Last Week in Denmark
Welcome to Last Week in Denmark's official podcast, featuring the Founder of Last Week in Denmark, Narcis George Matache and co-host Arun Prakash.
Last Week in Denmark
LWID #4 - The Holiday Season is Upon Us
Apologies to our listeners for the slight delay in podcast episodes as we are still finding our footing to make this a weekly affair as we aspire it to be.
In this episode, we discuss the holiday season and festivals like Halloween, Christmas and traditions from Arun's homeland India, the Danish government's increased investment into promoting Denmark as a tourism destination, the impact of climate change on Denmark, as well as the recent trend of Germans opting to move across the border.
Topics covered in today’s podcast:
- Festivals and Traditions in Denmark and beyond (00:57)
- Preparing for a mortgage loan meeting (11:47)
- International-friendly banks in Denmark (28:36)
- Investment into tourism promotion abroad (30:31)
- Summer in Denmark (33:24)
- Climate change and flood risks (36:52)
- Germans are moving to Denmark (37:55)
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[Music] We're live. Okay. Yes, Narcis. Hello everyone. Welcome to this episode number four. Yeah. How are you doing Narcis? No, well it's been a while since we talked and with this occasion I want to apologize to our listeners that we were not able to keep up the recordings as we wanted every week. But until we find the flow for this podcast then it becomes a routine for us to record it every weekend. Then we can take more responsibility of claiming it to be a weekly affair. But until then how I am? Well it's close to November, right? So now I'm discussing about Saturday going to open the Christmas season in in block was in the school tour park and there will be two million lights. So it should be fun. I mean it's time to start shopping for your Christmas gifts and preparing for the everything that the holiday means, right? Like planning your holiday vacation and planning holiday gifts and thinking about the advent calendar which one you're going to buy this year and thinking about the Christmas parties because those will be quite a few and you have to make sure you go to all of them. So pretty much all the weekends from November till January are just Christmas parties and what about you Arun? I have been very much soaked into work and apologize for the audience that's listening to this podcast because I think it was because of me the podcast couldn't be possible last week but coming back to the week I think it was pretty busy the entire week with work and also other commitments in the weekends. I have been invited to Halloween party which I have never been to but I know it's quite a culture in Denmark and I actually think there is so much influence from the West that that is also seen in the way Halloween is celebrated in Denmark and people ask me the person who invited me for Halloween party to dress up in a weird costume that I don't have and I don't think I could make I have to make a lot of effort to become somewhat creepy I don't know if it's creepy or it has to be some just some blood or some I don't know cut yourself a little bit you know and just smash your face and then more real than everything. I mean it's going to be fun the next couple of days because the party is on Friday and I'm looking forward to it on how it could unfold you know and will I be able to survive that but I mean did you know that there is a tradition to on the Halloween day which is Thursday there is a tradition to to paint to do some to go to work in a weird way either being painting your face or I don't know if you have noticed that last years with your colleagues or wearing some weird clothes the usual some of them did and I recognize when I walk to my office there's a lot of houses which has been very spooky and they had a lot of these decorations which was if you if you look look at them for the very first time you would definitely be scared and I remember in my canteen in my office canteen there were finger lookalike decorations where it was chopped and I was like so gross I would say what the f and then suddenly for two seconds of adrenaline rush and then I have like oh it's not real no okay I believe that this still works on some people it works I have no idea because I'm not even prepared for this for example if it's a season where you're looking forward to it you probably would know the context especially from me from my perspective we don't celebrate Halloween in India it's not not a culture but I do understand there's a culture in Denmark about fest alone that is more or less similar to Halloween but it is not the season either so it's more or less like well fest alone is more children beating up cats in barrels that was a tradition right it was not about celebrating the dead it's it's about killing cats for fun that was the purpose right you would put live cats in in barrels and you'll fit the damn barrels out yeah and and used to be all the drunk men doing that now it's children and the barrels are full of candy candies the good old times hey do you have any weird traditions like that in India where you are a bit ashamed of I mean any any festival that requires me to wear Indian traditional clothes I would definitely think twice number one no clothing yeah clothing I mean it is a lot of colorful clothing in India every festival we wear the most I would say vivid colors not gray and black and shades of gray like in Denmark so but I don't have that much collection even myself in even in India so I