COPENHAGEN, Denmark — In addition to spending time with our first-born, Stan, a key reason for traveling to this part of Scandinavia was to explore ways in which people communicate and how one country influences another.
My admittedly sparse familiarity with German, which I studied under Jean Johnson and the late Jose Pablo Garcia, hasn’t been enough to get me by, although we hear more German than English.
Months before the trip, I’d been hearing about American influence on countries such as Denmark — some may call it “corruption” — and observing and listening to the natives let me find out how much and in what ways.
Although English is ensconced as the second language in Denmark, one has to search for it. We don’t hear any English on the streets unless it’s in the form of a direct answer to tourists like me. Most menus are in Danish, as are street signs, marquees, newspapers and instructions.
On another trip, that time west, last year, I was a bit non-plussed when I noticed a bold advertisement on the side of a city bus in Seattle. The ad featured a night-gown-clad woman reclining, spanning the entire length of the bus. The words were, “Sex every night.” I wondered whether the city had gone big time into the hooker business to help pay its gross receipts taxes until I snapped that it was advertising a nightly episode of “Sex and the City” on local television.
My observation is that Danes push the envelope far more than Americans, at least in regard to pop society, with the help of what some call “culture.” And English appears more frequently in ads aimed at the young.
Let me explain:
The most popular radio stations play American country-western and rap. I heard “Brown-eyed Girl” for the first time, twice, on the local station. A rap “song,” which I’d never listen to in the states, laments the wreck a man’s mother had made of his life. It uses the word “slut” and even the “f-word” — the entire f-word, not just the first part.
A handful of daily tabloids run photos of bare-breasted women alongside more mainstream ads for American productions such as “Snakes on a Plane,” and live theater such as “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Cain and Abel.” Danish TV would be virtually blank were it not for “Oprah,” “The Simpsons,” “Smallville,” “Dr. Phil,” “All About Raymond” and “Two-and-a-Half Men.”
And at Tivoli Square, a tourist mecca, there’s a huge pedestrian mall with churches and trendy shops, popular theater displays and an over-life-size image of a remarkably well-arranged woman, with the foot-tall words, “f— me, I’m famous.”
Now waaaiiiittt a second. The word was spelled out fully, not euphemized, as we’re supposed to do when writing for a family newspaper. And it’s not scrawled on there with a marker in the way a diablerous kid might modify a sign.
In the same area is a newsstand, whose magazine covers show top frontal female nudity. Now I’m not so naive as to have no idea what’s inside these mags, but even in America, even in the more sleazy parts of U.S. downtowns, women on covers are covered.
Such may be the case for advertising in Copenhagen (or Kobenhavn, as locals spell and pronounce it), but what about the natives themselves? Most are properly attired, the women often wearing dresses. We just never see women with body piercing, necklines that reveal too much or tattoos that start at the base of the spine. Nor do we see anyone in oversize pants, held up by dint of a generous posterior and constant tugging.
Anyone planning to visit here needs to learn to divide by six. A simple soft drink sells for about 19.40 Kroners, around $3.20 American. Most merchants won’t accept American currency, and changing dollars into crowns involves a modest transaction fee.
McDonald’s and Burger King are everywhere, but it’s tough to get a meal for less than $10.
Almost all financial transactions take place on plastic, as stores everywhere sport MasterCard and Visa logos, and people whip out their charge cards even for a pack of gum. But the catch is that Danes accept only their own MasterCard and Visa.
Where to get a local charge card? Banks have them, but most Danish banks open only from from 10 to 3; they must have coined the term “bankers’ hours.”
Denmark requires quite an adjustment. When he was new here, our son Stan had seen a local metro rider wave his arms, creating a motion to activate a sensor to open the door to a car he was boarding. The next time, with a crowd behind him, Stan decided to do the honors, moving his hand slightly as if he’d become a pro at this. Nothing happened. Then a more dramatic motion. Still nothing. Finally, he waved both arms with the kind of gesture one uses to flag down a bus.
Well, the motion sensor must be broken, Stan thought. Just then a teen reached around Stan, pressed a tiny hard-to-see button that opened the doors wide, allowing half of Copenhagen to board. Then he explained to Stan, in perfect English, that the motion sensor feature appears only on metro cars manufactured less than two years ago.
That was Stan’s embarrassing introduction to this European country only nine times larger than San Miguel County, but with 179 times the population. The introduction for us, Bonnie and me, is somewhat more embarrassing. But that’s a subject for another column.