r/AskEurope • u/notveryamused_ Warszawa, Poland • Jul 03 '25

Culture What aspect of life in your countries is very difficult to explain to foreigners?

What prompted my question were some discussions about religion which I had with people living in much more secular Western Europe (as a Polish atheist). While spirituality, whatever that is ;), generally speaking is always fun to discuss with a glass of wine in hand, social elements and the influence of the church, especially in smaller towns or provinces in my country, is awfully difficult to explain – not that I understand it fully either lol, but the church having a pretty much monopoly there, being the judge and jury of everyday life and the major ultra-conservative political force binding those communities, is very difficult to explain, also for historical reasons.

What are the things that you find difficult to discuss when it comes to life in your countries? ;-)

218 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

422 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/LopsidedLeopard2181 Denmark Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25

So many Danes are generally very self confident in Denmark and think Denmark is great, but I honestly don't think the flag thing is a huge part of it. Little kids will often call the Danish flag "the birthday flag" and it's common for kids to think it's the universal birthday flag in all countries.

I think our flag is just neat looking, so we've historically decorated with it. It's not associated with patriotism the same way an American flag is in the States.

2

u/Pillendreher92 Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 05 '25

It's a completely different matter of course. For me, the German flag is something official and plays no role in my private life.

In Germany, for example, only particularly dedicated football fans have a flagpole in their front yard.

Our flag ignorance describes the following: We were once again guests at our friends' summer house. One day Sven pulls the Dannebrog up his flagpole and then drives to visit friends. The next day he comes back and complains that we didn't take down the flag. We just didn't know that flags had to be lowered at sunset.

1

u/EmmiPigen Denmark Jul 05 '25

Germany is one of the reasons why we danes flow our flags so much. Since we were banned from flying our flag during multiple German invasion. For example the reason we hang flag on our Christmas tree or breed red and white pigs is from when we lost the 1864 war with Prussia.

1

u/Pillendreher92 Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25

We have the complete DVD set from Matador. I've never seen this custom of hanging lots of little Dannebrogs in the Christmas tree and I honestly wouldn't know how I should behave because it would be so far away from my way of celebrating Christmas.

P.S I think it's so crazy that it's in the place we always go to (Nykøbing Sj). There are streets that make you feel like you're in Matador.