Surprise! The Happiest Place on Earth is not Disneyland. It's in Scandinavia!

Every year, the last three years, Time magazine releases an article citing a survey from the Univeristy of Michigan claiming that “Denmark is the happiest country in the world.”

And every year, 10 of my American friends email me the article to let me know I’ve made a good decision, moving to Denmark.

I don’t know how to respond to these emails because there’s a fiery collision of thoughts, emotions and experiential data in my brain when I hear about this.

Here’s my scientific response to it.

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Calling Denmark the happiest place on Earth would be like calling celebrities (the knicker-less Britneys, or the strung out Amy Winehouses of the world) the classiest people on Earth. Or Russia the most vodka-avoiding country in the world. Your knee-jerk reaction is whaaaaa? Howwww? Whyyy?

And there’s no greater proof of the hollowness of this study than the evidence provided by the people who sprang into action to disprove it: the Danes.

The Danes are so dour they wince at the thought of the rest of the world calling them shiny happy people laughing. Because they’re not. Period. They are kind-hearted, they are cool, they are fashionable, they are sexually-charged, smart, punctual, and world-class beer drinkers. But the happiest?! By whose definition of happy? Eeyore’s?

I believe that if you were to survey the non-native community of residents living in Denmark – those who’ve experienced living in a non-Denmark country – and asked them if the Danes are the happiest, they would tell you, without equivocation, no. The reason is, most Danes don’t exude warmth or the slightest slivver of happiness. To look another person in the eye, to smile at a stranger, to let someone go in front of you in line at the grocery market, just to be nice, would be Jack-o weird in Denmark. Because Denmark, outwardly, is a very abrupt, manner-less, smile-less, quiet, foot-tappingly impatient, chipper-free nation. Now, when you get Denmark drunk, all bets are off; then, the warmth and openness flow. But, until then, through no fault of their own – and I have no idea why – most Danes appear very closed off. But appearances are deceiving, and of course, my conclusion and perception of Danes is mired in years of living in American ebullience and pretense. In America, you can talk to anyone; we look people in the eye; we’re up for making friends on the subway. Maybe we have too many friends. And yet despite the outwardly ‘happy-come-hither’ gaze, many Americans are on Prozac.

Danes are as well, they just would never tell you. Or their mother, husband or best friend.

So here’s what the University of Southern Denmark concluded, setting-the-record- and Oprah Winfrey (who committed a whole show to the topic!) -straight.

According to Danish researchers themselves: It's not all the free things, the welfare-state safety net or the pickled herring: "it's the low expectations."

[O]n surveys, Danes continually report lower expectations for the year to come, compared with most other nations. And "year after year, they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark," the paper concludes.*

And so, beneath the façade of contentment they wear like a pashmina is a deep-rooted melancholy and pessimism that everything will turn out badly. When events don’t end up über-shitty, wow, what a surprise. You have a happy country.

And some very confused foreigners living in it.

*Source: http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2008/07/02/danes_still_the_happiest_even/

Sanne Salomonsen - Denmark's rock mama

UDEN DIG...which means WITHOUT YOU

LYRICS

Sidste år ved denne tid,
gik vi sammen her.
Nu er alle sporene slettet.
Vinden hvisker ikke mere,
nu du ikke er
lige her

Jeg forstod vidst aldrig helt,
hvorfor du forsvandt.
Og din tvivl var svær at bære.
Følger du mon drømmen nu,
om at være nær,
hvor du er

Du gav livet mening
Det bliver svært at blive,
lige så lykkelig,
uden dig.
Du gav livet mening
Jeg kan aldrig blive,
nær så lykkelig
uden dig
Jeg elskede

Hvor jeg end vender mig hen,
ser jeg efter dig.
Er du mon om det næste hjørne?
Ooh, alle andre mennesker bliver
fremmede for mig,
uden dig.

Ooh yeah Uden dig
Uden dig.

Two Roads...by Robert Frost

Lesson 5: How to speak in American, Learn English!

Learning to communicate when being robbed

LA County Fair Commercial - Classroom

I find it difficult...

I find it difficult to keep my act together when a European tells me that we got it wrong -- that Al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden doesn’t actually hate everything about America and the West. The proof being that "he once was a big Arsenal Football fan." Arsenal is in Britain, I think. 

