before the television cameras as hushed newscasters spoke their name. When all the guests had been seated, the royal families arrived by boat. Much excitement from the crowd. And the Danes sat in front of their TVs and watched.
Now, in fairness, I should point out that Sweden’s king had not made an official state visit to Denmark in 30 years. But then I should also point out that he made numerous less formal visits to Denmark in the intervening years, and that about two such royal functions are broadcast on television every year. And I should also note that the fuss surrounding this state visit was nothing compared to what took place the last time I was in Denmark, when the crown prince (future king) was married to an Australian he met in a bar during the Sydney Olympics. The build-up was a national obsession, reminiscent of Charles and Diana. On the long-awaited day, offices were closed. A free, sit-down breakfast was offered by the Danish farmers to anyone who happened by Copenhagen’s City Hall. Television stations provided a live broadcast of the celebration, starting in the early morning and going until late at night. And the Danes dressed in their finest to watch it all in their living room, drinking champagne and eating cakes with the royal couple’s photo on top. Like many, Annette’s mom watched it all and videotaped it as well. And while she hasn’t yet watched the tape (or the tape of the other recent royal wedding, which ended in divorce), she insists that she still might. All in all, it seems like a lot of pomp for such an egalitarian-minded country.
Okay, two more short topics. First, the Danes’ obsession with being outdoors. Now I will admit that Californians are total wimps when it comes to the weather. If it isn’t perfect, we stay indoors. But the Danes are at the opposite extreme. Hiking in the rain? No problem. Stopping half-way into the rainy hike to sit at a wet picnic table, drink coffee and eat cookies? Why not? Bottom line: if Danes can be outside, they are outside. Restaurants provide blankets, hosts provide raincoats, and plastic sheeting is taken on hikes for use at picnic tables. It makes me realize just how cooped up the Danes must get in winter, that they are so desperate to get outside during the other seasons.
But the Danes’ belief in the restorative powers of fresh air is nowhere more apparent than with their young children. Infants are often left alone outside the house in their baby carriages to nap. Sometimes, they are left alone outside a store when the parent needs to run in for a quick errand. A few years back, this practice got a Danish woman visiting NYC into a bit of a pickle. Seems the Department of Child Welfare didn’t consider it an appropriate cross-cultural exchange when she left her child in its carriage on a Manhattan street as she ran into a store. Those civil servants, so narrow minded!
Okay, last thing: a bit more on the Danish language. When I told one Dane about my fascination with “højresvingsulykker” (accidents caused when making right-hand turns), he immediately responded that things could get much worse. For example, you could easily turn that word into “højresvingsulykkesstatistikker” (statistics about accidents caused when making right-hand turns) or “højresvingsulykkesinformationer” (information about accidents caused when making right-hand turns). Now the astute among you – and those of you with far too much time on your hands – will have noticed that in both of those tongue-twisters, the “. . . kker” ending in “højresvingsulykker” changed to “. . . kkes” when a new word was added at the end. That “s,” I’ve been told, is referred to as “a binding ‘s’.” Although I’ve yet to obtain concrete evidence, I am convinced that the phrase “binding ‘s’” somehow relates to the word “sadistic.”
But, again, it is incumbent upon me to tell the other side of the story: the Danes actually have a few short words. For example, “å” means a stream (but not the smallest of streams; that’s a different word). And “ø” means “island.” How they came up with such easy words for items that don’t seem to be all that important to Danish society, I do not know.
Anyway, that’s all for now.
Best,
N.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Our Neighbors to the North - 7/23/07
So much of the past thirteen weeks has been spent with Danes that I feel ready for my citizenship test. But four of those weeks haven’t even been in Denmark. Our worthless American dollars have also had the opportunity to grace the shopkeepers of England, Switzerland, Norway and a tiny bit of Sweden.
What surprised me most about those travels – other than the feeling that I was from a poor, developing country – was just how different those geographically close countries still are from each other. Britain, for example, was just so damn British! If we’d been drugged and blindfolded, transported to a hamlet in the south of England and had the blindfolds removed, in a heartbeat we would have known where we were. And that’s even before meeting the locals, who seemed as if they were hired by the national tourism board to speak and act like the Brits in movies. The same was true for Switzerland – whether in villages or mountains, there was no place else in the world we could have been. It was just so damn Swiss.
The Nordic countries are of course much more similar to one another, but there are differences. Sort of like the differing shades of green on a hardware store paint chip. Or the change of seasons in the Bay Area. When I first moved to San Francisco from New York, I laughed when locals tried to convince me that the Bay Area had a change of seasons. But as I spent more time there, I realized they were right – the change is just nowhere near as dramatic as on the East Coast. The same is true for the Scandinavians. There are differences, just as there is a difference between the paints “Spring Mist #L303” and “Lilies of the Valley #L304.”
