Twenty Years After

Reflections on an anniversary.

This week marks the 20^th anniversary of my arrival in Denmark.  Not bad for what was supposed to have been a 12-month visit.

I spent a lot of time wondering how to commemorate the occasion and couldn’t think of anything clever, so I’m just going to stoop to the medium and mark the event with a listicle of Twenty Things I’ve Learned During My Twenty Years in Denmark.

Here we go.

Europe isn’t what I thought it was.

I’d studied French for six years in public school and France was the only continental country I’d visited, so I’d imagined the rest of Europe was basically an extrapolation of France: Berlin would just be Paris with a German accent and the Swedish coastline would be like Normandy with more blondes.  I figured the differences between Greece and Ireland, or Hungary and Portugal, would be on the same scale as the differences between Massachusetts and Arizona, say, or California and Kansas.

Because I’m an idiot.

France isn’t the only country that produces wine.

I’d always believed that any European wine produced outside of France was just glorified vinegar, mostly because the only wines I ever drank were either French or American.  A vacation on Lake Garda in 2007 forced me to drink a lot of northern Italian wines.  They were very good. As a reasonable man, I had to acknowledge that perhaps French wine wasn’t as superior as I’d thought it was.  I therefore made a habit of drinking the local wines in every subsequent country I visited.  And what do you know?  Portugal has some good wines, too! 

Unfortunately, my new found open-mindedness induced me to sample the local wines of Germany, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Whereveria.

Oops.

France, Italy, and Portugal are the only countries that produce wine in Europe.

(Go ahead and hate me in the comments, haters: I’m a whiskey man anyway.)

Soccer is just as boring in Europe as it is in America.

I thought that living Europe would somehow reveal the genuine excitement of soccer to me.  I thought being surrounded by people who took the sport seriously might through some sorcery or osmosis saturate me with an appreciation for the game.

Because I’m an idiot.

Twenty years on, and I still don’t understand anyone’s fascination with the sport.  It’s not that I don’t appreciate the athleticism of its players, I just don’t see the point of a sport whose ninety-minute matches often end scoreless or in ties, or scoreless ties, and where tournament tiebreakers are settled not by extending game time but with a carnival game of one-on-one free shots.

Team handball, on the other hand—there’s a game that’s fast, high-scoring, and even a little violent.  America needs to get serious about handball, because that’s a real sport.

Politics hasn’t corrupted everything here.

Okay, politics corrupts everything everywhere, so let me rephrase that: politics hasn’t infected every aspect of civic and social life in Denmark (yet), nor have I seen signs of it despoiling social life in the other European countries I’ve been to (which includes at least 14 on the continent). 

The everything-is-political virus has reached European soil and there are certainly plenty of Europeans who are just as angry and hateful and spoiled as their American peers, but the people of Europe can still sing their anthems and wave their flags without being accused of genocide, and Marxists and Christian Conservatives still shop at the same stores, watch the same news programs, laugh at the same jokes, and go to the same restaurants.

For now.

Europeans can also disagree with their colleagues on politics without finding themselves redirected to HR for having failed to honor someone’s pronouns or having neglected to genuflect appropriately before the necessary idols.

For now.

America’s first amendment is more important than I thought it was—and becoming less so every day.

I’d always thought the entire western world had embraced the principle of free speech, given that it’s such an obvious and necessary condition to a society of free and self-governing people. 

Because I’m an idiot.

Americans are the only citizens of the world whose government is explicitly prohibited from imposing any restrictions at all (“Congress shall pass no law…”) on their ability to speak freely.

Unfortunately, or therefore, American corporations have stepped up to fill the censorship void.  Their globalist yearnings demand as much.

Different markets have different standards, and any company seeking to operate in all markets therefore has to meet all the lowest common denominators… which means we all end up subjected to the most restrictive laws out there, rather than the most liberal—and that doesn’t just apply to speech.

And that’s how and why the liberal globalists have become such repressive bastards.

The question is: how much darker could Danish humor be? The answer is none. None darker.

If you take your humor the way you take your coffee, and you take your coffee as black as the infamous album cover in Spinal Tap, then Denmark is your comedy nirvana.

Only in Denmark could an animated movie about children include a child suicide—and treat it as a bit of comedic business.  Only in Denmark could such a movie inspire a sequel (and a threequel), and only in Denmark would that sequel open with a child slave being beaten to death with a stick.

And make audiences laugh their asses off.

While working at Nordisk Film about ten years ago I learned that the first movie in the franchise, Terkel in Trouble, had never found an overseas audience because foreign distributors wouldn’t touch it—and that included the guys selling bootleg DVDs on Manhattan corners. (This was back in the before times when movies had to be “distributed” rather than uploaded to a streaming service.)

“We can’t even sell it to Norway or Sweden,” I was told.  “They don’t think child suicide is appropriate in an animated comedy.”

Because they’re idiots.

Breasts are awesome.

My first few summers in Denmark I was awed by the number of women going topless at the beach and even when simply sunning themselves in public parks.  I won’t pretend my appreciation had anything to do with aesthetics or feminism, I just really enjoyed all the breasts. 