And that he, Bin Laden, "carried out the attacks on Sept. 11 as part of a bigger mission we must try to understand."

 

"And that America has taken thousands more innocent lives, like in Hiroshima." 

"What is 3,000 compared to the hundreds of thousands who died there?"

And on and on, until my eyes cried blood. This was last night. 

 

I don't think this person saw the footage of desperate men and women jumping out of the windows of the Twin Towers right before they came crumbling down. Obviously, this person has never been alive when his or her beloved country was attacked in four surgical strikes in three cities, minutes apart. Clearly, he doesn't know -- nor did I until yesterday -- how sensitive this issue is for the 99% of Americans who lived through that horrifying day nearly eight years ago. And who maybe doesn't want to add up the sum of such naïve drivel to be "your country had it coming."  

I can move past the false metaphor of Hiroshima and the September 11 terrorist attacks, but any “digging inside the mind and reasoning of a terrorist” is dishonest if it fails to acknowledge that the needless spreading of panic, terror and innocent bloodshed is the means to achieving their specific ends.

Oh, to be homesick and sensitive all at the same time. 

I am a hot mess today,  awash with emotions I didn't know I could feel. 

In 12 days America will honor the events of 9/11 on the 8th anniversary of the attack. 

President Barack Obama has called for Americans to commemorate the day with a National Day of Service and Remembrance. I was pleased at this gesture -- it's a thoughtful call to action and an homage to the thousands who perished that day, and the many thousands more who came together to give aid, triage, relief and heroic sacrifices for their fellow citizens in the hours that followed the attacks. 

I remember that morning talking on the phone to my best friend Chris (who lived back east), minutes after the second plane went into the tower. My teeth chattered and I started to shiver, which happens to me when I get sad and panicky. "Cammy, at least the buildings are still standing! It's going to be OK. You're such a spazz."

He hadn't uttered that last word before the towers collapsed right before our eyes, on the live morning news I was watching on LA channel 8. They crashed to the ground in a heap of dust and mushroom-cloud of debris. I told Chris he was full of shit, then called my mom and woke her. I called Jordan, my boyfriend, who had spent the first 18 years of his life in Manhattan. None of us knew what to do. 

I dressed for work, knowing I wouldn't make it onto the Paramount lot. Filming of the TV show I worked on had been cancelled. The set would stay closed and deserted for several days.

I needed to get out of the Santa Monica apartment that I lived in alone, so I wandered into the Seattle's Best Coffee shop just around the corner on Wilshire Blvd. The usual morning shift was there that day. It was like seeing old friends. I ordered my usual and my buddy Mario - the round one who always gave me extra whipped cream -- came out from behind the counter to give me a hug. It warmed me up better than any coffee could.

Across America, Random Public Hugging went up by 987% that day back in 2001. It felt like Armageddon. The clash of emotions inside most Americans was more than any civilian was prepared for. We were vulnerable and bruised; fearful and sad; we needed each other more than we realized. 

On that day, as we saw a disaster strike America, citizens across the country came together and showed the very best of America: compassionate, unified and resolute.

Today, I would give anything for a random hug. From anyone, though I know I sound weird. That would never happen in the country I'm living in now. 

I find that difficult.

I'll be whatever you want me to be, just not that.

My mother leaned into the patio table as she said the following words, punctuating each syllable with breathless urgency. “Remember one thing, Cammy, if you ever get into a tight spot...”

She glanced at Kelly and Stephanie, then whipped her head back to me.

“You’re a Canadian.”  

My flushed, boozy cheeks collapsed into a frown. “I am no such thing, and I will never say that. No offense to Canada.”

“Do it, Cam,” piped in Kelly, her curly strawberry-blonde hair tapping her shoulders as she nodded in agreement with my mom.

She was supposed to be my ally here.

Kelly is an FBI-agent, formerly stationed at the Sacramento field office and working the field of counter-terrorism. 

Before her gig at the Bureau, she worked for the UN, helping to rebuild police forces in war-torn Bosnia.    

A killer patriot from North Dakota with brilliant comedic timing, a love of running and the best Ghiradelli brownie recipe in the northern hemisphere, Kelly shuffles calls on her Nextel walkie between informants and babysitters. 

How on Earth could she condone me putting on a charade of being “not an asshole American” to soften the ire of some pea-brain who hates my country?  