That, of course, begs the question as to what those differences are – a topic sure to generate at least as much controversy as the recent studies concerning siblings’ birth order and IQ. And there is no good way for me to answer that question without pissing people off. So perhaps I’ll back into this topic gently, saying where I thought each country excelled.
Sweden: Having only spent 36 hours in Stockholm and driven across the southern most part of the country, I will (uncharacteristically) refrain from making sweeping generalizations about millions of people and hundreds of thousands of square miles of countryside. But I give Sweden top honors for “Prettiest Location for a Capital City.” Comprised of fourteen small islands and surrounded by water, Stockholm is beautiful.
Norway: Norway intrigued me for a variety of reasons, and I’ll probably babble on about those in a bit. In the meantime, I bestow upon Norway the award for “Prettiest Scandinavian Language.” It is more melodic than Danish, but not downright comical like Swedish. I also bestow upon Norway the award for “Prettiest Countryside,” but give Sweden – which also has mountains and fjords – the right to appeal that award since I didn’t get to 97% of that country. Lastly, Norway wins top honors for “Most Obviously Concerned About Recycling” and “Most Compulsively Courteous to Pedestrians in Crosswalks, Such That You Are Afraid to Look as if You Might Be Considering Crossing the Street if You Are Not 100% Sure Because Traffic Across the Entire Country Will Come to an Abrupt Halt.”
And last but not least, Denmark: Denmark wins for “Best Architecture in a Capital City” “Prettiest Flag,” “Prettiest Women” (and I’m not just saying that because I have to), and “Best Incorporation of Bicycling into a Society.”
So now I’m torn. Should I talk more about those curious Norwegians or return to my favorite pastime, making fun of the Danes? Oh, what the hell, I’ll go onto the Norwegians and maybe come back to the Danes at the end.
First, a bit about the country. Norway has the kind of wide-open spaces that are rare in Europe – it is the same size as California and has only 4.7 million people. But Norway isn’t as well-proportioned as California. It is more the Kareem Abdul Jabar of countries – incredibly long and exceedingly skinny (then again, using that analogy Norway has sort of a big butt). Perhaps this will help put Norway’s dimensions into perspective: Oslo is located in southern Norway, though far from its southernmost tip. A friend of Annette’s grew up in Lofoten, a group of Norwegian islands that is still around 1200 km from Norway’s northern-most territory. Yet the distance from Lofoten to Oslo is the same as the distance from Oslo to Rome. We’re talking one long country.
But what really fascinated me about Norway is its wealth. I mean, I’d heard about the North Sea and the oil there, but I had no idea of the magnitude. (In case you are similarly ignorant, Norway is the world’s second largest exporter of oil, surpassed only by Saudi Arabia.) I also didn’t know that Norway has the largest capital reserve of any nation – by 2010, it is predicted to have a surplus equal to $200,000 per person. By contrast, the U.S. has a deficit of $9 trillion, or $30,000 for every man, woman and child.
Okay, truth be told, none of that is what really fascinates me about Norway. What really fascinates me is how – despite its wealth – the Norwegian government can still be so financially cautious. No, frugal. Okay, let’s be blunt – it’s damn cheap.
To begin with, the government maintains an exceedingly high income tax rate – something like 65%. Then, like its less well-endowed Scandinavian brothers, it piles taxes on almost everything else. For example, you might think that gasoline would be given away almost free in a county with so much of it. But kiss that idea goodbye – it is $8 a gallon, just like in Denmark. You might also think that the subways cars in Oslo would be at least marginally newer than those in the struggling economies of the former Soviet Union. Or that kindergarten classes would have few students, and that the children (or their parents) would be visited by state-paid masseuses during their lunch break. Or that the roads would be decently paved. But you can scratch all of those off your list. Like a wealthy prince in a children’s story who dresses like a pauper and goes amidst his subjects as one of them, Norway acts as if it is no better than anyone else. And not all of Norway’s citizens are so happy about it – they think the government could worry a little less about future generations and do a little more for the current one.
I’m told there are several explanations for the government’s fanatical frugality. One is that the government wants to avoid hyper-inflation, and the kind of boom-and-bust economy that Texans seem to relish. And all that sounds good. But I think it goes deeper than that. My guess is that Norway is the nation-state equivalent of a Depression-era baby. After decades, maybe centuries, of living with a stalled economy and hard lives, the government just can’t wrap its head around the notion that it won the geopolitical lottery and is rich, rich, rich. This, even though Norway’s wealth is predicted to only increase. Its known oil reserves, for example, are predicted to last one hundred years. And I am convinced that by the time those reserves are depleted, Norway will be exporting massive quantities of hydro-electric power and even water itself around the world. (Norway has more water that I can hope to describe. And it already exports hydroelectric power to Denmark and other countries.) So although everyone talks about India or China being the next super-economy, my money is on Norway. Or it would be if Norway had a couple hundred million more people.