The female body is a lovely thing that I’ll never tire of viewing in all its natural splendor.

Danish women seem to be getting more modest with every passing year, however, which was a great disappointment to me until I had teenaged daughters.

Because I’m a hypocrite.

Danish flæskesteg sandwiches are the best.

Put some warm pork roast slices (including the crunchy, salty, fatty rind) on some good bread, slather it with remoulade and pickled red cabbage, maybe even some pickle slices and pickled red onions, and you’ve got a sandwich worthy of the gods.

The Philly steak-and-cheese is a good sandwich, but it’s a sad and paltry thing beside the Danish flæskesteg sandwich.

Danish food is pretty damn good.

Before I moved here all the guide books I read warned me against the Danish cuisine.  Very boring, they said.  Very drab.  A meat and potatoes culture with an unimaginative cuisine.

Everybody said so. 

Because they were idiots.

Within a few years Danish cuisine was the hot new thing, and Noma was being crowned as best restaurant in the world by everyone who kept track of that kind of thing.

Because they weren’t idiots.

There are some staples of Danish culture that take a while to get used to. 

One of my favorite Danish sandwiches is Dyrelægens Natmad: “The Veterinarian’s Night Meal.”  Slice of Danish rye, layer of leverpostej (liverwurst), and aspic and minced red onion on top.

Another good one is the Stjerneskud, or “Shooting Star.” Slice of white bread supporting a breaded or battered fish filet, topped with little Greenland shrimp and caviar (and sometimes asparagus), garnished with a slice of lemon and a dollop of mayo.

It didn’t take me long to appreciate those, but my kids had been getting torskerogn with remoulade on rye bread in their lunchboxes for years before I dared even taste the stuff.  Torskerogn is cod roe and most often comes in a can, like spam.  With a similar consistency.

My learning curve on fiskedeller—fish meatballs—was also an extended one.

Weirdly, the one food Danes think they’ve really mastered to absolute superiority is the hot dog.  There’s nothing wrong with Danish hot dogs, nothing at all, but I’ve never understood the Danes’ dogged insistence that no one else in the world can make a proper hot dog.  Herself has lived in some of America’s great sausage and hot dog cities, including New York, Chicago, and Green Bay, and still retains her own stupid prejudice that nothing compares to a Danish hot dog.

(I won’t say “Because she’s an idiot,” even though it would be thematically appropriate, but she needs to get over that.)

Americans don’t know bread.

I know there are bakeries in America where one can get “good” bread.  There may even be more than one such bakery in its larger cities.  But by and large American bread, even fresh bakery bread—even the fresh bread from that one awesome bakery you sometimes drive eight miles to because their sourdough is to die for—is hardly even worthy of the name by Danish standards.

Americans seem to have this idea that the best European bread is French.  Marketers have capitalized on that forever: it’s why Au Bon Pain isn’t called Gutes Brot or Bom Pão.  But France is no damn good at bread.  The French excel at pastry, and that’s a totally different thing.  If you want bread made of actual bread, forget about France and come to Denmark.

(On the other hand, Danish croissants are almost always just croissant-shaped bread, and even the finest Danish bakers seem to struggle with the baguette—and Danes wouldn’t know a ficelle from a crowbar.)

I do not include bagels in the category of bread.  Bagels are different.  They’ve become quite popular in Denmark but there are no good bagels here, any more than there’s any good bread in America.

Fresh air is good but air conditioners wouldn’t hurt.

Danes have a kind of mania for fresh air.  They’re always airing things out, going for walks, kicking their kids out of the house.  When Eldest was an infant, I expressed some concerns to my doctor:

“My wife keeps putting our daughter out in her pram to sleep in the fresh air, even when it’s below zero and snowing.  That’s crazy, right?  I mean, I know fresh air is good and all, but not in this weather.  Right?  Can I tell her you told me we should keep the baby inside at least until it’s above freezing again?”

The doctor stared at me as if I’d asked when I should get the baby started on bourbon and cigarettes.

“There’s almost nothing better she can do for your daughter,” she said.  “Does the baby sleep when she’s outside?”

“Yes.”

“And the pram has a hood, a cover?”

“Obviously.”

“And you check on your daughter when she’s out there?”

“Constantly!”

“You know to feel the back of her neck?  And it’s warm?”

“Sizzling.”

“So what’s your concern?”

“It’s freezing out there!”

“Yes,” she said.  “The air is very fresh this time of year.  My only message to your wife is to keep up the good work.”

The fondness for fresh air becomes manic in summer because Danes have nothing but contempt for air conditioning.  Most years only have a week or two in July where air conditioning would even be useful, but now and then we get an extended period of actual summer weather, or even a genuine heat wave, and there’s no relief to be had.  People just toss off as much clothing as they can, open all their windows to let the searing fresh air in, and bitch about the heat that they’ve been begging for all year.

You’re on your own.

