I Almost Became a Danish Citizen
I Almost Became a Danish Citizen
My failure to become one wasn't because I didn't write the perfect job application!
This post is the third of four in a series inspired by Nolan Yuma’s:
“A support group for people who have to deal with bureaucrats.”
My first contribution a couple of weeks ago was “The Lensmann from Orkdal” and last week, to celebrate my wife’s first Canada, I told you about “The Flagpole Route to Permanent Residency” This week, it’s all about the time I almost became a Danish citizen, but the story begins in Norway…
When I first moved there in 1978, it was a shock for my 18-year-old self to comprehend that Norwegian was all everyone in the country spoke. It wasn’t only that I didn’t understand the endless stream of sound coming out of their mouths. Before experiencing it, it simply hadn’t dawned on me that they would speak their own language all the time.
Every day. All the time. Even the little kids!
Even back in 1978, most Norwegians could speak some English, but it was like they thought Norwegian was easier, better, or more fun.
So, they spoke it all the time.
Except when they were drunk.
For unknown, mysterious reasons, drunk Norwegians, creative Norwegians and especially creative, drunk Norwegians wrote and spoke English. It was often not very good English. When the alcohol metre passed the “No Norwegian after this point” threshold, every budding poet or musician switched to a slurred English dialect found only in the land of trolls and the midnight sun.
During the first eight or ten months of my 40-year gap year, I would lay in bed at night wondering if I could ever learn the language. I would try to remember one or two words I’d heard that day and repeat them over and over in my head. First silently, using someone else’s voice to mentally pronounce them and then, when I felt comfortable with that, I would say them out loud in my own voice. I’m not a great impressionist, but over time I learned a lot of words that way. I also learned a few words that I would likely never pronounce properly. I taught myself to choose replacement words to use instead of the ones I couldn’t articulate like a local.
A year after I arrived, I took a university entrance exam. The university counsellor told me I could, and she emphasized should, take the exam in English.
I said no thanks to the offer, on the ethical grounds that someone from Kenya wouldn’t be offered the opportunity to sit the exam in Swahili, nor would someone from India be able to take it in Hindi. I did my best, passed the test, and got my visa extended.
25 years later, I had moved to Denmark, married my Danish wife, and was trying to be a good stepdad to our daughter. We had no plans to move anywhere so, in an attempt to become a fully-contributing member of society, I decided to apply for citizenship.
Like most bureaucratic procedures, it was a relatively comprehensive and time-consuming process. Fees were not exorbitant, and they were paid upfront. No matter whether you became a citizen or not, the fee was non-refundable.
Part of the process included a language test in two parts. One oral, one written. You took the oral test first, and, if you passed you took the written one.
The day of the oral test, I woke up in Finland. I was on a business trip to Helsinki. I flew to Copenhagen and went straight to the centre where the test would be administered. I was still wearing a suit and tie when I was called in.
Denmark is such a laidback country that they even have a famous band called Laid Back. They play laidback music like their 1982 hit song “Sunshine Reggae”. It has over 11 million views on YouTube.
I’m sorry, I digress. I hope you enjoyed the tune. Let’s continue the story about my oral language test in laidback Denmark.
I was wearing my black business suit with a tie my stepdaughter had given me for Father’s Day. The two adjudicators were wearing jeans. One had a well-worn T-shirt, the other a regular shirt.
When they saw how overdressed I was they apologized for their appearance. I told them, in my best Danish, that I was only wearing a suit and tie because I hadn’t had time to change after my flight had landed.
They took me into a room with a TV and a video cassette player. They carefully explained the process. A short TV news clip would be played for me three times. Afterwards, I would be asked to explain a few things about the clip. I would also be asked to answer questions to confirm I understood the content and to confirm my ability to communicate orally in Danish.
I can’t remember the exact contents of the clip. It was less than a minute or two long.
After it was played once, I asked if I really had to watch it three times. It really wasn’t all that interesting and having to watch it three times would border on the ridiculous. It would, in fact, be on the wrong side of the ridiculousness border.
The two adjudicators explained that three times was the rule.
We had a discussion about what a complete waste of time this was. We were chatting in Danish about whether I would have to watch a silly TV clip two more times before answering questions that would determine if I understood the language.
It was obvious that I had a relatively good command of the language, so they took a timeout and stuck their heads together. After a minute or two of whispering, they apologized again. Rather than follow the three-play rule, they would issue the passing grade that I would need to get access to the written exam.
The written exam took me back to my university days. In advance of the test, instructions were issued. They contained the rules about when you needed to arrive, what you could and couldn’t bring to the exam room, and what you could and couldn’t do during the exam itself. It was very formal, right down to the correct and accepted procedure for signalling you needed a bathroom break.
The exam itself was also a reminder of my university exams. It contained three questions. You were required to choose and answer only one of them. Here are the three questions on the exam I was given:
1) You have recently arrived in Denmark and you are lonely. Write an ad that you can send to a lonely-hearts column in the newspaper so you can find a friend or potential partner.