But frugal fiscal policy aside, there can be no doubt that Norway’s economy is already booming. Even compared to the rest of northern Europe, things are brutally expensive. Think $144 for a night in a youth hostel with breakfast. Think $7 ice cream cones. And think alcohol prices that motivate much of the population to make its own moonshine. Leave it to the Norwegians to make Denmark and Sweden look like bargain-hunters' paradises. Thank God we had a rail pass and friends with whom we could stay for a few nights.
As for the Norwegian people, they are the über-Danes. Even more outdoorsy in even more extreme weather. With heavier and, this is hard to believe, more bland traditional food. And more candles. And more alcohol (one Saturday morning in Bergen, half a dozen outdoor tables were filled at a bar and the patrons well into pints of beer at 9 a.m.). And even more sun-worshipping. (It was, however, in Stockholm that we saw a young woman eight months pregnant, bronzed and with bleached blond hair, sunning herself in a bikini. My initial thought was that she’d have the brownest belly in the maternity ward. To my chagrin, I then realized that might not be the case.)
A little bit more on Norwegian cuisine. One of the specialties is salted cod that has been dried in the Arctic air of the far north. It was served at our friends’ house, so I was relieved to learn that the fish is rehydrated before cooking – it is a multi-day process during which the weight of the fish increases seven fold. I was even more relieved when I tasted it. But the image of the still dried and cobweb-covered baseball bat-like fish coming up from their basement is still with me.
A more controversial staple of Norwegian cuisine is whale meat, which they view as simply another protein. We only tasted free samples of the dried meat at a fish market – it tasted like beef jerky with a guilty conscience.
BTW, for those of you familiar with lutefisk – the Norwegian fish dish where the fish is cured with lye, and the cooking produces such a stench that pre-approval from the Air Quality Control Board is all-but required – I regret to inform you that we never had it. But perhaps that is for the best, since our Norwegian friends were at a loss for explaining why the lye doesn’t kill you.
But perhaps the notable dish was one typical to the southwestern region of the country, kumle. It consisted of fatty boiled lamb and sausages, with potato flour dumplings. Although the meat was nothing to get excited about, the dumplings were what made the dish special. Boiled in the water that the meat was cooked in, they had the color of dirty dishwater and the density of a black hole. Our friends, who were not the cooks, were in heaven. I, on the other hand, was reminded of nothing so much as a matzo ball experiment gone horribly wrong.
Okay, enough of this. I’ll have to make fun of the Danes some other time.
Best,
N.
What surprised me most about those travels – other than the feeling that I was from a poor, developing country – was just how different those geographically close countries still are from each other. Britain, for example, was just so damn British! If we’d been drugged and blindfolded, transported to a hamlet in the south of England and had the blindfolds removed, in a heartbeat we would have known where we were. And that’s even before meeting the locals, who seemed as if they were hired by the national tourism board to speak and act like the Brits in movies. The same was true for Switzerland – whether in villages or mountains, there was no place else in the world we could have been. It was just so damn Swiss.
The Nordic countries are of course much more similar to one another, but there are differences. Sort of like the differing shades of green on a hardware store paint chip. Or the change of seasons in the Bay Area. When I first moved to San Francisco from New York, I laughed when locals tried to convince me that the Bay Area had a change of seasons. But as I spent more time there, I realized they were right – the change is just nowhere near as dramatic as on the East Coast. The same is true for the Scandinavians. There are differences, just as there is a difference between the paints “Spring Mist #L303” and “Lilies of the Valley #L304.”
That, of course, begs the question as to what those differences are – a topic sure to generate at least as much controversy as the recent studies concerning siblings’ birth order and IQ. And there is no good way for me to answer that question without pissing people off. So perhaps I’ll back into this topic gently, saying where I thought each country excelled.
Sweden: Having only spent 36 hours in Stockholm and driven across the southern most part of the country, I will (uncharacteristically) refrain from making sweeping generalizations about millions of people and hundreds of thousands of square miles of countryside. But I give Sweden top honors for “Prettiest Location for a Capital City.” Comprised of fourteen small islands and surrounded by water, Stockholm is beautiful.
