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OPINION: How to make Denmark global and local

A tailor-made approach to creating a feeling of belonging for all groups in international contexts can strengthen Danish society, writes guest columnist Thomas Mulhern.

Published: 24 January 2018 17:00 CET
OPINION: How to make Denmark global and local
Thomas Mulhern and Globally Local co-founder Anita Mayntzhusen. Photo: supplied

One hears time and time again that Danes live in one of the happiest, if not the happiest countries on Earth. This statement is rooted primarily in surveys like the World Happiness Report, in which Denmark has ranked in the top three out of 155 countries the past five years.

The word “happiest” in this context is defined as the sum result of different factors surveyed. Though it could be argued that “happiness”, in terms of the self-understanding that underpins the Danish mentality, would be better rendered as “contentedness” (tilfredshed in Danish). 

The catch 22 is that the very same individual and societal contentedness that is largely seen as a positive metric of success stands as one of the fundamental barriers to integration and internationalisation efforts and, thus, future economic growth here in Denmark. 

This very same self-satisfaction has too often helped pave the way for black and white approaches within corporate, municipal and school communities; namely providing expats and global Danes a false dichotomy between assimilation or segregation. In addition, the tendencies of both expats and Danes to remain in their comfort zones, whether it be linguistically or culturally, have aided in perpetuating this trend. 

How can an organisation break out of this black and white mold and create hybrid models that maximize integration and internationalisation efforts? How can an organisation reap the potential benefits of having both expats and global Danes help to make Denmark a more dynamic society?

Globally Local, the company I co-launched in December 2017, aims to tear down the barriers that stand in the way of successful integration and internationalisation initiatives. We do this by having a team of experts, over a 6 month to two-year process, provide essential services and “retention packages” that are tailored, holistic and lead to achievable and sustainable integration and internationalisation efforts — chief among them the retention of global talent. 

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Why should a company, municipality or school push the boundaries of their comfort zones; think differently, strive to create new systematic approaches within the fields of talent attraction, integration, education and retention?

Companies have the potential to bolster their bottom lines by reducing costs with relation to failed foreign assignments, while simultaneously enhancing the retainment of global talent within their organisations. 

Intercultural communications expert Craig Storti has estimated that it costs the average company roughly US$250,000 a year in salary, benefits, and subsidies to keep an expatriate and his or her family in an overseas assignment. That is one family! In addition, the added organisational value that can be provided by employees that have both an understanding of foreign markets and have cultivated an understanding of the Danish work culture is invaluable. 

Municipalities can implement initiatives and establish the right conditions that lead to successful integration and internationalisation strategies and increase the well-being of domestic and foreign-based Danes and expats living in these communities along the way.

Schools, by having the right tools to successfully integrate these focus groups (expat and foreign-based Danish families), have the potential to increase the well-being of their students, parental group, staff and overall quality of the school.

In terms of adult students, there is a clear benefit for Danish universities in attempting to retaining talented foreign researchers and reaping some of the potential benefits of these researchers if they are properly embedded in Danish universities. Universities invest substantial resources in finding the right person for the job, to help them – and often their partner or family – settle in their new country of residence.

If attracting, integrating and retaining highly qualified expat and global Danish families has the potential to provide the aforementioned benefits to Danish society, why should we not attempt to maximise this effort? There is much to gain economically and societally, but we have only our comfort zones to lose.

Globally Local maintains that by creating shared frameworks predicated upon belonging, for home-based Danes, expats and global Danes, we make possible the conditions necessary for authentic integration and thus, a feeling of home for all these groups. 

This can be done by creating shared experiences that unite these families, promote intercultural exchanges, provide crucial networking opportunities, maintain and develop academic bilingual (Danish and English) communication, and allowing those in the process of learning Danish to have a voice. 

Taken together and tailored to the individual need of the family and organisation, these conditions can be met. Once these conditions are met, the barriers to successful integration and internationalisation initiatives can fall away, and Denmark will be left with a more dynamic and competitive country as a result. 

Thomas Knudsen Mulhern is managing director and co-founder of Globally Local, a private organisation that provides a variety of integration and internationalisation-related services to organisations, individuals and families. Thomas is the former International Department Head at Institut Sankt Joseph, where he created the first fully Danish-English bilingual programme in Denmark. 

READ ALSO: Inclusion in Danish higher education 'a tough task': international students

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OPINION AND ANALYSIS

OPINION: Down with Danish hygge – Sweden’s mys is more real, fun and inclusive

Hygge, the Danish art of getting cosy, has taken the world by storm. But the Swedish equivalent is refreshingly different, says David Crouch 

Published: 20 December 2022 08:41 CET
Updated: 6 August 2023 11:03 CEST
OPINION: Down with Danish hygge - Sweden’s mys is more real, fun and inclusive

It is around seven years since the Danish word hygge entered many of our languages. Hygge, pronounced hue-guh and generally translated as the art of cosiness, exploded almost overnight to become a global lifestyle phenomenon.