have to like ah I need to buy something so I don't I don't look different but spooky or weird I don't think we have a culture we we don't we don't actually have that in our culture in it but but there is a lot of gods in India there's a lot of festivals in India and Danish people are like oh how do you celebrate throughout the year you have something or the other going on every single month or twice twice a month and I think that's that's unusual pretty unusual for teens to have you know these kinds of events throughout the year yeah but the how many gods Arun how many gods do you do you have in your living room watching over you while asleep yeah yeah or your bedroom good question and I think it's very it's very common to have belief among among ancestors we also worship our ancestors okay but I have a tradition of having some belief I'm not super religious but I do accept the fact that I I have worshipped let's say the destroyer the Krishna the destroyer Shiva is quite popular in the south Krishna is because it's like a warrior he's the destroyer so you like this is like a bad guy oh he's the tough he's a tough guy what about Krishna? what is Krishna? Krishna is I think one of the most powerful is the main god right depiction yeah but I don't think there's one big main god who's the daddy of them all man who's the daddy of them all very subjective question if I have to go with the daddy of all I think it's Shiva and I think north Indians will not be happy with your choice but I think I think it's a it's a big lane that goes from north to south and there's a lot of dieties and temples that that is designed I think one thing that I could understand from from these mythological characters that we have been believing the temples and and and then the it's called as the yeah based on the sun's trajectory and then they have some sort of proof why this temple is built at so so on so location and it has been I would say partially proven in science that this is where sun transit so you get the you get the belief that okay there is there should be some reason behind it we don't have a con I would say proof solid proof to back that up but yeah many believe I believe what my ancestors told and I don't question them back but if I have to challenge and being an atheist I would definitely could not find reasons a strong reason it's a still a belief and I think I accept people believing it and yeah yeah I mean whatever keeps you healthy mentally you know it's it's a choice it's it's a choice to to do that I mean when I was young my favorite thing was to grill my religion teachers because I'll read the bible and then I'll take specific segments of it and then I'll challenge them on them because I'll say how is this possible this doesn't make sense or and then I'll take quite literally the bible you understand they have to understand like at the beginning there was man and woman and they had two sons so what happened next I guess I guess at any any given history before we started let's say challenging these notions there used to be some sort of external power that we believed so to let's say share moral values and organize and have have this belief I think at some point that helped but I guess countries like Denmark is completely the opposite you can't find a lot of religious people around it's major atheist in this country I guess and very few I would say it's it's quite funny that now there is a resurgence of not of belief in Christianity but belief in the pre-Christianity into the old Viking gods and people who want to return to the to reconnect with the traditionalism of being a Viking and even though the the blood has thinned quite severely and it's quite difficult to prove any sort of bloodline connection with the Vikings if they take any real DNA tests but it's it's quite funny I mean people now are searching for all sort of spiritual refuges that will allow them to feel happy that they are alive and to find meaning of being alive and I think that's that's the because when you are living in abundance in a middle-class society like ours you tend to easily get bored of life that's why we have so many people on the happy pill right like half a million people in Denmark they gave every day a pill to keep them happy no wonder we are the happiest country former happiest country in the world now Finland I guess got better at poisoning their people with happy pills I think I think for the last couple of years Finland has been the case but I think it's more or less yeah Finland yeah okay Finland versus Denmark Finland versus Denmark that's the that's the deal yes Narcis so coming back to our highlights of the week I've I've really been curious on the article about how to prepare for your first meeting with the bank when you're asking for a mortgage loan I just really like okay this is something that I really need to know more about okay and so let's start with my I would say my story I have been looking for apartments and in the articles I could also see that you have mentioned the team has mentioned the bank can offer loans which is up to four times your annual income or even five times if you have like a lot of disposable income like a lot of savings in your account and five percent is down payment if you're a EU citizen so for me I would say the reality is that people ask us 15 or 20 percentage as down payments and mortgage is the remaining part and so walk us through on on no no mortgage is always 80% no matter what you are the rest is a bank loan okay so the split is always 80% yeah mortgage is 80% age 50% for