Read time: approximately 14 minutes

Week 2 of my 4×4: four weeks, four countries. Second stop, Denmark (with a side trip to Sweden to get to Denmark)!

• Sunday, 10 May was back home in Halden (Norway). Took the time to do laundry, rest, and pack for Denmark!
• Monday, 11 May took the train south to Malmö, Sweden. Got some lunch and walked in the rain to an old castle, an example of Renaissance architecture. Then my mom’s Danish cousin picked me up and we drove to Ystad, to catch the ferry to Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea where we would be spending the week! His wife grew up on the island and has been wanting to return so they recently bought a summer cottage. After getting off the ferry, picked up some items at the grocery store to make supper, cooked, ate, and bed!
• Tuesday, 12 May ran on the beach on the Baltic Sea! Consulted the spreadsheet my mom’s Danish cousin’s (let’s just call him my uncle) wife set up to guide our activities and eating on the island for the week. Decided on the bird show! It was kind of random, but so cool to see all the birds! Most of the talking about them was in Danish, so I primarily watched them fly around and eat. Sometimes it’s good to put yourself in situations where you don’t understand everything. Next stop: a round church. Built in the 10th century as churches and defensive structures. Then lunch for what I am told is a very Danish dish, the shooting star. My uncle said he’s had a lot of these across Denmark and where we were going to lunch was the best in the country. The country. It did not disappoint. Might be one of the best things I have eaten all year. Did some grocery shopping for supper, then home to rest. My uncle’s wife and their daughter arrived and we ate together. Fun to hang out and get to know each other.
• Wednesday, 13 May started the day again on another beautiful beach—citizens of the island are applying for it to be a UNESCO world heritage site. Climbed sand dunes and walked along the shore. Put my hand in the Baltic Sea. Then a trip to Baltic Sea Glass, where they make beautiful items. An employee helped me find a special piece for a special price. While there, got to watch them blow glass and talk to my uncle’s brother, who lives in Thailand but still works on the oil rig in the North Sea—the exact one I suspected he worked on when I learned about it when the Rovers were in Stavanger (Norway) in March for our teacher conference, Norway’s oil capital. It was amazing to talk to him about my work in Norway and research. Learned that he lived in Norway and we’re going to see if we might overlap again in Norway before I leave for the year. Bummed that it took us this long to connect. Stopped by a pasta factory for what I was told was the best dried pasta—tastes like fresh pasta! and made on the island with island ingredients. Went to lunch at a fish buffet. Correction: herring buffet. I never knew the many ways one could prepare herring. Yum. Then to the licorice store. Turns out that the brand of licorice my mom likes is from this island. Mind blown. And an ice cream. Another trip to the grocery store to pick up Danish blue cheese. When we got home took a walk with the dogs and my aunt and her daughter. Simple supper and more hanging out!
• Thursday, 14 May so much walking today! Went out to the art museum, but first scrambled on the rocks behind the museum for some stunning views and sounds. Then the art museum. Lunch at the harbor and walked up to the castle ruins. Then another harbor for supper and ice cream! When in a beach town, have to eat a lot of ice cream. Home to watch the second night of semifinals for Eurovision!
• Friday, 15 May another morning, another beach walk! A great way to start the day. Hung out, and then my aunt, cousin, and the dogs left to return to Copenhagen. My uncle and I headed out to a place that produces echoes and then had lunch—another traditional Norwegian dish (the tartel on this page). It was pretty good! Then got home early because needed to get ready to leave the house early in the morning to catch the ferry back to Sweden. Caught up on the first night of Eurovision semifinals!
• Saturday, 16 May got up early for the ferry back to Sweden. Drove from the ferry port in Ystad back to Malmö. It wasn’t raining! Dropped off my stuff in luggage storage and walked to get some breakfast and then on to the Museum of Disgusting Food! It was interesting. Informative. Somehow I wanted it to be more. I got some book recs about the relationship between food and culture and psychology. Went to a cute design shop and got some coloring cards (like a coloring book, but cards) and colored pencils. Swung by the grocery store to pick up a sandwich for dinner on the train. Then the train to Halden! Picked up some snacks and hosted a Eurovision finals watch party with some friends when I got home. 

When I was on a hike with some Bergen teacher friends a few weeks ago, they told me that during the Black Plague, Norway lost its written language. This blew my mind. Previously, I had only thought about people losing their language through cultural genocide. But I knew that wasn’t the case for historic Norway. How?! I asked. They explained that at the time of the Plague, only the clergy, or the educated, knew how to read and write. And because these educated (men) were clergy members, they had also been called to give last rites to those dying of the Plague, which means they also caught it and also died. And thus the knowledge of the written language died with them. 

As an aside (and fun fact!), Norwegians settled Iceland, and so theoretically, Norwegians could have sailed over to Iceland to help preserve their written language. But, that settling was about 500 years before the Black Death so their languages would have evolved differently and, as my Bergen friends pointed out, Norwegians had other things to worry about besides preserving their written language post Black Plague. True true.

So they have little ability to read their written language and can hardly write down anything new. We’re in circa end of the 14th century and, about fifty years after the Black Death. Norway joins into a union with Denmark and Sweden (the three countries comprise Scandinavia, meaning dangerous island, or land on water, because of Norway’s and Sweden’s rocky southern coastline). Denmark becomes the dominant force in this relationship and its language becomes the official language, used for things like law and literature. While the written language is Danish, the Norwegians take it and use their own pronunciations. And the spoken languages develop separately—the countries are separated after all by a strait of the North Sea called Skagerrak. 

My Norwegian language teachers had told me and my classmates that because we can read Norwegian, we would be able to read Danish. But, my Norwegian friends had also told me, and my Norwegian teachers had mentioned this, that Danes speak like they have potatoes in their mouth. When I learned about the relationship between Danish and Norwegian early in the fall semester, I thought it was interesting, especially the idea that two countries would have the same written language yet different pronunciations, and tucked away that tidbit of information. 