Norway: Norway intrigued me for a variety of reasons, and I’ll probably babble on about those in a bit. In the meantime, I bestow upon Norway the award for “Prettiest Scandinavian Language.” It is more melodic than Danish, but not downright comical like Swedish. I also bestow upon Norway the award for “Prettiest Countryside,” but give Sweden – which also has mountains and fjords – the right to appeal that award since I didn’t get to 97% of that country. Lastly, Norway wins top honors for “Most Obviously Concerned About Recycling” and “Most Compulsively Courteous to Pedestrians in Crosswalks, Such That You Are Afraid to Look as if You Might Be Considering Crossing the Street if You Are Not 100% Sure Because Traffic Across the Entire Country Will Come to an Abrupt Halt.”
And last but not least, Denmark: Denmark wins for “Best Architecture in a Capital City” “Prettiest Flag,” “Prettiest Women” (and I’m not just saying that because I have to), and “Best Incorporation of Bicycling into a Society.”
So now I’m torn. Should I talk more about those curious Norwegians or return to my favorite pastime, making fun of the Danes? Oh, what the hell, I’ll go onto the Norwegians and maybe come back to the Danes at the end.
First, a bit about the country. Norway has the kind of wide-open spaces that are rare in Europe – it is the same size as California and has only 4.7 million people. But Norway isn’t as well-proportioned as California. It is more the Kareem Abdul Jabar of countries – incredibly long and exceedingly skinny (then again, using that analogy Norway has sort of a big butt). Perhaps this will help put Norway’s dimensions into perspective: Oslo is located in southern Norway, though far from its southernmost tip. A friend of Annette’s grew up in Lofoten, a group of Norwegian islands that is still around 1200 km from Norway’s northern-most territory. Yet the distance from Lofoten to Oslo is the same as the distance from Oslo to Rome. We’re talking one long country.
But what really fascinated me about Norway is its wealth. I mean, I’d heard about the North Sea and the oil there, but I had no idea of the magnitude. (In case you are similarly ignorant, Norway is the world’s second largest exporter of oil, surpassed only by Saudi Arabia.) I also didn’t know that Norway has the largest capital reserve of any nation – by 2010, it is predicted to have a surplus equal to $200,000 per person. By contrast, the U.S. has a deficit of $9 trillion, or $30,000 for every man, woman and child.
Okay, truth be told, none of that is what really fascinates me about Norway. What really fascinates me is how – despite its wealth – the Norwegian government can still be so financially cautious. No, frugal. Okay, let’s be blunt – it’s damn cheap.
To begin with, the government maintains an exceedingly high income tax rate – something like 65%. Then, like its less well-endowed Scandinavian brothers, it piles taxes on almost everything else. For example, you might think that gasoline would be given away almost free in a county with so much of it. But kiss that idea goodbye – it is $8 a gallon, just like in Denmark. You might also think that the subways cars in Oslo would be at least marginally newer than those in the struggling economies of the former Soviet Union. Or that kindergarten classes would have few students, and that the children (or their parents) would be visited by state-paid masseuses during their lunch break. Or that the roads would be decently paved. But you can scratch all of those off your list. Like a wealthy prince in a children’s story who dresses like a pauper and goes amidst his subjects as one of them, Norway acts as if it is no better than anyone else. And not all of Norway’s citizens are so happy about it – they think the government could worry a little less about future generations and do a little more for the current one.
I’m told there are several explanations for the government’s fanatical frugality. One is that the government wants to avoid hyper-inflation, and the kind of boom-and-bust economy that Texans seem to relish. And all that sounds good. But I think it goes deeper than that. My guess is that Norway is the nation-state equivalent of a Depression-era baby. After decades, maybe centuries, of living with a stalled economy and hard lives, the government just can’t wrap its head around the notion that it won the geopolitical lottery and is rich, rich, rich. This, even though Norway’s wealth is predicted to only increase. Its known oil reserves, for example, are predicted to last one hundred years. And I am convinced that by the time those reserves are depleted, Norway will be exporting massive quantities of hydro-electric power and even water itself around the world. (Norway has more water that I can hope to describe. And it already exports hydroelectric power to Denmark and other countries.) So although everyone talks about India or China being the next super-economy, my money is on Norway. Or it would be if Norway had a couple hundred million more people.
But frugal fiscal policy aside, there can be no doubt that Norway’s economy is already booming. Even compared to the rest of northern Europe, things are brutally expensive. Think $144 for a night in a youth hostel with breakfast. Think $7 ice cream cones. And think alcohol prices that motivate much of the population to make its own moonshine. Leave it to the Norwegians to make Denmark and Sweden look like bargain-hunters' paradises. Thank God we had a rail pass and friends with whom we could stay for a few nights.
