I’ve only this week decided to start writing about the Danes and their ways. While I was wracking my brain about how the approach the next article, I came across a blog by Peter Andreas, a 42-year old Dane with a slightly dissenting view of his own country. It’s certain to give you quite a bit of an insider’s view.
Danes are extremely private and reserved. If you happen to come from a village in Kenya where everyone knows each other and greets each other on the street, Denmark will seem cold, hostile and desolate.
Meeting new Danes can be a challenge
This seems to be the general consensus among newcomers in Denmark. It is not easy to get to know a Dane. Friendships take many years to foster, and most lifelong friendships among Danes will have started in kindergarten. This doesn’t mean that Danes are averse to the idea of being friends with you; you just have to put in a bit of extra effort if you are serious about the friendship.
Keeping it real
You will find that Danes are quite direct. Or, to put it another way, they are generally not superficial. They won’t fawn over you with sugar-coated compliments and honeyed tones in order to win your favour, and they will resent it if you do. Nor will they necessarily pretend to like you if they don’t, and if they don’t like your joke, they simply won’t laugh. Simple as that.
Danes generally neither understand nor do they appreciate fluff and hype in people’s attitudes, so the direct and honest approach is always advised. Basically, avoid small talk if you can, and just say what you really think.
A sack of salt
This might all sound terribly demanding, and you might get the impression that Danes are humourless and dour, but you will soon discover that Denmark is full of paradoxes. Yes, Danes are aloof and are often described as ‘cold’ by foreigners, but the tricky thing is that they actually are sociable, warm and funny. It is a mind-bender that has taken me a long time to unravel, and even so, I can’t really adequately explain it.
Much of it has to do with an implicit understanding of Danish culture and language, something the Danes call being indforstået. It literally means being ‘in-understood’, and it is a series of unspoken codes and registers that exist among people.
Another part of it has to do simply with knowing people for long enough and having eaten the proverbial sack of salt together, nurturing a common understanding for each other.
It helps if you are a sociable and open person yourself. Danes love extroverts. If you are an extrovert and have no problems at all expressing what’s on your mind, you automatically jump to level ten and graduate with honours.
Language
While almost all Danes speak perfect English, language will always be a barrier to some extent. Your Danish will be non-existent in the beginning, and your communication will be totally dependent on others’ confidence with speaking English. Most Danes never really get the chance to practise their English, so they might feel a bit shy about it. It might help if you consider this for a while, and not take it too much for granted.
Being able to utter a few words in Danish is usually a good icebreaker. Try a few phrases like Rødgrød med fløde or Jeg vil gerne have en øl. Go to the phrases section of speakdanish.dk to see how they are pronounced, and memorize 2 or 3 phrases to get you started.
It’s all about structure
By now you probably get the impression that you can’t just start chatting to someone on the bus or on the park bench. And you’d be dead right. It is no exaggeration whatsoever if I tell you that people will think you’ve escaped from the mental institution if you do.
Even if you already know someone and want to drop in for a quick chat or a cup of tea, you will find yourself in a very awkward situation. Your Danish host simply doesn’t know how to handle unexpected guests, even if you are friends. Everything in Denmark is structured. If you want to meet your friend, you have to make an appointment at least a week in advance. Again, that is not an exaggeration! Your now-very-inconvenienced friend has probably had something planned for the day, even if that means having planned to do nothing, and you are intruding on his do-nothing time.
The booze factor
So, where do you go to meet Danes? You meet them in the usual places: bars, nightclubs, social clubs. Danes brew their own beer, and probably consume most of it themselves. Their alcohol consumption is among the highest in the world, and is perhaps frowned upon by their more serious neighbours, Norway and Sweden (who themselves often make trips to Denmark to load their cars full of cheap booze and make spectacles of themselves on the streets).
Danes are considered the party animals of Scandinavia, which again flies in the face of the common perception of the archetypal level-headed and reserved Dane.
Attitudes towards alcohol are extremely relaxed. The legal drinking age is 16, but it is not unusual for Danish kids to have started much earlier (sometimes as early as 10). Moral and religious connotations to alcohol are completely absent, and most Danish parents have no problem whatsoever with their children drinking.
