Denmark for Dummies 2022 - A Superficial Guide to the Greatest Nation on Earth (Except for Legoland, Perhaps)

                                                                                         

You're smart.

You're planning to visit the greatest of the Scandinavian countries.

Yes, admit it, you've always wanted to go to Denmark much more than Sweden because the Danes invented the atomic bomb and hygge. You tell yourself, "Why would I want to go to the French Alps when I can go rock climbing on Falster? I'm trendy, I want to ride my bike with the xenophobic Danes because they're the happiest people in the world." 

Actually, that's not true anymore. Finland beat us in 2022, but unlike them the Danes always make the news for positive reasons, like killing healthy minks, or harassing refugees at the border.

So, come and visit us, will you? And please bring your credit cards because God knows you're going to need them!

                    GUIDE TO DENMARK
                                    A superficial introduction to our Scandinavian Paradise. 


Name in Danish: Danmark

Inhabitants: 5.7 million

Size: The 8th biggest country in the world if you count Greenland. (Always count Greenland)

Capital: Copenhagen, Copenaghen, Kopenhagen, Copenhague, København (1.5 million)

Ranking: Most Livable City in the World (Monocle, British Magazine, 2008, 2013, 2014)

Other Top Rankings That We Take Pride In:
a) Most Trusting People.
b) Average Consumption of Beer (Fourth highest in the world.)
c) Crime per Capita: Fourth lowest in the world
d) Best Government in the World (2014)
e) Second Best Country for Women (beating Saudi Arabia)
f) Second Best Country for Singles Traveling Alone
g) Lonely Planet's Top Destination in 2019, Copenhagen.
h) Least Corrupt Country in the World (We bribed us to that)

i)  Best Neighborhood in the World: Norrebro, Copenhagen (Time Out, 2021) 


Language: Guttural.

Government: Constitutional monarchy.

Currency: Kroner. (6.50 DKK to a US dollar, 0.04 to the Angolan Kwanza)

Religion: No, thank you.

Name of Queen: Margrethe II.

Name of Prime Minister: Mette Frederiksen.

Famous Living Danes: Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (actors), Christian Eriksen (soccer player with a heartbeat), Mette Frederiksen (mink lover), Mø, Benjamin Lasnier (social media monster), Mary (Crown Princess of Tasmania), Crown Prince Frederik (who wasn't born in Tasmania), Lars Mikkelsen, (actor), Lars von Trier (enfant terrible), Lars Ulrich (founder of Metallica), Viktor Axelsen (world's best badminton player), Helena Christensen (ex-model), Jussi Adler-Olsen (the Danish Stieg Larsson, just alive), Kasper Schmeichel, Peter Schmeichel, Michael Laudrup (soccer players), René Redzepi, Claus Meyer (chefs), Bjarke Ingels (architect), Brigitte Nielsen (tall tabloid fodder who gave birth to her grandchild at 54 and probably will give birth to her great grandchild at 68), Caroline Wozniacki (ex-tennis player), Lukas Graham, Michael Learns to Rock (singers), Martin Jensen (DJ, producer), Margrethe Vestager (friend of Google and Facebook)  

Famous Half Danes: Viggo Mortensen, Scarlett Johansson, Tordenskjold

Famous Dead Danes You Should Mourn Now: Hans Christian Andersen (author), Søren Kierkegaard (philosopher), King Canute (conquered England), Tycho Brahe (conquered the universe), Isak Dinesen (conquered Africa), Karen Blixen (conquered Meryl Streep), Vitus Bering (explorer who had a strait named after him), Niels Bohr (physicist), Georg Jensen (design), Carl Nielsen (composer), Carl Dreyer (film director), Victor Borge (comedian), Bertel Thorvaldsen (sculptor), Hamlet (Shakespeare's boy toy)

Danish Anti Heroes: Struensee and Raheem Sterling.

