European rivalry

I wasn't going to write about this because I thought it a bit too provoking but seeing the EU elections are tomorrow, I thought I may as well.

During a recent trip to Germany, I went to a party. Over the hours, I was introduced to a number of people and twice, had I been easily offended, I would have been. I was introduced as having come in from Copenhagen and talk turned to Denmark. I actually didn't get a chance to point out that while, yes, I had come from Copenhagen, I wasn't Danish. But here are the excerpts of two conversations:

German 1: I used to spend a lot of time in Denmark. I had a Danish girlfriend for a while. I even started learning Danish but it was such an ugly language, I stopped.

....righhhttt

And half an hour later:

German 2: I go to Denmark often for work. I don't know how you all understand yourselves. Danish is such a mess! (laughs) Next time I'm there, we should have some beers.

... let me think about that for a minute. ah...Let's not. (I didn't say that)

Now, maybe I am biased but I don't think Danish is an ugly language. Sure it's a bit garbled sometimes, but it's very soft and these days, if I've been out of the country, it always feels good to hear it again, even if I don't understand most of it! So, I felt a bit protective after these conversations.

I think what was interesting was two-fold. Firstly, that someone - indeed, two different people at different times, would make such comments to people they had only just met about an aspect their nationality. (Okay, I'm not Danish, but they didn't know that). I mean would you do that?

The second interesting point is that considering they thought Danish was not the most beautiful language in the world makes me think they thought German was. Now, I like German because it sounds very precise and you do say every part of the word but I'm not sure I'd class it under 'beautiful', but that's just my opinion.

This was brought home to me the next day on a suburban train when the door wouldn't øpen at the station and a very helpful old German women pointed to the next door down and in German said, I guess, 'Run to the other door, schnell! Schnell!

Once safely on the platform, I did have a bit of a laugh. When being told to 'Schnell' - you Schnell!

I also think this situation shows how different it is when you cross borders. While Europeans live pretty close to one another, mindsets and personalities are vastly different. I've learned Danes, on the whole, will go out of their way to be polite, even if you can tell they're thinking something different to what they're saying. Whereas Germans maybe seem to say honestly, exactly what they think. I dunno which is better but each is certainly different!