Another Blonde in Denmark: Odense & Århus

There are so many thoughts bouncing about in my head that are screaming for the organization pen to paper, or in this case, fingers to keyboard? It is safe to say that this past weekend has been the best since my arrival in Denmark. I feel entirely enriched and inspired. I am full of laughter. I have laughed harder these past days than I have in a very long time.

Thursday to Saturday was the first short study tour to Western Denmark, to the second and third largest cities of Odense and Århus. We traveled with our programs by bus and I was immediately pleased to see that while other more popular programs were split onto two buses and separate tour groups, our Migration & Identity crew of around 35 fit nicely onto one bus. The weekend turned out to be a nice bonding experience, as we had yet to really participate in any activities with our specific program. And with four girls to every sardine can of a hotel room, the hygge factor went from 0 to 100 in the time it took to lay out 4 full grown bodies and 4 sets of luggage in an 8x10. Reminiscent of a cargo hold, but memories were made regardless.

In the realm of academia, we were able to visit a slew of integration projects and councils to further explore the problem of immigrant integration in Denmark. I think this is a very ironic problem, as most aspects of Danish society are extremely progressive in comparison to the USA, namely in energy conservation (remember the grocery bags?) and gay marriage (Denmark was the first country in the world to legalize registered partnerships in 1989). But while the USA is a country founded on the idea of immigration, a melting pot since the very beginning, Denmark’s historically homogeneous population didn’t start experiencing immigration until the Turkish work permit migration in the 50’s and 60’s. In the grand scheme of things, immigration is very new to Denmark, and passions are much higher here in regards to the topics of integration, assimilation, and multiculturalism.

At the Odense Integration Council we talked with the Ethnic Job Team, a group of 30 job counselors who help immigrants break into the job market with the goal of bringing as many as possible into the workforce. Job training and Danish classes are provided, and helping immigrants set reasonable goals as to the nature of their employment is key. Most interesting was the fact that the majority of foreign degrees are not accepted in Denmark, so teachers, lawyers, and doctors are often required to go to university AGAIN or settle for a job that they are often over-qualified for.

An entertaining lecture followed by a Turkish scholar who turned out to be a little more radical than even our tour leaders may have expected. While his basic claim was that Danes are, in fact, NOT racist, the means of proving his point was through a complex web of cultural relativism and deconstructionist discourse: you can perceive the Dane’s behavior as racism, or as rational anxieties. While he presented an interesting point with a fervor I can only hope I will one day feel for my field of study, many were left scratching their heads, or laughing quietly to themselves when his critique of social science was summed up in the phrase “psychological masturbation.”

Søndervangskolen is the school in Denmark with the highest percentage of immigrant youth, at 90%. We were given a tour of the school by Simon, whose parents fled persecution in Eritrea and started a family in Denmark. When asked how he reacts when people ask him where he is from, he responded, “I tell them that my parents are from Eritrea, but that I am Danish. I was born in Denmark and I am a Dane.”

Bazaar Vest is an indoor Turkish/Arabic marketplace that results from the high immigrant population in Århus. Less academic, more enlightening, we spent an hour wandering the shops and falafel stands, and the most heavenly fruit market I have ever laid my eyes upon.

Saturday night was the best of times. Great conversation with great new people and a "Carpark North" concert in downtown Århus. Eat, drink, and be merry they say, and that is exactly what we did.

At the close of the trip, I found myself wandering the spacious galleries of the Aros Kunstmuseum and I could have happily spent an entire day. I can think of few things more intellectually satisfying than getting lost in an art museum.

Aros boy, a 17 foot fiberglass sculpture and the museum's most famous exhibit.

This interactive exhibit represents the most universal part of human life, the heartbeat. Grip the pulse sensors at the back of the room, and your heartbeat is transferred to the first lightbulb as a flicker. Your heartbeat moves up and down the rows as more people add theirs, until eventually, it goes out.