Biggest Selling Pop Song of All Time:  7 Years by Lukas Graham (Grammy nominated for Record and Song of the Year in 2017 but beaten by an unknown singer from Tottenham named Adele)

Danish Imperialism: Lego, Maersk, Ecco, Vesta, Bang and Olufsen, Carlsberg, Tuborg, Flying Tiger.

Best Danish Word We Like to Shove Down Your Throat: Hygge. (Hygge almost always involves good food, akvavit, and lighting candles, even though nobody has died. Please don't embarrass yourself by trying to pronounce the word. We don't want to laugh at you)

Best Danish Word You Shouldn't Teach Your Children:  Listepik

Most Important Phrase: Tak for sidst

Worst Sin You Can Commit in Denmark:  Not saying tak for sidst

What Does 'Tak for Sidst' Mean? You wouldn't understand, anyway

Denmark's Claim to Fame in the Far East: Badminton

Denmark's Claim to Fame in the Middle East: Vintage cartoons from 2005

Denmark's Claim to Fame in the UK: Bacon and bikes

Most Important Danish Invention of All Time: The atomic bomb (Niels Bohr)

Second Most Important Invention of All Time:  Lego

Third Most Important Invention That Actually Wasn't Invented in Denmark But We Don't Mind Taking Credit for It Anyway: Danish pastry (Thanks, Vienna)

Best Tourist Attraction If You're into Knights in Shining Armor: Frederiksborg castle (Hillerød) 

Best Tourist Attraction If You're Eight Years Old: Legoland.

Best Tourist Attraction If You're Eighty Years Old: Tivoli.

Most Overrated Tourist Attraction: The Little Mermaid.

Time of Glory I: When the Danish Vikings conquered England in the 11th century

Time Of Glory II: When Denmark won the European Championship in football (soccer) in 1992 beating the Germans 2-0 in the final, and the whole country behaved like a frat party

Most Awesome Cities in Denmark Apart from Copenhagen: Helsingør (Elsinore), Ærøskøbing, Faaborg, Ebeltoft, Ribe, Silkeborg, Skagen, Svaneke, Svendborg, Gudhjem, Aarhus, and Christiania (if you still think that Che Guevara and bean bag chairs are cool)

Best Time to Visit the Land of the Danes: From late May to early September

Best Month to Commit Suicide Because It's Dark, Dreary, and Everybody Wish They Were in Thailand: January

Most Patriotic Sacrifice for the Motherland to Make Sure Our Superior Gene Pool Survives:  Do It for Denmark

 

Best Danish Traits: Tolerance, sense of humor, informality

Worst Danish Traits: Intolerance, sarcasm, xenophobia, also known as hyggeracisme (don't look it up, please)

What You'll Miss the Most If You're an American Visiting Denmark: TV anchors with perfect teeth

What You'll Miss the Most If You're Norwegian: Norway

Most Stupid Thing to Say to a Dane: Now, which part of Germany are you from again?

Second Most Stupid Thing to Say to a Dane: Sweden is my favorite Scandinavian country

We can't wait to welcome you to the oldest kingdom in the world, people! 

Winner of www.Denmark.net's International Contest, 2009. Slightly updated January 2019.

Copyright, Peter H. Fogtdal, Danish Accent, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018

All pictures are mine.

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Denmark for Dummies 2016 (A Superficial Guide to the Happiest Nation in the Universe. And That Includes Mars, Too)

Winner of www.Denmark.net's International Contest, 2009. However, you may want to go to the updated version Denmark for Dummies 2017

All Danes are blond and gorgeous. And every single of us has a cabin with a view of a lake. No wonder the whole world wants to be Danish, but don't get your hopes up. We're very protective of our gene pool.
                                                                   

You're smart.

You're planning to go to Denmark.

You've always wanted to visit our country because you know that it's the most exciting in the world. You tell yourself, "Why would I want to visit Barcelona, Berlin or Nepal when I can go rock climbing on Falster?"

"Yes, I'm trendy. Aarhus is going to be the European Cultural City in 2017, and the Danes are so green with their bikes, cuisine, and wind mills. And they're the happiest people in the world. Denmark always makes the news for positive reasons, like killing healthy giraffes in Zoos, or harassing refugees at the border so they get so desperate they flee to Sweden."

