“When I first moved to Copenhagen from New York City, more than a decade ago, Danes used to ask me why I wanted to come to a little place like Denmark after living in glamorous Manhattan,”, writes Kay Xander Mellish in a new article for Berlingske.dk (in Danish) and The Copenhagen Book (in English).
“Nobody asks that any more. In the time since I’ve been here, Copenhagen has increased its confidence while New York City as a cultural capital seems to have lost its mojo.”
It’s nearly Christmas, which is peak season for Danish drinking culture, writes Kay Xander Mellish in a new article for The International, a Danish monthly aimed at expats.
“Gløgg mix has appeared in the supermarket aisles, packaged as tiny bags of spices, raisins, and tiny slivered almonds – just add heat, wine, and brandy.
“Crystal snaps glasses are being taken out of the cupboard where they have stood since Easter, ready to be filled with strong liquor for toasts.
“And the police and street crews are probably still cleaning up from J-day, the early November evening that that celebrates release of the year’s potent holiday beer.”
Most Danes practice a “four wheels” type of Christianity, writes Kay Xander Mellish in a new article for The International, a Danish monthly aimed at expats. Religion in Denmark is mostly restricted to life ceremonies that involve a baby carriage (baptism), a wedding carriage, or a hearse.
“Throw in Christmas Eve, when Danish churches can get so packed that I’ve seen people push each other out of the way for seats,” Kay writes. “And then add the teenage celebration of confirmation, which is what my family is about to undertake.”
Coming of age ritual
Kay writes: “Many cultures have a ritual in which boys become men and girls become women, whether it’s the Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah for Jews, the Quinceanera in Latin America, or the warrior ceremony among the Masai. In Denmark, this ritual is Confirmation, or for the non-religious, Nonfirmation.
“For the teenagers, the best part of the confirmation is the flow of money in their direction. Their parents pick up the tab for new formal clothes – for Danish boys, it’s often their first business suit, and girls are allowed to shop in the expensive dress section on Zalandos – and for a fancy party after the ceremony, at which godparents and aunties and family friends attend bearing gifts, often cash gifts.
“It’s like getting married, except there’s no groom,” says my 14-year-old daughter, who is looking forward to being confirmed.
Some newcomers see Copenhagen and think they’ve seen Denmark, writes Kay Xander Mellish in a new article for The International, a Danish monthly aimed at expats.
Kay notes that “if the Copenhagen metropolitan area has about 2 million residents, as suggested by Statistics Denmark, then there 3.7 million people in Denmark who do not live in Copenhagen, and not all of them are like the lonely rural studs on the TV2 reality series Farmers Seeking Love.”
Focusing on Copenhagen to the exclusion of the rest of the country isn’t only something foreigners do, Kay writes.
“I recently edited a major Danish organization’s promotional text called Bicycling in Denmark. It went into great detail about Copenhagen shared bikes and Copenhagen bicycle highways and how many sick days Copenhagen residents had saved themselves with their fondness for cycling.
“Could a person also bicycle around Haderslev or Lolland or even Aalborg? Nobody seemed to have looked into that.”
What do you need to pack if you’re moving to Denmark? Casual clothes, over-the-counter medicines, unique ingredients for recipes, and games with English-language rules, writes Kay Xander Mellish in a new article for TheLocal.DK.
An extra set of eyeglasses is useful if you wear them, she adds, since optometry and opticians aren’t covered by the Danish health system and can be expensive. It’s also a good idea to bring along an external hard drive to back up your laptop data – laptop theft is all-too-common in Denmark.
And you can leave your high heels at home. In Denmark, practical clothing is key.
Kay Xander Mellish’s TEDx Talk “The Privileged Immigrant” looks at highly-educated immigrants who choose to relocate for professional or personal reasons.
What responsibilities do these privileged immigrants have to the places where they’ve chosen to live?
In the talk, which was delivered April 14, 2018 at TEDx Odense, Kay suggests that immigrants with options need to research the basic values of the place where they intend to move in order to make sure that their own values are in line with the people who already live there.
Denmark’s highest-circulation newspaper, the Jyllands-Posten, published an extensive interview with “How to Work in Denmark” author Kay Xander Mellish about working culture in Denmark.
Accompanied by photos taken at the Copenhagen headquarters of Carlsberg, Kay’s former workplace, the article goes into Kay’s reasons for coming to Denmark and her observations about the Danish workplace.
More than 200,000 foreigners are now at work in Denmark, according to the Confederation of Danish Industry. But the fine points of business etiquette in Denmark can be tricky for non-Danes. Many of the “rules” are unwritten, and Danes have expectations of their business partners they might not always be aware of themselves.
In an article for TheLocal.dk, Kay talks about some of these unsaid expectations and unwritten rules of Danish business etiquette.
Kay Xander Mellish’s new book on Danish working culture, How to Work in Denmark, has received extensive coverage in the Danish media, including an appearance on the nationally-televised “Go’ Morgen Danmark” to publicize the book.
Kay also stopped by the P1 Morgen studios in DR Byen to discuss the book (listen here). She also chatted with Anders Christiansen on Radio 24-7 about the ins and outs of Danish working culture, and appeared with Karen Høgh on her Solopreneur podcast.
