Paperjam: Please, introduce yourselves and your association.

Jan Lange: I’m the chairman of the Danish Association. I’ve been the chairman for the last eight or ten years. I have been also a member of the board for more than 32 years.

Sanne Lange: Jan is the chairman and I’m… the money man [i.e., treasurer] [everyone laughs].

JL: The association was based on an idea from people in the parliament in 1972. At that time, there was a big need to have some kind of society where the Danish people were brought together… so in ’73 they established this association. Its purpose, of course, is to keep up Danish traditions, to keep up the social and cultural life, to make sure that we’re keeping a good connection to Denmark, even if we are living in Luxembourg and we’re not so far away. That’s the basic idea.

Today we have a board of ten members who are volunteers and, currently, around 250 active members. And simply because, as you know, the situation in Luxembourg is a little bit more difficult job-wise, a lot of Danish people are actually moving back to Denmark or other places. So that’s why we’ve seen a small decrease in membership.

How many did you have, say, ten years ago?

JL: Around 350 or 400… well, maybe 100 people have left because either they are retiring or going back to Denmark… or, you know, the Danish banks are closed because the financial sector is very difficult in Luxembourg.

Difficult?

JL: In general, yes. When [Sanne and I] came down here in 1990 there were not so many restrictions on how to run a bank. It was easier. And now you have more compliance activities and controls and things--it’s not because I have anything against that, definitely not--but banks are not only banks today. They are also police stations. They are also tax offices. And that’s not only for Danish banks, it’s international… the administration is simply too high.

Is the Danish population is shrinking in Luxembourg? Do you know how many are here?

JL: The Danish population is a little bit more than 2,000 now. Before, when we came here in 1990, it was around 4,000.

SL: It’s not only the banks. It’s also because there are not so many Danes in the EU institutions anymore. And there are not as many children anymore. When we came, we had three boys with us who started in the European School, and there were 27 or 28 kids in the classes of the Danish section. And now there are seven or eight. Maybe ten in the big classes.

I see. So what kinds of events do you organise?

JL: The association is for keeping up traditions, but we also invite Danish people to come down and talk about things happening in Denmark… it could be writers coming down to talk about books, it could be organisations coming down and to talk about specialty schools in Denmark, in case somebody wants to go there.

SL: We have a [different] system in Denmark: when kids finish lower school they go to a special school, for instance for sports or whatever.

JL: It’s a middle layer between high school and university. A lot of Danish kids also have to get used to being in Denmark, to know the language and how the system works and things like that. That’s also one of our activities here at the Danish Association, to keep the parents updated about what’s going on.

We also have sports activities. Every time we see Danish participants--it could be in tennis, gymnastics, football, handball--we establish some kind of a small trip [to see them]. To Metz, for example, for handball. So we are supporting the Danish people.

We also do some hikes in nature, walking in a forest, visiting the vineyards, things like that. We go to wineries to see how they produce wine, we’ve visited a place where they produce whiskey and gin. Local stuff.

Then we have yearly events, like a carnival for kids and grownups. It’s called Fastelavn in Danish, and it’s a very special tradition in Denmark. Here in Luxembourg we have the Buergbrennen, but in this Danish tradition we have a wooden barrel and we are trying to hit that down.

SL: There’s supposed to be a cat inside.

A cat!

JL: Yeah, in the old days, there was a cat inside. I know it’s very nasty…! [Laughs.]

SL: But that’s why it’s actually called slå katten af tønden… so “hit the cat out of the barrel.”

JL: It’s a tradition like the Buergbrennen where we’re saying goodbye to the winter and welcoming the spring. You have a wooden stick and you hit down the barrel--

SL: Which is filled with candy.

JL: Yeah! That one is very popular because it’s typically Danish.

Sounds a little like a piñata. What else?

JL: We also have the Danish Constitution Day, on 5 June, where someone is coming to talk about Denmark and why we have this constitution and those kinds of things. And then we’ll just be sitting around, having a nice drink and being together. That is also one of the important things in the Danish Association, that we are bringing people together.

