The Zen of Basho

My new blog has a funny name. The name comes from a quote in the 1980 movie Caddyshack where Ty Webb (played by Chevy Chase) shares his own brand of wisdom.

The Zen philosopher, Basho, once wrote:
"A flute with no holes is not a flute...
...and a doughnut
with no hole is a Danish."  

But even better, I think it does a good job of reflecting my continuing ignorance about the country I now live in -- since it really has nothing to do with Denmark. First off, I haven't seen any pastries yet that look like the "danish" that we know in the USA. Much to my blog's dismay, I have seen donuts with holes -- every grocery has them.

Some more important trivia worth sharing -- most of these have come up in conversations with folks back home:

• Denmark is not The Netherlands. It's Denmark -- a different country.
  
• Denmark is not Holland. Holland is a region in The Netherlands.
• They don't speak Dutch in Denmark. They speak Danish. Dutch is what they speak in The Netherlands.
  
• Denmark shares land borders with Germany to the south and Sweden (sort of -- there is a bridge) to the east -- but most of the borders are comprised of 4,500 miles of coastline. Norway is directly north but it would be a rough swim.
  
• Most everyone can speak English fairly well here. A large part of what is on television is current American television and much of the music we hear is current (or 80's!) music.
  
• Denmark has a long-standing and popular royal family, but the government is a parliamentary democracy. The current monarch is Queen Margrethe II.
• The Kingdom of Denmark also includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
• During World War II, Denmark was occupied by Germany and the official government position was collaboration, but a strong underground resistance was established.
  
• The entire country has an almost constant population of 5.5 million -- 4 million less than the population of Chicagoland. 9% of that is immigrants like us.
  
• The country is highly unionized with nearly 85% of the workforce being members of unions.
• Woman enjoy great equality here -- Denmark may have the highest employment percentage of woman in the world.
• Denmark has few natural resources. Over the last 50 years, they have discovered and developed an industry around oil and gas. Denmark has extended the concept of natural resources to production of items like meat, sugar, and milk and an industry has built up around the machinery used to process these items. Further, they built a shipping industry around the need to move these items.
• Taxes are very high in Denmark -- I think they cap at 59% of gross income.
• Cost of living in Denmark is very high -- but wages tend to be high as well.
  
• The social system is very developed: health care is guaranteed (they will even pay to send you outside Denmark if timely care cannot be provided by Danish services), and maternity leaves for both parents are extensive. There are many other services as well.
• Almost all education (yep, even college) is FREE here.
  

A final note: the population of Denmark is, in general, extremely happy. The country just ranked 1st in a survey done by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The USA ranked 11th. In this article right here, the writer makes a questionable link between high taxes and happiness that seems foreign to the average American. From conversations with some of locals, I think there is a lot of truth in the simple fact that they don't mind the high taxes because there is a wealth of tangible services that give back to the people. They also simply don't have to worry about what will happen if they get sick or who will take care of them when they get old. That would make me happy, too.