Little Lessons in Danish Culture

This past week has been fairly low-key. It's been a nice change from the jam-packed days I've had lately. However, last Tuesday was rather exciting because I got to go out and eat with a bunch of American and Danish students. I signed up for a program called The Buddy Network. Basically everyone who signs up gets assigned to a group of about fifteen fellow DIS students and a few Danish students and they get to do a lot of fun activities with their group throughout the semester. And the best part is that it's all paid for by DIS. So my group meet for the first time last Tuesday night and we all went out to dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant. It was so much fun to get to talk to more Danish people my age. There was one girl who was 23 and was super cute. She's studying Spanish this semester and then plans to study French next semester and when she gets to college, she wants to study English. I was impressed. Especially because her English was pretty good already. It was cute because she started talking about how tired it makes her to speak in English for such a long time and how she was going to crash when she got home. Good thing it seemed like she was enjoying herself. She and I also bonded a lot over awkward encounters where someone says hi to you and you have no idea who they are. I was telling her how I look a lot like my mom and, when I'm home, some of her neighborhood friends that I don't know will say hi to me or mistake me for her and I just pretend to know them. Apparently she has the same problem as well as the same solution. Also, good news, there were absolutely no spiders involved in this encounter!

On Wednesday Izabel had to go on a field study in the morning so I went into the city with her and power walked around for four hours. See, exercising has been a bit of a problem here. I went from exercising nearly everyday this summer, to hardly ever here. And for some reason, I just can't seem to get into running here (you'd think I would because Izabel is a runner). So, with four hours to myself in the city, the only logical solution to me was to turn it into a mega power walking session. It was wonderful! I ended up going to a lot of places we had already seen but it was really nice to be able o see everything again.
While I was walking, I came across these two older Asian men who were staring at a map with clearly no idea of where they were. So I slowed down to see if I could help them. Well, it turns out I could, and boy was I the right person for them. They came over to me and immediately started speaking in Japanese. They didn't even try to speak in English. Maybe they assumed I was Danish and didn't try it because they couldn't speak Danish. But anyway, they asked me where they were and I thought, "Oh, you speak Japanese? Well not to worry, I'll just respond to you in Japanese". It was great. I got to tell them where we were and give them directions in (very rusty) Japanese with a few English words thrown in. And it wasn't until the end of the conversation that they processed the fact that I was half speaking in Japanese. Towards the end one of the men said "Oh, you speak Japanese?!" (in Japanese of course). I was really happy to be able to help them and it was a really cool fusion of three unlikely cultures. An American student who knows Copenhagen well enough to give directions but says them in Japanese. There was something about that cultural fusion that was really amazing to me. And it was definitely the best event of the day.

Pictures from my power walk!

Frederiksborg Palace Grounds

 

Cool old fashioned windmill that doesn't actually work

 

I was amazed by how clear the water was in this park especially because it's in the middle of the city

 

Swans in yet another lake

 

Really awesome ship  in the harbor. It made me think of my dad and youngest brother. Maybe they could tell me what it is.

Although I didn't to a ton on Thursday, I did get to go back to Capella (the Danish after school program I observe at once a week).  I was also able to pick up some of the kids from their school a few blocks away. An adult stands at each corner between Capella and the school the children attend in the morning. Then each child checks in at their school and walks to Capella by themselves. They're not required to walk with an adult and the only rules they have are not to play in the street and to walk their bikes and scooters instead of riding them. And when the students reach Capella, they check off their name on a sign in sheet. I was talking to one of the adults about this and she said the reason they let the kids walk by themselves is so that they learn to be careful and pay attention to their surroundings. In may ways, this makes a lot of sense to me. Also, Danish caregivers can't get sued like they can in the US. Due to this, Danish caregivers are able to give children a lot more room to grow and make mistakes. This explains why kids can use sewing needles and knives at school. It also means that Danish caregivers don't interfere in conflicts between students as much. They give students a lot of room to work things out on their own and if that doesn't work, then the adults will step in. Also, the place I visit has about a million and one things for the students to do and because there's no structure, the kids can choose what they want to do. This means that kids are really engaging in what they want to and because of that, can have a sense of accomplishment. Both engagement and accomplishment are two factors in a positive psychology theory of well-being called PERMA. It stands for Positive Emotion, Engagement, (Positive) Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. I'm really fascinated this relationship between the Danish school system and positive psychology.