That's right. Four times Denmark was named the happiest nation on earth by the UN World Happiness Report. And I'm living proof of that. Right now this novelist is staring at the sleet, enjoying the 44 degrees of sloppy spring, while sipping his $12 latte.

Come and visit us, will you? And please bring all your credit cards because God knows you're going to need them!

                    GUIDE TO DENMARK
               A superficial introduction to your Southern Scandinavian Paradise. 

Name: Denmark (Danmark)

Inhabitants: 5.6 million

Capital: Copenhagen (1.5 million)

Ranking: Most Livable City in the World (Monocle, British Magazine, 2008, 2013, 2014)

Other Top Rankings That We Take Ridiculous Pride In:
a) Most Trusting People in the World (April 2011)
b) Best Restaurant in the World (Noma, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014)
c) Most Pork Consumption Per Capita (not counting your neighborhood Sheikh)
d) Best Government in the World (2014)
e) Second Best City to Visit in Europe in 2016 According to Lonely Planet: Aarhus
f)  Least Corrupt Country in the World, 2016 (We paid a lot of bribes for that position)

Language: Danish.

Government: Constitutional monarchy.

Currency: Kroner. (6.6 DKK to a US dollar, 0.04 to the Angolan Kwanza)

Religion: No, thank you.

Name of Queen: Margrethe II.

Name of Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, or as the opposition calls him, The Little Swindler.

Size: The 8th biggest country in the world if you count Greenland. (Always count Greenland).

Weather: Not really.

Unemployment Rate: Rising

Hospitality If You're Not White: Falling

Crime per Capita: Fourth lowest in the world.

Average Consumption of Beer per Capita: Fourth highest in the world.

Best Selfie of the Decade: Ex-Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt with her two secret lovers.

Famous Dead Danes: Hans Christian Andersen, Søren Kierkegaard (philosopher), King Canute (conquered England), Tycho Brahe (conquered the universe), Isak Dinesen (conquered Africa), Karen Blixen (conquered Meryl Streep), Vitus Bering (explorer, had a strait named after him), Niels Bohr (physicist), Georg Jensen (design), Carl Nielsen (composer), Carl  Dreyer (film director), Victor Borge (comedian), Bertel Thorvaldsen (sculpturer), Hamlet (Shakespeare's boy toy).

Famous Living Danes: Caroline Wozniacki (tennis player), Lukas Graham (singer), Lars von Trier, Susanne Bier (film directors), Margrethe Vestager (EU Commissioner and Google's worst enemy), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Mads Mikkelsen (actors in Game of Thrones, Hannibal, James Bond), Lars Ulrich (founder of Metallica), Jussi Adler-Olsen (the Danish Stieg Larsson, just alive), Kasper Schmeichel, Michael Laudrup, Lord Bendtner (soccer players),  René Redzepi (chef), Bjarke Ingels (architect), Margrethe II (Queen of Denmark), Mary (Crown Princess of Tasmania)

Famous Half Danes: Viggo Mortensen, Scarlett Johansson, Ludvig Holberg.


Danes Who Ought to Be Dead: Jante.

Danish TV-Series That Have Conquered the World and Perhaps Mars, Too:  The Killing (Forbrydelsen), Borgen, The Protectors (Livvagterne), The Bridge (Broen, co-production with Sweden).

Biggest Danish Single of All Time:  7 Years by Lukas Graham

Most Famous Danish Building: The Opera House in Sydney (Jørn Utzon)

Danish Imperialism: Lego, Maersk, Ecco, Vesta, Bang and Olufsen, Carlsberg, Tuborg, Tiger.

Best Danish Word We Like to Shove Down Your Throat:  Hygge.

Best Danish Word You Shouldn't Teach Your Children:  Listepik

Daily Smokers: 10% of the population. (All of them will be sitting on your lap when you go to an outdoor café)

Obesity Rate: 22% of the population.

