Report from Denmark (5)
Homogeneous European
During studying in Denmark, we have a chance to have two-day-course in Lund of Sweden. Lund is a university city like Cambridge in UK. It is very close to Melmo. And it only needs to take one hour by train from Copenhagen. The train runs through the longest cable-stayed bridge over across the Baltic Sea between Denmark and Sweden. It is 7.8 km long. To our surprise, when the train entered into Sweden, the clerk of train began to report information in Swedish. And Danes can understand it. Danes explained to us that these two languages are very similar. No wonder Nordic can communicate without any language barrier though they speak different languages and even different letters. It is really amazing. In our country, people who speak different dialects often can’t understand each other though we all speak the same language, Chinese.
We only have two hours to walk around the street of Lund. Lund is a small city. So we almost viewed all symbol sceneries on its postcards in two hours. If let me compare Lund to the city of Denmark, I can’t describe big difference between them. Lund had belonged to Denmark in history. So you can imagine. We met a student-like Chinese tourist by chance in Lund. He told us that he was from Canada. And he asked us what appearance of Copenhagen was. We didn’t know how to sum up the characters of Copenhagen. Looking back, the style of Europe is very close. So we just said that it is very ordinary one in all European cities. He said that he liked European’s ancient buildings and historical sense. We told him that we almost felt tired of it after traveling so many ancient European cities. We seem not to be able to find more proper word than old and ancient to describe Europe. A friend of mine who lives in Sdorgerlmo made the same comments on the impression of Sweden and Denmark. Then I gave up the plan to visit Sweden. And uncle Ben also told me that Hamburg is very similar to Copenhagen. Then I gave up the trip to Hamburg again.
Equal rights in Nordic countriesThere is one thing to impress me deeply in Sweden. An old professor who gave us a lecture made an example on the rights of child in Sweden. His eight-year-old granddaughter dialed emergency phone call due to sanction that she was awarded by her mother because of her wrong-made. The so-called sanction is that her mother reduced her allowance without informing her. She told police that it is unfair to do it like this. She thought that her right was invaded by her mother. And the mother had to admit her wrong before the police and her daughter. It is said that this phenomenon is very popular in Sweden as well as in Denmark. The parents here have no rights to beat their children no matte what wrong they made. The child who was beaten or punished by parents may call emergency phone to ask for rescue from police. It is unbelievable in China. But it is truth here. I think that it is outrages. It causes misuse of equal rights. It is also a social problem here. Spoiled system will do harm to the future of children as well as the society.
Feminism is very active in Nordic. The distinctive thing is that husband’s name should add wife’s name after they get married. In Denmark parliament, half of the members are female. In addition, it is said that husband carries out almost the same household task as wife such as cooking, looking after children. It is not strange that we often meet young fathers.
Dove, in Copenhagen
