Velkomme! This is my personal essay page where I "nogle gange" share some short stories of my seriously unserious perspective towards Denmark. My style of writing is:
What a strange, demented feeling it gives me when I realize I have spent whole days before this inkstone, with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts that have entered my head (Tsurezuregusa by Kenko Yoshida).
Please don't take the perspective seriously. Biases, heuristics, and errors are pretty much embedded in it. My hope is that reading my stories, you can laugh or at least smile at the cultural differences that I come across in Denmark since I live in "Smilets By (the city of smile)." My serious page is here.
Danish stylishness and sophistication with climate-friendly lifestyle, as we imagine them as a sort of stereotype (think of Greta Thunberg as a Swedish climate activist), are half-truths. If you visit here, it may still be the whole truth of the country. But, this country, or probably any counties (e.g., Australia and Japan) also has an inconvenient truth. Pork.
Denmark is the ninth largest pork producer in the world. I was surprised to learn about this fact when I came here. It's probably not a widely known fact as you or I might somehow imagine Danes like Berlin people are more vegetarian than meat lovers. In fact, Danish staple food mostly contains pork. For example, the "national" dish, stegt flæsk (see also my past entry), is fried pork belly.
So, pork is an inconvenient truth in Denmark. But, how come? It's fair enough that Danes just love pork. Period. Nothing is inconvenient. Let me tell you it's actually inconvenient or at least some Danes aren't proud of this pork culture here.
Today (on March 1, 2024), Danish high court made a ruling against Danish Crown (Europe's largest pork producer) about their "more climate-friendly than you think" marketing. Isn't that crazy? I think so. Although I know it's really difficult to find a definite answer for whether pork production contributes to climate change, the production isn't climate-friendly. That's for sure, especially compared to plant-based food.
For me, what is really interesting about this lawsuit is that a big company like Danish Crown from a country like Denmark which outsiders think the forefront of climate-friendly takes a capitalist stance but promotes green-wash campaigns. Indeed, pork production is so hidden in Denmark that I haven't seen pigs anywhere here for almost three years. Based on my conversations with several Danish friends and colleagues over a couple of years, Danes don't want to see pigs and think about how pork is made. I mean, this food factory phenomenon (for example, a documentary film Food Inc.) is not new or unique to Denmark. Nonetheless, my point here is that Danish companies deliberately have made a choice to hide pigs from Danish landscapes. Zero pigs if you cycle around the countryside, despite the fact that Denmark is one of the largest pork producers in Europe.
As a final note, I'd like to comment on why I think this is a scandal. This is because, yes, it's a corporate scandal, but more importantly, it makes Danes feel embarrassed. I think the latter is more profound for Denmark since I actually think Denmark is not more a climate-friendly country than I felt as an outsider compared to other countries, such as some parts of Japan, Germany or the United States. For example, plastic use here is insane. People here drive cars to commute as people do in the States. People eat meat as people do in the States. Well, having said that, we're still a long way ahead to tackle climate change challenges.
This new year starts with the mighty of nature, such as earthquakes and snowstorms. I talked to my parents in Tokyo on New Year's Day, not knowing the big earthquake occurred in the westcoast of the country. My mom casually mentioned when she was feeding fish, the water in the fish tank started waving and then she realized it was a quake. Immediately afterward, she heard from the radio tsunami warnings and the scale of the earthquake.
Living in Aarhus for over two years at this point, I've been losing the sense of occasional shaking the grounds, running to the shelters, or hearing country-wide warnings on TV. These natural disasters are actually good reminders that we're living in this dynamic nature; it's beautiful yet fearful simultaneously.
Two days later from calling my parents, I got stuck at home because of a heavy snowstorm in Denmark. To be honest, it's not awful, but it's a good surprise that I didn't expect to have a decent amount of snow with negative degrees of temperature for a week. Except for those drivers who got stuck on the highway for 22 hours, people and dogs here looked pretty happy with this surprise new year gift. Passing by the botanical garden, I saw many kids sledding and dogs happily peeing to leave yellow marks on the white snow.
Personally, this event also highlighted what made people frustrated in different cultural contexts. I'd call Aarhus a high predictable city, meaning that people live with their lives based on schedule or habitually. Tokyo and Berlin as well. The United States, to some extent and depending on which city you live in, such as Chicago. The other extreme is a low predicatable city where people often live more spontaneously, such as LA, Medellín, and Jakarta in my experience.
High predictable cities offer three things. One is reliable infrastructure like public transport. For example, the metro in Tokyo is really punctual. This leads people in Tokyo to get from one point to another on time as an expectation. Two is relatedly people work in more stable work schedule, such as 9 to 5 jobs, this makes it easier for people to sync their schedule for each other. For example, they can hang out after work. Three is people take the aforementioned aspects for granted. For me, this last aspect is a bit scary because these relaible infrastrcutre and 9 to 5 lifestyle are very recent things. I don't think many of our parents lived under these circumstances. Despite the fact, people who live in high predictable cities assume that these exist for a long time and don't change in the future. This mentality is fine but I just think it's interesting.
Finally, this predictability may also have more profound effects on our lives—the pursuit of happiness. I recently read this academic article about why people who live in Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies pursue happiness as a major part of their subjective well-being compared to other parts of the world. The article proposed a really interesting theory that geographical conditions (particularly, the Gulf Stream on the Northwestern European climate) make those WEIRD people pursue happiness because of fewer natural disasters. On the other hand, those who live in other geographical conditions like Japan pursue something else. A quote from a Japanese research participant stuck in my mind, he answered the question of whether he is happy, "Umm... I never thought about such a thing in my whole life." I echo his response as a person who grew up in Japan. Until I started living in the United States, I didn't think about happiness because nobody asked me whether I was happy. Now, I think about my happiness because it's a part of my vocabulary. And, I live in the happiest city in the world in 2023!
Having lived in different cultures, I've noticed how people celebrate Christmas and New Year's is different. Of course, the differences largely come from history. For example, while Denmark is a protestant country, Japan is not a Christian country (Shitoism and Buddhism are mixedly dominant). That being said, Christmas is a more meaningful time in Denmark than in Japan.
Nevertheless, both countries do very similar things. That is, Denmark celebrates Christmas with families and New Year's with friends or romantic partners, and Japan is the opposite—Christmas with friends or romantic partners and New Year's with families. Essentially, both countries engage in similar ways to celebrate this festive season.
I also realize there are a couple of "fun" traditions that are unique to Denmark and Japan during this season. The first one is fireworks in Denmark (see more detail in my other entry). Despite the danger associated with this celebration, Danes reset their memory and engage in this tradition every year. Of course, this comes with deadly accidents, needless to say. But, talking to international friends reminds me that the Japanese also do deadly stuff around this season. Eating Mochi. Yes, this is indeed very deadly if you think of it in this way. A "fun" fact is that some Japanese lost their lives, alledgedly more dangerous than COVID-19. So, you survived this dangerous season. Godt nytår
The beauty of Danish nature is probably not as famous as neighboring Scandinavian countries, such as Sweden and Norway. In particular, Norway seems a more popular destination for hiking and mountain climbing than here. This is simply because Denmark is flat as a pancake. Nonetheless, Denmark offers (underrated) beautiful nature. If you visit Denmark, I'd recommend you check it out. You might find Danish ordinary nature extraordinary.