Sober youth cause for concern
(This image is from a news story about a teetotalling tendency among Danish youth. There is some concern that some youngsters might get alienated from their drinking peers. The headline says “Alcohol habits: Sober youth cause for concern”)
But far from being the rowdy and chaotic drunk, the average Dane is jovial, talkative and usually quite lucid (note that I always invoke averages and non-absolutes here). A Danish pedestrian will dutifully stop at the red traffic light, no matter what time of day or level of intoxication. And never mind if the only traffic on the street is a lone plastic bag pirouetting to the low, dark howl of the early-morning wind.
In the absence of alcoholic lubrication, however, your neighbour would never dream of just striking up a conversation with you. Because Danes are such private people, they will consider themselves presumptuous if they do, and think that they are intruding on your privacy. So, it is your responsibility to make the first move. You will usually find that most Danes will welcome the initiative.
Social clubs or associations (foreninger)
No matter how unusual your hobby or interest, Denmark probably has a social club to accommodate you (Denmark has the most number of these clubs per capita in the world). These are perfect places for you to meet people with similar interests.
So, the Danes take a bit of figuring out to really get to know them, but how successful you are socially ultimately depends on you. There are plenty of opportunities to get to know the Danes, and most of the drawbacks are easily overcome with the slightest bit of effort. As I mentioned in the introduction, forget about everything I said right here and everything else you’ve heard, and walk into every situation with a receptive and open attitude.
If you’ve just arrived in Denmark – welcome! And if you’ve just discovered that there are no igloos here – congratulations!
An important milestone
The reason you’re in Denmark and planning to stay is most likely because of a Dane you’ve met in your home town. Danes are extremely proud of their country, and for good reason. If you’ve already made it so far as to have to decide about living in Denmark, you are probably already convinced that the only reason the world has not long ago descended into complete mayhem is solely thanks to the efforts of the Danes. You look back at your own country with new eyes, noting its inadequacies, and based on what your Danish friends have told you, conclude that you’d be foolish not to embrace this veritable utopia as your new home.
I have to concede there is much to be said about the hype that is so generously dispensed around the world by Denmark’s young emissaries. It probably is one of the best-organized countries in the world (like Carlsberg probably is the best beer). Its current social, cultural and ideological roots all trace back to Renaissance Enlightenment ideals of reason and common sense, and while it essentially is a Christian country, religion features very little in its government, schooling and everyday discourse. A socially progressive country, its focus is less on the individual and more on the common good – which in economic terms means high taxation, free education, free health care and a good infrastructure. While some might disagree, its governmental and bureaucratic structures are generally efficient and well-oiled, with very low levels of corruption.
On the other hand, it is not quite home for you, and settling in can be hard, especially if you’ve never left your beloved country before. While Denmark is very organized and the people very friendly, you might find it a bit rigid in places and lacking a bit in imagination. There will always be pros and cons for you to contend with.
The point I want to make is that, yes, Denmark is in many respects a great country, but when you come to Denmark for the first time, your perspective of it will be completely dependent on impressions you get from your Danish friends and stuff you read in travel books, which might not always be quite objective or accurate. Sometimes you read something about a place, but your own experience of it happens to be completely opposite. An important thing to remember when coming to Denmark (as with visiting any new country) is to keep an open mind, and not to take completely to heart everything you’ve heard about the place, even from Danes themselves. No, especially not from the Danes themselves!
So, you will be prone to unrealistic and possibly even some overly-grandiose expectations during your first few months in Denmark. This is fairly common. It is a perfectly natural response to the exotic and unknown. This is what is known as the honeymoon phase, where everything seems wonderful and magical. Enjoy it while you can; it will soon be replaced by a sequence of other, lesser-pleasant phases.
Typical Danish girl watching pedestrians go by
Denmark is not a fairytale land. Crime, although relatively rare, does exist. Your stuff will get stolen if you’re not careful, and while the vast majority of Danes are much nicer than people I’ve met in some other countries, you will most certainly meet some unsavoury and downright nasty people as well (as the laws of averages and common sense well dictate you should).
If you’re ethnically different from the Danes, you might on the rare occasion experience some racism, but again, the overwhelming majority of Danes are pleasant, tolerant and well-educated. It is certainly a non-issue in deciding whether to come to Denmark or not.
The following submissions will pertain to the lessons (at speakdanish.dk), including topics such as socializing, shopping, visiting the doctor, and so on. Much of it will be based on my own opinion and experience as a foreigner in Denmark, so it will by no means be an authoritative or definitive guide to Danish culture – but I hope that it will be enough to generate some lively discussion. I will try to add a new entry as often as I can.
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