bank loan and 5% cash yeah either can be 20% cash and 80% mortgage it's up to you how you make up the rest of 20% that's why it's usually 20% that they can ask max in cash from Europeans because 80% is the set by low mortgage level and it's not there are not that many mortgage couple just say lenders in the country despite what people think a mortgage institution and a bank are not the same thing a bank uses a mortgage institutions to give mortgages that's why there are multiple banks using the same mortgage institution which means that they offer the same deal so so yeah for the audience listening to this the mortgage companies such as let's say real credit or new credit they look new credit is a bank real credit is a bank yeah and what else do we have for mortgages apart from real credit total credit i don't know them all but i think total credit is the most common one okay and they offer 80 percentage as mortgage loan yeah so to clarify and then the remaining is basically combination of 3d of you and the bank yeah me and the bank yeah great so the next step is approaching the bank when you have decided what are the banks that are EU or non EU friendly like for example expats like me we struggle a lot to be able to let's say get the mortgage and and bank loan processed i have tried two banks Nordea and Danske and and the the i have face rejections and the reason could be very subjective and it varies case by case but in my opinion it feels like i have to put in let's say a really high amount which is 20 percentage as down payment and even though i have a permanent residency so more or less like enjoy the benefits of being a european but i still consider why should i put 20 percentage down payment and and i don't know i mean is it is it is it because the trust factor in the non EUs are low or how does it work is there any matrix that defines whom to trust and why to trust to be honest is very subjective and i'm not sure if they actually base themselves on any actual data or facts to be honest in here it's just more like the bank tries to evaluate risk what are what are the chances you're going to be able to live in Denmark for the next 30 years and then that you're going to be able to pay off the mortgage in the next 30 years because basically what happens is that the banks facilitate the mortgage which means they take a risk together with you so that's why even if you put 20 percent down down payment in 20 percent comes from anyway from the mortgage institution the bank still has to vouch for you even though they have landed you no money so they can still refuse you because of that so they look at you and think okay what are the chances that this person could be kicked out of the country because of political changes in the next five to ten years it's quite volatile out there could it be that the far right government can come in power and simply deport all the non-europeans it can be it's a political risk does it mean that that person will not be able to pay their mortgage afterwards it means so I agree to that extent where people with work permits face this and that's a very usual thing to consider it's very uncertain and very volatile right but what if a permanent president who has let's say the advantage of even what if the worst case scenario if he or she loses the job he still gets to stay in the country which means that he will find ways to get employed as soon as possible if he or she has the motivation and that goes for every other non-european right for example he or she loses the potential to work for a company and it it should be it should be a risk that everybody faces except let's say someone with work permits and I agree what I could challenge you is or not you I mean in general the theory is I don't want to pay for a personal bank loan because then I'm basically putting in a lot of interest apart from the interest for the loan itself so I was like how can I cut my additional expenditures and just pay for the the mortgage but that'll be 80 percent so you always have to be prepared with 20 percent then yeah yeah and if I don't manage to get the 20 percentage if I arrange a bank loan then I put more money as interest for that 15 percentage of bank loan or 10 percentage whatever the amount is no no no I mean yeah you're talking about interest rates now or what interest rates yeah interest rates what but interest rates are not in the 10 or 15 percent we're talking about five at best yeah yeah I want to avoid additional numbers but yeah if you I mean think about from a from a different perspective like depends because remember what what it said it's about alone it's four times your annual income right and if your family of two let's say each of you makes half a million per year your two one million which means you can take a house of up to four million let's say you have some savings that allow you to put 10 percent which means you have like like 400,000 in savings that means you actually can get a five million loan that means a five million house you know so if you want to put 20 percent on five million house what is that one million but you don't have one million right now but you can afford the five million house so either you go down and you just take yourself a two million house which you can afford to pay 20 percent now because you have the 400,000 or you take the loan because you feel like you deserve to be in a five million house and it's very enough why not I mean not it shouldn't be just the privilege of the rich to live in in five million kroners villa or something like that