Mols Bjerge is famous but still a hidden gem. I went on a 3-day hiking trip there at the beginning of August with my friend Fabian. Mols Bjerge is a national park nearby Aarhus. It takes about an hour to get there if you take the 123 bus downtown Aarhus. Not far away. Despite the distance from Aarhus, it makes you feel like being in the countryside. Among the many things you can do there (e.g., mountain biking), hiking is really rewarding, as you can see the stunning views and landscapes of Central Jylland. Now, let me share my experience of walking through the four stages of the hike trail.
Kalø stage. An old ruin welcomed us. It's been there since the Viking era of 1313. Kalø castle. Strong and weak fought and defended. The only remnant I could see was stone walls and the view from there. Gentle breeze. Sun dancing with clouds in the sky. Passed by all the tourists to the castle, we walked on the narrow passage. It's the beginning of 20 km for this trail. Comfortable trail with small bushes along with Følle bay. What a nifty start. Then, we suddenly entered the forest with lingering wave sounds. We progressed with a rat-a-tat rhythm. The countryside sky always felt more dynamic than the city. Birds and cows comfortably rested on the vast field. They even didn't give any glances at us. Our pitch was good. Once we got to the mountain area after the long roadside walk and confusing pathways, our pitch got faster. All the excitement. Beautiful forest trees and meadows. We went through a bit more hilly passage that led us to our first trail goal. Shelter point.
Mountain stage. Slowly snuggled out from my sleeping bag. Oh shit. It's already 8 am. Slow start. But, what a fresh morning, it's ready to hit Day 2. The start trail was a familiar passage, and then whoa. A fantastic open landscape where many summer flowers cutely welcomed us. Purple, yellow, green, pink. Finally, color palettes became more pastel than black and white in Denmark. After some elevation gains, the first highlight of the day came out. The open view to Aarhus, Ebeltoft, and Randers. The blue sky made a perfect background for Instagram photos.
Ebeltoft stage. After a small rest at the shelter, we were ready to hit the second half of Day 2. Said goodbye to the shelter. Now, we were headed in a different direction. To Ebeltoft. Another 21 km. What a treat to walk through a deep forest area. We felt the most stunning part of the hiking trail. We could hear birds chirping with high and low pitches. That let us hike in a nice pitch.
Gåsehage stage. Newly added stage. Started with the bus station. Unfortunately, it wasn't an exciting starting point where the homeless guy made an unwelcoming glance at me. Despite the unfortunate start, quickly passed through school zones and got us to the disc golf park. It's a cozy city hike. Reached us to the highest point in the city of Ebeltoft. The great viewpoint enabled us to see both Ebeltoft and Hjelm Bay. Cloudy but not rainy. Very comfy weather speeded up our pace. Oopsy, we lost our smooth pace and our way in the middle of the disc golf park. We met two middle-aged guys playing disc golf twice. Walked back to the path again. Despite our setback, our pace went back and we cruised through the city part of this stage.
One day, Christian, my friend and colleague, stopped by my office and told me about this unique Disney show only available in DR (Danish public radio and TV broadcasting company) when I gave him a pack of candies. Given the history of Disney where Walt Disney was inspired by Tiboli (Danish amusement park), it makes a lot of sense that this original TV show existed in Denmark.
Existed—unfortunately, this show is no longer on air. In other words, it ended. According to Christian, this termination made Danes quite furious since many Danes grew up with this show Fridays at 7 pm. The reason was the current greedy corporation, aka Disney. They increased the contract fee significantly, which, in turn, made DR unable to pay. So, that's it. What a dry 21st-century way to end the tradition.
What intrigued me more was that, again, according to Christian and a DR article, Danish kids had an association between candies and Disney Sjov. I mean by the association that parents gave kids candies after watching the show. In a way, parents controlled the amount of candy consumed by kids. Clever. So, the opening song made Christian and his sisters Pavlov's dogs. They looked forward to watching the show every Friday and getting the lit' treat afterward. What a sjov!
And, this tradition seems to be continued after the show ended. Another day, another colleague swang by my office and shared her daughter's candy obsession when I gave her Japanese sweats. Apparently, Danish kids claim to eat a bag of candies Friday evenings. Even though she tries to stop her daughter from making this "bad" habit due to excess sugar consumption, the daughter says, "everyone does it." It's a classic social influence: social proof. Essentially, the daughter's peers give her approval and pressure for the behavior at the same time. So in this sense, this tradition is not clever; for some parents, a sugar-related headache.
Last holiday, it's not about the movie starring Queen Latifah. It's about Store Bededag on May 5, 2023. This public holiday was based on the Christian tradition of celebrating. Yes, it was until this year. So, it was literally the last holiday.
The official reason for abolishing this public holiday is, at best, interesting—like "for real?". It's because of the tax revenue, especially for military spending. For the first time I heard from some Danish colleagues about it; they also said it jokingly because nobody believed abolishing a public holiday could generate any significant additional tax revenue for the government by increasing the GDP. They said, "The official reason only looks good on paper, but no one buys the reason seriously."
Like many other holidays, Store Bededag has a tradition. Most holidays here in Denmark have special food—mostly special rolls. You know what, that's why Danish is famous abroad. Of course, Store Bededag wasn't an exception. My hope for this public holiday is to keep the tradition of Store Bededag Bolle alive. It's pretty good in my opinion!
Lastly, speaking of Danish holidays, there is a concept, at least new for me, namely, a half-holiday. It doesn't exist in the U.S., Australia, and Japan, as far as I know. This holiday concept doesn't mean that you work a half day and take a half day off. That was my first thought, and other international folks, too. Instead, there are two half-holidays between May and June. And, for employees like me, I choose which day I "claim" as a holiday. In other words, I work on one a half-holiday and take a day off on the other a half-holiday. We had a constitution day on June 5th. Because it's a half-holiday,
Danish flag. Ah, is it a red flag? No no no, it's a symbol of happy birthday for friends, colleagues, or whoever in Denmark, although it's used for other purposes too. If you're not living in Denmark, your eyebrows probably may go up. It sounds very strange to some of you, especially if national flags mean something to do with patriotism in your country—at least in Japan.
Danish flags are widely seen on many occasions here, from birthday parties to anniversaries. Particularly, the association between Danish flags and birthdays stands out. This is because it'd be extremely bizarre if my friends in Japan brought Japanese flags to my birthday party. We'd judge these friends were either pranking at best or insane at worst.
Danes often forget this bizarre association. For example, my mate, Christian, had his birthday at his family's summer house in Southern France one year one year. Her mother innocently put Danish flags in the gardens to celebrate her son's birthday. Then, their French neighbors furiously started complaining to them.
However, Danes are also again non-Danish flags in their land. According to my Danish friends, many Germans come to stay at Danish summer houses during the summer vacation season, espeically at the North and West Coasts. While Danes are allowed to up their national flag at these summer houses, Germans are forbidden. Of course, this has a good reason behind it, but this example illustrates national flags have history. So, again to conclude that Danish way of using national flags is, I must say, pretty weird.
In the TV series "the Bridge" (Broen in Danish), Swedish lead homicide detective Saga Norén sometimes pops snus into her mouth when she drives her Porche 911, or she takes off from her desk. At least, this image of her taking snus got stuck in my mind as I saw the TV show. For some readers, it's unfamiliar with snus (by the way, it's pronounced like snoose). I was, too, before coming to Denmark. Nonetheless, the prevalence and use of snus, in my view, is on the center stage of Danish youth life and nightlife.
