How to Live in Denmark

I've just arrived back in Denmark after a couple of weeks in the US and the night I got back, my cat bit me. This was not just a little affectionate peck - Fluffy used her sharp teeth, her fangs, to create four bleeding puncture wounds in my leg. I suppose it was partly my fault – I put a call on speakerphone. Fluffy doesn't like speakerphone, because she can hear a person, but she can't see one, so she assumes I'm some evil magician who has put a person inside a little glowing box, and she bites me. So I was bleeding, and I did what I did the last time she bit me....which was a couple of months ago, the last time I used speakerphone: I called 1813, the Danish government's non-emergency line for off-hour medical situations.

There was no How to Live in Denmark podcast last week, and I apologize for that. I have been busy studying for my Danish citizenship exam. As some of you may know, Denmark is allowing double citizenship as of next year. That means you're are allowed to keep your home country passport - in my case, USA - while also becoming a Danish citizen. Personally, I'm a little concerned that this may be overturned if a right wing government takes power next year. Danske Folkeparti, which is now the biggest party in Denmark, is passionately opposed to it. So like supermarket prices, this offer may be for a limited time only. So, I decided to get my Danish citizenship at the first opportunity. To become a Danish citizen, you have to take a Danish language test and a citizenship test that's tests your knowledge of Denmark and Danish culture. That's the test I will take on Tuesday. It's only given twice a year, and it costs 700 crowns to take, so you might as well get it right the first time. So I have been studying hard. Actually, I started out by studying the wrong thing. There were several quizzes online that tested your knowledge of Danish history - like Harold Bluetooth. Did you know your Bluetooth headset was named after 10th century Danish King? I did not. Bluetooth was the guy who brought Christianity to Denmark. Whether or not he actually had blue teeth, which suggests pretty bad dentistry, remains unknown. Normal.dotm 0 0 1 254 1449 KXM Group 12 2 1779 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} So I took the online practice quizzes, and I learned a lot of other things. I learned about King Christian the Fourth, who build the round tower in Copenhagen. And I learned about King Christian the Seventh, who was crazy and ended up in a movie being portrayed in a movie that also starred Mads Mikkelsen.

Hello, and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kay Xander Mellish. Whenever I hear that Denmark is the happiest country in the world, I think of Donald Duck. Donald Duck is extremely popular in Denmark, as he is in all Nordic countries. He is much more popular than Mickey Mouse. He even has his own Danish name - Anders And. Which means, basically. Anders the Duck. I don't know how much you know about Disney characters, but Donald Duck - or Anders Duck - is kind of a second-class citizen. While Mickey Mouse is the perfect gentleman, outgoing and take charge, the face of Disney, Donald is lazy. He likes to come up with clever ways to avoid work, or avoid any exercise whatsoever. He likes to play fun little tricks on people. He's often short-tempered, and jealous of Mickey. Donald Duck is an underdog, and Danes identify with the underdog. They identify with the idea of low expectations, and then being pleasantly surprised when things turn out well. This is the secret to Danish happiness. While Americans might identify with bright, happy Mickey, there's a lot of room for disappointment if your bright, happy plans don't work out the way you hoped they would. Danes are OK with dashed expectations, of disappointment.

It's been a beautiful autumn here in Denmark. Warm, with golden sun, blue skies, red and yellow and orange leaves on the trees. Just gorgeous. And unusually warm for Denmark. It's always exciting when, instead of wearing your winter coat every day from October to April, you can wear it every day from November to April. But this unusually pleasant weather can't help but spark conversation about global warming. So far the biggest impact climate change has had in Denmark are some severe rainstorms, when end up flooding a lot of basements and overwhelming a lot of sewer systems. It's intriguing to think that plumbers may become the great heroes of the twenty-first century. Danes care about climate change, and they've made a business specialty of green technology, or what they like to call clean technology. Cleantech. It sells windmills to create windpower, and burns most of its household garbage in an environmentally friendly way, to create home heating. Danes care about the environment because they care about nature. Less than a hundred years ago, Denmark was a mostly agricultural country, and Danes still feel close to the land. Children in Denmark are constantly being taken out into whatever forests or meadows are nearby – in the cities, they pack them onto buses and trains to go get the forest experience. There's even something called forest kindergarten for children age 3 to 6. If you go to a forest kindergarten, you're out in the woods every day, hot or cold, rain or shine. So it's ironic, given this love for the Earth and the environment, that the Danes were recently named the world's fourth biggest polluters, per capita, by the World Wildlife Fund. Only three Middle Eastern countries. – Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE, were worse.