I wouldn't do it obviously but if that's your dream and having a very nice house is what makes you happy then go for it I mean it's not impossible for let's just say a lower middle class to afford pretty expensive villa in Denmark as you can see how is the how is the housing market in Aalborg because Copenhagen I would say it's impossible to find two million house in a I would say decent city closer city neighborhoods close to the city right you have to go a bit off let's say place like all over or well be it's impossible you go further to Gandalf day that's the most expensive you don't go north you're going wrong if you go south towards Brøndby ishøj Brøndby yeah exactly Sydhavn is also one of the most expensive it was very very close to city yeah the so the ideal option is moving towards west yeah I mean come to the north in Aalborg here with five million you're a king I swear you can have a property with 40 hectares lake forest and then huge building a huge huge building yeah I would definitely consider as my retirement home in Denmark and then I have to find a job in Aalborg if I have to find an apartment but I think you work from home your job you aren't you like IT engineer or something that's the common misconception that all Indians are IT consultants we fix computers which we are by default we have the skill set but I don't think not all Indians living in Denmark no are IT engineers and I think yeah I I work for the construction sector and I'm completely like different I it's a do you have to work with your hands or do you have to work in front of a computer that is technically right I work with my computer but so that doesn't mean that I have to work from a remote location or work from home and I hate working from home and I do workshops and facilitation that involves people and collaborating with people in physical meetings so and that is why I think moving out of let's say far room or pause where it's still a bit on the outside the city and and anywhere close to the city it's impossible you have to forget buying a house in Hellerup or crazy numbers yeah 20 million out oh my goodness I have to forget forget buying an apartment no but I mean Arun you you're pushing yourself you're like punishing yourself if you choose to buy something in a direction it's not like you can I mean I don't want to offend the Copenhagen listeners but I wouldn't raise a family in the middle of the city to be honest and then suburbs are safe and suburbs are nice for family life in the end you need to have your peace you shouldn't be living in a box with neighbors that can listen to you through the through the walls it's peaceful to have a house and a garden and to be honest I live in Aalborg I don't even live in Aalborg I live outside of Aalborg 30 kilometers I still managed to go 30 kilometers is quite some distance right it's half an hour with the car so in the end I still managed to go to Copenhagen for more important events and whatnot so if you really want to you can make it that's what I'm saying is like if you if you put your daily quality of life at top then that decision will come easy for you but that's with time you know that's it's it's I wouldn't have thought like that in my 20s in no way so great I think it's fair and I also saw in the article that you have to like contact at least three different banks to get loan mortgage loan offers and why specifically more banks because then you get some comparisons to deal with and yeah I mean there should be there's 60 banks in Denmark you know so there are chances that one has better let's just say conditions than another it can be that they work with a different mortgage institution that offers better conditions or maybe they have lower fees as a bank for opening the bank account the the loan because you know you have to pay also even a fee to open the loan a fee to operate a loan and then so on so bank also has some fees that they put on top of the interest rate because they need to make money on it right so that's that's why there's different banks different conditions some banks might be more smaller banks might be more willing to to give loans to people because they don't have so many customers and they're more desperate to make to to make more business so if you find a smaller bank that might be a better bet you know if you keep getting refused by Nordea and and new credit and what Danske Bank or another thing would be to simply why not this with the Romanian community that if you get friendly with one or two Nordea bank clerks then you just have to always be like referring hey my friend Alexander he wants to buy a house can you please help him out and then they will help him out you know so it works a lot of relations that you build with the bank clerks the different banks that there are they have a lot more power also on how much this counts to give you on their pricing and whatnot so they have a lot of power the different clerks and the banks so friendly getting friendly with some of them doesn't hurt do you know your bank clerk um i yeah when i applied for bank i think the person who processes the loan right is that no but don't you have someone in bank that signed to you for your knees yes yes yes yes so that person do you know that person i don't know them on a like if you haven't built any relationship to talk about these and i just wrote mails and i think it's a good tip that you're giving me to i would say probably i'll make a call and then take it from there i think it's a good start offer something for her for that person to work with like