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Launched in 2013, the “How to Live in Denmark” podcast is the longest-running podcast about living in Denmark in English. It covers every aspect of living in Denmark and Danish life, including moving to Denmark, adjusting to life in Denmark, Danish customs, Danish weather, Danish customs, and Danish people, all with gentle humor.

With nearly 150 short episodes, there is plenty to listen to as you pack for your move to Denmark, relax in your Danish summerhouse, or survive the long, dark Danish winter.

old in Denmark
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

May, the Candle in the Window, and Getting Old in Denmark: The Danish Year Part 5

I’ve referred to “The Danish Year” before on How to Live in Denmark. It’s a series of events that are simply expected to happen every year in Denmark, even if they aren’t formal holidays. This year I’m going to try to do a podcast every month about aspects of the Danish year, and how they fit into the overall context of where Denmark is coming from, and where it’s going.

Getting the present to remember the past is always tricky business. All over the world, there are statues set up so that people will always remember that great man so-and-so. Most of the time when you ask a local – who is that a statue of? they say, I have no idea. These great men in their time now spend centuries having birds stand on their head.

The past is past, and memories don’t always persist.

So it is with a lovely May tradition in Denmark, setting a candle in the window on the night of May 4. This is to commemorate the surrender of the Germans and the end of the Nazi occupation in 1945.

The Nazis imposed a blackout on Denmark to confuse the Allied air forces, so now that they were defeated, a candle in a window became a small symbol of rebellious light.

A rememberance ceremony, forgotten

I intend to participate every year on May 4, but I often forget, and to be honest I see very few candles in windows these days.

You’d have to be aged 85 or older now to remember the war, and Germany is one of Denmark’s greatest friends and Allies.

In addition, the elderly who do remember the occupation and the blackout generally do not live with their families in Denmark, families to whom they might pass on the tradition.

Old people in Denmark primarily live alone, and municipal employees come to their house once or twice a week to help with cleaning and make sure they take their medicine.

When they can no longer take care of themselves, they’re moved to a publicly-funded care home or a hospice, but this is generally only for the last few months of life.

“Living cooperatives” against loneliness

The elderly in Denmark are often lonely.

In India or the Middle East, older people usually live with their families; in the US, where I come from, they join “active adult” communities where they can golf and have affairs.

The Danish policy that encourages old people to remain in their homes as long as they can isolates them, in my opinion.

That’s why the Danish government, mindful of the fact that the average age in Denmark is advancing quickly, is encouraging the idea of bofæelleskab, or living cooperatives. That’s when a number of older people live together in a house or large apartment, a bit like university students, with a shared kitchen and laundry facilities.

This gives them a bit of company and, not coincidentally, frees up a lot of individual houses for younger families to move in when the old people move out.

You’re not the hip new designer or management trainee

Now, when I say old people, I’m talking about people over 67, which is the current Danish pension age. That will crawl up to age 70 for kids born today.

The problem for many people is that it’s hard to get a job after age 60. No one wants to hire you as a hip new designer or innovative pharma developer or management trainee.

Older people at the very top of the success ladder often spend this time on various Boards of Directors, leveraging their years of business experience.

Below that I meet a lot of older people who have tossed their career and their specialized educations aside and become office managers, or work in retail, or work in kindergartens.

They’re done climbing the career ladder and want something people-focused that is, and I quote, “something to do until I retire.”

A word to honor the old in Denmark

Old people don’t get any special respect in Danish culture.

I taught a group of Nepali students in Denmark once, and after the presentation in the Q&A period, they wanted to know if there were some special Danish word they could use to honor the elderly, an important part of their culture in Nepal.

But there’s no specific word in Denmark to honor the elderly. Especially these days, when the people who are old now are the former 1960s hippies who got rid of honorifics like Herr Hansen and Fru Jensen.

The elderly today in Denmark are called by their first names, just like everyone else.

Symphony concerts and saving trees

There’s also no real role for them in Danish society.

Older people with young grandchildren can pick them up at kindergarten.

They can run for office – local politics in Denmark are often the domain of old people, who have the time to turn up for community meetings about fixing sidewalks or saving trees in the park.

Symphony concerts and ballets also attract an older audience – sometimes I sit in the cheap seats at the back and see nothing but white and grey heads in front of me.

But those are for people who are well-off and old.

If you’re poor and old, there are the local brown bars, or bodegas, where you can nurse a single beer for hours and watch TV or play pool or darts.

Angry on Facebook

If all else fails, there’s always yelling at each other on Facebook.