Have you ever seen the movie The Wizard of Oz? It's a classic. When Dorothy arrives in the land of Oz, the first thing she's asked is - are you a good witch, or a bad witch? I was having lunch with a friend this week, and, over club sandwiches she said, its a shame there's only one word for foreigner in Danish, when actually there's two types of foreigner here. I got her point, even though I think there's only one word for foreigner in most languages. But what she's was really saying is, there's no single way in Danish to say, Are you a good foreigner, or a bad foreigner? If you've been to Danish dinner parties, often later on in the evening, whenever a fair amount of wine has been consumed, you'll hear a Danish person complaining about foreigners in Denmark. They come here just to take advantage of the our system. All they want is free education, free health care and welfare payments. They don't contribute to Danish society at all. And then, at some point, someone will turn to you and say, Oh, but we don't mean your kind of foreigner. You know, a good foreigner. The kind who works or studies. The kind who is an trained carpenter, or engineer, or a doctor. The kind who open restaurants with unfamiliar but unchallenging food. Smiling, young, healthy, industrious, good foreigners. Good foreigners are highly sought after at the moment. This week, for example, one of the big business groups said that Denmark should aim for at least 150,000 new immigrants in the next 20 years. The Danish population is aging, so the country needs younger workers to drive Denmark's economy. The business group held a conference on ways to attract them, and make them feel welcome. Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schimidt came by to offer more international schools. She promised less red tape. These are things we can do to attract good foreigners. On the other hand, in just the past couple of months, more than 20,000 Syrian refugees have arrived in Denmark. But no one's too worried about how to attract more refugees or make them feel more welcome. In fact, some Danish political parties are trying to change the asylum conditions and send as many of these people as possible back home to the battlefield. Normal.dotm 0 0 1 355 2027 KXM Group 16 4 2489 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} It reminds me sometimes of an old fashioned faucet, with the hot and cold knobs. Denmark is trying to turn one knob on, and the other one off.

I did a little crowdsourcing for this week's podcast. I asked some of our listeners, and some people on Facebook - what were some of the small cultural mistakes - the dos and don'ts, the faux pas - you made when you first arrived in Denmark? I got a whole selection of answers. Don't keep your shoes on while entering someone's home was one thing. Don't arrive even a few minutes late was another. The 8:00 meeting is not an 8:05 meeting. Trying to bum a cigarette - not done in Denmark. Calling after 9:30 in the evening or so - not done in Denmark. Dropping by to see a friend unannounced - not done in Denmark. One girl mentioned that she had eaten the last piece of cake on a plate. You should never eat the last piece of anything in Denmark, at least without asking every single person present. If you don't want to do that, the proper etiquette is to slice the piece of cake in half, and take half. And then the next person will slice that half in half. And so on. In the end there will be a little transparent slice left to shrivel up in the middle of the plate.

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 18 108 KXM Group 1 1 132 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} You wouldn't know it, but Denmark and China have much more in common than both having red flags and a love for green technology. Denmark and China have a surprisingly deep relationship. It helps that the Chinese have a deep love for Hans Christian Andersen. Normal.dotm 0 0 1 8 48 KXM Group 1 1 58 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

I was in London this week, and did a little fall wardrobe shopping. I got tired after walking for awhile, and it was lunchtime, so I sat down in a pub. I had a beer and a fish and chips and a British guy next to me was also having a beer and fish and chips and so we just chatted through lunch. We talked about politics, the weather, the job market. After lunch, we waved goodbye and I went back to shopping. It was a fun lunch, but I never found out his name. The reason I mention this is that it never could have happened in Denmark. Danes don't talk to strangers. They talk to their friends. The idea of a casual lunch with someone you will never see again makes no sense to them. Foreigners often say it's hard to make friends in Denmark. This is because Danes take friendship very seriously. A friendship is a commitment, often a lifetime commitment. You will often meet adult Danes who have friends they met in kindergarten. As a matter of fact, this is why I chose to put my daughter in a Danish school, instead of an international one – I wanted her to have those deep friendships. In some international schools, your friends are moving in and out all the time as Mom and Dad get transferred around the world. But for you, as a foreigner, making new freinds can be tough. Danes don't really have the idea of 'an acquaintance' - they have the word, en bekendte, but it isn't used very often. If you were in some other countries, an acquaintance might invite you, maybe your partner, over for dinner and then, three months later, you'd invite the acquaintance and her partner and maybe it would continue and maybe it wouldn't. That light, no-obligation friendship – Danes don't do that. In Denmark, friendship is an obligation, and a trust. Friends don't let each other down. So, when a Dane meets you, he may think ahhhh he's a great guy, but I really don't have room for another friend. I have no time to see the friends I have. Meaning, the people he's known since he was three years old.