But this last week, I was with Danish family on a Danish island, Bornholm. Which means I got to hear Danish all the time and ask questions about it! And let me tell you, I know exactly what Norwegians mean when they say that Danish people sound like they are talking with potatoes in their mouths. Everything is rounded! Where are the consonants?! Literally do you have something in your mouth you’re trying to talk around? Why are you not articulating your consonants?! Do you only speak in vowels?! Are all your sounds coming from your throat?! I had so many questions! And, not wanting anyone to feel badly about their language, I couldn’t say these things out loud, but I also don’t think I could help my eyes from bugging out every time I heard someone talk. It was a wild week!

When I read signs on various historical sites on said Danish island I was equally blown away: I could, in fact, read these words. I had to look up / ask about some meanings, but the languages are effectively the same on paper. When we were at restaurants, my family would kindly translate the menu for me. So nice! I had to politely tell them that I could read Danish, pretty successfully. (Although the words for raspberry are, interestingly, different in each language (hindbær in Danish; bringebær in Norwegian.) Now I understood: despite having a similar written language, Danes and Norwegians notoriously cannot understand each other. (Check out this video if you want to learn more—also includes Swedes!) It was so fascinating and educational this week to test my knowledge of Norwegian by listening to Danish!

It was also interesting to talk to my Danish family about some differences between Norway and Denmark. While living in Norway, I have noticed that while Norwegians don’t like noticing or talking about cultural, ethnic, religious, or class differences, they have so much pride and will talk for hours on end about their linguistic and geographic diversity. Because Norwegians are separated by lots of mountains and sometimes water and their cities can be in extremely remote places, Norwegian dialects have sprouted all over the country. It is, in fact, completely common for Norwegians from one region of the country to ask Norwegians from other areas of the country to repeat or to say slower or to clarify what each other is saying. And in the mid-to-late 1800s, a Norwegian linguist went around the country listening and recording Norwegian dialects and effectively created a language, nynorsk (new Norwegian), which he wanted to be free from Danish influence. There are some authors, in fact, who only write in nynorsk (versus bokmål, the written language shaped by Danish). And when you email or write a letter (as one does) to any Norwegian institution (bank, government, hospital, school), they are required to respond to you in the language you wrote to them: nynorsk, bokmål, or an Indigenous language). I don’t quite understand nynorsk (and not because I am not fluent in Norwegian). Like, people say no one speaks it, but I have had students who tell me they speak it when I hear them talking a slightly different kind of Norwegian than their peers. Whatever. Yay linguistic diversity and the authorization of pride in linguistic diversity!

Norwegians also have a national costume, a bunad (for guys, totally gives Rip Van Winkle; for gals). The patterns embroidered on these beautiful bunad are regionally specific. I’m writing this post on Constitution Day, 17 May, and the streets this morning were filled with Norwegians in their geographically specific bunad. Walking around town, I almost felt like I do on graduation day when the faculty wear their doctoral gowns. Each gown is school specific and I have certainly felt a sense of pride wearing my University of Michigan colors. 

While Norwegians take great pride in separating themselves from Denmark in language and culture, my Danish family was convinced that Norwegians aren’t all that different from Danes. I was shook! This is not how Norwegians speak about their relationship to Danes. I found myself on more than one occasion defending Norwegians as separate from Danes, even though they have a shared linguistic and cultural history. And I didn’t even know where Norway was when I took this job! At one point in time I wanted to be like, you’re Danish! Of course you think Norwegians are like you! When I asked what they thought a Norwegian would say about these ideas, it was difficult for them to put themselves in the shoes of a Norwegian. Not all Danes would say this, I know I know.

This year, I have developed my ideas about what it means to be an American, because I stepped away from the United States. And I’m looking at her from far away, gazing at her from a refreshed lens. There aren’t Americans around me who share cultural values and I’ve had to acclimate myself to different ways things are done that I perhaps took for granted in the US. Like that story about the fish: they don’t know what water is because it’s hard to recognize something you’re swimming in if you know of nothing else. I’m glad a Norwegian teacher asked me to develop a workshop on what it means to be American and what it means to be Norwegian. Together, students and teachers and I have grappled with the question of what makes someone who they are—and different from others around you who might, in fact, share a history. It’s been so interesting to explore this idea in-country, and I noticed this week that I had to leave Norway to better understand my perspective on it. 

My research is grounded in perspective taking: how do our specific perspectives shape how we understand and enact justice? How we consider the discipline of English. What we believe about the role of school in our lives. One challenge of my teaching is helping teachers-in-training and practicing teachers understand their perspectives and where they come from, in helping them understand that just because they see things from certain perspectives means that that’s a perspective, not the perspective. And if we can recognize that we have all these perspectives, how might that shape our classroom work. 

It’s been cool to try to explain my understanding of the United States while living abroad, because it has been helping me articulate not just my understanding, but how Americans got to these ideas. It’s been cool to get the distance required to look back. It’s been my literal job to do this here, but once I open my mouth anywhere and speak English, or even just to say Jeg snakker litt norsk. Kan vi snakker på engelsk? (I speak a little Norwegian. Can we speak in English?) people know immediately I am American (or Canadian, but no one ever guesses Canadian) and want to ask questions about what’s going on over there etc etc. 

Developing perspective this week also got me thinking of how often we pause to consider where our perspectives come from and how we develop those perspectives. Like, not everyone can get away from the US to think about what it means to be from there. So how do we do this when we’re in the water? As I wrap up my year and continue on my 4×4, it’s been enriching to consider and develop my perspective in many realms of knowledge and understanding.