Hygge dovetailed with mindfulness and fed into other popular trends such as healthy eating, and even adult colouring books. “The Little Book of Hygge” became a publishing sensation and has been translated into 15 languages. It was swiftly followed by a second book from its author, “My Hygge Home”, one of dozens on the market. 

There is nothing wrong with new ways to relax, and certainly no harm in identifying them with Scandinavia. But as a guide to living your life, there are some problems with hygge. 

First, the original meaning of the word is too broad and subtle to enable a clear grasp of the concept among non-Danes. This probably helps to explain its appeal – hygge is an empty bottle into which you can pour whatever liquid you like.

Patrick Kingsley, who wrote a book about Denmark several years before the hygge hype, was “surprised to hear people describe all sorts of things” as hygge. Danes, he said, would use the word when talking about a bicycle, a table, or even an afternoon stroll. 

So it is hardly surprising that, outside Denmark, hygge is applied rather indiscriminately. Last week the New York Times devoted an entire article to achieving hygge while riding the city’s subway, of all places. “A train, after all, is basically a large sled that travels underground, in the dark,” it said, trying too hard to find a hint of Nordic-ness on the overcrowded railway.

READ ALSO: Danish word of the day – hyggeracisme

Hygge has become an exotic and mysterious word to describe more or less anything you want. It is as if someone decided that the English word “nice” had a magical meaning that contained the secret to true happiness, and then the whole non-English speaking world made great efforts to achieve the perfect feeling of “nice”. 

A second problem with hygge is that, in Denmark itself, it seems to operate like a badge of Danishness that can only be enjoyed by Danes themselves – a kind of cultural border that outsiders cannot cross. You can walk down a Danish street in the dark, one journalist was told, look through the windows and spot who is Danish and who is foreign just by whether their lighting is hygge or not.

When writer Helen Russell spent a year in Denmark, she was intrigued by hygge and asked a lifestyle coach about it. “It’s hard to explain, it’s just something that all Danes know about,” she was told. How could an immigrant to Denmark get properly hygge, Russell asked? “You can’t. It’s impossible,” was the unhelpful reply. It can’t be a coincidence that the far-right Danish Peoples Party has put a clear emphasis on hygge, as if immigration is a threat to hygge and therefore to Danish-ness itself. 

READ ALSO: It’s official – Hygge is now an English word

Outside Denmark, this exclusivity has taken on another aspect: where are all the children? Where amid the hygge hype are the bits of lego on the floor, the mess of discarded clothes, toys and half-eaten food, the bleeping iPads and noisy TVs? “Hygge is about a charmed existence in which children are sinisterly absent,” noted the design critic for the Financial Times. It’s as if the Pied Piper of hygge has spirited them away so you can get truly cosy. 

But there is a bigger problem with hygge. It is largely an invention, the work of some clever marketing executives. After spotting a feature about hygge on the BBC website, two of London’s biggest publishers realised this was “a perfect distillation of popular lifestyle obsessions”. They set out to find people who could write books for them on the subject, and so two bestsellers were born, spawning a host of imitations. 

Sweden has a different word that means roughly the same thing: mys (the noun) and mysig (the adjective). There have even been some half-hearted attempts to sell mys to a foreign audience in the same way as hygge. But the real meaning of mys in Swedish society is rather different, it seems to me. The reason for this, I think, is that mys has become so firmly identified with Friday nights, or fredagsmys – the “Friday cosy”. 

Fredagsmys is a collective sigh of relief that the working / school week is over, and now it is time for the whole family to come together in front of some trashy TV with a plate of easy finger-food. The word first appeared in the 1990s, entered the dictionary in 2006, and became a semi-official national anthem three years later with this joyous ad for potato crisps:

In this portrayal, mys is radically different to hygge. It is a celebration of the ordinary, witty and multi-cultural, featuring green-haired goths and a mixed-race family with small children. Food is central to fredagsmys, and what is the typical food of choice? Mexican, of course! Not a herring in sight.

Why Mexican? It seems nobody is really sure, but tacofredag now has roots in Swedish society. Tacos, tortillas, and all the accompanying spices and sauces take up a whole aisle of the typical Swedish supermarket. Swedes are accustomed to eating bread with various bits and pieces on top, according to a specialist in Swedish food culture, while the Swedish tradition of smörgåsbord (open sandwiches) makes a buffet meal seem natural. The fussiness of tacos is even reminiscent of a kräftskiva crayfish party.

There is no cultural exclusivity here. On the contrary, fredagsmys food could equally be Italian, North American, Middle-Eastern, British or French. And children are absolutely central to a good Friday cosy. 

With Swedish mys, everybody is welcome. Get cosy and relax, but do it by mixing and getting messy, rather than retreating into pure, perfect, rarified isolation. There is a time and a place for hygge. But the Swedish version is more real, more fun, and more inclusive.

David Crouch is the author of Almost Perfekt: How Sweden Works and What Can We Learn From It. He is a freelance journalist and a lecturer in journalism at Gothenburg University.

 
 
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