I get a lot of mail at the How To Live in Denmark podcast, and some of it is from people who want to move to Denmark, but they're not sure what to do to make money once they get here. But, I do speak English, they say. Can I make money in Denmark just off of just speaking English? Generally, no. No you can't. I mean, I do, but I was an experienced journalist before I got here. But English is not a rare commodity in Denmark. Danish children start learning English when they're six years old. And because British and American TV shows and movies and are not dubbed, children are constantly hearing English even earlier. Danish adults often read novels in English, and by the time you get to university, pretty much all the high-level textbooks are in English. There's just no economic case for translating textbooks into a language that only 5.6 million people speak. So, English is everywhere in Denmark. And Danes love English. When you come to Denmark, you'll find that shops and youth programs and rock bands have English names because the Danes think it sounds cool. Danes also like to tuck bits of English into their Danish speech, like 'Du fik et nyt job! Nice" or 'Er det her den billigste togbillet til Roskilde? I don't know." For some Danes, particularly younger Danes, the Danish language is seen as provincial, old-fashioned, kind of like those dusty little porcelain knick-knacks your grandparents keep around the house. So another question I get a lot is, if you already speak English, is it worth learning Danish at all? Yes, it is. Parties are more fun if you can speak Danish. There's nothing worse than everyone laughing uproariously at some very funny joke, and you having to wait there like a piece of furniture until someone takes the time to explain it to you.

When you think you're talking to the authorities in Denmark, you're often not talking to the authorities. If it comes to bus service, train service, unemployment compensation, homeless shelters, construction, even fire protection and ambulance services – you will be talking to a private company hired by the authorities. At any rate, some things are still run directly by the government, like the immigration service and local affairs. So there are some times when you do need to speak to civil servants in Denmark. There is a way to do this. Put at least a half an hour aside, since you may have to wait in a telephone queue. When it's your turn, the first thing you do is identify yourself by name. 'Hi, this is Kay Xander Mellish." And then state your question. "Somebody has drawn graffiti of a giant penis on the city-owned wall right outside my living room window. Could you send someone to remove it?" That's an actual case, by the way. When you speak to the Danish civil servant, tone is really important. Danes respond very badly to anger or conflict. You want to take the angle that we're equals all we want to do is get this problem solved together. You want to go in there with a positive, we can do it together! spirit. Most state workers in Denmark are pretty competent. Working for the state is paid well, and they never ask for bribes. Like most Danes, they want to do their job well, and they feel that they do. Danish civil servants take pride in their work. That said, it still took six months to get that giant penis graffiti removed.

I got an email a couple of weeks ago at howtoliveindenmark.com from a Danish woman who now lives in Germany. She says that this podcast helps her keep in touch with life back home, but that she doesn't really like it. She writes: "I have to tell you, that almost every story has a negative ring to it when you portray your thoughts on Denmark and Danes. I cannot shake the feeling, that you really deep down, do not like Danes or Denmark. I find this sad, as you have been living there now over a decade." Lady – I won't say your name on the air – but you're full of baloney. Of course I like Denmark. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. I do have a pretty nice country to go back to. I like living in Denmark, for a lot of different reasons. One of them is that people here have a lot of time to spend with their children. There's a cliché in the U.S. business world of the CEO who quits because 'I want to spend more time with my family'. That always means he's been fired. But in Denmark, people really do want to spend a lot of time with the people they care about. I think that's one reason why a lot of people here are not very ambitious – because getting ahead means working a lot of hours, and they want their free time. The pace of life in Denmark is much slower than it is in the US, or the UK. There's much less competitiveness, which can be a good and a bad thing. There's never a feeling of fighting to get through the day. Before I lived in Copenhagen, I lived in Manhattan, and there, everybody wanted your job, everybody wanted your apartment, everybody wanted your boyfriend, everybody wanted your seat at the restaurant – everybody wanted everything you had, all the time. Denmark is much more relaxing. And people have much less stuff here. The taxes are so high that you can't buy a lot of stuff. People don't go shopping just for fun. So people have fewer things, but better things. That means less clutter, and less stuff to clean, which is always a positive in my book. Other things I like about Denmark. I like the biking culture, and the mass transport culture. I do have a drivers' license, and I enjoy driving a car, but I also like the interaction with people you get on a bike or a train or a bus. And the public transport system generally works well – not always, but generally. Things work well in Denmark, not as aggressively as they do in Germany, where I used to live, but generally well. I love Southern Europe, but I don't think I could live there. The disorganization would drive me crazy. In general, I find Copenhagen quiet, but sophisticated. I'm happy living here. I have no plans to live anyplace else.