I’m surprised at how harsh the usually mild-mannered Danes are when they get behind a screen, and older Danes are some of the most vicious, with comments sometimes directed at me.

You’ll be pleased to hear that I should go back when I came from because nobody wants me here. That was a recent comment I received from Ole, which is definitely an old-man’s name.

Should I move to Denmark and retire?

All of the offline group activities for older people require a lot of individual initiative, however, which is why when people write to me and say they would like to move to Denmark to retire, I tell them it is a bad idea.

There’s not an easy way to develop a circle of friends, especially if you don’t speak Danish, or don’t have family here.

It’s hard enough for people who have lived here their whole lives to feel useful and wanted.

Only the lucky people get old

If that sounds sad, remember, it’s only the lucky people who get old.

Down the street from me in Copenhagen is the cemetery where members of the Danish Resistance are buried.

Many of them were teenagers when they conducted sabotage operations against the Nazi occupation; many were executed in the very last days of the war, when it must have been clear to the Germans that they had already lost.

These teenager Resistance fighters never had a chance to get old, so I will try to remember them with a candle in the window this year.

Paerdansk Pear Danish by Kay Xander Mellish
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

April, Gardening in Denmark, and what it means to be “Pear Danish”: The Danish Year Part 4

I’ve referred to “The Danish Year” before on How to Live in Denmark. It’s a series of events that are simply expected to happen every year in Denmark, even if they aren’t formal holidays. In 2025 I’m going to try to do a podcast every month about aspects of the Danish year, and how they fit into the overall context of where Denmark is coming from, and where it’s going.

As the long Danish winter finally draws to an end, it’s time for Danes to start planting their gardens.

Now, in early April, it’s rhubarb, parsnips, cabbage. After the risk of frost is gone, in late April, you can put down some beets, and chives, and parsley – all good traditional Danish food.

By May, you can try with the tomatoes, which may or may not ripen depending on whether you get a warm, sunny summer, always a roll of the dice in Denmark. One year we ended up with hard, green tomatoes in September.

The growing season in Denmark is short. If you miss the planting deadlines, you’re probably out of luck.

And even if you are in luck, the amount you spend at the garden center will far outstrip the amount it would take you to buy the same foods at the corner market.

Names that include “gaard”

But Danes love to garden, they love to touch the Earth. Denmark industrialized fairly late compared to the rest of Europe – really not until the late 19th century – and even then it focused on cooperative agriculture for export. Denmark is still known around the world for its butter and bacon.

Many Danes still carry the name of their family farm in the name they use today.

The Danish word for farm is “gaard”, so the names of jewelry designer Ole Lynggaard, or golfer Nicolai Højgaard, or politician Pia Kjærsgaard, all reference what was once the family farm, the “gaard”.

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Gækkebrev Danish traditions vs Digitalization
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

March, Gækkebreve, and the things lost in Digital Denmark: The Danish Year Part 3

I’ve referred to “The Danish Year” before on How to Live in Denmark. It’s a series of events that are simply expected to happen every year in Denmark, even if they aren’t formal holidays. In 2025 I’m going to try to do a podcast every month about aspects of the Danish year, and how they fit into the overall context of where Denmark is coming from, and where it’s going.

“Am I being threatened?”

An international professional newly arrived in Denmark asked me this when he received a note in his apartment building mailbox. Now, this alone is unusual in Denmark. Since everything went digital about 10 years ago, we get very little paper mail. I don’t think I’ve received anything in months.

But he had. He had received a carefully decorated envelope, illustrated with crayon, in which there was a single piece of white paper, cut into a kind of snowflake pattern.

It had some Danish writing on it, a few short lines, maybe a poem. And it wasn’t signed…there were just a few mysterious dots.

The man, a highly educated engineer, was concerned. “Am I going to be kidnapped?” he asked me. “Is this some kind of ransom note?”

Gækkebrev are an old tradition

No worries, he was safe. What he had just received was a gækkebrev, or gække letter, named after the vintergække flower that used to come with these letters in the 1800s.

GækkebrevGækkebreve arrive just before Easter, and they are always carefully cut from a single piece of paper, usually in an elaborate pattern. The poems are usually standard, copied from a book, and they are anonymous, but the mysterious dots they are signed with correspond to the number of letters in the sender’s name.

So if I sent you a gækkebrev, I would sign it with three dots, for K-A-Y.

If you can guess who sent the letter, I owe you a chocolate Easter egg. If you can’t then you owe ME a chocolate Easter egg.