All the way back in the 80s it was already a staple of American comedy how risk averse America had become as a culture: comedians joked about tags on toasters and hair dryers warning consumers not to immerse them in water, for example.  Hahaha, amirite?  “Whattaya mean I can’t make toast in the bathtub?”  Har har har! 

Things just kept getting worse, all in the interest of protecting Americans from themselves.  Playgrounds got foam padding, coffee cups began warning that their contents were hot, guard rails and security ropes were put in place anywhere any American might inadvertently wander into injury or death.  Our electoral system was even “fortified” enough to allow senile old dotards to run for president from their basements—and win!

There’s none of that in Denmark.  Nor even most of continental Europe.  It’s very liberating, as an American, to find yourself suddenly responsible for your own well-being.  You want to walk out to the edge of the cliff?  Ain’t no one gonna stop you.  Kid fall off the jungle gym?  That’s gonna hurt.  Want a nice hot cuppa joe?  We won’t insult your intelligence by telling you the coffee is hot.

Even if it’s really, really hot.

Before I ever set foot in Denmark I got in big trouble at the Marcel Proust museum in France because there were no velvet ropes giving me the necessary prompts as to where I could and could not go: as our tour guide moved into the next room, I asked my French friend to get a picture of me lounging on Marcel Proust’s bed, which he did. Suddenly the tour guide returned and read me the riot act (which sounds even worse when it’s l'acte d'émeute).

“How was I supposed to know I shouldn’t lie in his bed?” I asked.

“Because you’re an adult,” the tour guide said.

Case closed.

It's actually counter-intuitive.  Wasn’t America supposed to be the home of the rugged individual?  Isn’t Denmark supposed to be the great social collective where everyone is looking out for everyone else?

Pain is a great teacher—often the best.  A stubbed toe is nature’s way of telling you to watch where you’re going.  A scalded mouth is nature’s way of telling you to test something’s temperature before bringing it to your lips.  A fatal fall off a steep cliff is nature’s way of protecting our gene pool.

It’s good to have a king.

It’s nice to have a symbolic head of state to represent one’s country: someone who is constitutionally required to remain aloof from the actual governance of the country, and who is prohibited from sullying him- or herself from the slime of partisan politics. Someone acknowledged by every political faction as the face their nation rightly turns to the world.

It's nice to have a friendly and familiar face that can address the nation as its conscience: that can boost the people when they’re feeling glum and temper their enthusiasm when they’re getting carried away.  Someone who can be sent off to the Olympics or a World Cup or a State Funeral to represent the nation without half the country wanting to die of shame.

A dignified and mostly well-behaved royal family like Denmark’s House of Glücksburg is a boon to its people.

For the first few years I lived here, whenever I was asked what I thought of the queen or the royal family I would cheerfully declare, “Off with their heads!”

Because I’m an idiot.

I’d never describe myself as a monarchist, but I’ve come to believe that the establishment of some kind of non-political figurehead would be a great boon to America.  It would have to be a hereditary office, because introducing any measure of choice into the process would inevitably make it political.

Surely there’s got to be at least one person left in America who almost all Americans like—someone who’s uniting instead of polarizing, someone any American would trust to babysit their kids or walk their dog or pick up their dry-cleaning.

Or, if not, surely we could just choose some random baby and coronate it?

Donald Duck is the hero, Mickey Mouse is the zero.

It’s a long and wonderful story, but there’s no time for that here.  The most beloved Disney cartoon character in Denmark is not Mickey Mouse but Donald Duck.

Most Danes over the age of 40 grew up reading Donald Duck comic strips written and illustrated by Carl Banks (or his successors).  And most of their children have grown up being forced to watch the Donald Duck cartoons and read the Donald Duck comics their parents grew up on because that’s what parents do.

Because we’re obnoxious.

There’s something culturally significant in Denmark’s having chosen the angry, cranky, envious, spiteful duck over the eager-to-please rodent that Americans embraced as Disney’s star, but you’ll have to work that on your own because we’re only on number fourteen and it’s getting late.

In any case, I’m with Denmark on this one.

Rivendell is lovely but it can’t defend itself.

Did I say Rivendell?  I meant Denmark.

Denmark’s armed forces can be snapped on to a NATO or other international force for foreign action, but they’re incapable of doing much of anything on their own—and that includes defending their own country.

Denmark has, like Blanche Dubois, chosen to depend upon the kindness of strangers.

This saves Denmark a fortune on defense, which is nice.

But defenselessness is hardly a virtue.  It’s great in times of peace, but when the shit hits the fan—

Aw, who cares.  The shit’s never gonna hit the fan, and even if it does America’s got our back.

Right?

I can count.

I really can, so I know there are only fifteen items on this listicle, but that’s because here in Denmark we use the metric system, and 15 is the metric equivalent of the American 20. I forgot to point that out earlier.

Because I’m an idiot.

Over the course of this year I’ll dedicate an entire Substack article to each of these observations as a comemmoration of my twenty years in Denmark.

(Most of them, anyway: I’m not sure “Breasts are awesome” needs an entire article—maybe a pictorial would suffice?)