As for the Norwegian people, they are the über-Danes. Even more outdoorsy in even more extreme weather. With heavier and, this is hard to believe, more bland traditional food. And more candles. And more alcohol (one Saturday morning in Bergen, half a dozen outdoor tables were filled at a bar and the patrons well into pints of beer at 9 a.m.). And even more sun-worshipping. (It was, however, in Stockholm that we saw a young woman eight months pregnant, bronzed and with bleached blond hair, sunning herself in a bikini. My initial thought was that she’d have the brownest belly in the maternity ward. To my chagrin, I then realized that might not be the case.)
A little bit more on Norwegian cuisine. One of the specialties is salted cod that has been dried in the Arctic air of the far north. It was served at our friends’ house, so I was relieved to learn that the fish is rehydrated before cooking – it is a multi-day process during which the weight of the fish increases seven fold. I was even more relieved when I tasted it. But the image of the still dried and cobweb-covered baseball bat-like fish coming up from their basement is still with me.
A more controversial staple of Norwegian cuisine is whale meat, which they view as simply another protein. We only tasted free samples of the dried meat at a fish market – it tasted like beef jerky with a guilty conscience.
BTW, for those of you familiar with lutefisk – the Norwegian fish dish where the fish is cured with lye, and the cooking produces such a stench that pre-approval from the Air Quality Control Board is all-but required – I regret to inform you that we never had it. But perhaps that is for the best, since our Norwegian friends were at a loss for explaining why the lye doesn’t kill you.
But perhaps the notable dish was one typical to the southwestern region of the country, kumle. It consisted of fatty boiled lamb and sausages, with potato flour dumplings. Although the meat was nothing to get excited about, the dumplings were what made the dish special. Boiled in the water that the meat was cooked in, they had the color of dirty dishwater and the density of a black hole. Our friends, who were not the cooks, were in heaven. I, on the other hand, was reminded of nothing so much as a matzo ball experiment gone horribly wrong.
Okay, enough of this. I’ll have to make fun of the Danes some other time.
Best,
N.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
¨Survivor¨ -- Galapagos Island - 1/28/07
Greetings from the “Darwin yacht,” somewhere amidst the Galapagos Islands.
Annette and I are two of twenty-three on this boat for eight days (sixteen passengers, six crew and a naturalist guide). What is striking about those numbers is that the Darwin is almost the exact size and shape as the Maggie (the houseboat we’d been living on in Sausalito). In short, twenty-three of us are squeezed into the space that two of us used to have. Still, it is surprisingly comfortable and we don’t feel particularly cramped. And it’s a great, if surprisingly young, group on the boat (I’m the fourth oldest).
But on our two major passages between the islands we have learned of the serious advantage that bigger boats have: a more stable ride. I woke up about half an hour after the first of those journeys started, and could not believe the way the boat bobbed up and down as it summited and then came off of the swells, or the sound of the ocean crashing against the hull. I tried to assure myself that everything was normal, took a second dose of seasickness medication and went back to sleep. Others did not fair quite so well.
So far, we’ve had about three days in the islands and it is pretty much what we’ve all heard about Galapagos: the animals are so tame that you can, for example, lose a staring contest with a sea lion. And you have to be careful not to step on the giant iguanas which refuse to move when you approach (we call that game “dodge the iguana”), or to come too close to mother birds with their young. The animals are all so close that we don’t even bother to carry our binoculars. But the highlight has probably been the snorkeling – we swim amongst sea turtles, sea lions, stingrays, moray eels, sea snakes and tropical fish. But that’s not all – today we were exceedingly close to eight large “white tip” sharks, and then not far above a battalion of five “hammerhead” sharks. (We’ve asked our guide why it is that we’re not supposed to be afraid of these swimming companions, but haven’t really gotten a good explanation. We are assuming it is because there is so much more readily digestible food available.) As for the funniest things we’ve seen, there have been two. The first was the back patio of a fairly large boat – maybe a 40-footer – into which three sea lions had climbed. They seemed to very much enjoy relaxing on the cushioned benches, and I wish we could have seen what happened when the owner returned home. The other was the famous Blue-Footed Boobies – they are birds with bright, light blue feet and a surprised expression on their face that always causes us to smile. But, no, I will not be getting one of the t-shirts that has the phrase “I Like Boobies” printed over a pair of webbed blue feet.
Okay, now to get you up to speed on what’s been going on. The big news nationally is that Ecuador’s new Defense Minister died in a helicopter crash only ten days after she was appointed by the new leftist president. Though the Defense Minister, she was notably anti-military (she’d talked about using the power of the military on public work projects), and some wonder if the military might have wanted to get rid of her. All this happened the night before we left for the islands, so you may know more about subsequent developments than we.
