
{"id":21130,"date":"2011-02-03T13:11:45","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T12:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=21130\/"},"modified":"2017-01-21T03:41:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T03:41:17","slug":"new-friends-in-48-hours-not-here-in-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/new-friends-in-48-hours-not-here-in-denmark\/","title":{"rendered":"New friends in 48 hours? Not here in Denmark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Danish introverted, shy culture is preventing the best international researchers from feeling at home here, according to Prorector Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm.<\/p>\n<p>Danes have a history as Viking seafarers, \u00bbinternationally oriented\u00ab, as Thomas puts it, smiling. \u00bbBut when they go home they want to lock the door,\u00ab he says to the University Post.<\/p>\n<p>And this is precisely the problem. It is more difficult for outsiders to enter Danes\u2019 social network than in the United States. Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm used to be visiting professor at the University of Texas in Austin. <\/p>\n<p>Read: <a href=\"node\/9043\">Copenhagen held back by Europe<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Can&#8217;t get into the inner circle<\/h2>\n<p>\u00bbWhen I was in the US, we had the flat, the car, the television, and my wife was already involved in two maternity groups within 48 hours. That just doesn\u2019t happen in Denmark, where we are more inward-looking.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>His reflections are backed up by a just released survey of Danish expatriate staff and researchers at the University of Copenhagen. Three out of every four staff say it is difficult to form friendships with Danes.<\/p>\n<p>Read article <a href=\"node\/9081\">Foreign staff: Danes are not very friendly<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Mixed signals<\/h2>\n<p>Prorector Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm recounts a story going the rounds that he heard at a meeting in Copenhagen. An international staff member gave him, and the others at the meeting, the following anecdote.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbSo we moved into a Copenhagen neighbourhood and invited all our neighbours over for a drink. They were all very happy to meet us, but the funny thing was, they were also happy to meet each other, because they hadn\u2019t met before! So we were proud to bring these people together\u00ab. <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbA few days passed, so we got a letter from our neighbour. We thought: That\u2019s nice! They are inviting us! They got it!\u00ab<\/p>\n<h2>Attitude needs to change<\/h2>\n<p>\u00bbBut then they opened the letter: \u2018Friday next week, our daughter turns 18, and we are having a party. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience!&#8217;\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Prorector Bj\u00f8rnholm hopes that Danes become more welcoming and extroverted, and better neighbours.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThis has to change! Foreigners don\u2019t feel that they are not welcome, it\u2019s just that they can\u2019t get in to the inner circle,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>Read more of the Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm interview here: <a href=\"node\/9043\">Copenhagen held back by Europe<\/a> and <a href=\"node\/9134\">Prorector: Denmark&#8217;s tax system not fair<\/a> .<\/p>\n<p>miy@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay in the know about news and events happening in Copenhagen by <a href=\"http:\/\/universitypost.dk\/newsletter\" target=\"_blank\">signing up for the University Post\u2019s weekly newsletter here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Danish slow-to-get-to-know-you culture is not good at attracting the best, says University of Copenhagen prorector<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":21131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","expression-news_article"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New friends in 48 hours? 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It is more difficult for outsiders to enter Danes\u2019 social network than in the United States. Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm used to be visiting professor at the University of Texas in Austin. <\/p>\n<p>Read: <a href=\"node\/9043\">Copenhagen held back by Europe<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Can&#8217;t get into the inner circle<\/h2>\n<p>\u00bbWhen I was in the US, we had the flat, the car, the television, and my wife was already involved in two maternity groups within 48 hours. That just doesn\u2019t happen in Denmark, where we are more inward-looking.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>His reflections are backed up by a just released survey of Danish expatriate staff and researchers at the University of Copenhagen. Three out of every four staff say it is difficult to form friendships with Danes.<\/p>\n<p>Read article <a href=\"node\/9081\">Foreign staff: Danes are not very friendly<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Mixed signals<\/h2>\n<p>Prorector Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm recounts a story going the rounds that he heard at a meeting in Copenhagen. An international staff member gave him, and the others at the meeting, the following anecdote.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbSo we moved into a Copenhagen neighbourhood and invited all our neighbours over for a drink. They were all very happy to meet us, but the funny thing was, they were also happy to meet each other, because they hadn\u2019t met before! So we were proud to bring these people together\u00ab. <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbA few days passed, so we got a letter from our neighbour. We thought: That\u2019s nice! They are inviting us! They got it!\u00ab<\/p>\n<h2>Attitude needs to change<\/h2>\n<p>\u00bbBut then they opened the letter: \u2018Friday next week, our daughter turns 18, and we are having a party. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience!&#8217;\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Prorector Bj\u00f8rnholm hopes that Danes become more welcoming and extroverted, and better neighbours.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThis has to change! Foreigners don\u2019t feel that they are not welcome, it\u2019s just that they can\u2019t get in to the inner circle,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>Read more of the Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm interview here: <a href=\"node\/9043\">Copenhagen held back by Europe<\/a> and <a href=\"node\/9134\">Prorector: Denmark&#8217;s tax system not fair<\/a> .<\/p>\n<p>miy@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay in the know about news and events happening in Copenhagen by <a href=\"http:\/\/universitypost.dk\/newsletter\" target=\"_blank\">signing up for the University Post\u2019s weekly newsletter here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":48,"name":"Politics","slug":"politics","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":48,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1036,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11492,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Thomas_Bjornholm3_0-1280x879.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37715,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21130\/revisions\/37715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}