I am continuing to enjoy living in Copenhagen and now that I've been here for two weeks, I'm starting to get more into a routine and figure things out a bit more. Now that I am have been in Denmark for longer and am learning more about Danes and Danish culture from my classes and talking with people, I have started to notice more difference between Denmark and America. So I'll briefly talk about what I find most interesting:
1. Danish history is almost exactly the opposite of American history in terms of expansion and history. Denmark has the oldest monarchy in Europe, dating back to the 900s. Also, during the middle ages, Denmark was much larger as the monarchy controlled Norway, Sweden and Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany. During the 1500s and 1600s, Denmark was the large power in northern europe and had the second largest navy after Britian. However, starting in the mid to late 1600s, Denmark started losing all of its wars and with each loss, lost a bit of territory. For example, Denmark lost control of Norway after the Napoleonic Wars in which Denmark sided with Napoleon, which turned out to be a huge mistake. All of the tour guides seem to emphasize the point that Denmark used to be a huge power and was reduced through allying with the wrong people and losing wars. But this is very different than America which started as small and kept expanding instead of shrinking. I think these different histories and the losses of Denmark contribute a lot to how each country sees itself. When Denmark lost all of its land, there was a sense that in order to make up for the lost territories, efforts should be made to improve Denmark and the Danes with education, land reforms, social welfare and draining the land.
Also, I think Danes are a lot less likely than American to see themselves as more important than anyone else. For example, the recently completed Opera House was paid for by private funds (very unusual in Denmark) and apparently the guy who paid most of the money wanted to have a say in the design. this was very controversial since most Danes don't build buildings to show their power or to celebrate themselves as rich Americans do. Also, most buildings are built with public funds instead of private funds, making the Opera House controversial.
I think the history of Denmark and people not thinking they are more important than other people also contributes to people not really shoving on the bus and waiting for the green light to cross a street even when there is no traffic.
2. I think i mentioned this in an earlier post, but still find it amazing that such small countries can have such a unique and deep culture and possess all of the major cultural institutions such as museums, opera and play houses that other larger countries have. Copenhagen and Denmark have such a large collections of museums and especially castles for such a small country. Of course, a lot of this infrastructure is older than anything in America and most of the castles were built during the time when Denmark was a power and during its absolute monarchy.
Last night with my roommates I watched the Danish national competition to choose a pop singer to compete in a European song contest held every year in which each country sends one singer and then a winner is chosen. The competiton was pretty funny to watch and the songs were pretty bad pop music. I think it was geared more for kids but the music was very influenced by America and most songs were partly or totally in English. My roommates told me that this was the case because in the European competiton, English is the only language everyone knows and so by performing a song in English, a singer has the best chance to win. They also mentioned that it was hard for Western European singers to win because there were more Eastern European countries and those countries have a differnent taste in music. They described their perferences as more 80s and more gospel. They also said Eastern Europeans like glitter a lot.
3. 3 out of 4 of my classes focus on different aspects of Denmark: language and culture, design, and politics and society so I have been learning a lot about Denmark. I have found my politics and society class really interesting and the professor is a former member of Parliament for the Social Democrats which is pretty cool. We have been learning about the different political parties (there are currently around 8) and I read pieces each party wrote about itself and what policies it supports. One thing that is really interesting is that all of the parties, both left and right assume things as correct that are being debated now in America. For example, all parties stated something along the lines that it was obvious that elderly people should be provided for by the government and that they should have a choice of facility or treatment given. There was a common thread of the notion that a society should be judged by how it treats its poorest members, which is really neat and progressive idea. All promoted the idea that only a society that provided health care, education and job opportunities and reeducation opportunities could be considered just. By this measurement, American would be a very bad and unjust society! While there were some more conservative parties that wanted tax reduction, everyone took for granted the high level of social welfare provided by the government. One line that struck me what the statement that "obviously no money should be exchanged between a patient and physican." They must find the American system very strange!