Otherwise, there isn’t much to report. But here are some random items:
-- Annette read in a local paper that “Washington Stalin Valdez” won a car in a local cell phone company’s sweepstakes. But such names may not impress those who saw the recent NY Times’ article on the crazy names that Venezuelans are giving their kids – they’re even more bizarre.
-- When we paid the admission to do a hike in southern Ecuador, we had to fill out a form. I’d heard that some sections of the trail were precarious, but was still surprised that the form asked for our blood type. Everything went smoothly, although we did about 30 yards very slowly on our butts.
-- Hand-painted political advertisements from the recent presidential election are EVERYWHERE – building walls, the curbs of streets and bridges, almost anything with a flat surface. Clearly, defacing public property is not considered a crime here.
-- Also everywhere in the south are giant ficuses. A note to all of you with those pathetic little trees that sit amongst a pile of yellow leaves in your office: here, ficuses grow outside like weeds. They do so well that we‘ve seen them used as hedges. The massive one from our dining room on the Maggie would impress no one down here.
-- Other than fast food, we’ve seen only two exports of American culture to Ecuador: Payless Shoe Stores and the women’s fitness chain, Curves. How do these things happen?
-- The buses here, though neither beautiful nor fast, are amazingly efficient and cheap. They run incredibly frequently, you pay only $1 for every hour of travel, and the bus will stop anywhere to let you get on or off. But be ready to move quickly when getting on or off: the bus will be moving again the moment after you step on or off. It can be quite a challenge when toting a large backpack. And earplugs are never a bad idea – though even with them it can be tough to ignore the blaring TV, especially when it is showing videos of drunk amateurs who have climbed into bullrings to test their skill against El Toro. Think of it as “Ecuador’s Funniest Home Videos,” only with a sadistic twist. But they’ll need to lose the dimwit clown who serves as the host if the show is ever going to make it big time.
-- We are continually amazed by how many young, long-term “budget travelers” are in the fancier hostels and in the Galapagos. Back when I was young . . .
-- More on the whole lack of coins in this country. In one town, I gave an internet café $0.60 for a $0.54 bill. I thought I was being pretty helpful, but the clerk looked at me somewhat incredulously and asked if I didn’t have a nickel. When I told him that I didn’t, he indicated his belief that I therefore had to pay $0.60. But feeling it was his responsibility to have change, and confident in the knowledge that $0.54 is closer to $0.50 than it is to $0.60, I took the dime out of his hand. Days later, he may still not be over the shock. As for the cause of The Great Change Shortage, I still haven’t gotten an answer. All I can guess is that people are so afraid of being ripped-off, that they hide or spend any money the moment they get it.
-- Speaking of rip-offs, Quito is notorious for pickpockets and they finally tried to get me and Annette. It was around 11 a.m., and we were going to a museum with the work of Ecuador’s most famous painter: Oswaldo Guayasamin. We took a bus that dropped us near the museum, and were checking our map when a nicely dressed middle-aged woman asked us where we were going. She gave us very detailed directions on how to go, seeming very intent on making sure that we got there. Per her instructions, we crossed the street and began walking. After we’d gone about 30 yards, Annette noticed a thick, colored liquid on her hand. Just then, a small man passed on her right; he seemed to have a small ice cream or yogurt container in his hand. I then noticed that Annette had a good amount of the colored liquid on the back of her jacket and pants, and she noticed that I had even more of it on the back of my jacket and pants. Just as we were making this discovery, a man pointed to the mess on our backs. He quickly took out a roll of toilet paper, and indicated that he could help us clean up the mess. But savvy travelers that we are, we immediately recognized it all for the relatively common set-up that it was – that he would come over and wipe off the mess (conveniently located around our wallet pockets) and help himself to what he could find while our attention was distracted by the cleaning process. I gestured that he should stay where he was, turned to Annette and said “Let’s get out of here.” He didn’t follow, and our only loss was to cleanliness. Thinking about it later, I realized how lucky I’ve been. In travels to over 40 countries, only three have tried to steal from me. In an ice cream shop in southern China, a young boy grabbed my wallet as I put it into my backpack. He got $0.50 and a $2 bus ticket. In a hotel in Singapore, the hotel receptionist helped himself to the last few traveler’s cheques in the packet I’d left with him for safekeeping; they were replaced by the bank. And now this. As I said, very lucky.
-- Attention all Danes: Reliable sources tell us that Peru has 400 varieties of potatoes. Book your plane tickets now!
-- If you’ve spent any time in Latin America, you know that nobody likes a pained Jesus on a crucifix like the Latinos. But the Quito art movement from colonial times took things to a new height. If you see a Jesus with sores that are truly repulsive and the body is drenched in blood, you know he’s from Quito. Some even have gaping wounds in the chest cavity. It all makes for a very pleasant museum experience.
