The song for today: Fladt Land - Pato Siebenhaar feat. Danni Toma. I'll explain why below...
Yesterday was a big day for me and safety.
While I was waiting for my dear friend Lotta to meet me at a museum I finally found a bike shop with helmets in my size. It's been no trouble locating tiny helmets decked out with dinosaurs and super scary monsters or princesses but the adult set has been a bit more elusive.... it's fair to say that the vast majority of adult Copenhageners don't wear a helmet when they bike. And if they do it's black or brown... and maybe the occasional blue. I was planning on fitting in but that's just not worth my time AND ultimately futile so I got a vibrant turquoise helmet. In the cool Copenhagen style though. I also got some heavy-duty magnetic activated bike lights. Seeing as the helmet is bright enough to act as a third light and I also have two reflectors on my wheels... I think it's fair to say that the streets of Copenhagen are safer today.
For months now I have been trying to remind myself to go see Copenhagen museums because it's easy to forget they're there once you move to a place. During exams I made a list of must-see museums and all their free entrance days to keep me motivated through studying (nerd alert!!! yesss!). First stop, the Museum of Copenhagen. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that a third of the museum is dedicated to the theme of "Becoming a Copenhagener" - the history of immigration, cosmopolitanism and identity politics in Copenhagen. Not like I'm interested in that enough to do a two-year masters program related to it or anything. The exhibit has been up since November 2010 and will be around through the end of 2012. From Lotta's perspective even having an exhibit in an official museum that acknowledged and explored immigrant experiences and multiculturalism was a striking difference from what one would find in Helsinki. Lotta has worked as a social worker with refugee communities in Helsinki, particularly the Somali diaspora. As always I love getting her broader perspective on the Scandinavian/Nordic context.
Photo slideshow: Wanted and unwanted immigrants to Copenhagen
A theme that surface continually throughout the displays was the sense that non-ethnic Danes often feel unable to be "Danish" but readily identify as Copenhageners. And indeed I could see myself feeling like a Copenhagener after a couple years here - it's a very open city in many ways - but I would never feel like a Dane no matter how blond I am and how permanent the visa in my passport claimed my stay was. Part of the exhibit included a little area where you could write down what brought you to Copenhagen and add to a collage on the wall. I waxed eloquent for quite some time. Ha! Before the museum yesterday I was meeting with my project partner at a library and we ran into a friend of hers who is from Seattle! He asked what I was up to here and one of the first things we started talking about was visas... shop talk? We eventually realized that we're not only fro the same area, but he had my Uncle Ralph for a math teacher at Garfield High School. He recalled a couple bars from the song some friends of his in a band made about "Mr. Minor". Surreal.
Speaking with a dear friend from the the HIA program this summer, Kashay, last night got me fired up to write about all of this... she is interested in minority experiences in Europe - particularly the concept of "blackness" as an identifier. I think she's really on to something - especially in Scandinavia - when she notices that the dialog is so dominated by ideas of the clash of Islam and Christianity, the Muslim other that the experiences and potential point of prideful collective identity around blackness is much less visible. I'm excited to see where her thoughts and interests take her on this one.
"Fladt Land" is off Pato's first Danish-language album. As such, he decided to play with the idea of being Danish - what it means or could mean, who is included and excluded, how to be a part of making the Denmark he wants. The song takes inspiration from Gi' Mig Danmark Tilbage (Give Me Denmark Back), Natasja's hit single that busted wide open the idea of Denmark belonging to any one ethnicity. She was born and raised in Denmark to a Danish mother and Sudanese father and became a beacon for political activism and Danish music. About "Fladt Land, Pato says that he wanted to acknowledge first that no one needed to give Denmark "back" to him because it was never taken away, it was always assumed that as an ethnic Danes, Denmark was his. He talks about growing up with hi grandmas, coming into the world in a public/community hospital, eating rød grod med flød. One of the lines is "I was born in the open sandwich nation". hahaha... I won't claim to understand all of it but he is speaking clearly enough to catch the main idea. The big refrain is - no matter what if you're a Dane you were born in a flat land. The featured guy, Danni Toma, was raised in Aalborg by a Danish mother and Palestinian father - he's younger, closer to my age. He says you're kidding yourself if you think being Danish is just about eating rød grod med flød and that Danish politics can be embarrassing but he loves his country because he has his base there, it's his place. The thing about "amerikansk" - he says he finds it bizarre how they're gone from Danish to American values - meaning, not into equality.
Hej hej for now... i'm off to take some photos of the world, it's a beautiful day.