Another yearly event is Halloween. We celebrate Halloween like everyone else, you know, running around with funny costumes and having great fun with the kids. And grownups.

And our yearly traditional Christmas bingo which is very popular.

SL: The main prize is a traditional Danish roasted pork [laughs].

JL: And we end the year with a Danish traditional Christmas party, where we have the Christmas tree, we’re walking around, singing--

SL: Because you know in Denmark we dance--that means walk--around the Christmas tree, singing Christmas songs. That’s different from other places.

JL: We have live music as well, and Father Christmas coming by, all these amusements for the kids.

And you collaborate with other organisations too, I understand?

We have some partners, yes. We work with the Danish church in Luxembourg. They have their own association, we have ours. Still, it’s almost the same Danish people [in both], but they have their religious way of doing things and we are non-religious. There’s room for both things, but we’re still working together.

We also work together with the Danish embassy in Brussels.

And also Danish Worldwide, an organisation in Denmark that takes care of the interests of Danes abroad. They negotiate with governments and things like that, so it’s important for us to have a good relationship with them. They will have news about, for example, how kids born here in Luxembourg can become Danish citizens.

SL: They also have courses--a camp--where kids can go to learn Danish in Denmark.

OK, so looking to second and third generation Danes.

SL: Yes. A lot of our members now are actually mixed couples, so they have kids going to the Luxembourgish schools or European schools or whatever, but they never learn Danish, really, so they can go to this camp in Denmark. A lot of them are very happy with it.

And we have, in our association, some members who have been here since they were born and who went to this summer camp to learn Danish--and they’re now sending their kids there to learn Danish.

JL: We also have a good relationship with our commune, Contern. Every time we do things we need to have room… and the commune has helped us a lot.

You must know Luxembourg very well, having been here since 1990, but is there any part of Luxembourgish culture that’s still surprising or strange?

JL: First of all, the house prices. It’s incredible. Really incredible. If you try to compare the house prices here and in Denmark… if you have a standard house here in Luxembourg you can have a farmhouse in Denmark with acres of land! So that’s very difficult. And that’s probably why a lot of elderly Danish people leave: because they have a house, they had the possibility to buy a house when they came here, which at that time was at a reasonable price… and they sell it now and can have a castle in Denmark! I’m joking a little bit… but that gives them a bigger possibility to move back to Denmark because then they have an economical background.

SL: And you still have to send your kids out somewhere else for higher education. You have a few opportunities in Luxembourg (I know it’s a small country) but not a lot, which is one of the reason why a lot of our friends and colleagues go to Denmark now… they sent their kids there to study, and those kids find a wife or husband, have kids and stay there. And then the parents go back to Denmark because their kids are there. Which is normal.

JL: A good thing here is the transport system. It’s really, really good. And I must say that nobody in Denmark can understand how it can work!

In what way?

SL: It’s free!

JL: Because it’s free, yeah. Of course you also have not to be blind: the transport system is paid via the taxes, so you are paying, it’s just hidden. But it’s an enormously good system. And I think it’s working perfectly. I know also that a lot of people use it [i.e., the tram] and of course there are peak hours where people are sitting on top of each other. But if people had to pay it would be the same. And if it can keep a little bit of traffic away from the town centre… because there are still 56,000 cars crossing the border every morning and every evening. And--I hope it will get better--the infrastructure of the highways, the roadworks and things that are causing problems… it’s crazy.

SL: One of the good things for us, coming here--and other [Danes]--is that the kids have become very tolerant. When we were in Denmark, everybody was Danish. Well, we had some Portuguese or Turkish workers, but, you know, they were the foreigners. Then we came here and we were the foreigners. But everybody was a foreigner. So they became very tolerant. When we ask our kids which nationality they are, they say: “We are European.” And that is one of the big advantages of being here. They can go wherever they want and still not think that it’s strange to meet a black guy or somebody from the other side of the world… they can say, we speak the same language, we grew up the same way. I think that’s one of the best things we ever gave our kids.