Before telling you what it is really, I share with you my virgin episode of snus. On a Friday night a year ago or so, I hung out with my buddy, Jonathan. The night started with hyggeligt time at his apartment. His former roomie, Mikkael, and we sipped a few beers and then took off downtown around 11 pm. We checked out a couple of bars. Then, while walking to a club, Mikkael offered me snus. I clearly remembered that Jonathan warned me, "you should be careful with it." But, I took it anyway despite his warning because I was drunk. Next, what happened was at one point, I felt I couldn't stand straight on the dance floor. My mind was completely crushed. Classic. So, I needed to sit quietly, ironically (if you know what snus is...), in a smoking room because that's the only quiet space at the club. Then, I could never forget this Viking dude, Peter. While I felt nauseous and almost sat on the ground, the bald head guy with a big red beard (he really looked like one of the characters in Vikings on Netflix) started talking to me. Don't get me wrong. He was super nice. He comforted me and was there for about 40 minutes until I felt better. But, he kept saying that you should be fine and get back to drinking with your friends. In the end, he even offered me a drug, not medicine... (I didn't take it, though).
Snus, it's a nicotine bomb.
Long story short, my story probably shows you what snus does. If you're not a nicotine addict, it's not recommended. Even if you're, probably not. Nevertheless, more importantly, I think the perception of snus among Danes is slightly different from outsiders like me. That is, snus is more widely accepted here.
In my first entry "Tour de Denmark," I described Danish drinking culture. For me, snus represents another nightlife element in Denmark; namely, social smoking. Social smoking (and snusing) plays a major role in night outs in Denmark. A fun fact is the Queen of Denmark is known as a chain smoker. Compared to the U.S., people are more likely to accept smoking in public. Regardless, I have seen so many friends, guys and ladies, who only smoke when they night out and once they are drunk. A few guys even told me their trick they carry a pack of cigarettes when they night out. This is because there is a higher chance that they can talk to girls in a smoking area than in other areas since girls ask for a cigarette. Isn't it crazy?
Back to the main story. Snus functions the same as cigarettes or beers in Denmark—social lubricant. Probably, the perception among young generations seems that snus is even cooler than them. If you're curious, google "lyft snus." The packaging is very stylish, unlike plain tobacco packaging. Nu ved du det. If you're offered snus, you can either say, "Yo Yo Yo" or "Nej Nej Nej."
Danish Carnival. That is Fastelavn. Many Danes also describe it as a festival for children. This is because it includes trick-or-treating, like Halloween. Although I didn't get any visitors, it seems very common for children to knock on your door on the day of Fastelavn, Sunday the 19th of this year. Some told me they didn't prepare candies, so they had to give some money to those kids who knocked on their doors. This happens with a Fastelavn song. So, it's fun.
Another interesting part of this tradition is slå katten af tønden ("hit the cat out of the barrel"). What? Some people might have an ew face for now. Yes, sounds bad. Don't worry that a cat is not beaten. These days, children hit a barrel full of candy using a stick and try to smash it. It looks like a fun game to engage in in school. Anyway, an outsider like me who didn't know anything about this tradition was a little shocked the first time to hear about it because the name of the game sounds cruel.
As a second time having this tradition, my favorite part is fastelavnsbolle (a sweet roll). Actually, because of this part, I don't understand some Danes say Fastelavn is for kids. Grown-ups definitely enjoy this part of Fastelavn a lot, although I've heard that the competition among bakeries has become a bit ridiculous. In the last decade or so, according to my Danish colleagues, bakeries have created their versions of fastelavnsbolle. Some fastelavnsbolle become almost hypes. How so? People post these fastelavnsbolle on IG. Yes, if it's on IG (just in case, you don't know IG, it stands for Instagram), you know, it's really popular. And, these ones on IG are really expensive. For example, La Cabra Bakery is a famous one in Aarhus and so close to my apartment (a lot of my money has gone there...). Their fastelavnsbolle is absolutely amazing! But, it costs 39DKK, which is roughly US$5.50. And, given that I also buy four pieces of fastelavnsbolle by 30DKK at Føtex (bakery inside a popular grocery store), it's expensive. Nonetheless, their fastelavnsbolle is so tasty—even my Danish friend Bjarke told me it's the best you have had. So, for me, Fastelavn means fastelavnsbolle.
A rainy day
tourists walk through bridges
waterways connect us
A training day
cyclists run through bike lanes
winding paths make our life fulfilled
A running day
boats go through canals
paths channel our next choices
A remaining day
our memory remains between
two sets of timpani
it's not toward a climax
we climate changes
it's not washable
the world with fire now
Godt nytår! Christmas and New Year. Probably the biggest festive season in Denmark just finished. Perhaps some people were tired because of all the family dramas that they wished to press an "unsubscribe" button.
Perhaps some set up new year resolutions that only come true for three days and already want to unsubscribe from the new gym membership.
Perhaps, however, people celebrated these festivities regardless of the level of emotional attachment. Even though I'm not into these festivities, I celebrated them with my friends in Aarhus. Because I visited Japan during this period two years ago, this was the first time I properly experienced Jul and nytår here. Let me share a few things that stuck out in my first experience.
Pakkeleg. This is an exciting gift exchange game. I think Danes are shy and polite. That's why they don't want to take all the gifts without a game. Just kidding. In my view, pakkeleg is actually a very fun, creative way to share gifts with others. The first time I engaged in this game was at a julefrokost (which is translated to Christmas lunch but not really lunch. It's a very long dinner party.) with a bunch of Ph.D. students and postdoc colleagues. While it was fun and I somehow managed to get a gift at the end, what I didn't know was this game could be much more aggressive until I was involved in pakkeleg by a big multigenerational family from the Faroe Islands who visited one of the family members in Aarhus during the Christmas time. On the 26th, I was quietly working on my project at a cafe. Because I sat at the corner of a big table, some other people joined and left the table. At one point, this family joined the table, and I noticed that they had started some game. I ignored what they were doing completely at the beginning. But at some point, they aggressively passed and retrieved gifts from each other (which almost looked like fighting if you didn't know what was going on), and some gifts somehow came over to me! Yes, they were playing pakkeleg! So, each person in this game rolls a die, goes around, and, depending on a die roll, they take action. For example, if you roll a 6, you can take a gift from the pile in the middle or can steal a gift from anyone else who already holds a gift(s). And, if you roll a 3, everyone passes a gift to someone who is on their left. It seems that this family has a special rule where if someone rolls a number (I didn't know which number, though), a gift goes to a stranger that was me! Inevitably, I was affected because regardless of my consent, I was automatically part of their pakkeleg. In the end, thanks to them, I got lipstick and Mentos! I hope I can use lipstick this year.
Queen's Speech. Think of this as Super Bowl. Regardless of whether you care about the Queen, Danes watch her speech on TV at 6 pm on the NYE. And, most Danes engage in the game that they predict what topics she includes in her speech. If you're familiar with Super Bowl party games, it's essentially the same idea. I think this is a nice way for people to pay attention to the speech. Also, compared to the Japanese Emperor's New Year speech, the Danish Queen spoke much about political and personal stuff. The war in Ukraine, the energy crisis, the increases in food prices and rent. Also, her controversial decision to strip some grandchildren of royal titles. This is nothing wrong. It's, in my view, an interesting difference from the Royal engagement to the public. Whereas the Japanese Emperor and his family are much more in shadow, the Danish Queen and royal family are more visible. Nevertheless, I felt this was a must-see tradition in Denmark, in addition to jumping down off of the chairs on New Year's night.
