Info about Denmark

All in all just over five million people live in Denmark. The Danish society is built on the famous Scandinavian wellfare model, and the gap between the richest and the poorest is of limited proportions. It isn't merely for the benefit of foreign photographers that Danish ministers ride their bikes to the Parliament or that the Queen does her shopping on Strøget, Copenhagen's well-known pedestrian street. These apparent contrasts play a significant part in the perpetuation of the Danish society and the Danish collective consciousness. Boundary breaking technology, creative designs and internationalism co-exist happily with a relaxed life style and a beer drunk from the bottle.

Informace o Dánsku

Celkem žije v Dánsku přes pět miliónů lidí. Dánská společnost je postavena na slavném Skandinávském modelu prosperity a rozdíl mezi nejbohatšími a nejchudšími je malý. Není jen pro zahraniční fotografy, že dánští ministři jezdí na kole do Parlamentu a Královna nakupuje na Strøget, Kodaňské slavné pěší zóně. Tyto zjevné kontrasty hrají podstatnou roli v zachování Dánské společnosti a Dánského kolektivního vědomí. Hranice bořící technologie, kreativní design a internacionalizmus koexistují šťastně s uvolněným životním stylem a pivem, které se pije z lahve.

(Rozhodl jsem se, že od teď už nebudu překládat ani do angličtiny ani do češtiny. Překlad si sežeňte sami.)

Myslím, že by to mohlo být docela milé prostředí pro normální život.

Přečetl jsem si esej nazvanou „Denmark - Oh! To be Danish. An Essay“ umístěnou také na stránkách ambasády.

Její úvodní odstavec začíná:

It is difficult to be a Dane. Seen from the outside, most would say that the opposite was true: That being Danish is the easiest thing in the world. The country is well run, well organized, there is very little difference between high and low, rich and poor, the social safety net is securely in place, etc., etc. Even so, we still feel that something isn't quite right. We don't, for example, travel abroad with the same air of nonchalance as a German or Swede or an American. We are a little more unassuming, we don't raise our voice in restaurants or other public places. Mentally, I suppose you could say we stand there with our hat in our hand, apologetic, a little self-effacing.

No považte! Člověka až zamrazí, když v druhém odstavci najde:

We shudder a little and refer to the strict accuracy employed when compiling the statistics. "In a Catholic country, they'd never allow all suicides to be registered!". … And we all know, of course, that there is "something rotten in the state of Denmark".

Musím se usmát nad poznámkou:

The Dannebrog flag is said to have fallen down from the sky.

A taky se mi líbilo:

A French diplomat described the Danish climate as "eight months of winter and four months of bad weather".

Tedy:

Francouzský diplomat popsal dánské počasí: „zima trvá osm měsíců a zbylé čtyři měsíce je špatné počasí.“

A German newspaper described the country as a place where every town has a Co-op, two restaurants with the same (expensive and very bad) menu and a Social Security office where everyone can go to get money.

Prý raději zabřednou do průměrnosti, než aby budily rozruch. Myslím že v tomhle se nám podobají.

Getting a radical experiment to succeed in a modern welfare state such as Denmark requires a great deal of talent. There is every chance that you will end up in a grey area between general boredom and stark depression. But perhaps the price we pay for success is that "normality" spreads, and that the unusual and the extraordinary must take a back seat. Or we could turn the whole thing on its head and say that it is in this normality that genius lies buried, inasmuch as the majority of us would prefer to wake up every morning to a normal life rather than to bombs and grenades and bellowing dictators, or to repeated performances of Wagner's operas or tales of great destinies that ended in flames.

Brilantně řečené zhodnocení:

A Dane is a creature with a big heart and an equally big inferiority complex.

Takže se zdají jako průměráčci, co se rádi baví, ale sami jsou nudní.

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