-- Ecuadorians from the highlands refer to Ecuadorians from the coast as “monkeys.” We’re told that at times it isn’t even meant in that negative a way. And we thought tensions between San Francisco and Los Angeles were high . . .
-- Lastly, an update on my book proposal. In brief, the book-buying public is apparently more selective than all of you, and aren’t simply sitting home waiting for the drivel like this. My friend’s wife, a book editor, read my proposal and was very complementary (she feels I have both the story and ability to make a book), but also realistic (she feels that I cannot simply convert my e-mails into a book, and that a lot of work will be needed to make the book a reality). So now I have to decide whether I am sufficiently interested in getting published to put in the effort that it would take. Perhaps the fates will make the decision for me: if I soon get a long-term international job, the book will not happen or not for a while; if I do not get a job soon and need to find something else to do, perhaps I will re-work the proposal.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Next stop: Cambodia.
Best,
Neil
Annette and I are two of twenty-three on this boat for eight days (sixteen passengers, six crew and a naturalist guide). What is striking about those numbers is that the Darwin is almost the exact size and shape as the Maggie (the houseboat we’d been living on in Sausalito). In short, twenty-three of us are squeezed into the space that two of us used to have. Still, it is surprisingly comfortable and we don’t feel particularly cramped. And it’s a great, if surprisingly young, group on the boat (I’m the fourth oldest).
But on our two major passages between the islands we have learned of the serious advantage that bigger boats have: a more stable ride. I woke up about half an hour after the first of those journeys started, and could not believe the way the boat bobbed up and down as it summited and then came off of the swells, or the sound of the ocean crashing against the hull. I tried to assure myself that everything was normal, took a second dose of seasickness medication and went back to sleep. Others did not fair quite so well.
So far, we’ve had about three days in the islands and it is pretty much what we’ve all heard about Galapagos: the animals are so tame that you can, for example, lose a staring contest with a sea lion. And you have to be careful not to step on the giant iguanas which refuse to move when you approach (we call that game “dodge the iguana”), or to come too close to mother birds with their young. The animals are all so close that we don’t even bother to carry our binoculars. But the highlight has probably been the snorkeling – we swim amongst sea turtles, sea lions, stingrays, moray eels, sea snakes and tropical fish. But that’s not all – today we were exceedingly close to eight large “white tip” sharks, and then not far above a battalion of five “hammerhead” sharks. (We’ve asked our guide why it is that we’re not supposed to be afraid of these swimming companions, but haven’t really gotten a good explanation. We are assuming it is because there is so much more readily digestible food available.) As for the funniest things we’ve seen, there have been two. The first was the back patio of a fairly large boat – maybe a 40-footer – into which three sea lions had climbed. They seemed to very much enjoy relaxing on the cushioned benches, and I wish we could have seen what happened when the owner returned home. The other was the famous Blue-Footed Boobies – they are birds with bright, light blue feet and a surprised expression on their face that always causes us to smile. But, no, I will not be getting one of the t-shirts that has the phrase “I Like Boobies” printed over a pair of webbed blue feet.
Okay, now to get you up to speed on what’s been going on. The big news nationally is that Ecuador’s new Defense Minister died in a helicopter crash only ten days after she was appointed by the new leftist president. Though the Defense Minister, she was notably anti-military (she’d talked about using the power of the military on public work projects), and some wonder if the military might have wanted to get rid of her. All this happened the night before we left for the islands, so you may know more about subsequent developments than we.
Otherwise, there isn’t much to report. But here are some random items:
-- Annette read in a local paper that “Washington Stalin Valdez” won a car in a local cell phone company’s sweepstakes. But such names may not impress those who saw the recent NY Times’ article on the crazy names that Venezuelans are giving their kids – they’re even more bizarre.
-- When we paid the admission to do a hike in southern Ecuador, we had to fill out a form. I’d heard that some sections of the trail were precarious, but was still surprised that the form asked for our blood type. Everything went smoothly, although we did about 30 yards very slowly on our butts.
-- Hand-painted political advertisements from the recent presidential election are EVERYWHERE – building walls, the curbs of streets and bridges, almost anything with a flat surface. Clearly, defacing public property is not considered a crime here.
-- Also everywhere in the south are giant ficuses. A note to all of you with those pathetic little trees that sit amongst a pile of yellow leaves in your office: here, ficuses grow outside like weeds. They do so well that we‘ve seen them used as hedges. The massive one from our dining room on the Maggie would impress no one down here.