for example say i do you have already an investment account with them no i have a savings account i don't have an investing account start an investment account it's 500 kroners a month that you can invest into something and they will be happy to still treat you in a different way so the more business you have with the bank the more happy they will be to to do things with you we also had the same situation when we started the company and we were looking for a company account i know many bank account many many people were struggling and had difficulties in the past i'm not talking today but in the past couple of years but in our case it wasn't difficult at all to get a bank account just simply because we had mortgage we had car loan we had investment account we had different products that we were already using from them so it was very natural for them to just give you give us yet another product from the bank so the more relationships you build with a certain bank the more likely they will be to trust you yeah go and have a ask for a meeting with your advisor hey let's talk about my my options and then you can develop a relationship with you have a little bit of small talk with a person try to be a bit personal build and then you know they they become like friends good point i'll try to do that but thank you for the suggestion i mean it's one one then mark do you recommend any expat friendly banks that you have come it's hard to say anymore i have believed for many years the danske bank was that because simply they were the first ones to accept me to have a bank account in 2009 as a student they i know that they were refusing EU citizens as well in the beginning many years ago uh but when i needed the mortgage for example i had to switch to Nordea they were more willing to give me a mortgage than Danske bank was for example because Nordea is more risk averse and has a bigger the Nordea is probably the one growing the most in terms of mortgage selling so they're the most likely to give out the mortgage to with the higher risk um so it's it's hard to say if there is a bank that's very friendly towards international's probably the most friendly would be Lunar right because they cannot see who they are processing thanks to the god of inorganic matter okay aka the informatic systems um see Lunar and Revolut become the most friendly banks for international because they cannot see who they are processing uh more or less right more many of the stuff there are automated but i don't know i don't know can Lunar give back loans i didn't even thought about that i have never even thought about having a bank loan with Lunar but it is also very fast growing uh must be speak and i'll be surprised if they don't have loans they must say they're a bank right so look into that i mean i mean it's also i would say i'm thinking about my risk investing in Lunar or Revolut which is new place in the market and and yeah there's there should always be someone to talk to and build a relationship or let's say customer service you know i'm not sure if they if the team or the size in Lunar and also and also yeah basically i'm not sure but i i think i think it's not a traditional bank Lunar differently it's not like you have a person there assigned to you to to look after you because they focus more on uh streamlining efficiency right and and that's the whole idea behind Lunar and why they can be cheaper sometimes than a traditional bank but at the same time if you want to build relationships and whatnot and the traditional bank be maybe more fit for for you yeah good yeah so uh yeah that was a good tip and also suggestions with Lunar and Revolut let me think but let's move on to the next topic which is about money but in a different aspect money 200 billion with a b Danish from us revenue from tourism in 2030 and the government is planning to achieve this goal by investing a lot of millions to promote Denmark abroad and also encourage us to visit other parts of Denmark and let's let's talk about it what's the what's this ambitious goal more about i mean to be honest i understand the push for more more money investing tourism and we should have more focus into that but to be honest climate change is doing the work for us the south of europe is getting hotter and hotter every summer 50 degrees 45 degrees forest fires and whatnot so people actually the the highest increase in terms of tourists because we always have the german tourists as the main bulk norwegian swedish main bulk always been like that and then the american tourists who come with their cross-earships in here but what has been increasing like severely in the past two three years it's been spanish people italian portuguese greeks running away from heat in their own country so that's the new wave of let's just call them climate tourists they they cannot stand 50 degrees is not healthy for them to be there so they go for not for one two days they come for a month or two seriously month is a long lot of time yeah but it's a month that they stay away from 50 degrees you know oh yo then they can choose to say different parts of scandinavia for example yeah i mean who can afford to move around and move around who can get a good deal in a in a in a vacation house down in some forest where it's clean calm and good enough that's that's the new wave of tourists and that's will only increase so it's not unrealistic to say that Denmark will go from 168 billion per year in tourist revenue to 200 million because literally we we have almost full occupancy on our summer houses hotels