If you’re in Denmark right now, you’ll know that we’re coming up on the year’s longest day this week. June 21. You know it because it starts getting light at 4 in the morning, and the sun doesn’t go down until 10:30 or 11 at night and then you’re up again at 4 in the morning. In between it never gets really dark, just like in December it never gets very light. During the dark times, I know that I wait and wait for the light times to come. Sometimes I count – only 3 more months until the light times! Only 6 more weeks to the light times! When the light times do get here, they’re actually kind of annoying. Sure, it’s great to have some sun, and those long summer evenings. Green trees and the wildflowers are gorgeous. But with all that light, it’s kind of difficult to sleep. Everyone I know has blackout curtains and wears sleep masks. They don’t always work, though, particularly when it’s hot, and people start to get a bit crabby after a few weeks of limited sleep. The fact that it’s light until 11pm is great on a Saturday night, but not so great on a Tuesday, when you have a 9am meeting the next day. It’s hot now, and I love the heat, but Danish homes are designed to keep heat in, not let it out. There’s not all that much ventilation and never any air conditioning. So if you’re stuck inside, you melt, or just take a lot of showers. In the summer you get to see your neighbors again, after ignoring each other all winter. The first time you see their kids after the winter, their kids look giant. The kids have been packed away all through the winter season in snowsuits and boots and hats and when you see them unwrapped, they’re entirely changed. The baby packed away last October is now walking and riding a little bike. The skinny twelve-year-old you knew before parka season is now a teenager with a deep voice. This time of year is also home to my least favorite Danish holiday, Sankt Hans day. Sankt Hans – which I just found out today is the Danish name for St. John the Baptist - takes place on the 23rd or 24th of June each year. It’s Denmark’s version of the summer party that takes place in most country at some point – there’s beer, outdoor grilling, mosquitos. What Sankt Hans has that I don’t like is the burning of a witch. Now, I’m not the most politically correct person in the world, I’m not the type looking everywhere for sexism, or insults to women. But even I find it problematic that Sankt Hans revolves around setting a woman on fire. It’s a straw woman, and the woman is supposed to be a witch. The highlight of each party is build a big bonfire, and when the bonfire is at its height, they put a straw witch on it. Danish people assure me that this is no problem whatsoever. It’s just tradition. I think – it’s a bad tradition! Anyway, I usually stay home for Sankt Hans day.

Hello, and welcome to the How To Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kay Xander Mellish. I don't regret many things in life, but I do regret not going to a party I was invited to almost 14 years ago. That was in 2000, when I first arrived in Denmark. It was a party to mark the opening of the Ørseund Bridge, which connects Denmark and Sweden. There were no cars on the bridge yet, so you could easily walk or bike between these two countries that had been bitter enemies for hundreds of years. At one point, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden – who were both young and unmarried at time – met and shared a hug and kiss in the center of the bridge, right across the national dividing line. Now, that's a party. I won't be able to walk or bike across the Øresund Bridge any time soon. A half million cars per month drive over it now, plus a train every 20 minutes, full of commuters. There are Danes that live in Sweden, and Swedes that work in Denmark. Personally, I love the Swedes who work in Denmark. A lot of them are in service positions – restaurants, shop assistants – and they have revolutionized customer service in Denmark by being….cheerful. They say things like 'Hello' and 'Can I help you?' This is in contrast to traditional Danish service personnel, whose default approach is "Are you still here? What do you want?" And then, of course, there are the Danes living in Sweden. At the height of the housing boom, living in Sweden was much cheaper. People could buy a house in Sweden they never could have afforded in Denmark. The prices have leveled out a bit since, so there are two groups of Danes who live in Sweden. One is people who have new foreign romantic partners – gay or straight – who cannot be admitted to Denmark under the restrictive Danish immigration laws. That basically means anyone from outside the EU, so American, African, Australian, Bolivian. The couple lives in Sweden for a couple of years, gets Swedish residency, and then they can move to Denmark. The other group of Danes living in Sweden is people who love cars. Denmark, as you know, is bicycle country. Denmark has never had a car industry, which is one of the reason the tax on a new car in Denmark is 180% and more and more streets in Copenhagen are being closed off to cars entirely. Sweden had a car industry. There's not much of it left with Saab bankrupt, and Volvo sold to the Chinese, but you can see the influence of that car industry that as soon as you go over the bridge to Malmo. The streets are much wider, even in the newer parts of downtown. Swedish streets are built for cars. When a young Danish man moves to Sweden, often the very first thing he does is buy a car he never could have afforded in Denmark. The truth is, there are some ways that the bridge has brought Denmark and Sweden closer together. Danes buy vacation homes in Southern Sweden. Swedes come to attend university in Denmark. Danes go shopping in Sweden, because almost everything is cheaper there. As a matter of fact, the only thing cheaper in Denmark than in Sweden is alcohol. So, may be closer, but still, Swedes and Danes are very different peoples. Danes still eat rye bread, Swedes eat flatbread. Danes eat Sausages, Swedes eat meatballs. And Danes, as cold as they may seem to outsiders, are still more outgoing than the Swedes. Among Scandinavians, Danes are sometimes called the Latins of the North. They know how to sit down, open a bottle of wine, and enjoy life. Swedes, on the other hand, are known as the Prussians of the North. They're tall. They stand up straight. They follow rules. And the men have terrible haircuts. Do you know the hairstyle known as the mullet in the United States? It's that terrible two-level haircut so many men had in the 1990s – the Ziggy Stardust. Short in the front, long in the back. Or, as it's sometimes said, business in front, party in the back. The mullet, in Denmark, is known as Swedish hair. To Denmark, Sweden is a big brother with a terrible haircut. He's regimented, he's boring, he's stiff. He can't dance. There's a famous saying that inside every Swede is a little policeman trying to get out. That's only half the famous saying. Here's the whole thing. Inside every Swede is a little policeman trying to get out – and inside every Dane, there's a little criminal trying to get out. And that's the How To Live in Denmark podcast for this week. We're always looking for sponsors for the podcast – we get several thousand listeners every week – so you know an ethical business that would like to have its message here, get in touch. We're on Facebook at How To Live in Denmark, you can reach us at How To Live in Denmark.com, or you can Tweet us at How2LiveinDK – the 2 is a number. See you next week! 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Ordinarily don’t get my technology news from the local newspaper sold by the homeless in Denmark, but I did this week. First of all, I learned that you can pay your homeless newspaper seller by text message. If you don’t have loose change, as I often don’t, you can send a text to the newspaper seller’s registration number, along with the amount you want to give him, and the seller gets paid right away. Secondly, I learned that some homeless people have iPhones. (pause). Not my particular seller, but another reader had written a letter to the editor of the newspaper saying he’d try to buy a paper the previous week, but his seller had been too wrapped up in his iPhone to pay attention to a potential customer. The letter writer was asking if it made sense to spend 20 crowns on a newspaper to help a man….who had a phone worth at least 2000 crowns. The newspaper had a good response. They said an iPhone was a perfect device for a homeless person. It allowed him to keep all the information he needed in one place – government documents, health records, family photos. And it was a way for him to get phone calls and emails related to housing or jobs. I thought that was a very sensible approach. Danes have a very sensible approach to IT in general. The CPR number is a national menace. That said, I have a great fear that more cybercrime and identity theft is on the way to Denmark. As those of you who live here know, the country’s IT systems are all based around something called the CPR – the central person register. Everyone has a CPR number, and you use it for everything – for banking, for the doctor, for school, for taking books out of the library. My daughter used hers last week to sign up for a Bhangra Dance course during summer vacation. So, lots of people have your CPR, and if they don’t, it’s pretty easy to guess. Your CPR number is your birthday, plus the century your card was issued in, plus 2 random numbers, plus your gender. Did you know that – men have uneven CPR numbers, and women have even numbers? I did not, until I looked it up. Anyway, the CPR was probably high tech in 1968 when it was first introduced. But now I think it’s a national menace. Anyone who has your CPR can impersonate you. So far it’s been mostly minimal damage. People give your CPR number when they get caught riding the S-train without a ticket. Or people take out SMS loans using your CPR number. But the potential for trouble is certainly large if the number that controls basically your entire life in Denmark is somehow hacked.