-- Other than fast food, we’ve seen only two exports of American culture to Ecuador: Payless Shoe Stores and the women’s fitness chain, Curves. How do these things happen?
-- The buses here, though neither beautiful nor fast, are amazingly efficient and cheap. They run incredibly frequently, you pay only $1 for every hour of travel, and the bus will stop anywhere to let you get on or off. But be ready to move quickly when getting on or off: the bus will be moving again the moment after you step on or off. It can be quite a challenge when toting a large backpack. And earplugs are never a bad idea – though even with them it can be tough to ignore the blaring TV, especially when it is showing videos of drunk amateurs who have climbed into bullrings to test their skill against El Toro. Think of it as “Ecuador’s Funniest Home Videos,” only with a sadistic twist. But they’ll need to lose the dimwit clown who serves as the host if the show is ever going to make it big time.
-- We are continually amazed by how many young, long-term “budget travelers” are in the fancier hostels and in the Galapagos. Back when I was young . . .
-- More on the whole lack of coins in this country. In one town, I gave an internet café $0.60 for a $0.54 bill. I thought I was being pretty helpful, but the clerk looked at me somewhat incredulously and asked if I didn’t have a nickel. When I told him that I didn’t, he indicated his belief that I therefore had to pay $0.60. But feeling it was his responsibility to have change, and confident in the knowledge that $0.54 is closer to $0.50 than it is to $0.60, I took the dime out of his hand. Days later, he may still not be over the shock. As for the cause of The Great Change Shortage, I still haven’t gotten an answer. All I can guess is that people are so afraid of being ripped-off, that they hide or spend any money the moment they get it.
-- Speaking of rip-offs, Quito is notorious for pickpockets and they finally tried to get me and Annette. It was around 11 a.m., and we were going to a museum with the work of Ecuador’s most famous painter: Oswaldo Guayasamin. We took a bus that dropped us near the museum, and were checking our map when a nicely dressed middle-aged woman asked us where we were going. She gave us very detailed directions on how to go, seeming very intent on making sure that we got there. Per her instructions, we crossed the street and began walking. After we’d gone about 30 yards, Annette noticed a thick, colored liquid on her hand. Just then, a small man passed on her right; he seemed to have a small ice cream or yogurt container in his hand. I then noticed that Annette had a good amount of the colored liquid on the back of her jacket and pants, and she noticed that I had even more of it on the back of my jacket and pants. Just as we were making this discovery, a man pointed to the mess on our backs. He quickly took out a roll of toilet paper, and indicated that he could help us clean up the mess. But savvy travelers that we are, we immediately recognized it all for the relatively common set-up that it was – that he would come over and wipe off the mess (conveniently located around our wallet pockets) and help himself to what he could find while our attention was distracted by the cleaning process. I gestured that he should stay where he was, turned to Annette and said “Let’s get out of here.” He didn’t follow, and our only loss was to cleanliness. Thinking about it later, I realized how lucky I’ve been. In travels to over 40 countries, only three have tried to steal from me. In an ice cream shop in southern China, a young boy grabbed my wallet as I put it into my backpack. He got $0.50 and a $2 bus ticket. In a hotel in Singapore, the hotel receptionist helped himself to the last few traveler’s cheques in the packet I’d left with him for safekeeping; they were replaced by the bank. And now this. As I said, very lucky.
-- Attention all Danes: Reliable sources tell us that Peru has 400 varieties of potatoes. Book your plane tickets now!
-- If you’ve spent any time in Latin America, you know that nobody likes a pained Jesus on a crucifix like the Latinos. But the Quito art movement from colonial times took things to a new height. If you see a Jesus with sores that are truly repulsive and the body is drenched in blood, you know he’s from Quito. Some even have gaping wounds in the chest cavity. It all makes for a very pleasant museum experience.
-- Ecuadorians from the highlands refer to Ecuadorians from the coast as “monkeys.” We’re told that at times it isn’t even meant in that negative a way. And we thought tensions between San Francisco and Los Angeles were high . . .
-- Lastly, an update on my book proposal. In brief, the book-buying public is apparently more selective than all of you, and aren’t simply sitting home waiting for the drivel like this. My friend’s wife, a book editor, read my proposal and was very complementary (she feels I have both the story and ability to make a book), but also realistic (she feels that I cannot simply convert my e-mails into a book, and that a lot of work will be needed to make the book a reality). So now I have to decide whether I am sufficiently interested in getting published to put in the effort that it would take. Perhaps the fates will make the decision for me: if I soon get a long-term international job, the book will not happen or not for a while; if I do not get a job soon and need to find something else to do, perhaps I will re-work the proposal.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Next stop: Cambodia.
Best,
Neil
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