It was the night before my big move to Copenhagen, and I was enjoying one last hurrah with my close girlfriends at my parent’s house. The patio smelled of citronella oil mingling with lemon as we sat by the pool under the glow of white lights draped on the balcony above us.  I took a sip of my homemade limoncella, letting the sweet liqueur take over my mouth.

“I’m not sure I can do that,” I said stubbornly. “Only a coward and a traitor to her country would take the easy, Canadian way out.”

I looked over at Stephanie taking a sip of her 2003 La Crema Pinot Noir. I love watching Stephanie drink wine. There is something painstaking in the way she slyly takes each sip, swishes the wine around in her mouth while making sure no one's watching when she swallows. Each sip is savored, sinfully delicious. Stephanie is a born Mormon and as such, was raised under the beliefs and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith who forbade the consumption of alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes and drugs among his flock. She’s a rebel Mormon though, caught between the old rules and traditions of her Church and family, and her latter-day proclivity to push boundaries. She will probably never not be a Mormon, but she’s made peace that she will be one who questions protocol and persnickety canon that forbid her from having innocent fun. Every weekend Stephanie and her husband Chuck — whom she met at BYU after he had returned from his two-year church mission abroad — drop their kids off at church, waving goodbye as they peel out of the parking lot and head up the street to Starbucks.

Stephanie piped in, “Your personal safety will have to trump your need to be patriotic and proud.”

To them, it was all rhetoric. Be a Canadian: no harm, no foul. Just insulate yourself if you ever feel in the presence 

At Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum   

of someone who really “hates us.”  I’d heard on the TV all about how much “they hate us” from pundits like Bill Maher and Whoopi Goldberg.                             

It was late August 2006, the dog-days of summer and the heyday of Bush-bashing.  I couldn’t help but think that shedding my Americanism to blunt the edge of sharp Euro-criticism would be tantamount to letting “the terrorists win.”

That statement has become a favorite of mine in recent years. If we don’t [fill in the blank here], then the terrorists win. We’ve heard it in presidential speeches; heck, I’ve written it in gubernatorial prose myself, that if “we don’t continue to travel, or if we don’t keep our resolve, if we succumb to fear” then “the terrorists win.”

On a recent business trip to Manhattan, when I forgot to put into my checked baggage my purchase of a large bottle of designer Glow Fusion self-tanner, which ended up in my carry-on baggage – in defiance of the ‘no liquids policy’ – I told the TSA Security Agent that if he threw out my self-tanner, then the terrorists win. He chucked it in the trash, unamused.

This is what our country of America had become. Pale, feckless wannabe Canadians. 

Because people like Sean Penn and Barbara Streisand had gone on parade telling red-blooded Americans that “everyone hates us.” Nevermind that the press conveniently crops Hugo Chavez or Saddam Hussein out of the image of Sean wheezing those words, lest we see that it’s his chummy friends who have penned his talking points.

I’m an American living in Denmark going on the record to say that they don’t hate us. They didn’t hate us when Bush was President, and they don’t blindly love us because Obama is now. Whatever their capricious love/hate whims, whether anyone in Europe or the rest of the world blindly loves my country or hates my country is of no concern to me anymore. 

Frankly, I don’t give a damn. (Coming from a make-up’d, Jimmy Choo-wearing, former-sorority-president who cares about what people think, I’ve made a staggering leap).

What became crystal clear to me recently during a discussion with a powerful film producer in Copenhagen is that it would be a huge miscalculation to presume the citizens of any other country but America would honestly root for a thriving America. As I was telling this producer juggernaut, “If you look at the times in history when America has thrived the most — economically, culturally, politically— it was - ”

He cut me off.

“But don’t you see? We don’t want America to thrive and be successful.”

It was like a ton of foam bricks falling down on me, completely stunning and altogether painless.

It hit me how silly and naïve I’d been, paying so much concern as to whether the country I had a crush on, Denmark, loved me and my country...or not. When the very premise for that anxiety was flawed. 

Why would any countryman truly cheer for the excellence of another country? Duh.

That last night in California was almost 3 years ago, and I’m proud to say I’ve never had to work my killer Canadian accent while ‘aboat’ in Denmark. For now, America’s leadership is doing a bang up job placating the critics and apologizing to countries that hate us at every corner of the world.  

Living as an American abroad, maybe that should make me feel safer. Somehow, it doesn’t. 

*Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of my friends.