The biggest difference between the parties seemed to be their stance on immigration and their emphasis on Danish values. The more conservative groups are pretty anti-immigration and want to have greater measure to protect the Danish culture and values. The more liberal parties seem to favor immigration as long as the immigrants have jobs and are productive members of society. I am looking forward to looking more into the immigration problem in my class because it is very different than in America. I can understand more the hesistation towards immigrants because Denmark is a ethnically homogenous state that had its own culture and it is not made up of immigrants while America is a country of immigrants. Also, the level of social welfare provided by the state adds other problems because immigrants are supported but haven't been paying into the system their entire lives. I haven't learned much about this yet but I have heard that Denmark didn't have very good integration policies which has caused a split between immigrants and Danes.
4. I have seen a lot of families with small children or mothers with small children or babies in prams around Copenhagen. Although Denmark does not have a birthrate high enough to keep the population from shrinking, it is larger than many other European countries in large part because there is really good parental leave and fathers are expected to take off time along with the mothers. Also, men and women work pretty much the same hours each week. Everywhere seems pretty kid and family friendly also. Finally, the prams here are pretty fancy contraptions and I see people taking them everywhere and there are often prams on the bus when I take it. These prams have pretty large wheels and the mothers are able to wheel it up on the bus pretty easily.
5. I've gone in a couple of neat looking Danish stores while walking around, most notable Tiger, which I have written about earlier and another home goods store. I have found that these types of stores have a seemingly random assortment of things. For example, the home goods store had the normal stuff one would expect in a home store but then I turned around and there were hair clips! Also, Tiger has a wide range of things, but everything still seems to be a bit random. This got me to thinking about the difference with America where we have stores such as Target and Walmart that have everything but sometime don't seem to be random. I was thinking this might have sometime to do with America's pioneering history where small towns would always have a general store that had everything whereas in Europe stores were always more specialized and smaller.
6. Learning more about Danish culture has also given me different perspectives on American culture. While there are many appealing aspects of Danish culture, America definately has the upper hand in 3 categories: bathrooms, grocery stores and nutrition labels. The bathroom in my apartment is fine, but many people I know who stay with host families say that when they shower, the water just runs over the entire bathroom floor and then they have to squeege the water into the drain afterwards which sound really annoying and kind of gross. The grocery stores are a lot smaller than in American and the cheapest one, Netto kind of just throws things into bins or has really strange organziation. Also, there are just not as many choices as in America since each store is smaller and they don't seem to have energy bars here and tofu is really expensive. Finally, nutrition labels are not standard here as they are in America and they do not have as much information so it can be hard to judge the healthfulness of food.
7. One food item I have really started to like here is the Danish sliced bread. It is much denser and smaller than American bread. I think a lot of it has rye and what looks like nuts or large grains so it keeps you full for longer. Also, it has a sour taste (kind of like sourdough bread) which I really like and goes really well with peanut butter.
Notable tourist things I've done:
1. I went to the oldest bakery in Copenhagen, Skt.Peders bakery founded in 1652 and located 2 blocks from school. It was really good and pretty cheap which made it even better.
2. I went to the Statens Museum for Kunst, the state art musuem. It was really interesting because the original old building built in the mid 1800s was expanded in 1998 with a really modern addition. The juxtaposition between the new and old buildings was really interesting and enhanced each building. Also interesting was the fact that all of the modern art was in the old building while all of the old art was in the new building. I think the new part of the museum was the best part as the architecture was really good and the architect created a lot of interesting rooms and spaces. Furthermore, the entry was free since the museum was owned by the state and so was paid for by the taxpayers.
3. I walked around Norrebrø, a section of town near where I live and one that has seen a lot of immigration so it has a lot more ethnic restuarants and grocery stores. There were probably 2-3 schwarma (middle eastern sandwiches very similar to gyros) places every block, several Indian places, some arabic grocery stores and some apparel stores selling Islamic clothing which was kind of interesting to see.
4. Today I visited Fredericksborg Slot (castle) through DIS. This is kind of the Danish equivalent of Versailles and its gardens were based on those in Versailles. Unfortunately I didn't get to see them but I'll go back in the spring when it is warm and see the gardens. We had a guided tour of the castle and the guide liked to point out lots of gossip about the kings and queens and little tidbits. In a landscape painting there was a small dog and man and the dog was painted with 5 legs! It was very strange. Also, there is 400 year old graffiti in the chapel. Apparently there was a priest who liked to give 6 hr long services and so the nobles would get bored and would do graffiti on the banister!
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