Yesterday was a big day for me and safety.
While I was waiting for my dear friend Lotta to meet me at a museum I finally found a bike shop with helmets in my size. It's been no trouble locating tiny helmets decked out with dinosaurs and super scary monsters or princesses but the adult set has been a bit more elusive.... it's fair to say that the vast majority of adult Copenhageners don't wear a helmet when they bike. And if they do it's black or brown... and maybe the occasional blue. I was planning on fitting in but that's just not worth my time AND ultimately futile so I got a vibrant turquoise helmet. In the cool Copenhagen style though. I also got some heavy-duty magnetic activated bike lights. Seeing as the helmet is bright enough to act as a third light and I also have two reflectors on my wheels... I think it's fair to say that the streets of Copenhagen are safer today.
A photo of me at the CPH history museum WITH my fancy new helmet.
For months now I have been trying to remind myself to go see Copenhagen museums because it's easy to forget they're there once you move to a place. During exams I made a list of must-see museums and all their free entrance days to keep me motivated through studying (nerd alert!!! yesss!). First stop, the Museum of Copenhagen. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that a third of the museum is dedicated to the theme of "Becoming a Copenhagener" - the history of immigration, cosmopolitanism and identity politics in Copenhagen. Not like I'm interested in that enough to do a two-year masters program related to it or anything. The exhibit has been up since November 2010 and will be around through the end of 2012. From Lotta's perspective even having an exhibit in an official museum that acknowledged and explored immigrant experiences and multiculturalism was a striking difference from what one would find in Helsinki. Lotta has worked as a social worker with refugee communities in Helsinki, particularly the Somali diaspora. As always I love getting her broader perspective on the Scandinavian/Nordic context.
Photo slideshow: Wanted and unwanted immigrants to Copenhagen
A theme that surface continually throughout the displays was the sense that non-ethnic Danes often feel unable to be "Danish" but readily identify as Copenhageners. And indeed I could see myself feeling like a Copenhagener after a couple years here - it's a very open city in many ways - but I would never feel like a Dane no matter how blond I am and how permanent the visa in my passport claimed my stay was. Part of the exhibit included a little area where you could write down what brought you to Copenhagen and add to a collage on the wall. I waxed eloquent for quite some time. Ha! Before the museum yesterday I was meeting with my project partner at a library and we ran into a friend of hers who is from Seattle! He asked what I was up to here and one of the first things we started talking about was visas... shop talk? We eventually realized that we're not only fro the same area, but he had my Uncle Ralph for a math teacher at Garfield High School. He recalled a couple bars from the song some friends of his in a band made about "Mr. Minor". Surreal.
Speaking with a dear friend from the the HIA program this summer, Kashay, last night got me fired up to write about all of this... she is interested in minority experiences in Europe - particularly the concept of "blackness" as an identifier. I think she's really on to something - especially in Scandinavia - when she notices that the dialog is so dominated by ideas of the clash of Islam and Christianity, the Muslim other that the experiences and potential point of prideful collective identity around blackness is much less visible. I'm excited to see where her thoughts and interests take her on this one.
"Fladt Land" is off Pato's first Danish-language album. As such, he decided to play with the idea of being Danish - what it means or could mean, who is included and excluded, how to be a part of making the Denmark he wants. The song takes inspiration from Gi' Mig Danmark Tilbage (Give Me Denmark Back), Natasja's hit single that busted wide open the idea of Denmark belonging to any one ethnicity. She was born and raised in Denmark to a Danish mother and Sudanese father and became a beacon for political activism and Danish music. About "Fladt Land, Pato says that he wanted to acknowledge first that no one needed to give Denmark "back" to him because it was never taken away, it was always assumed that as an ethnic Danes, Denmark was his. He talks about growing up with hi grandmas, coming into the world in a public/community hospital, eating rød grod med flød. One of the lines is "I was born in the open sandwich nation". hahaha... I won't claim to understand all of it but he is speaking clearly enough to catch the main idea. The big refrain is - no matter what if you're a Dane you were born in a flat land. The featured guy, Danni Toma, was raised in Aalborg by a Danish mother and Palestinian father - he's younger, closer to my age. He says you're kidding yourself if you think being Danish is just about eating rød grod med flød and that Danish politics can be embarrassing but he loves his country because he has his base there, it's his place. The thing about "amerikansk" - he says he finds it bizarre how they're gone from Danish to American values - meaning, not into equality.
Hahahha...
Hej hej for now... i'm off to take some photos of the world, it's a beautiful day.
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