Best Danish Food: Moss, lichen, and soil mixed with bone marrow from an animal you wouldn't want to eat. (All from Noma, the world's best restaurant. You can now make reservations for January 2024)




This picture is not from Noma. It actually has a view and you don't have to pay $100 for a glass of water.


Denmark's Claim to Fame in Spain, Greece & Cyprus: Blond girls with herpes.

Denmark's Claim to Fame in the Far East: Badminton.

Denmark's Claim to Fame in the Middle East: Cartoons.

Denmark's Claim to Fame in the UK: Bacon and Sofie Gråbøl's sweater.

Most Important Danish Invention of All Time: The atomic bomb (Niels Bohr)

Denmark's Biggest Contribution to American Sports: Morten Andersen, the all-time leading scorer in the NFL. (Kicker)

Denmark's Best PR Agent in America: Bernie Sanders




Best Tourist Attraction If You're Into Knights in Shining Armour:  Frederiksborg castle and Kronborg (Hamlet's castle) 

Best Tourist Attraction If You're Eight Years Old or Behaving Like It: Legoland.

Best Tourist Attraction If You're Eighty Years Old or Behaving Like It: Tivoli.

Most Overrated Tourist Attraction By Far: The Little Mermaid.

Time of Glory I: When the Danish vikings conquered England in the 11th century.

Time Of Glory II: When Denmark won the European Championship in football (soccer) in 1992 and the whole country behaved like a frat party.




Cutest Cities in Denmark: Helsingør (Elsinore), Ærøskøbing, Faaborg, Ebeltoft, Ribe, Skagen, Svaneke, Aarhus, Copenhagen and Christiania (if you still think that Che Guevara and bean bag chairs are cool)

Best Months to Visit the Land of the Danes: From late May to mid-September.

Best Month to Commit Suicide Because It's Dark, Dreary, and Everybody Wish They Were in Thailand: January.

Best Danish Traits: Tolerance, sense of humor, informality.

Worst Danish Traits: Intolerance, pettiness, self-satisfied grumpiness with a hint of racism.

What You'll Miss the Most If You're an American Visiting Denmark: TV anchors with perfect teeth.

What You'll Miss the Most If You're Italian: Bread and Berlusconi.

What You'll Miss the Most If You're Norwegian: Norway

Most Beautiful Area of Denmark: The Silkeborg lake district in Jutland and the island of Bornholm.




Most Stupid Thing to Say to a Dane: Now, which part of Germany are you from again?

Second Most Stupid Thing to Say to a Dane: Sweden and Norway are my favorite Scandinavian countries.

Enjoy your stay.  And tourists, please forgive Copenhagen for looking like Pompeii. We're building a Metro that we don't really need.



Copyright, Peter H. Fogtdal, Danish Accent, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016

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The Rescue of the Danish Jews in October 1943: My Grandfather Was One of Them

Seventy years ago today, my Jewish grandfather David Huda escaped to neutral Sweden in the bottom of a fishing boat. He went off from Gilleleje in Northern Seeland in the middle of the night with eight others. The rescue was beautifully organized, and seven thousands Danish Jews got away during October 1943. 

Denmark has always taken pride in the fact that we saved 92% of our Jewish citizens. However, one of many reasons we were so successful was actually because of the Germans. Most of them weren't interested in catching the Jews, since there wasn't much anti-semitism to play into in Denmark. So the Wehrmacht made the  calculation that prosecuting the local Jews only would create more trouble in a country that finally had started to fight back against the German occupation.

Two weeks after my grandfather escaped, my Christian grandmother, uncle, and mother followed from Kalkbrænderihavnen in Copenhagen. My half-Jewish Mom was ten years old in October 1943, deadly scared that Gestapo or the German soldiers were going to find them. But everything went smoothly. They met up with my grandfather in a refugee camp in Molle, Scania (Skåne) and stayed in seven different places in Sweden until Denmark was liberated in May, 1945 by British and American soldiers.

Before the war, my family lived in Kibæk in rural Jutland. My grandfather was the only Jew in the  area, and definitely the only Christian Jew since he had been forcibly converted when he arrived from Palestine in 1906. 