Fireworks. Some readers may say, "Come on, that's too cliché, dude. You can see fireworks anywhere on the NYE." Yeah, I know, but hear me out. I have two keywords for Danish New Year fireworks. Disorganized and unregulated. Unlike Sydney and New York City, Aarhus fireworks were so disorganized. Fireworks are everywhere, anytime between December 27th and January 1st. the level of chaos was, oh my goodness, insane. When I received a heads-up email from the Embassy of Japan in Denmark in advance, I thought, "Oh, it should be fine, nothing serious. But why do they mention blindness?" Then, I saw why some people every year became blind after the fireworks. A few folks also hit fireworks on my apartment windows. Although these fireworks didn't break the windows, they brought me a good surprise. What Danish NYE fireworks unique—I mean, disorganized and unregulated—was drunkness. Danes have huge home parties on NYE, and when they started going out at 12 am on New Year's Day, they were clearly heavily drunk. Imagine that heavily drunk people hold powerful fireworks in one hand and a beer bottle in the other hand. What do you expect? Fun. And my learned lesson from this year is I need good goggles to protect my eyes. Happy 2023!
For a month, I visited Colombia. A colorful country, not a university (mind spelling). Tropical jungle. Tropical birds. Tropical fruits. Beautiful girls. Infamous corruption. Drugs. Gangs. Etc. Etc. Many things make the coutry colorful.
It's often amazing to visit places that I've never been to before because it gives me a sense of differences from the countries in which I spend a lot of time. In particular, I've been living in Denmark since last year. Colombia offers a stark comparison with Denmark.
Climate. It's obvious, yet coming from dark winter time in Denmark. I appreciate how sunny it is in Colombia. Plus, the length of days!
People. It's obvious that Latinos are different from Danes. Yet, once you're surrounded by 99.9% Latinos, and you're the only one from another country, you may feel how they're outgoing and friendly. I think the Danes and Japanese are similar in that sense. Namely, we're shy and polite. Plus, people in Colombia are colorful, I mean skin colors, because of the history of mixing ethnicity. From white to yellow to chocolate to coffee to black. Denmark? Very white.
Food. It's obvious, yet Arepas are the national breakfast. I didn't realize so many kinds of arepas exist. Corn. Flour. With cheese. With chocolate. Etc. Etc. Street food and fruits add more flavors and colors, too (By the way, I have to note that strawberry sushi is a terrible idea). Picada is my fav. Yellow guava juice is the clear winner! I haven't yet seen this amount of variation in Denmark, where kartofler are for every dish.
Clothes. It's too obvious that people wear different clothes since the climates are different. Yet, the choice of colors is something people still can make, regardless of climate. Colombians tend to choose bright colors and clothes with mixed colors. Yellow. Pink. Red. Blue. Green. Etc. Etc. The color palette for clothes in Denmark is quite elegant—black or white. Possibly, gray.
Values. It's not obvious at all that very colorfulness is better or worse than black and white. It's a matter of tastes and perspectives. In reality, 80% of things fall into a gray zone. One last note is that I noticed an interesting moral paradox in Colombia. While people try to cheat rich guys in Colombia, they honestly pay or even give a lot of help to those who are poor. I went to a student street food stand where anyone was taking arepas, chicharron, and empanadas at a glance for free. However, each was actually counting how many pieces they ate and paid the amount by self-declaring at the end. My Colombian friends told me that, in this case, everyone in Colombia doesn't cheat because this type of food stand usually runs by poor people.
November 4th was this year's J-Day. What is J-Day? It's Christmas beer day (Juleøl dag) when Tuborg Julebryg is available at 8:59 pm. This annual festive day takes place on the first Friday of November. According to my friends, this is allegedly the night most Danes go out. It seems so to me. A lot of young Danes were out last Friday.
I also feel this is the day Danes start talking about Julefrokost (Christmas lunch, it's really dinner though). The reason is simple days become shorter and shorter. Consequently, everybody feels depressed - Nordic depression. And, everybody needs parties to have fun and forget the depressing weather and darkness.
Particularly, after daylight saving time ends (the last Sunday of October), I have a hard time waking up as B-menneske (B person). What is a B person? It means I'm a night owl. Danes use A-mennesker (morning larks) and B-mennesker (night owls) to describe the chronotype of people. These days, the sun doesn't come up until 7:40 am, although I feel like the sun doesn't rise until noon because it's raining. Anyway, it's dark in the morning in Aarhus. That's why Danes make fun every weekend from now to Christmas.
Oh one thing I forgot to mention before. Taste of Tuborg Julebryg. I say I'm not a big fan. Regardless, it's a good excuse to go out for a drink with friends! Skål!
Stegt flæsk med persillesovs is Danish national dish according to this 2014 Danish article. It is basically fried pork belly with potatoes and parsley sauce (persillesovs). Very unhealthy. Yet, tasty.
This national dish actually has something to do with elections in Denmark. How? On election night (which is tomorrow), many Danes eat stegt flæsk. Why? My Danish friends who told me about the tradition, unfortunately, had no idea why. But of course, everybody's favorite Wikipedia told us why. This tradition emerged around the 2000s because of "a pun on the derogatory term valgflæsk (election pork) used to describe the lofty promises politicians make during their campaigns." It seems a good reason to eat it tomorrow night since this election happened due to the "minkgate" scandal.
Wait, what? Yes, minkgate. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, because of the fear of spreading and mutating the virus through mink, the Danish government ordered the slaughtering of all 13.5 million mink in the country. Basically, it did kill not only the mink but also the mink farm industry. For the first time, I heard this from a Dane; I was shocked and couldn't believe it. And, the worst thing was that this culling was done illegally for a while. So, this became a scandal. I think every country has something awful and unbelievable. Although I don't want to make any value judgment as an outsider, this scandal is still awful from my perspective. I sincerely hope this election will lead Denmark in a better direction.
However, once I moved to the U.S., I had the chance to visit Canada by boat and then drive back to Seattle from Vancouver. I have to admit it was a strange experience because both border crossings did not occur at the airport. I was shocked since it destroyed my perception of the border as visible. Specifically, crossing the border by boat.
Now, living in Europe is weirder for the borders. Going from one country to another doesn't necessitate passports. For example, I visited Paris at the end of May, flying from Copenhagen, Denmark. There was no passport control at all. It's like I moved from one state/town to another as if it's within the same country. Another interesting case was crossing the border between Denmark and Germany. Although I don't know if this is always the case, this was at least my experience. I took the train from Aarhus to Hamburg, and there was no passport check on the train. However, on the way back to Aarhus, there was a passport check on the train (another time as well).
I know about the Schengen agreement. So, I'm well aware of why passports or visas are not often needed within most EU countries (or, more precisely, Schengen countries). More of my point here is our (maybe only my thought) perception of borders. Borders mean separation, and they connotate two things, at least for me: passports and physical boundaries. In the book "Utopia for Realists," Rutger Bregman discussed the possibility of a borderless world. He particularly emphasized the invention of (modern) passports as a historically recent event, even though we take it for granted these days. The original purpose of passports was to catch spies during the world war. Now it is more likely to be used to control human mobility than catch terrorists. In that sense, I'm privileged to have a Japanese passport because it's the world's most powerful passport according to the Henley passport ranking. As of 2022, I can visit 190 countries without issuing visas. But, this situation is not everyone. Visa issues prevented some of my academic friends from attending some conferences. This is actually more likely to be the sad truth about passports than my Japanese passport story.