Danes and Norwegians were part of the same country for hundreds of years, and they're still family. Written Danish and written Norwegian are very similar – so similar that I once tried to find a Danish-Norwegian dictionary and was told there was no such thing. The spoken language is a little more different, but still Danes and Norwegians can understand what the other is saying. Danes and Norwegians like each other. They care about each other. They even sometimes cheer for each other's football teams. But like any family, there's envy involved. Envy. Normal.dotm 0 0 1 114 650 KXM Group 5 1 798 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} For example, there's envy of each other's geographical pleasures. Norway has beautiful mountains, great for skiing. Denmark has windswept beaches, which the Norwegians seem to love. Lots of summer holidays in Denmark. The real envy, of course, is about money. Norway has money, because of North Sea oil. There is a feeling among some Danes that some of that oil should have been Danish oil. During a meeting to divide up the waters between the two countries in 1963, the Danish negotiator, Per Haakerup was photographed with a glass of whisky in his hand. The rumor is he was drunk during the meeting, and gave up the Ekofisk oilfield to Norway, which has earned billions of dollars from it.

If you live in city or a big town in Denmark, you may notice that the weekends are getting very quiet just about now. The streets outside my home in Copenhagen are empty. The streetlights just change from red to green and back again, but no cars ever pull up. Nobody comes to cross the street. It’s a little like a scene a movie right after the zombie apocalypse. This is because all the Danish people have gone to their summerhouses. On Friday afternoons, Danish people like to pack up their cars, drive out to the countryside, and spend the weekend in conditions that are sometimes quite primitive. Every summerhouse is different, but most of them seem to have questionable plumbing, odd sleeping arrangements, and chipped dishes and glassware. The Danish summerhouse is an old tradition – 400 years ago, the government started offering small plots of land to the industrial workers who lived in crowded, sooty slums. The idea was that they could get away into the clean, fresh air on weekends, and grow healthy vegetables. Fast forward to now, and very few people grow vegetables on their plots these days. Instead, these small summerhouse plots have become little kingdoms, with neatly clipped hedges all around and lots of lawn chairs and flowerbeds and bird feeders. In the center is a tiny, tiny house – usually not more than 50 square meters, or 400 square feet – where the entire family spends the summer. This little doll house is almost always lovingly care of. Freshly painted, nice roof, clean windows, flowery curtains. I’ve also seen elaborate ones. One near my house has a copper roof. When I was looking at real estate ads for this story, I saw another one that had been fitted with big white columns like the mansion house in Gone With the Wind. But as fancy as they are, they are small. There’s usually room for one double bed, or a fold-out couch, and then maybe there’s a loft where a couple more people can sleep, maybe a porch for one or two more. I would guess that Danish maximum-security prisoners get more sleeping space than ordinary Danes in their summer houses.