In early 1943, my grandfather joined a small resistance group that hid English agents in their barns. He also was crazy enough to befriend a soldier from Vienna at the same time. Call it intuition because the German-Austrian soldier ended up helping my grandfather escape in October 1943. 

In 1998 I told David Huda's amazing life story in Drømmeren fra Palæstina (The Dreamer From Palestine). It was my first best seller in Denmark and was later translated into French as Le Reveur de Palestine (Gaia Editions, 2005). One day I hope it will come out in English and in many other languages as well.

Needless to say, I miss my whole family like crazy these days. They all survived the Second World War, but one of them died in June 1945. That story you can read as well in Drømmeren fra Palæstina. You can download the ebook (ebog) here from Arnold Busck in Danish.

 

My novelized biography from 1998 (Lindhardt & Ringhof) came out in five editions. The book sold out a long time ago, but it was re-released as an audiobook last year. You can download the Danish audiobook here and listen to it immediately http://www.altfortalt.dk/17572-drommeren-fra-palastina.html

I presented the French edition at the book festival Litterature Europeenne Cognac in France in 2006. I still count that as one of my greatest moments as a novelist.  You can still buy the French edition from Gaia Editions on Amazon.

 

 My mother Marie Søndergaard Huda in Dalarne, Sweden in late 1944. 

 

My grandmother Marie Angelique Søndergaard Huda and my mother half a year before the German occupation. 

 David Huda wrote his own life story in 1950 called Fra Haifa til Hammerum Herred. Funnily enough, my novelized biography from 1998 was much closer to the truth than his own autobiography, because my grandfather chose to leave out some of the most dramatic and painful events. I put them in which was important to my mother as well.

I partly based The Dreamer from Palestine on his book, my mother's recollection, and most of all, my own imagination. There were so many holes and half-truths in my grandfather's story that I used it as a template to write an epic novel about one of 20th century Denmark's first immigrants. But I'm still loyal to what actually happened in Safed, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Kibæk, Herning, Copenhagen, and Sweden during my maternal granddad's 82 years on planet earth.

God bless you David, Erik, Marie, and Marie. I hope you read this blog wherever you are.

........

My Weird and Incredible Meeting With Israeli Author Meir Shalev (Which Just Goes To Show How Small The World Is)

Meir Shalev, the award-winning Israeli author who was one of the many participants at World Voices 2009 in New York.

1.
Life is a funny and strange four letter word.

Three years ago I was an official blogger for PEN at World Voices in New York.  At the party in a fancy midtown hotel on Manhattan I ran into Meir Shalev, the famous Israeli author.

I'd seen him on a panel a few days earlier where he'd made a wonderful impression, but apart from that I knew nothing about him. But after talking to the man for less than two minutes, I found out that he once met my Jewish Danish grandfather!

My totally unknown grandfather.

From a small town in Denmark. Far from New York and Israel.

Thirty-one years ago.

Ladies and gentlemen, how weird was that?

 2.
All this came to light just because I bragged to Shalev about being 25% Jewish (my left leg?). My maternal grandfather was born in Safed in 1898 and was abducted by a Danish missionary under mysterious circumstances, ending up in my cold Scandinavian country as a frightened six year old.

"Oh, yes, yes" Meir Shalev told me, "I've heard that story before. He was baptized against his will, wasn't he?  His name was David something. Actually, I met your grandfather twenty five years ago when I was in Denmark. He was a very interesting man."

I stared at Shalev. Was he a mind reader or some kind of memory psycho? Or was I on drugs without knowing it? But then again anything can happen in New York. Some one could have slipped a Semitic pill into my Chardonnay to take advantage of my body - or more likely, to force me from writing more novels.

Meir Shalev continued: "I met your grandfather through Herbert Pundik (a renowned Danish journalist and editor). Then I took the train and visited him an hour and a half from Copenhagen. He lived in the countryside in a beautiful house by a small pond."