Speaking of physical boundaries, one of the most famous examples is the Berlin Wall. My impression of the Wall was shorter than I thought. In other words, they looked easily climbable. However, when I first learned about Berlin Walls in a historic manga (Yes, Japanese kids learned a lot of stuff through mangas, probably more than school textbooks), I felt the Walls were something enormous like the Great Wall in China. This perception of enormousness was based on the historical fact of the Cold War. In my mind, the Berlin Wall was a big symbol of dividing the West and the East, so it must be huge and long. But now 20 something years later for the first time facing the Wall, I was stunned at how small and short the Wall was in reality. My perception just made up and amplified the enormousness of the Wall because of how East and West Berlin were different as two separate countries. In other words, the physical separation doesn't probably need to be huge.
One day, I want to travel around the borderless world. One day, I want to travel around the warless world. One day, I want to travel around the wasteless world.
New school year. My childhood memories of the start day of a new academic year are related to either a rainy day or a cherry blossom day. This is because the new academic year starts at the beginning of April in Japan. Spring. Starts. The Time of New life.
Here in Denmark, the academic year starts in Week 37 (around the last week of August or the first week of September, depending on the year).
This is my second year here, so it's nostalgic to hear disturbing sounds from right in front of my office. If you're not Danish or haven't been a college student in Denmark, it's probably hard to imagine what the Danish college orientation looks like. It's because I couldn't last year.
Just like Japanese school traditions, I would say the Danish college orientation is quite unique. It's unique based on my around-world academic experiences in different countries.
Group dance competition. Yeah, freshmen are divided into some groups, and they practice coordinated dance moves to learn from senior students from 9 am. On top, music is EDM (electronic dance music). And, full volumes from the morning.
That's what I was talking about my nostalgia above.
It's pretty refreshing to witness this style of orientation. The Japanese style of college orientation is quieter. But there is a commonality, too—a lot of drinking. That's what helps nervous freshmen like me loosen up to chat with others, especially with girls.
Life is not always happy. Particularly, yesterday was one of the sad days in Denmark. If you pay attention to the news, you may have heard about the shooting at the shopping mall in Copenhagen. A thing like that happens even in this very safe country.
Personally, I was unhappy last week. This was because I got fished. What? Not online dating though, I got scammed. My story started last Tuesday when I received a text message. This message came from the phone number of my mobile company. So, my guard was lower in the first place. By starting reading the message, my guard was completely down because the message said "Your payment method was declined. Update now to avoid suspension of service." Then, I clicked on the link that was in the message. Ouch. The landing page was also identical to the authentic company login page. At this point, I unfortunately unnoticed anything if this was a scam. Eventually, a couple of typing after, I put my credit card information. I could hear your screaming. Knock out.
Actually, I didn't notice whether I was scammed until the next day. After Wednesday lunch, I received another text message. This time, it was from the bank telling me my card was canceled because of unauthorized use. I was like WTF. And then, I checked my bank account and found out that I was scammed by the transaction I made yesterday.
Now, since losing the only Danish bank card, I've been having a very inconvenient life for the past several days. I can't buy groceries after using all the cash I had because groceries require customers to pay either cards or cash. I can't use MobilePay because it's connected to the card. I can't renew my subscription to the climbing gym membership. The worst, I can't withdraw cash without a bank card. The new card is on its way, but it would take a few more days. Meanwhile, I submitted a dispute form to get the money back from the bank. In particular, despite the blocking and cancellation of the card per se, the bank didn't automatically cancel the transaction. So, the payment was executed! I hope my slight angry complaint will help the money back and pay for a few drinks to alleviate my psychological pain (the payment amount was much more than a few drinks though).
Why am I writing this? Especially after getting my doctoral degree (and its name of the degree), people assume that I'm not dumb. In reality, I'm still dumb sometimes, maybe not often. Even in this trustworthy society, there are scams and crimes. And, we including me want our guard up at all times. But, in reality, we can't. Fishing messages come frequently while we're multitasking on the phone. We need to make the judgment of whether we engage or ignore these messages in the blink of a second. I hope you who read this story until here are not the ones who will get fished. Fingers crossed.
What would be a good predictor of Danish people being outside? Sun. Danes are more so than any other people in my opinion or maybe Scandinavians in general. This is true compared to Japanese and American. At any rate, their obsession with the sun is quite stunning in Denmark.
Danes also don't mind raining. But, long dark days hit them quite hard. That's why Danish winter sounds notoriously awful. After my first winter here, yes, it was bad, yet not as bad as Danes told me. Particularly, six years of Chicago life prepared me for this type of dark winter. Particularly, compared to Chicago, I felt much better here—no gail winds and no negative 30 degrees.
The appreciation of the sun was represented recently. Sankthans (Saint John's Day). It is a midsummer festive where Danes celebrate with bonfire—burning a witch. The actual celebration occurs on June 23rd, which is the eve of Saint John's birthday. It seems that Danes love celebrating on the eve instead of the day. For example, December 24th on Christmas eve is the day Danes celebrate Christmas instead of the 25th. And, Sankthans is conveniently exactly a half year before Christmas. Although the celebration here is much more modest than in Sweden, it's a party day under the sun!
Time flies. I've been living in Aarhus for a year by now since I left Chicago on June 1, 2021, and arrived here on June 2. Outside noises and daylight at 11 pm remind me of this season—long Scandinavian summer. Young folks sing along and drink together in outside gardens. Many use parking lots and bushes downstairs of my apartment building as their pee spots, regardless of gender. It's been a very familiar scene. Of course, I was shocked when I saw the scene for the first time, a drunk blond girl was peeing in front of me in the parking lot.
On a more positive side, I started remembering some of the popular Danish pop songs, such as hjem fra fabrikken and stor mand. Particularly, I call "stor mand" by Tobias Rahim the Aarhus song because the lyrics include Aarhus and every person in this smilets by karaokes it together. You don't need to be at a club to hear the song, just be in this city because you can hear very loud music from outside during weekends—people party together with a music speaker. So, that's been a part of my life here.
And, do I like living in Denmark? The answer is yes. Recently, I went to an academic conference in Paris where I reunited with a lot of old friends and colleagues in the U.S. and they asked me about the question. I happily answered, "Yes, I love living in Denmark!"
There are many reasons for the positive response. One of the main reasons is that I've been enjoying post-pandemic life here. Since the pandemic hit hard in the U.S. in March 2019, I had lived a pretty restricted life in Chicago. I only went outside for grocery shopping and exercise, of course with a face mask. I only hung out with a very limited number of close friends outside. That was my life prior to moving to Denmark. Although I'm an introvert, I can be an ambivert, depending on social situations. So I don't mind hanging out with people most of the time. But, as you might wonder, I'm writing this story on Saturday night, not hanging out. Anyway, my life here is very socialized such that I often hang out with a set of friends weekly—lunch buddies, climbing friends, traveling partner, and a drinking/clubbing crew. And, I'm really happy with this social life, which I believe has had a great impact on my professional productivity too.