When you go back to your country of origin, it's alarming sometimes to realize how Danish you are becoming. I've been on vacation in the USA for a couple of weeks. But I'm back now, and it only takes a few minutes after I arrive at Kastrup airport before something happens to destroy the relaxing effect of 2 weeks off and several thousand kroner spent on spas, hotels and tasty dinners. The jolt back to reality usually happens at baggage claim, when one of my fellow fliers of the Danish persuasion bumps right into me at the baggage carousel without saying Excuse me, or Pardon, or Entshculdigung, or any of those other nice oops-I've-just-run-into-you phrases so common in the rest of the world. For Danes, the standard response after accidentally running into someone is a sullen grunt – HUMPH- along with a sour look of annoyance that you got in their way.

If you've seen it, you know the Little Mermaid is only about four feet tall – that's 1.25 meters. You probably own pillows that are bigger than the Little Mermaid. At any rate, all the Copenhagen tourist boat trips go right by it, so your tourists can get the photos they need for their Instagram or Facebook feeds. If they want, they can climb out of the boat and onto the slippery rock where the mermaid sits for a photo. There are plenty of other things to do in Denmark. In this podcast, I outline ways to eat Danish pastry, trips to historial centers, picnics in the park, the best museums and what to do after dark.

Denmark is a pretty good place to raise children. Working hours are shorter, and it’s perfectly OK to leave work at 3 or 4 o’clock to pick up your kids. There’s a good system for early childhood health. A nurse visits to your home when your child is a baby, and then there are regular checkups with doctor. If your child has the sniffles, you can take off work and stay home with her – the first two days are paid. And, of course, there’s the day care system. It’s not free, but it’s reasonably priced, and it’s nice to be able to drop off your kid in a safe place with trained people while you go to work. In some countries, there’s a lot of controversy about whether very young children should be in day care or at home with their parents. Not in Denmark. 97% of kids go to day care, even the children of the Royal Family. Even the future king, currently known as the eight-year-old Prince Christian, went to day care. Everyone goes to day care partly because the Danish tax structure means both parents have to go to work. But Danish day care is also social engineering. It’s about creating that equality and community spirit that everyone prizes in Denmark. Day care is the first step in making your child more Danish than wherever you come from. No elite education, no competition The Jante Law is part of all Danish education. There’s no elite education here, no advanced, or gifted and talented programs. If you child is better than the others at a certain subject, his job is to help the students who are not as good. If you come from a very competitive society – the US, the UK, China, India – that can be a bit of a shock. There’s no competition in Danish education. The kids work in groups. There are no competitive schools you have to fight to get into. There’s no standardized testing until the kids are 15 or 16. And there are relatively few tests within the daily school lessons. In Danish school, your child’s social life is considered what’s most important. Does she have friends? Can she get along with the other children in the class? Does he like to go to school? Does he fit in? The idea is that if a child is socially comfortable in school, if he or she wants to go to school, then academic success will follow.

There was big news this week for foreigners in Denmark. It looks double citizenship will soon be permitted. Previously, if you wanted to be a Danish citizen, you had to give up citizenship in your home country. Meanwhile Danes who had moved abroad, say to the US or Australia, and became citizens there had to give up their Danish citizenship. There's now been a proposal to get rid of all that. It hasn't been finally approved, but all the Danish parties say they'll vote for it, with the exception of our anti-foreigner friends in the Danish People's Party. Now having been here for 14 years, I will probably apply for Danish citizenship. I realize I'll have to do a lot of studying about Danish history, and learn things like the difference between King Christian the Fourth and King Christian the Seventh. But that's true of any country. I'm sure people wanting to be American citizens have to learn the difference between, say, George Washington and George Bush. I want to be a Danish citizen for a lot of different reasons. Right now, my 'permanent' residence permit expires if I'm out of the country for more than a year. That could easily happen if I travel, or have a family crisis back in the US. Also my daughter has no rights here. She was born here, and has only lived here, but she has no residence rights here, or right to attend university here. Under the current law, she'd have to apply for a Danish residence permit when she turns 18, and there's no guarantee she'd get it. If I'm a double citizen, she can become a double citizen. And if she's a double citizen, it means she can hold the Danish flag in her girls marching band. Right now she's not allowed. Most importantly, I've been paying Danish taxes for 14 years, and I want a say in how those taxes are spent. I want to vote.