air bnbs in the summer july is is even though half of Denmark is gone almost everything is is taken so it doesn't feel anymore like then mark is empty in july like he used to once upon a time i'm looking at my own village where i live here like it goes from a couple of thousand people to three times the population in the summer it's incredible so summer summer and Denmark is one of the best things i i i had a feeling when i first came to Denmark the first months february was the coldest time and it was also the coldest day for a very long period in 2019 and then when i went back after the contract ended ended in three months it was the best season ever it was summer in Copenhagen lots of people outside it felt like you have an air conditioned room outside and people stayed the entire day the whole day outside and i was like okay now i'm supposed to turn back to my home which is also summer in india indian summer it's a very very hot and i just miss summer in Denmark when i came here for the first but but it's it's funny that they call indian summer in denmark here i don't know why they adopted the name called indian summer i've i've you have seen this phrase listed many times oh now we have the indian summer i don't know really indian summer yeah i've used i've been seeing this phrase called indian summer and i was like why do they refer indians here and indian summer is not would say comfy it's one of the i would say scorching sunlight right it's 40 plus it's crazy in india but I felt one of the best times in Denmark is between like may until end of mid august perfect weather and a lot of activities and of course it's a busy truly it's just filled with tourists every day and then you have all these cities which are just flocked with people and yeah Denmark is a refuge for many people in the summer simply that's the reality of it and of course it's not for everyone because it's still expensive to come here in the summer and to be honest if you have a house in a side village even in the middle of nowhere you can easily rent it out in a month with 40 000 crowns you can make good money with a vacation house and now they have actually made it easier they're gonna get more plots out so that you can buy them to build summer houses so there'll be a lot more thousands of summer houses being built in the next period and also it will become allowed that you can turn your barn into a vacation house if you want to or some farm the elapidated place which before you wouldn't ever be allowed to to use for for example glamping right so to set up tents and people can come and stay in tents luxury tents of course but still tents so it's a business it's a business that's growing and it's definitely not a bad idea for you to have an investment in a summer house or in a some sort of a building close to to anything that can be recreational like a forest or a beach which is not difficult because Denmark is literally surrounded by beaches and we have quite a lot of forest and we're gonna have even more forest in the future so i would say that it's a it's a it's a great investment to have if you're thinking about getting yourself something give yourself a summer house with the current climate change and i don't know if you have seen the report but it seems we cannot really stop it it gets worse so the the climate will be altered quite significantly that means that Denmark will become more and more sought after it's a refuge place so having it's having yourself a housing of any sorts anywhere in Denmark not anywhere outside of the flood areas which is 40 of Denmark keep in mind that otherwise you'll have to be to invest quite a few money to safeguard your house so as long as you stay outside of the flood areas and get yourself some sort of housing building whatsoever then you you you're too well because you'll have quite a lot of passive income coming just from that you call it your retirement plan if you want now but talking about people coming to Denmark and then tourists we can also talk about the germans right why are germans coming to Denmark and now Denmark is like so happy about it like there's like literally articles on dr saying the germans are coming and we could not wait more for it something like that so it's it's incredible that a group of internationals ergo the germans are being celebrated for their arrival into Denmark and happily enough they choose to move to small communities like islands and small cities and so on because they are trying to escape many come from Berlin from Hanover from Hamburg which are very busy large cities where it's bustling life and they want to be more quiet you know they want to kind of reduce the speed they want to be able to okay now it's time to understand what's happening and and reduce speed a little bit and i think a lot of we have noticed also a lot with students coming from Germany that they say that Denmark is like a mental health retreat for them life is simply slower here they're they're not the same intensity like in Germany work is less life is more it's interesting to hear of course i think Berlin and Hamburg are busy and very industrious cities and and it's very i would say driven by jobs and a lot of corporate companies sitting their basis and on the other side i know a lot of quite quite some germans through a lot of other venues and they they say that Copenhagen life is really i mean city Copenhagen is still a city but they feel Copenhagen is much much better the life quality index compared to the life quality they have in Berlin or Hanover or Hamburg but yeah