April Fool's in Denmark, and the rough game of Danish humor

Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kay Xander Mellish. April 1st is April Fool's Day. April Snar in Danish, and each Danish newspaper will feature a clever but false story for the unwary to be fooled by. Last year, for example, there was a story that the Danish police were trying to change their siren colors from blue to red to match the Danish flag, and a local TV station ran a piece about an acute shortage of daycare workers, meaning that the Danish army had to be called in. It showed video of the battle-hardened tough guys in combat uniforms reading aloud from storybooks and helping with toilet training. If you're dumb enough to take these stories seriously, people will laugh at you. You will be the April Fool. In other news, I will be closing down this podcast soon to take a job heading the Scandinavian division of Donald Trump's reelection campaign. We are hoping to get a knighthood for Mr. Trump here in Denmark. April Fool! To some extent, every day is April Fool's Day in Denmark because Danish humor is a rough humor. Danes show affection by making fun of each other, and as an international, they might make fun of you too. This is a good thing. This means they have accepted you into the circle of Danishness. But it doesn't mean that the intersection of non-Danes and Danish humor is entirely painless. If you come from a culture where you are easily offended, and that unfortunately includes the American culture these days, you may spend a lot of time with your feelings hurt. If you come from a culture where honor or face is prized, the Danish insistence on taking nothing seriously and taking everyone down a peg can be shocking. I was speaking to a group of refugee coordinators a couple of months ago, and they told me the story of a refugee who had been hired to work in a shop in rural Jutland. Where the Danish humor is at its most dry. The shop ran out of something, so the refugee employee was asked to go back to the storage building to replenish the supply. While he was there, he accidentally set off the alarm. The Danish boss came back to check on the alarm, and he said— and now this would be funny if it was Dane to Dane— he joked, what have you stolen now? If this had been a Danish employee, she would have known to respond with a a similarly dry answer. What have you stolen now? Yeah, not much. You got here too fast. But this poor refugee did not understand that the boss was making a joke. I have stolen nothing, he said. I, I am an honest man. He was heartbroken. Let's face it, Danish humor can be rough. Danish humor is harsh partly because the Danes are basically a glorified large family, and you can make fun of your family. Everything's an in-joke. You know you're accepted. It's also part of the Danish passion for equality. While a compliment might puff you up, make you think you're something special, a sharp dig brings you back down to earth. There's a little bit of jentelov in there. Don't think you're better than us. The dark side of Danish humor is that it can descend into bullying. People can get away with a lot by saying, Hey, it was just a joke! Even when it clearly wasn't. This is what one Danish reader told me. My advice to foreigners, he said, is to give back as good as you get. Quick thinking, timing, and response time is more important than a well-thought-out comedic reply. Someone who is quick on their feet with banter will bond well with the Danes. Consider it mental ping-pong. It can be enjoyable if there is genuine goodwill behind it. A great example of that goodwill is the Danish tradition of the kvægbejer, or idiot beer. An idiot beer is something you buy for all your friends or coworkers when they've seen you make an idiot of yourself. Maybe you're a bricklayer and built the wall of a house without making any space for windows. Maybe you're a translator who translated something into the wrong language. Maybe you scheduled your wedding on the same day as the DM championship in handball. Whatever it is, you've made a fool of yourself, and the proper thing to do is admit it, laugh at yourself, and buy everyone a beer. For non-drinkers or non-drinking situations, I've also seen kvægekage, or idiot cake. One of my corporate clients wasn't able to deliver a product on time, so when they finally brought the product to their customer, they also brought idiot cake. When the Danish football league made up its brackets and mistakenly excluded one team, It sent that team an idiot cake. Finding joy in what is basically a screw-up is a very Danish way of handling things. Compare, for example, the acrobatics necessary in Asia to make sure no one loses face, even when they're totally in the wrong. Even nearby countries like Germany and Sweden are a lot less cheerful about admitting their mistakes. But to the Danes, being able to make fun of yourself as you also make fun of everyone else is crucial to being part of the community. In fact, I feel lucky that the Danes have such a good sense of humor about themselves. Otherwise, I wouldn't have a career. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast for this week. You can book me for a speech to your group on my website, howtoliveindenmark.com, or buy one of the How to Live in Denmark books. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. See you next time.