There's a new mosque opening down the street from me this spring, a big one. It will be the first mosque with minarets in Denmark, although the minarets are legally prohibited from calling to prayer. The people behind the mosque are doing everything they can to blend in with the local neighborhood – they even went to observe at a local church service a couple of Sundays ago. They were probably the only ones there. There are a lot of Muslims in Denmark, about 250,000 out of a population of 5-and-a-half million, most of who have arrived here in the past 40 years, or their descendants. And contrary to what the Danish right-wing parties might say, they've brought a a lot of good things to Denmark, and not just Shwarma shops.

As an American in Denmark, I get to experience Danish stereotypes about Americans on a regular basis: we are superficial, too outspoken and direct, and are apparently controlled by a small cabal of right-wing nutcases. But the Danes have stereotypes about other nationalities as well. Spaniards and Italians are seen as fun and sexy and romantic, but unlikely to arrive on time. Eastern Europeans work too hard, at wages that are much too low, at least by Danish standards. Asian immigrants are seen as OK because they work hard at things Danes aren't interested in, like high-level engineering degrees. Normal.dotm 0 0 1 104 573 KXM Group 22 10 729 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Danes also have stereotypes about other Nordic people. Norwegians are seen as happy, friendly people with a humorous language. Everything sounds funny in Norwegian because everything sounds like singing. Swedes are seen as kind of stiff, humorless types who can't dance, and can't hold their liquour. Finns are silent, angry drunks that carry knives. Oddly, given their history, Danes really like Germans. Really, really like the Germans. Many Danes will say that Berlin is their favorite town. Danes also have stereotypes about each other, something that amazed me when I first arrived here. You have 5 million people, and you're dividing yourselves into groups! But Danes themselves see a big difference between people from Sjelland, the island with Copenhagen on it, and Jylland, the bigger part of Denmark that is connected to Germany. As the stereotype goes, people from Jylland are seen as quiet, reliable, trustworthy, and likely to marry young and start families. They are also sometimes seen as stubborn, and very tight with money. They want to drive a hard bargain. People from Copenhagen are seen as slick. Smart-ass, fast-talking, prone to exaggeration- everything's the biggest and the best. The men wear expensive business suits, and everyone wears overpriced eyeglasses. They have jobs that are non-jobs, like Senior Communications Consultant or SEO specialist. People from Jylland have real jobs, like pig farmer, or Lego designer.

Danish names are very strongly stratified by age. Ole and Finn and Knud and Kaj and Jørn and Jørgen and to some extent Poul and Per, are over 50. Their wives and sisters and secret lovers are Inger and Karin and Kirsten and Ulla. Or Bente. Another guaranteed old ladies' name is Bente. Bent is the male version. Being named Bent is a problem for Danes who travel, because in many English-speaking countries, 'bent' is old-fashioned slang for 'gay.' In those countries, if you hold out your hand and say, 'Hi, I'm Bent,' you may get an unexpected reaction.

Finding a job anywhere is a headache, and Denmark is no different. And let's be frank, if the employer has a choice between a foreigner and a Dane, they're probably going to hire the Danish person. The Danish person knows the language, the Danish person knows the culture, the Danish person knows what type of cheese to bring for the Friday morning shared breakfast. Nevertheless, it is possible for a foreigner to find work in Denmark. Here are my tips for a successful job search in Denmark.

If you are a romance novelist, the Danish man is not your dream man. He will not write poetry and pursue his beloved to the ends of the Earth. He won't send flowers, he won't buy chocolates. He won't even help carry packages. That said, if you're a feminist, a Danish man IS your dream man. He will cook and help with the housework, and spend time with the kids. He'll respect your opinion, and he won't force himself on you. In fact, you may have to force yourself on him. But if you do, he'll usually be really grateful.

A lot of the mail I get at howtoliveindenmark.com get is from men, wanting to know how they can meet women in Denmark. I can understand this. Danish women are very beautiful. And I can tell you now, most of them will not immediately exclude you because you have a different skin color. I know of several babies of mixed heritage here in Denmark. That said, dating in Denmark is hard, even for the Danes, and it will probably be hard for you too. That’s because the process that works in much of the rest of the Western world doesn’t work in Denmark. In most parts of the world, a man will see a woman he likes, and he’ll approach her. He’ll try to start a conversation. Maybe he’ll ask if he can buy her a coffee, or some other type of drink. If they’re in a nightclub, he might ask her if she’d like to dance, or maybe go outside and get some fresh air. These tactics will get you nowhere in Denmark.

I'm looking out the window as I record, and it's snowing again. It's pretty, but it's not a novelty any more. It's been like this for the past couple of weeks, Danish winter weather. Nearly every day there's fresh snow and ice. When I wake up on winter mornings, it's still dark, and cold, and I can hear the wind whistling outside my window. Every day I think, ahhhh, I don't want to get up. But I do. Of course everyone in Denmark suffers a little bit during the winter. But I feel particularly bad for people I can see come from warmer climates, and are experiencing one of their first winters here.