On the other hand, I'm not happy with my Danish skills. Well, to be honest, it's not easy for the Japanese in the first place. Nevertheless, I'm still unable to understand basic questions (Come on, dude! I know...) that I have been asked many times. For example, "Vil du have kvitteringen? (Do you want the receipt?)" or "Vil du have en pose med? (Do you need a bag?)" The reason is obviously according to my host mom Joy, I don't have a Danish girlfriend. Joking aside, there is no necessity of using Danish on a daily basis since Danes speak English fluently. At any time, if you hear Danish at a shop or on the phone, you say "I'm sorry," and then the Danish person switches to English. Regardless of whether there is no great demand, it's a shame not to learn Danish as long as I live here. So, my goal for this year is to improve my Danish. It's no doubt that language is a key part of the understanding culture.
Denmark is a flat country. I triple-mean it by flat. One is geographical, another is emotional, and the last is societal.
The geographic landscape of Denmark is remarkably flat. It's like a pancake, except for Aarhus.
Danes are also not known as emotional. Instead, they are seen as a flat affect where it's not easy to guess their emotional states.
Danish organizations (e.g., companies and municipalities) proudly say we're flat. It means a flat hierarchy where everyone can tell anybody in their organization their opinions and ideas regardless of their status and positions. It's great culture. And, I have seen it.
I argue here that all the flatness is a sort of myth. Denmark has hills, not mountains though. Danes express a wide range of emotions, yet they are still one of the happiest people in the world. Organizational decisions are often made by a top-down approach and we sometimes have been left out of final decision processes.
Nonetheless, flat is comparative. I haven't seen any genuinely flat geographic surface lands, emotional people, or society. By "The World is Flat," Thomas Friedman argues that our world has been becoming flatter—more a level playing field for countries and companies to participate in global markets from a historical perspective. Yes, flatter, not flat.
Having said that, Denmark is a flatter country than any other country in which I lived. More importantly, Danes internalize this flatterness as a core value. It might sound strange and you may think that the internalization of a flatter affect sounds bad compared to geographic and societal flatness. But, in my view, it's wonderful because this means that Danes are aware of who they are relative to other Europeans. I've heard from my Danish colleagues several times that they admitted that they're not as emotional as the Italian or Spanish. It's great. With that, I'm flattering Denmark!
Kapsejladsen—can be translated to the regatta or boat race in English—is an annual relay race event at the first week of May at Aarhus University. If you imagine a college rowing regatta at the Cambridges (I mean both the UK and US), you need to wipe out your image. Kapsejladsen is something completely unique and weird. This could be an episode of "We are the champions", which is a documentary series highlighting unique competitions in the globe such as cheese rolling and frog jumping.
So what is Kapsejladsen? It is a team relay race. There are 12 teams and each team represents a department such as medicine, psychology, and business. It consists of five members "(of which both genders must be represented)" according to Wikipedia. The goal of the race is to cross the pond in a kayak boat. On crossing, each must chug one beer bottle as fast as possible, spin around the bottle ten times, and then cross back over the pond. Each of the team's five members repeats this strange set. The fastest team finishing it wins.
An urban myth that I've heard is that some departments take Kapsejladsen very seriously, so team members take a semester off to practice for the race and they put the participation of the race in their resume.
Alright, I hope that you now get the idea of Kapsejladsen. Do you call it the regatta? In my view, it's something entirely different activity. That's why I mentioned the documentary series featuring strange competitions.
Furthermore, Kapsejladsen is not a small event. It's a university-wide and city-recognized event. In recent years, this event attracts over 20,000 drunk students. And, surprisingly, the mayor gives the opening speech of the event. Additionally, Danish famous musicians and comedians come to DJ this festive event. Some German friends also told me that they knew about this event while they lived in Germany. The fame of the event is beyond the country.
If you are a careful reader, you may've noticed that I mentioned drunk students in the previous paragraph. The drunk part deserves a big footnote. Because this is another important part, the event actually starts at midnight on the event day. Students bring camping gear, chairs, and tables and occupy the best spot at the midnight. Then, they start drinking at 2-3 am. I wasn't there that early morning, so according to the people who were there, students took shots together at 6 am. More importantly, the third order of business was a naked run race at noon. Yes, drunk naked students ran around the pond.
I think all and all, Kapsejladsen is what a fun way to celebrate May Day! Next year, come visit here on the first Friday of May.
Yes, I'm talking about—the thing generally considered as—an illegal act of pedestrians crossing the street in disregard of traffic rules (e.g., signals and intersections). How come? It is because I observed that Aarhus people are generally less likely to commit jaywalking than people in other cities that I recently visited.
The start with the worst. Edinburgh. What a beautiful city with historical buildings and exquisite nature. On arrival at the Edinburgh station, the first thing I noticed was jaywalking. People in Edinburgh just didn't hesitate to cross the street regardless of traffic lights. This was irrespective of gender and age as long as I observed. It turned out or as long as I understood during my visit, Edinburgh people didn't care about traffic signals. They looked around the traffic on the street and crossed it whenever cars and buses didn't approach close them. The signals looked like, as Trevor Noah said in one of his comedy sketches, suggestions, not something we need to lawfully follow.
This is interesting to me especially given that I visited Edinburgh after visiting London. Yes, Scotland versus England. Would you say two different countries? Nevertheless, these are two big cities. And, people in London are worse than those in Aarhus but better than those in Edinburgh based on my jaywalking observation.
London people had the same tendency as Scottish. But, maybe because the traffic is heavier in London, they were less likely to commit jaywalking, at least in my observation.
Then, I visited Berlin. Just like Aarhus, Berliners waited for the traffic lights patiently. Of course, I sometimes saw some tourists jaywalking. But, the number of jaywalkers was definitely less than in Edinburgh and London. Moreover, I talked to my collaborators who live in Berlin about this topic of jaywalking. They told me that they don't jaywalk especially when children are around.
Now that we live in a society where CCTV cameras are everywhere, we can, technically speaking, catch every jaywalker. However, depending on the social norms around cities, jaywalking is to some degree justified. That's why I'm curious to see any scientific papers developing Jaywalking Index. There was one paper I found but only measured it in a couple of cities in India. I'd love to see studies comparing the world's major cities because the comparison reveals some important social aspects of cities!
As a closing remark of this entry, I'll share a (horrible) jaywalking story of my (Iranian) friend, Rey, in the United States. Long story short (if you're curious about a long version, Rey talked about it in this podcast episode.), she was hit by a car by jaywalking. This itself was horrible. But, what happened after she was at the hospital was even more horrible (definitely showing a part of racism in the States). The (white) police officers visited her hospital bed and asked her about this incident. Then, they gave her a ticket and court date because she jaywalked!?!? At the end, the court case was dismissed because the driver who hit her didn't show up. All in all, this is an awful story of jaywalking and maybe a cautionary tale for us.
In mid-April, I attended a wedding of my friends in Denmark. This was the first wedding I attended since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Because of the pandemic, a few weddings I was invited were eventually canceled or replaced with Zoom receptions.
Since I've never been married as far as I know (even though I visited Vegas once), I haven't had my own wedding. Probably, I don't want, to be honest. Nevertheless, it's really fun to attend someone else's wedding. No hassle, no stress, no family embarrassment.
The wedding I attended was not 100% Danish one because the lovely married couple is both German and Simon and Sav are more laid back. But, Danish attendees brought up some Danish wedding traditions. One was a game for the couple where they first exchanged one of their shoes (heals vs. shoes) and then a few attendees prepared a set of questions to ask them about their revealing things to each other and answered these questions by raising one of the shoes indicating who each thinks does. For instance, who is more stubborn? Who initiated the relationship? Who is a better cook?
