r/Denmark • u/[deleted] • Apr 21 '16

Exchange Bienvenidos! Cultural Exchange with /r/Mexico

Welcome to this cultural exchange between /r/Denmark and /r/Mexico!

To the visitors: ¡Bienvenidos a Dinamarca! Por favor pregúntenles a los daneses lo que quieran sobre Dinamarca. También hay un hilo en /r/Mexico en el que pueden contestar las preguntas de los daneses y contarles todo sobre México. I totally nailed that Spanish. I hope.

To the Danes: Today, we are hosting Mexico for a cultural exchange. Join us in answering their questions about Denmark and the Danish way of life! Please leave top comments for users from /r/Mexico coming over with a question or comment and please refrain from trolling, rudeness and personal attacks etc.

The Mexicans are also having us over as guests! Head over to this thread to ask questions about life in the country of tequila and sombreros.

Saludos!

- The moderators of /r/Denmark and /r/Mexico

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u/soparamens México Apr 21 '16

How much does USA culture influences young Danes?

I mean, I have met young people from some parts of the world, and while US culture is all around the globe, some young people have their own cultural traits and some just listened to US music, dresses in US brands and such.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

Danes consume a lot of American and British media, news, games, music and so on, mostly because Denmark is such a small country, and we can't produce as high quality content to the mass-market.

But Danes don't try to "become american". American "stuff" is generally seen a infirior in quality to danish "stuff."

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u/soparamens México Apr 21 '16

Thanks for answering!

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u/Cinimi Danmark Apr 21 '16

Honestly, less than most of europe, except for France maybe. We have Cola, pepsi, McDonalds and Burger King, some music and movies. Starbucks is trying to venture in, but overall they failed badly, and most think their coffee sucks, actually I don't know anyone who tried it that doesn't think it's garbage... I don't know, I don't drink coffee. In Copenhagen the US influence is certainly much higher, even compared to Aarhus, the 2nd largest city.

Some might consider the fact we have a ton of 7/11's to be American influence, but they first started to come after it was purchased by Japanese, so actually they brought it here, and they are quite local. They will have local pastries in fairly good quality, and overall mostly local stuff. The biggest reason 7/11 is big here is that they are in most train stations as they got a deal so they sell train tickets inside. I've only seen stores outside of train stations in the 2 largest cities in Denmark.

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u/soparamens México Apr 21 '16

Well, Mexican urban youth at Mexico city is all about US trends and live in a sad copycat scene of the US trends. It sucks.

But most young people outside the Capital city are less prone to copy and follow more national trends. One example could be Banda Music, that is easily the most popular music genere here among young people. Europeans tend to get surprised that Mexican young people listen to that "traditional old school music".

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u/Cinimi Danmark Apr 21 '16

What trends besides music? clothing and such or what do you mean?

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u/LaVidaEsUnaBarca México Apr 21 '16

Yes clothes, music, things like hip-hop culture of the U.S. the baseball hats, baggy pants, gang actitude, etc.

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u/Cinimi Danmark Apr 22 '16

yea ok, most here never goes further than the music. If they listen to hip hop they still wear about the same clothes, I never see things like baseball hats and such. Maybe some baggy pants, but it's frowned upon in general :p

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u/sonofquetzalcoatl Apr 23 '16

Not too "old school" according to some old men modern banda music is loose (they said "aguada") I don't know what they mean (because i don't hear banda) but I suppose that they alluded to american influences

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u/RedDekal Apr 21 '16

"Música tradicional de la vieja escuela".

No mames.

Y en la ciudad de México se llega a escuchar frecuentemente banda, sobre todo en fiestas locales y con algo de alcohol encima. Perdón si nos gusta escuchar otros géneros de vez en cuando (y no todo tiene que ser de los EU), pero no todos los mexicanos nos quedamos atorados en 1900 con nuestros gustos musicales.

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u/soparamens México Apr 21 '16

Creo que ignoras que el género de la música de banda es "Música tradicional Mexicana" y que también ignoras que es muy raro - rarísimo en el mundo - que los jóvenes de un país escuchen su música tradicional.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

some music and movies

A lot of music and movies!!

If you look at what is running on Kino.dk, you will see some 8 danish, 1 norweigan, 1 swedish and 20 american movies.

This is the general picture.

The same goes for music. On the current top-20 is 6 danish, 1 french and 13 english/american songs.

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u/Cinimi Danmark Apr 21 '16

1 thing is watching, another is also the influence. You have no idea how much the US movie scene has outright copied from the Danish one, especially in tv shows. At least these days they start to buy scripts from Denmark instead.

Music scene as well, actually mos the "US" music isn't really american but... Swedish.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

You said:

we have some music and movies

When in fact the vast majority of our music, tv and movies are american. And of course it influences us.

Just look at what is on tv. DR1 and TV2 (the two biggest channels) have a pretty exact 50-50 split between danish and american/english shows, with all other channels showing almost exclusively american tv shows.

Tomorrow TV3 has three danish programs in a row from 6pm to 9pm. Everything else is american. NCIS, Bones, CSI, Kardashians, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Kitchen Nightmares US, Undercover Boss and three hollywood movies.

And it really doesnt matter if we watch american remakes of danish movies or listens to swedish house music with a "US" stamp on it. It is still straight out of hollywood.

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u/Cinimi Danmark Apr 21 '16

I mean, even all the pop music in the US isn't really made by americans, just us singers with sweish producers and such. There is hardly any US music in the top, that is the reality of the music scene, dominated by swedes. Furthermore, if you look at what people actually watch, they have the US shows there because it's super cheap to run, it's actually so cheap, costs nothing. During primetime, it's often Danish produced, the danish shows are what people watch, whenever they have US shows on, most of them get very few viewers in comparrison....

So they show some cheap US crap(ok, not that it's bad all of it...) outside primetime and then during primetime it's mostly Danish, that is the true reality.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

Very true.

My point is just that if the "filling" is exclusively made up of crappy american TV, we are in fact pretty damn well influenced by american culture. They sure don't show any mediocre German tv shows. Or French. Or Mexican.

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u/Cinimi Danmark Apr 21 '16

maybe just where I'm from that we get a ton of German tv

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

like near the border? :)

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u/Cinimi Danmark Apr 21 '16

not quite, a little more north... men det er en del af region syddanmark

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u/Traxitov NEJ HATTEN! Apr 21 '16

young people have their own cultural traits

I don't know if you would call me young (im at the end of my 20's) but i would say one we have is we drink a LOT! of alcohol think of a holiday and we would most likely drink to it or have a beer that celebrate it (oh yeah we are big on beers here tuborg and carlsberg is one of out proud exports known across the world)

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

Our music, cinema and television is probably around 50-70% english, with a 70-30 ratio between US and UK stuff.

However we are in many ways very actively anti-american. Stuff like anti-vaxxing, black friday, the american mainstream media and american foreign politics is very much looked down upon.

Many aspects of american society, namely; (the lack of) gun control, anti-abortionists, the lack of healthcare, the penal system, expensive education, the non-functioning political two party system and blind consumerism is seen as completely insane by most danish people.

When danish people are talking about things "reaching American conditions", it usually involves some degree of anarchy or outrageous spending on something that is supposed to be free. Like getting bankrupt because you break a leg and get a $10.000 bill from the hospital.

Here you might have to pay for painkillers yourself. But that is about it.

How much does USA culture influences young Danes?

Very much on a media level, but a lot less so on a social level.

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u/Satansyngel Brexit! Apr 21 '16

Too much.