{"id":1388,"date":"2016-05-01T13:14:36","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T13:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2016-05-01T13:14:36","modified_gmt":"2016-05-01T13:14:36","slug":"denmark-in-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2016\/05\/01\/denmark-in-tokyo\/","title":{"rendered":"Denmark in Tokyo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(All<\/a>

(All photos by Bj\u00f8rn A. Bojesen.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Coming from <\/span><\/span><\/span>et lille land<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (a small country), many Danes worry what foreigners \u2013 especially Americans \u2013 think about them. Whenever the tennis player Caroline Wozniacki or another Danish <\/span><\/span><\/span>kendis<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> [KENN-diss] (famous person) gets \u201dbig in the U.S.A.\u201d, Danish <\/span><\/span><\/span>journalister<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> [shoor-] (journalists) seem to get really busy. \ud83d\ude42 But some Danes get, as the saying goes, \u201dbig in Japan\u201d. Being on a family visit in Tokyo, I was surprised to find the following <\/span><\/span><\/span>LEGO-mand<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> in the busy Ikebukuro station:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"xd2_lille\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I have no idea whether the customers at the Andersen <\/span><\/span><\/span>bageri<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> [bakery] know the meaning of the word <\/span><\/span><\/span>HYGGE<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>, but it did appear throughout the shop as a kind of magical formula, apparently. \ud83d\ude42 <\/span><\/span><\/span>De ansatte<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> [dee ANNsatteh] (the employees) were wearing little <\/span><\/span><\/span>Dannebrog<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> flags on their red uniforms, while receiving <\/span><\/span><\/span>betaling<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (payment) for vaguely \u201dDanish-ish\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span>br\u00f8d og kager<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (breads and cakes). When the lady at the <\/span><\/span><\/span>kasse<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (counter) got aware of the nationality of my companion and myself, she smilingly offered us an extra bow. As far as I can tell, the Tokyo concept of \u201dDanishness\u201d (<\/span><\/span><\/span>danskhed<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>) seems to be linked to creamy cakes and <\/span><\/span><\/span>s\u00f8de ting<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (sweet things):<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"xd3_lille\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A Japanese woman in her twenties told me that most of her compatriots know <\/span><\/span><\/span>Den Lille Havfrue<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (The Little Mermaid), often from the Disney version of the H.C. Andersen <\/span><\/span><\/span>eventyr<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (fairytale). Other than that, few Japanese know anything about Danish culture or Denmark, <\/span><\/span><\/span>bortset fra at det ligger i Europa<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (besides that it\u2019s situated in Europe). Some may have heard though, she told me, that Denmark is a \u201dvery happy\u201d country. Of course, <\/span><\/span><\/span>dansk<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> design<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> is also found in Tokyo\u2019s<\/span><\/span><\/span> butikker <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>(stores).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"xd4_lille\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The next time you\u2019re in Copenhagen, cross the street in front of <\/span><\/span><\/span>hovedbaneg\u00e5rden<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (the central station). With a bit of house-scanning, you should find a Japanese Andersen bakery! There you can read the fascinating story about a young Japanese man who went to Denmark and <\/span><\/span><\/span>forelskede sig i landet<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (fell in love with the country). When he later returned home, he founded his own Danish-style bakery chain and branded it with the most famous Danish <\/span><\/span><\/span>efternavn<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (surname) on earth. With an outlet in <\/span><\/span><\/span>K\u00f8benhavn<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>, the story has come full circle. \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Coming from et lille land (a small country), many Danes worry what foreigners \u2013 especially Americans \u2013 think about them. Whenever the tennis player Caroline Wozniacki or another Danish kendis [KENN-diss] (famous person) gets \u201dbig in the U.S.A.\u201d, Danish journalister [shoor-] (journalists) seem to get really busy. \ud83d\ude42 But some Danes get, as the saying…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[411795,30,411796,251410,411800,251396,2239,89916,3479],"class_list":["post-1388","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-andersen","tag-bread","tag-cakes","tag-copenhagen","tag-famous-danes","tag-hygge","tag-japan","tag-the-little-mermaid","tag-tokyo"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}