Another was cutting the groom's sock toe as their first dance started. The groom side coordinated a bit in advance and then guys caught the groom and removed a shoe of his, and the best man cut the tip of the sock. The meaning behind this is that the groom now has a wife to fix it. That's at least what I was told.
Another cool tradition related to marriage in Denmark is cinnamon bombing. If you're single at age of 25, your friends celebrate you by tying you to a lamppost or tree on the street and then splaying cinnamon all over you! I saw this fortunate ritual a couple of times and the remnant of cinnamon many times in Aarhus. If you're luckier—30 and still single, cinnamon is upgraded to pepper. Self-nomination is welcome! I look forward to splaying cinnamon and/or pepper over you.
God Påske! Past few weeks, I had some conversations with friends about cultural and personal differences in scheduling and planning. A Colombian friend of mine is, for instance, notoriously spontaneous and operates in a different time perspective from me. Suppose that you meet up with a couple of friends at a train station to catch a 6:05 pm train. You're there on time at 6 pm sharp and a friend maybe arrives 5 minutes earlier than you. However, the other tells you 45 minutes late, even though when you text her at 6 pm she tells you "On my way, I'm running late." And, eventually, you'll miss a few trains to get to the destination. Frustrating. Well, this type of situation is quite common if you hang out with a diverse set of friends (you're tolerant enough to still hang out with them, though). The underlying cause of the situation is somewhat simple; scheduling and planning are often related to the perception of time—whether people in your culture or community are punctual or maybe not. Sometimes, some people arrogantly assume that they can be allowed to be late at all times, though (This is obviously another issue).
In particular, this issue of the time perception frequently comes up when you hang out with international friends. That's the exact situation where I use the term structured spontaneity, which refers to a few pre-planned schedule that creates a structure but within the the structure, we enjoy as spontaneously as possible. The structured spontaneity is something I've been practicing (?) or at least doing for a long time since I started hanging out with many international friends. I think this type of thinking is useful for a few reasons. One, because unlike Japanese friends, a lot of international friends have different perceptions of time, which made me frustrated at the beginning. For instance, . Two, unlike living in Tokyo, many places like Jakarta and Los Angels make it almost impossible to predict when you exactly will be at your destination due to insane traffic and lack of reliable public transport. Accepting the norms and backgrounds of people is important instead of forcing our norms on others. Three and foremost, I've become more spontaneous by adapting to my friends' behavior. And, I feel more fun than frustrated! Consequently, structured spontaneity is something very convenient—alleviating my stress but improving my joy.
The key ingredients for structured spontaneity are (a) priorities and (b) limited planning parts. Although the word "priority" already connotates the second key point, I still have to emphasize it because we tend to create more priorities than what we can prioritize. Here, I'll give you an example of priorities for traveling—obviously for other occasions too such as hanging out and more formal meetings. For example, when you travel somewhere else, just focus on one thing per day. If you fly out, prioritize the flight. Anything else that happens on that day is extra. If you book a table at a nice restaurant, that's the highlight of the day. Other things you do on that day are again not priorities and extra. I think this type of mindset often helps especially during travels because we often visit places where we have little idea. This means that we cannot control everything around us since we're not familiar with many things in the place. And, that's also the purpose of traveling—experiencing something that is not normal in our daily life.
Now, during this Easter, I've been traveling and hanging out with some friends in the UK, such as London and Edinburgh. Structured spontaneity is a perfect way to go with the flow and make me calm down like Zen.
Finally, I should mention the time perception in Denmark. If you are in Denmark, you have to be punctual. I thought time punctuality is only in the reign of Germany and Japan. But værsgo! Here is another country where people really follow the time punctuality. Danes are quite punctual. If a meeting starts at 9 am, people are there at 9 and it starts on time. So, this is the easiest part of my adjusting to the Danish culture so far!
Uge 7. If you don't live in Denmark, you probably have no idea of what "Week 7" means at all. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was the same. But I know what Week 7 means now. Winter vacation.
It's quite refreshing to see that people take a week off shortly after the Christmas and New Year breaks. When I heard from my Danish teacher that she was going to be on holiday to Spain in Week 7 and consequently, we won't have classes during the week, I (including my classmates based on their facial expression) couldn't comprehend the information aside from no classes. However, after hearing about the same thing from other Danes, Week 7 has now deeply registered my mind.
Danes use this week numbering system daily. I sometimes overheard chats among Danes or expats, who live here for long enough or have kids in school, mentioning Week 15, Week 26, and Week 42. Week 15 and Week 16 are Easter break in April. Week 26 is a part of Summer break. Danes are really taking vacation during this period from mid-June to mid-August. Week 42 is potato week in mid-October. Potato week? Yes, it's been an official school holiday since 1899! Anyway, these specific weeks are apparently related to holiday weeks in Denmark.
Now, I'm curious about this week numbering, so I Googled it. And, I found this Danish website that explains how to officially determine week numbering for each year since every four years has an extra day. Well, it's time for me to schedule my next trips during these holidays. Hej hej!
One word card is Demark. Another is Japan. If you're playing Codenames and these cards are your team's, which one-word clue would you give to your teammates to make a connection between the two words? Note that you couldn't use "country," "nation," "flag," "drinking," or "seafood" because these clues create a chance in which your teammates may pick up a card of the other team or the assassin card.
My point of this exercise is that if you're not familiar with these two countries, you may think that they seem very different. In other words, your first impression of them is probably more different than similar. Nonetheless, I argue here that these countries are quite similar in my experience, despite many obvious differences that we can easily name up, such as languages, geography, population, political systems, history, and so on. Now, you may be curious about what I'm going to say, so let's dig it into.
The keyword is social structure. By social structure, I mean the patterns of social interactions and composition. Patterns emerge from people interacting with each other and choosing to live in certain places over time. In other words, patterns are, for instance, like trails, not roads. When you're in the forest, you find a trail to follow. It emerges from passways where people and animals pass through wilderness over time. The same thing happens in societies. Cities emerge and segregation within them also emerges over time.
In the case of Denmark and Japan, people tend to interact with similar others and form similar patterns of social practices. For example, people tend to pursue the same fashion trend and as a consequence, they wear the same kind of clothes. If you come visit Copenhagen or Tokyo, you may see many people wearing the same jackets or shoes. Plus, they look alike in terms of ethnicity and race.
In addition to outlooks, if you talk to people in both countries, you may realize that their topics of conversations tend to be quite inward-looking, meaning that they talk about their domestic and local affairs, not outside or international ones. This is not because they are not interested in the rest of the world. Instead, the news media in these countries really focus on local news of what happens in Denmark or Japan.
These facts lead to one word that I can use to describe both societies, homogeneous. Danes look homogeneous. Japanese look homogeneous. I mean, both outlooks and inner mindsets are homogenous in each of the two countries.
Homogeneity also leads to another similarity between the two countries. That is humbleness; more precisely, people are afraid of standing out and being different from others. For example, Danish colleagues told me that Danish politicians are trying to show how normal they are by posting their DIY projects and family BBQ on Instagram. For someone who lived in the U.S. for a number of years, this is pretty weird. Why would you do such a stupid thing/effort? But, once I put on a Japanese hat, it makes a lot of sense because the same thing happens in Japan. People try not to show off and don't want to be someone who is an outlier from the rest of the groups.
