[Vision2020] Scandinavian "Hate"

[Nicholas Gier]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for this one.  Having spent four years in Denmark and 16.5 years
married to a Dane, I have many "hate" stories about these wonderful but
complicated people.

1.  Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes all hate the Finns, because they are
swarthy and carry knives (go figure). They are not true Scandinavians, but
the other three reluctantly allow them to be part of the Nordic (but not
Scandinavian) countries.

2. They include the Icelanders and Faroe Islanders among the Scandinavians,
but the latter are looked down upon because they eat sheep brains.  I did
not witness this, but in 1966  I was told in hushed whispers that  in my
Danish student dorm some "Faeringers" were all huddled around a sheep brain
greedily dipping their bread in it . I shared their disgust, so I did not
go down the hall to see if this were actually the case.  It certainly can't
be any worse than lyttefisk!

3. As part of my initiation at my dorm, I was introduced to Aquavit.  At
the depths of our drunkenness (it came very fast for me), the Danes started
chanting "Vi hader svenskerne!" and I joined in the chorus of "We hate the
Swedes."

4. My former father-in-law never forgave the Swedes for coming over the
Baltic ice in the 17th Century and burning Copenhagen; for always beating
the Danes in soccer; for urinating on the windows of his clock shop in the
New Harbor District where all the Swedes drank on weekends; and for
occasionally breaking into his shop. My former wife and I stayed in the
town house above the shop in 1985-86, so we could smell the Swedish
deposits all weekend long and we notified my father-in-law if there were
any broken windows.

4.  Copenhagen is a city of one million, and in 1966 I was the only guy who
ran for recreation and wore Addidas running shoes all the time. One dark
winter afternoon (sundown at 3 PM), I was running around the national
stadium . Some kids had been harassing me on a regular basis and I thought
that I would finally get their goat.  I didn't know that many swear words
yet (being the sober scholar that I was), so I made up the most negative
thing I could yell to them: "I smaa svin!" in a heavy accent.  I later
regret putting pigs down in this way, because Dainish swine (the cleanest
in the world) are at a much higher level than these little rats. In
retrospect I should have anathemized them as "You little rats" rather than
"You little swine."  In any case, it worked: they scattered like startled
birds.  Behind a tree, I could hear one little rascal saying "Han maa vaere
svensker!"  Yes, you heard it right: "He must be a Swede!"

I just realized that I now have a column to go with Roy Zimmerman's song.
 It will be a nice break for all the political and religious columns that I
will write when book is done.

Now back to that book, for which I now have a one week extension, which I
just shortened by a half hour!

Skal to the Norwegians who actually come out comparatively well between the
battling Danes and Swedes,

Nick Gier (a Scotch-Irish/German Catholic Hybrid)
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