Hanover is not endless it's one of the beautiful cities have ever been to Hanover and anything close to rind river the banks of that but i do agree but but what is the demography like are these young people coming in are there people looking for let's say retirement what is the age group families of children okay so it's actually mainly families of children yeah it's it's many people who either because they want to homeschool their children in Germany is not allowed so in Denmark you're allowed to homeschool your children so a lot of them are simply doing it because of that and that's why they are choosing more let's just say secluded areas smaller communities or they just simply want to they feel like they they don't want their children to live the same level of stress or and simply give them a different alternative to life than the world they are experiencing and many of them to be honest have traveled as children to Denmark have discovered many of these places and it feels comfortable for them to choose then mark as a place to move so that's why in the last couple of years we had 5000 germans coming to the Denmark right now there are 33 000 which makes them one of the top five largest minorities in Denmark but if you if you include the historical germans that have lived all their life and five ten generations down the line they always lived in Denmark then the germans are the largest minority in Denmark clearly i mean south of germ south of Denmark there's many many many villages and even some cities have german mayors running it so it's it's very common down south maybe it's not so common for your reality in Copenhagen or mine in the north definitely not but so if you call if you look only at germans that are newly arrived or germans who are born in Germany but moved to Denmark during their lifetime we have roughly around 33 000 germans which as zeze they put them in top five after romanians polish-ukrainians syrians and turkish and when you say southern Denmark it's southern Jutland right that's the southernmost part that shares the borders or which part of southern Denmark are you referring to that's exactly that one yeah it's Tønder Aabenraa Sønderborg that area basically it's it's a lot of villages that you could even say there is some villages where is the majority of germans but by german danish i don't know if there's i'm actually curious to to put together an old german minority from south of Denmark and um and a new arrived german in the last 10 years and see are the differences in the way they speak german are the difference in the way they have traditions is there any actually similar any like anything in common between the two groups that could be interesting because we also noted this with romanians there was the romanians who arrived in denmark before the communists fell so they ran away from romanians political refugees in the 80s and the romanians who arrived after the romanian joined EU and i could see that the romanians the two romanian groups are not exactly alike very much you could say that the romanians came in the 80s they integrate themselves quite well many are like working as doctors or university teachers or and their children unfortunately many of them don't speak romanian and they kind of i don't know if forcefully assimilate it into the local culture while the romanians who arrived after the EU joined they had a completely different attitude right they they they tried more to ensure that the next generation is born here speak romanian and they have some connections with the romanian culture and identity so yeah it's different groups so just because we are romanians both groups doesn't make us very similar i'm talking about indian language yeah yeah if you talk about indians i think one of the biggest challenge we face is of course the language use of a very popular to have english language to communicate and very seldom that people use their mother tongue and and but a lot of communities like tamils and telugu and hindi they have let's say volunteers to have classes during the weekends to educate kids so they have the language preserved and also continue the i would say legacy or tradition of learning language so thank you so much for today it was nice to to be back in front of the the mic it's always very interesting to have this very by the way we are recording this usually in the evenings at eight so if we look a bit more groggy let's just say it's simply because it's quite late in the in the working day but we're still doing this because it's fun it's it's fun to discuss on various subjects there are it is it's it's a talk show in the end it's not it's not necessarily a news let's just say format where we'll just read news for you and that's it it's basically we pick up whatever you can find that's interesting in the newsletter and last week in Denmark and then just discuss it based on our own experiences and our own opinions so that's that's that's what it is so if you like this kind of format you're welcome to to say so and you're also welcome to say hey i would like to participate in your discussions and i think we can have more people could be fun to actually have some more people to join us here and there that want to discuss with us on whatever you want related to life in Denmark but otherwise thank you so much for today Arun it was fun to talk again definitely and it was also good discussions about a lot of topics especially mod cages and housing and yes for the audiences listening thank you so much and enjoy the rest of the week bye toodaloo(laughing)