This strong norm enforcement can be summarized by this phrase in Japan, "If everyone crosses against the red light, then there's nothing to be afraid of." This phrase is pretty famous and said by Takeshi Kitano who is known as a comedian and award-winning movie director. In other words, as long as people do the same thing, it's fine even if it breaks rules. However, if someone deviates from the rest, then you may often hear about another phrase in Japan, "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down." This is certainly true. I personally have witnessed it many times at so many different levels, such as classroom, school, village, and society. Many outstanding people are very often ostracized just because they are not like others. By seeing it again and again, I feel that we're traumatized to be different, even not think different.
Recently, I've heard about a similar notion in Denmark called "the law of Jante." This came from a novel "A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks" by Aksel Sandemose. Frankly speaking, I haven't read the novel. But, I've read about the ten rules from the book "The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About the Nordic Miracle" by Michael Booth. The author takes a quite sardonic view towards "Scandinavian countries," including Denmark (Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden), and describes his before-during-and-after experience of these countries. One thing that caught my special attention was the ten rules in the law of Jante. This was because I thought as if they perfectly summarized the Japanese society. For instance, the first rule states, "You're not to think you are anything special." Wow, this is exactly the Japanese mindset. Although I'm not Danish nor haven't been long enough to claim whether the law of Jante reflects to the current Danish society, it's interesting for me to see similar societal attitude and values to Japan in this Scandinavian country. I end this story here this time, but I may edit it later. Vi ses næste gang!
It seems interesting that every country I've lived in so far has different things that come and don't come with apartments. I mean, I'm talking about apartment stuff, such as appliances, when I rent apartments. A major struggle I've had in Denmark is ceiling lights, which don't come with my current apartment, except for the bathroom. This seems very common in Denmark because lamps and lights are something Danes really care about and take with them when they move out.
I'm a person who has lived in many different forms of arrangements, compared to average people whom I've interacted with, such as a proper house with my parents, a tiny apartment alone in Tokyo, a decent-size apartment in the U.S. with a roomie, a huge host-family house in the U.S., dorms in Japan and the U.S., a shipping container studio in Australia, and so on. The ceiling light issue got me think about things that don't come with apartments. And, these things actually, in my view, reflect some forms of cultural values or living style in the countries. For instance, a washing machine is one of the items we need to buy when we move into a new apartment in Japan. In the U.S. or at least Chicago, washers and dryers are very often in the shared laundry room in the apartment building, not in the apartment unit. It's quite challenging to find in-unit laundry for rented apartments in Chicago unless you can afford it. Consequently, I hadn't had laundry in unit for a long time.
So, when I moved to Aarhus, one thing I couldn't compromise was indeed in-unit laundry! My current apartment has a washer and dryer in the unit. As far as I know, it seems very common in apartments here to have both a washer and dryer. By the way, a lot of Japanese people don't use or have a dryer even if their washing machine has a dryer function or they can afford to buy a dryer. Instead, they hang clothes outside, which seems common in southern Europe (e.g., Spain and Italy) too.
Having said that, apartment appliances interestingly reflect cultural values and practices to some extent. When I had conversations about this topic of the ceiling light issue with friends and colleagues, I've learned about additional interesting things. For example, people in Germany move into and out with the kitchen. In the Netherlands, people move into and out with floor!? Now, I'm very curious to live in these countries. Hvem er dig?
These days, cell phones (or called mobile phones in your country) are essential for our life. Obviously, I'm feeling some symptoms of nomophobia - the fear of not having a cell phone. Indeed, I'm constantly checking emails, news, weather, YouTube, and Instagram of celebrities and corgi butts on my phone. Probably, so are you. Particularly, when I travel, Google Maps becomes my best buddy. No Google Maps, no more travels.
Nonetheless, I was actually trying not to use many mobile apps in the U.S. My iPhone was able to display all my apps on the only home screen without any folders (see here if you're unsure what I'm talking about). That being said, not many mobile apps were essential in the U.S. or in general in my life before Denmark.
Now, if you're thinking of visiting or moving to Denmark, be prepared that your KonMari-ed home screen is over. Many Danish local apps are happy to join your cell phone! I was a little bit culture shocked that many services in Denmark take for granted that customers use certain Danish mobile apps. For example, MobilePay. It's a payment service app where you can send and receive money with friends and companies, similar to PayPal and Venmo. But, it's super crucial in Danish life - almost mandatory to have unlike PayPal and Venmo. A few weeks ago, I went to a barber to have my hair cut for the first time since I moved to Denmark. Up until then, I paid everything using my U.S. credit card. So, I assumed that I could do the same at the barber shop. However, it turned out that it only accepted either cash or MobilePay. Neither did I have cash nor MobliePay then. Consequently, I decided to run away from the barber without paying. No, just kidding, even though I thought of it at the moment. Instead, I texted Tunde, a friend, who previously told me that her boyfriend's hobby is collecting bank notes and they are one of few Danish households who holds cash. And, I borrowed cash from her and paid the barber. Phew.
Denmark is a cashless society. In fact, until the barber's cash moment, I hadn't seen people using cash nor Danish bank notes at all. And, MobilePay plays a major role in the cashless society. You can use it anywhere, for instance, at farmers' markets and probably 99% of Danish services. So, your decision to make in Denmark will be either having cash at all times or installing MobilePay.
If my story ends here, the title of this entry would be "How Mobile MobilePay is" or "I've sold my soul to MobilePay over cash." Anyway, as a result of facing other inconvenient events, I've downloaded many other apps since I came to Denmark. Here is my list:
This is a moment of every year that all the cyclists are excited and watch TV instead of cycling. Tour de France. It's an annual bicycle race in France, including 21 different stages over the course of 23 days. It's notoriously challenging. And, the leader of the race wears a yellow jersey.
Danish people seem obsessed with cycling. They are proud of bicycle-friendly cities—bike lanes everywhere, at least in Aarhus where I live. So, they care about Tour de France, not all of them though.
However, the most important inspiration Danes get from Tour de France seems to me the yellow jersey. If you live in Denmark, you might probably react like, "We don't wear the yellow jersey." Yeah, I know. Here, I'm no longer talking about cycling. I'm talking about Danish second obsession—drinking.
I was a bit shocked with Danish drinking culture as soon as I moved to Denmark. This was partly because my timing of the move collided with Danish high school graduation. Just give you a bit of extra information. I'm from Japan, which is infamous for a workaholic and excessive drinking culture. Even from my perspective, drinking in Denmark is extremely wild. Just be clear for the U.S. people. The legal purchase age for beer and wine in Denmark is 16 years old (although the legal drinking age at bars and restaurants and for hard liquor is 18 years old). You see, young people are drinking at public parks in Denmark day and night.
The culmination of this drinking culture is, in my opinion, high school graduation. If you have seen Another Round, you know what I mean here. After graduation, high school graduates rent a truck together and go on a drinking tour with their fellow graduates for three days. They stop by each person's house and eat and drink each time. Can you imagine if your house is the last stop and your parents are there? That's what I call "Tour de Denmark." It seems torture for your liver. If you are in Denmark during this period, you hear all the noises from the truck and graduates. Also, each truck selects the winner each day by counting how many units of alcohol graduates drink. The winner gets the yellow jersey: Godt gået, Danes.