Browsing Tag

children

Danish children have more freedom than their counterparts in many other countries, but they also have more responsibility. Many take public transport alone when they are only 8 or 9 years old. Danish children also have less homework than children in many other countries.

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.

Gækkebreve 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.

March 5, 2025 by Kay Xander Mellish

Stories about life in Denmark

The ballad of the Danish Royal Teenagers

It’s hard to be a teenager no matter who you are or where you live, but spare a thought for the two teenagers who are currently part of the Danish Royal Family.

Christian is just 16 years old, and he’s the future King Christian the Eleventh of Denmark. Danish kings alternate between two names, Christian or Frederik, and his father’s name is Frederick, so Christian’s name was in place before he was even conceived, before his parents even met. He was always going to be Christian the Eleventh.

His sister, Isabella, is 15, and she and her young twin siblings are the spares. They have all of the media attention and the responsibility for good behavior that their brother has, but with no royal job waiting for them when they get older. Sure, they may cut a ribbon here or there, but they will have no guaranteed income from the Danish taxpayers.

Christian and Isabella have been in the news this week because the boarding school that Christian attends, and that Isabella plans to attend, was the subject of a TV documentary on bullying. This a school for Denmark’s elites – and yes, there is an elite class in Denmark, although they generally stay very well hidden. And this is an old-fashioned boarding school that still begins each educational year with a bird shooting, using bows and arrows.

According to some former students, violence was a part of daily life in the school. New students were dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and assaulted by older students. Many of those students are now leaders in Danish government and business life.

May 13, 2022 by Kay Xander Mellish

Denmark and the USA, Stories about life in Denmark, Working in Denmark: Danish Business Culture

Tips for Danes working with Americans, and Americans working with Danes

As an American who has lived in Denmark for more than 10 years, I’m often asked for tips by Danes working with Americans.

It’s usually the smartest people in the organization who ask the question: others seem to assume that because they speak great English and have watched every episode of “Friends” or “Breaking Bad” they have a good enough handle on the American culture way of doing business. As the great American composer George Gerwshin once wrote, “It ain’t necessarily so.”

Here are a few tips taken from my new book “Working with Americans: Tips for Danes“, which is available on Amazon, Saxo, Google Play, iTunes, and from our own webshop.

Fear of lawyers and lawsuits

U.S. companies and employees live in constant fear of litigation. When I first arrived in Denmark, I remembered being shocked at traditions that could make an American liabilities lawyer rich. Whether it was bonfires at a børnehave, hot coals to warm your hands on at Tivoli, or drunk studenter falling off the back of trucks, I couldn’t help thinking about how a stupid or careless person might injure himself and sue.

American businesses think about this all the time, since they have two things on their mind: how to stay in business at a profit, and how to avoid litigation, since the second can make the first impossible. Every business decision, every product development or marketing technique, every hiring and every firing, has to be looked at through the lens of : Can we be sued for this?

March 14, 2020 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Tips for living with a Danish family

As the new academic semester starts up, some of you may be planning to live in a Danish home. It could be you’ll rent a room in a household, maybe you’ll be part of a Danish host family, or maybe you’ll just be staying with Danish friends.

I thought it might be useful to have some tips on living with a Danish family.

First of all, if you’re used to having your parents or domestic workers do most of the household chores – things are about to change.

Danish families generally don’t have live-in domestic workers. A few wealthy families with small children have au pairs, and it’s common to have a weekly cleaning person, but on a day-to-day basis, household chores are done by all the members of the family.

Male, female, young, old, everybody does their part. (In fact, statistics show that Danish men do more household chores than any other men in Europe.)

January 6, 2019 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Arriving in Denmark: Some tips from my experience

August in Denmark brings the first signs of fall: a crisp chill in the air, the changing color of the leaves, the annual posters warning drivers to be aware of small children riding their bikes to school for the first time.

And foreign university students in the local 7-11, asking that their buns be warmed up.

I saw a newly-arrived young American student in my local 7-11 this morning, asking that her newly-purchased bun be warmed. The 7-11 clerk told her sorry, but there were no bun-warming services available at that branch.

She wasn’t too pleased, but it’s always a mistake to expect U.S., U.K., or Asian-level concepts of customer service in Denmark: in this egalitarian country, nobody serves anybody, and if they do they are frequently grumpy about it. You and the store clerk are equals, and nobody’s going to warm anybody’s buns unless it was agreed to in the original deal.

August 20, 2015 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danish babies: Rolling royalty and tribal names

Denmark is a small country, and Danish people tend to think small things are good. Small cars. Small homes. Small ambitions when it comes to international team sports. But one thing in Denmark is never small – a baby carriage.

Danes seem to believe that a carriage (or pram) for a new baby should be roughly the size of a hotel room on wheels.

Inside, baby will be wrapped up warm with a fat feather blanket – even in the summer. There will also be room for pillows, books, toys, snacks, diapers and extra clothes in the giant baby carriage.

Danish babies are like rolling royalty. Everything they need is at their tiny fingertips.

July 12, 2015 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danish Birthdays: Flags, Queens, and Remembering to Buy Your Own Cake

It has been said that Danish birthdays are the most important in the world. Adults, children, even the Queen of Denmark make a big deal about birthdays. And there is specific set of birthday rules and traditions for every age and role you play in life. Let’s face it, Danish birthday traditions are a minefield for foreigners. Get it wrong and you could make some serious birthday faux pas.

For example, if the sun is shining on your birthday, you may find Danish people thanking you. ‘Thanks for the sunshine’ they’ll say. This is because in Danish tradition, the weather on your birthday reflects your behavior over the past year. If you’ve been good, the weather is good. If you’ve been bad….well, then. You get depressing, grey, Danish rain.

April 10, 2015 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danes and Singing: Danish drinking songs, party songs, and foreigners who try to hum along

There have been very few international singing stars from Denmark, and that’s a surprise, because Danish people love to sing.

Joining choirs is very popular, and Danish schoolchildren often start the week with a song – in my daughter’s school, all the grades get together and sing something from the school’s common songbook.

There’s actually a kind of common songbook for all the children of Denmark, called De Små Synger, where you can find classics like Se Min Kjole (See my dress), Lille Peter Edderkop (Little Peter Spider) or Oles Nye Autobil, (Ole’s new car). Ole’s new car is actually a toy car that he uses to run into things, like his sister’s dollhouse.

In general, the Small Songs are a throwback to an older Denmark, a quieter Denmark where most people lived in the countryside. Many of the songs refer to green hilltops, or forests, or baby pigs or horses, or happy frogs that live in a swamp. And of course, all the humans in the Small Songs are entirely Danish – or ‘Pear Danish,’ as the local expression goes. One out of five children born in Denmark today is not an ethnic Dane, but there’s no such thing as Little Muhammed Spider or Fatima’s New Toy Car.

March 8, 2015 by Kay Xander Mellish

Older Posts

Kay Xander Mellish is a US-DK dual citizen. She grew up in Wisconsin, USA, but has lived in Denmark for more than a decade. Kay is a popular keynote speaker on Danish working culture and offers practical advice to international professionals navigating Danish work environments.

In addition, she helps Americans and Danes avoid misunderstandings and improve their cross-cultural teamwork.

Kay is the author of "How to Work in Denmark" (2022 and 2018), "How to Live in Denmark" (2017 and 2014), "Top 35 Mistakes Danes Make in English" (2016), "Working with Americans: Tips for Danes" (2019), and "Working with Danes: Tips for Americans" (2020). All of her books are also available in audio format.