On Friday Britta went to a friend's house for dinner which naturally meant she wouldn't be back until 11pm at the earliest. Izabel and I took advantage of that to have a relaxing evening watching a movie on the couch. And this is a big deal. The couch is kind of Britta's space. Actually, Izabel and I view the entire living room as an extension of Britta's room because whenever she's home, she's always laying there and watching TV and doing crafts. Izabel and I don't really spend much time in there and when we do, we don't get to sit on the couch. A few weeks ago we watched a movie with Britta and when we went to sit on the couch she basically told us she was going to lay down there and we had to sit on the chairs instead. I wasn't a big deal and Izabel and I didn't really care but it did make sitting on the couch on Friday night really exciting. Sadly, it wasn't quite as comfortable as it looked.

Saturday was spent shopping around the city... without buying anything. Another way in which Izabel and I are really similar is that we wait to buy things until we've seen all that's out there and we only buy things unless we absolutely love them. So it will probably be a while before either of us actually purchase something big.

Then on Sunday a bunch of Britta's colleagues were meeting up for a picnic and campfire of sorts and Izabel and I got to tag along. It was both fun and awkward. Most of Britta's colleagues are younger and have children under the age of eight and while it was nice to meet them and their children, none of the children spoke any English... so they pretty much ignored us. The adults also didn't really say much to us either. This was probably a combination of then not being really good at English and their culture. It's not really a Danish thing to talk to strangers at all. Even though we had been introduced, it's not really in their culture to go out of their way to try and talk to newcomers and make them comfortable. As a reslut, Izabel and I just enjoyed observing for the most part. Though there was one Dane who actually did go out of his way to talk to us a little. It was probably because he had a lot of friends in the US so he knew a little bit more English and about our culture. Even though we didn't talk a ton, we were still able to connect with everyone there on some level. When we made a fire and cooked bread, the wind kept blowing smoke into everyone's eyes. At one point, pretty much everyone was crying from the smoke in their eyes and everyone was just laughing about it.
Also, during the afternoon, I kept hearing people saying something that sounded distinctly like "spider". Pretty much every time I heard it, I looked up from what I was doing. When I finally asked Britta about it she laughed at me and then proceeded to explain that the word they were saying means "scout" (as in Boy Scout). Well the Dane who had been talking to us earlier heard this conversation and of course Britta gave him context by telling him about my fear of spiders. He adopted a very serious expression and told me that I had to be really careful about all the poisonous spiders here. For a split second I believed him. And even though it was only a split second, I guess I still looked petrified...which everyone found to be really amusing. So even though no actual spiders were involved, they still managed to creep their way into the conversation. 

 

Me drinking tea and most likely burning my tongue

 

Baking bread!

 

Me and Britta eating bread. A lot of people take the bread off the stick and put ketchup and a hotdog in the hole. I just eat the bread.  :)

 

Everyone around the fire

Another thing I've noticed about the Danes is that they don't say "hi" to each other on the street. They actually don't really make eye contact at all. This particular cultural aspect has been particularly difficult for me to adjust to. It's easy enough for me to try not to be awkward and make eye contact all the time but the hard part is that I really want to.  I really miss these small interactions with total strangers. For some reason, I really love those small moments when two people who don't know each other at all are able to connect even on a very basic level.  Moments like that make me really happy and it's hard not really having that here. Before coming here, I never realized how much I make eye contact with people on the street or say "hi". Tourists are about the only people who will consistently make eye contact with you.