Thus, gækkebreve are very popular with small children looking for candy.

My guess was that maybe this engineer had a young child or young neighbor who might have made this at school. And he did.

Traditions vs. digitalization

Gækkebreve are a great Danish tradition, but like many other Danish traditions, they are fighting with the country’s ambitious digital agenda.

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cat in the barrel festelavn Denmark Mardi Gras
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

February, The Cat in the Barrel and the Absence of Faith: The Danish Year Part 2

I’ve referred to “The Danish Year” before on How to Live in Denmark. It’s a series of events that are simply expected to happen every year in Denmark, even if they aren’t formal holidays. In 2025 I’m going to try to do a podcast every month about aspects of the Danish year, and how they fit into the overall context of where Denmark is coming from, and where it’s going.

Put a cat in a barrel.

Hang up the barrel, maybe from a tree.

And then hit the barrel, with a stick. Hard, until the barrel breaks and the cat runs away.

It doesn’t sound very nice, but that’s the way Danes used to celebrate Fastelavn, which is the Danish version of Carnival, or Mardi Gras.

These days the Danes are great fans of animal rights, and often the drivers of animal rights laws in the European Union.

But back in the day, “hitting the cat in the barrel” was the way that superstitious Danes tried to ward off evil. That poor cat.

Cat in the barrel for children

Fast forward to today, the barrel is still part of the event, and so is the stick, but the cat is long gone.

Now “hitting the cat in a barrel” is something that Danish children do.

The barrel contains candy, and when the child with the biggest swing breaks it open, the candy spills all over the floor, a bit like a piñata.

All the children run to collect their share, and the kid who broke it open is named the Cat King or Cat Queen. They get a paper crown to wear for the rest of the party.

Fastelavn is one of the Danes’ favorite holidays. It takes place in February, when the light is finally beginning to come back after a long season of winter darkness.

The kids dress up in cute costumes, and sometimes they rasle or ask neighbors for treats.

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Income inequality Denmark
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

January, Skiing, and Income Inequality: The Danish Year Part 1

I’ve referred to “The Danish Year” before on How to Live in Denmark. It’s a series of events that are simply expected to happen every year in Denmark, even if they aren’t formal holidays. In 2025 I’m going to try to do a podcast every month about aspects of the Danish year, and how they fit into the overall context of where Denmark is coming from, and where it’s going.

January is part of the dark times in Denmark. Usually the sun comes up around 830 and is gone by 430.

If you work in an office all day, you might not see it at all.

And if you’re part of the bottom 80% of Danish earners, you’ll probably spend most of your dark January evenings and weekends at home, hoping your bank account can recover from the Christmas excesses.

Restaurants have a lot of empty tables this time of year. Shops mostly process the return of unwanted Christmas presents.

Now, this can and often is packaged as hygge. Candles, TV, sweaters, warm slippers, hot tea. But it’s often just being broke and not being able to go anywhere.

The rich go skiing

Yet if you’re part of the top 20% of earners in Denmark, maybe even the top 10%, January is the time to go skiing.

Not in Denmark, which doesn’t have any mountains for downhill skiing, or enough snow for cross-country skiing. You go to Sweden for cheap skiing, Norway for slightly more expensive skiing, or to France or Switzerland for luxury skiing where you can show off your Rolex Explorer wristwatch on the slopes.

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Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

The Danish Empire – without Greenland?

Denmark, as Danes like to tell you, is a little country. But it used to be a much bigger country, a bit of an empire.

Norway was once part of Denmark. Iceland was once part of Denmark. The southern half of Sweden and a bit of northern Germany used to be part of Denmark. What is now called the US Virgin Islands used to be part of Denmark.

And Denmark had colonies in Africa and India, which is why when you’ll go into many Danish supermarkets – even online supermarkets – you’ll see a section called Kolonial, or Colonial.

It features long-life products, like spices and nuts, that used to come from trading posts in the faraway Danish colonies.

Royals in folk costumes

Over time, through war losses and independence movements, the Danish Empire shrank…and today we’re going to talk about how it might shrink further.

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Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Learning Danish through song lyrics

One of the first gifts I received in Denmark was a CD by a singer called Carsten Lykke. “I think you’ll like this,” said one of my first Danish friends.

And I did – even though I didn’t speak much Danish at the time, Carsten Lykke’s lyrics made me laugh. A small, awkward guy, who was at that time best known as the leader of a Blur or Pulp-style band called the Ibens, Carsten’s solo work mostly involves him making fun of himself and his treacherous relationship with his mother.