I play a little game sometime when I look at Danish people. I imagine them as Vikings. It’s easy now that big beards are in fashion on young men. Sometimes on the metro I’ll look up at the hipster guy playing with his iPhone next to me and imagine him wearing a big fur cloak. Maybe a rope belt, with a sword dangling from it. I imagine him stepping off the boat in Newfoundland in the year 1000, freaking out the local American Indians.

A few years ago, during the peak July vacation season, SAS had to cancel a large number of flights out of Denmark. This is because too many SAS pilots had taken vacation...during the vacation season. In Denmark, the needs of the employee are often more important than the needs of the customer.The post Danes and Work: My vacation flight was cancelled, because the pilot was on vacation appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

While French or American politicians have sex scandals, Danish politicians have tax scandals. Only the Royal Family is permitted to be the subject of really juicy gossip and scandal in Denmark. The post Gossip and Scandal in Denmark - Podcast #22 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

Even though Denmark is very open about sex, it isn't very…sexy. Everything's so accepted, out in the open, so practical, that sex in Denmark is a bit dull. The post Sex and Denmark - Podcast #21 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

Sitting at my desk in grey, November Copenhagen, I received an email from sunny Portugal. Eighteen-year-old Bárbara asks: Should I move to Denmark?

Wearing an elf hat at Christmas time is a way to show you've got a sense of humor about yourself. You're likely to see an elf hat on your boss, your professor or somebody else you're supposed to respect. The post Christmas in Denmark Part 2: Get Yourself an Elf Hat - Podcast #19 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

I still get confused about Danish place names. A lot of names sound so similar that I am constantly getting lost in Denmark. People's names are tricky, too. The post Ørestad, Ørested and Øresund: Why I still get lost in Denmark - Podcast #18 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

Last week, political posters went up all over Copenhagen, on streetlights, on bridges, and on train platforms. The posters are for the local elections this autumn, and even though the candidates are supposed to take them down afterwards, they usually don't. So, the candidates will keep smiling and making promises through Christmas, and through the winter snow and ice. Come spring, you'll see a faded, battered photo of somebody who failed to win anything at all hanging from a light pole near you. The post Voting at McDonald's: Danish politics, and the posters that will last until spring - Podcast #17 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

The 12 days of Christmas is an old French Christmas song. But those 12 days have nothing on the Danes, who have more than two months of Christmas, and would probably have it last all the way to spring if they could get away with it.

Traditionally, there has been little crime in Denmark, which is a society based on trust. But when that trust is broken, Danes get confused about what to do. They don't like the idea of punishment. The post Just buy more insurance: Crime and Punishment in Denmark - Podcast #15 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

More than a decade after moving to Denmark, there are still a few things I won't do to fit in. I won't cook fried fish balls, or watch Danish talent shows on TV. And I won't plan my hangovers in advance.

Danes are passionate about design, and they really believe in making everything that is useful also beautiful, even a toilet. After living here a while, you just come to expect it.

The dark days of winter in Denmark last from October to March. The sky is dark when you get up in the morning, and it's dark when you leave work. If you are moving to Denmark and want your friends and relatives to visit you, don't invite them to come during the dark times. They'll get a bad impression of the place. The post Here come the dark times: Winter in Denmark - Podcast #12 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

If you want to live in a thatched cottage in rural Denmark, you'll find a lot to choose from. Finding an apartment in downtown Copenhagen is harder. The post A thatched roof over your head: How to find a place to live in Denmark - Podcast #11 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

Danes dress to match the Danish landscape. This is why most Danish fashion comes in grey, green, blue and brown - plus beige for the adventurous.

For Danes, bicycle lanes are the Vikings' last stand. These gentle blond people - these people who will wait two minutes at a 'Don't Walk' sign instead of crossing an empty street - armed with a bike, turn vicious and brutal.

At every Danish dinner party, I'm asked a standard set of questions: How did you come to Denmark? Why did you come to Denmark? What type of culture shock did you experience once you got here? In part 1 of what is sure to become a multi-part series, I discuss one major cultural difference: In Denmark, people make their own food. This is the seventh episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013. Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

They may appear nude on public beaches and in daily newspapers, but the Danes have a passion for privacy. And they may be respecting YOUR privacy by not talking to you. This is the sixth episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013. Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

It's a common mistake to confuse the Danish and the Dutch - all those healthy blond people on bicycles! - but if you really want to understand Denmark, look at Germany instead. This is the fifth episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013. Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

Danish words and English words can look similar, but some of the similarities are deceiving. A Danish hug is not comforting. And slut is not a slut. This is the fifth episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013. Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

Denmark is a small country. It needs sports it can win. Team handball, team badminton, and team ping-pong are where Danish sports men and women shine. This is the fourth episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013. Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

The price of white cotton socks in Denmark is about five times as high as in the USA. I explain how the price of socks has a lot to say about the Danish economic system. This is the third episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013. Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.