I nodded and kept on staring at this strange Israeli writer. This was all too surreal, but at the same time, my granddad's life story was so incredible that most people would remember it if they heard it.

In 1998 I wrote a novelized biography about his life called Drømmeren fra Palæstina (The Dreamer from Palestine). It was my breakthrough to a larger audience in Denmark and stayed 85% true to the real events of his life, but unfortunately, the novel isn't out in English. It was published in French as Le Rêveur de Palestine (Gaia Editions, 2006), and got a rave review from French critic Mazarine Pingeot-Mitterand at the Salon de la Littérature Européenne de Cognac (Cognac Festival for European Literature) in 2006.



3.
My maternal granddad's name was David Huda. He was the son of a Arab father and a Jewish mother, and he was abducted by a Danish Christian missionary when he was six, probably because his Arab Christian father wanted him to have the "right" upbringing.

Then David was brought to Denmark and forced to live in a strange land with a pair of cold, Lutheran foster parents who tried to turn him into a "good" Dane. At that time, no one had dark skin in Denmark, so my grandfather was considered a freak or a circus act by the farmers of Kibæk in Western Jutland.

 My granddad's Christian baptism in 1906. The poor kid had his curls cut off and put in a white robe that made him look like a girl. The event traumatized him for life.

4.
On so many levels, David Huda's life has been important to me. My grandfather was a charismatic man with a great sense of humor, and the novel/biography I wrote about him was my breakthrough in Denmark to a bigger audience.

"I remember that David Huda escaped to Sweden during the Second World War in the bottom of a fishing boat," Shalev said. "He was very ill of cancer when I visited him in the early Eighties, but he made quite an impression on me."

I nodded. My granddad died in February 1982 but had just come alive on Lexington Avenue in New York on a cold May day, resurrected by a wonderful Israeli author I'd never heard of before and who definitely hadn't heard of me.

But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. American PEN and World Voices are about connecting writers from around the world. Well, what can I say, PEN? You're doing a damn fine job!

 Drømmeren fra Palæstina  (Lindhardt & Ringhof) will be out as an e-book in Denmark this summer. And it will re-released as an audiobook as well, so my old novel/biography is getting a small revival.


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No, Oprah, Danes Aren't Happy. We're Godless Patriots on Painkillers

1.
It's old news now.

Danes are the happiest people on earth. That survey came out in June, 2008, and just a month ago Oprah dedicated a TV-show to us happy Danes. What's our secret? Why are we always so goddamn happy? Even when we shop for carrots we're the Embodiment of Bliss. And when we throw poor refugees out of the country, we smile because we live here and they don't.

So what's up? Are our expectations lower than others? Are we happy because our welfare state works (kind of), or do we simply take pride in the fact that we invented Lego?  If you've ever played with Lego, you know it makes you happy, right? Well, that's what we Danes are all about, supposedly.


2.
But are we seriously happy?  No, we're simply patriots. That's what the survey reflects. We suffer from The Small Country Syndrome. We're tired of being taken for Swedes or Germans. We want to come out of our Southern Scandinavian closet; we simply want to be seen!

That's what the coming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen is about as well. See us, appreciate how much we do for the environment, admire us. But happy? No, how could we be? Most Danes don't believe in anything, not even in ourselves. Our only God is the welfare state. That has become the church we worship, and the walls of the church are crumbling down.  The recession will see to that.

So Oprah, next time you come to Denmark, please continue to celebrate us, because we do have a great little country with socialized medicine. And Denmark is still the kind of fairy tale place where it makes national news when a gang member fires a bullet into a park bench.

But if you walk around Copenhagen on a cold November day, you won't find much happiness. You'll see people in their own comatose world, walking to and fro with plastic bags and briefcases, not saying hello to any one, not smiling through their painkillers, just going about their business in the dreary drizzle.

Strangely enough, if you want happiness, you  see more of that in a poor village in India or Bali - maybe because they have 52 million gods to help them with their pain?

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Read my award winning blog entry, Denmark for Dummies: A Superficial Introduction to the Happiest Country in the World.