His big hit involved a fantasy of being married to then-Crown Prince Frederik (“If Frederik was into men, I’d be Queen right now”) He’s willing to laugh at the Danish Jante Law, the unwritten rule against celebrating status or success, with songs like “I burde gi’ mig bank“, the chorus of which is, “I’m so successful, you ought to punch me.”

At any rate, I learned a great deal of colloquial Danish from that CD, so much I didn’t realize it until Carsten Lykke, now in his mid-50s, put out a new single earlier this year. I cued up all his old stuff again.

I still remembered almost every line.

Find a Danish lyricist you enjoy

That’s why one of the tips I give to newcomers in Denmark is learning Danish through song lyrics. Find a Danish lyricist who writes songs you enjoy listening to, again and again.

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Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, Working in Denmark: Danish Business Culture

Job switching in Denmark

He was a highly-educated specialist from Southern Europe, and my assignment was to help him adjust to the business culture in his new role at a large Danish company.

We’d been working together for awhile when I noticed he still hadn’t updated his LinkedIn. According to his profile, he was still in another part of Europe working for a different company entirely.

I asked him – does this mean you don’t like your new job?

He said, no, I like it at lot. But maybe in a year or two I’ll want to work someplace else, and I don’t want my LinkedIn to look flaky, like I’m job hopping.

I told him, job hopping is not a problem in Denmark, which has one of the highest job mobility rates in the OECD. Up to 20% of Danes will have a new job this year.

Danes change jobs more than people elsewhere in Europe

And that’s not just young workers. People in the prime of their careers change jobs at a higher rate in Denmark than they do elsewhere in Europe, and even for people over 55, job mobility is high.

As a matter of fact, if you don’t change jobs regularly in Denmark, or at a minimum change jobs within a company if you’re there for a few years, people might wonder why.

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Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

The design quirks of Copenhagen

It’s summertime, the top tourist season in Copenhagen, and the streets and the bike lanes and the harbor boats are full of people from around the world. One of the things they come to look at is Danish design.

I’ve created a new audio tour of Danish design in Copenhagen via Voicemap, but I thought I’d share a few quirks of design in Copenhagen that are not in the tour.

First of all, did you know that Copenhagen has its own color?

It’s called Copenhagen Green, and it’s a dark emerald green, mixed with a fair amount of black. A little like the dark green we see on the leaves of trees here in August. Pantone 3435C, for you designer types.

Green and black blend well

You’ll notice that all Copenhagen benches are this color, and there are thousands of these wood and cast-iron benches around town. They were originally designed more than a hundred years ago by Thorvald Bindesbøll, an art nouveau master also known for the Carlsberg beer label.

You will see Copenhagen Green on many wooden doors and window frames in the old city, as well as lamp posts, railings, even small bridges in the beautiful Ørsteds Park, all painted Copenhagen Green. This was a conscious decision by city leaders in the early 1900s.

They felt the combination of green and black blended well with both natural and urban settings and using it widely would create a sense of harmony. Plus almost everybody likes green.

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Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Who is Holger Danske?

Many countries have a fictional character who represents them. Uncle Sam for the USA, Marianne in France, Bharat Mata or Mother India.

Others have a legendary figure, who was real at one point but is now shrouded in myth, like King Arthur in England.

For Denmark, Holger Danske is both.

He was probably real, although he didn’t live in Denmark. He was a Danish knight living in France in 8th century, serving Charlemagne, and he appears in several of the epic poems of the time as Ogier the Dane.

When those poems were translated into Old Norsk, he became Oddgeir danski, which gradually morphed into Holger Danske.

The sleeping hero

He has been a hero for centuries. And he is a sleeping hero.

The legend is that when Denmark is in trouble, Holger Danske will rise from his slumber and come to its defense.

This is why during World War II, when Denmark was occupied by the Nazis, one of the largest resistance groups called itself Holger Danske.

Consumer products

If you’re not Danish, you may have experienced Holger Danske in the form of consumer products.

There is a Holger Danske moving company with trucks all over Denmark, a Holger Danske beer, Holger Danske Aquavit liquor, Holger Danske tobacco. There’s a Holger Danske bar. Holger Danske has appeared on the Danish national football shirt.

And, very famously, there’s a statue of Holger Danske in the basement of Kronborg Castle, often known as Hamlet’s Castle, in Helsingør, Denmark – which Shakespeare referred to as Elsinore.

(I go by the castle in my new audio tour of Helsingør.)

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