S4E21: This Is Home Now with Melanie Haynes

Published: Jan. 28, 2014, 6:58 p.m.

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Colin Marshall sits down in Copenhagen\'s\\xa0Frederiksberg with Melanie Haynes, author of the blog\\xa0Dejlige Days. They discuss the Danish national virtue of hygge (and the also important quality of dejlige); how she came to leave her native England for Denmark; the Copenhagen system of smiley-face food sanitation ratings; the Danish habit of both asking "Why are you here in my country?" and personally receiving her praise for the country; why she writes about festivals, eating, design, and "the relaxed life"; how the British operate in fifth gear at all times, and the Danish in third; her popular post on "becoming Danish," and Denmark\'s concept of immigration; the necessity to learn Danish so as to avoid perpetually apologizing all the time for your non-Danishness; her troubled period in Berlin, a city with which she could never really engage; how Danish society frowns on ambition versus how British society does; scarves and the way Danish women wear them; what pregnancy taught her about Danish life; the relative perception of taxes, and how her work in government public relations sheds light on it; how she intends to help her young son become a citizen of the world; what she wished she\'d known about Denmark before coming; and her immediate feeling that she "should\'ve always been here."

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