2) You have taken over the management of a small convenience store. Write a letter to a friend in your home country and tell them about your new job.
3) Write a job application for work at a cleaning company.
This is what what it sounded like to me when I read it:
As a foreigner, you have three options in Denmark:
1) Find someone you can marry.
2) Work in a convenience store.
3) Get work as a cleaner.
I started at the top.
Yes, I admit I found someone to marry in Denmark (we’re in our 22nd year now, thank you), but we didn’t meet because I wrote a letter to a newspaper’s lonely-hearts column. As a thoroughly modern couple, we met online. Yes, it was a dating site, but that’s not my point. I hadn’t written any ads to any online dating sites since I met my wife, and I wasn’t about to dream one up to pass a language test. Option one was out of the question.
As for option two, I still wonder about this. Why would an immigrant in Copenhagen write a letter in Danish to someone in their home country? Remember this was long before Google Translate or Duolingo. Imagine getting a letter from your long-lost best friend only to find it was in a foreign language. You think it’s a secret code telling you they won the lottery and want to share the winnings. You sign up for expensive night school classes to continue the conversation with your buddy. Then, when you’re finally able to read the letter, it tells you he works at a 7/11 and is complaining about the smell of pizza and half-baked doughnuts while dealing with half-baked customers. Nope, I wasn’t a great letter writer, but if I had ever written a letter to any of my friends back home, I’d choose a language they spoke. Option two was a no-go.
All that was left was option three.
On the day of the exam, I was head of corporate security for a major international hotel company. I had been with the company for almost twenty years. I knew a lot about hotels. I chose option number three and wrote an application to become a cleaner in a hotel. I even offered to work the night shift.
I wrote that after almost 20 years as an international hotel executive, I wanted to return to my roots and work in a single hotel. I missed the loneliness of wandering around the quiet building at night (I did that a lot during my early years as a security guard). I longed for the canteen camaraderie of the other night owls at break time.
The application was written in my best Danish storyteller voice and spoke of my willingness to clean whatever wherever. I offered to be their go-to person if royalty puked during a banquet, or when a celebrity rockstar, that publicly proclaimed to have kicked their drug habit, “forgot” a few dozen used syringes under the bed in the suite. (Believe me, that happens in hotels.)
At home, I excitedly told my wife about the awesome application I had written and that, citizenship aside, I was confident I could get a job as a night cleaner in a hotel.
She didn’t share my enthusiasm and reminded me it was a test for citizenship application purposes. It would be read by bureaucrats, a species not known for taking a light-hearted approach to sarcasm. She was afraid I would fail due to my obvious mockery of the system they administered.
“It’s a language test.”, I said. “They can’t fail me on content, only on grammar!”
Inwardly, I worried unnecessarily.
When the results came in, I was thrilled!
Oral = 13, Written = 13.
Back then, 13 was a lucky number for most people in Denmark. For a few nerds, there wasn’t luck involved, but for everyone else, receiving the highest grade you could achieve in the Danish school system felt lucky.
I took great pleasure in telling my wife and stepdaughter, both of whom often corrected my Norwegian accent and grammar, that I was the only one in the family that had a paper confirming my Danish was perfect!
“I will accept no more complaints or corrections. I have written proof. My Danish is perfect!”
I never did become a Danish citizen. On June 14th, 2005, the Danish Parliament passed bill “L163 Forslag til Infødsrets meddelelse”, a “draft naturalization notice” for citizenship applicants.
The applicants were divided into two groups.
The first group was granted citizenship unconditionally. They were in, could apply for passports and start voting in elections. Number 109 on that list was a person that had spent some time travelling in the Middle East gathering support for protests, some of which involved burning Danish flags in front of embassies, following the publishing of cartoons in a Danish newspaper. The person on the list later publicly expressed remorse for his actions. Publishing the cartoon was wrong because it was simply meant to be hurtful and divisive. Burning flags and recruiting support for destructive demonstrations is also wrong, but apparently not wrong enough to put you on the list of people that had to fulfil conditions before they could become Danish citizens.
Number 2792 on that list is Paul Norman Moxness, Copenhagen. Number 2792 is part of §2 – people who were granted citizenship upon the condition that they relinquished their current citizenship before April 30, 2007. Probably a formality, I thought. I was wrong.
After slowly and clearly explaining in perfect English that they couldn’t provide any guidance for my decision, The Canadian Embassy staff members made it equally clear that relinquishing citizenship was “kind of like declaring yourself a traitor”.
If at any time in the future, I decided to move to Canada, it would be extremely difficult. “That means impossible or close to impossible.”
“Perhaps you want to sleep on this before deciding to relinquish your Canadian citizenship. Your wife is Danish, so you kind of have the best of both worlds. Not that we’re suggesting what decision you should make of course.”
To this day, I still only have a Canadian passport. Denmark now allows dual nationality and on January 9th, 2023, Kirsten became a Canadian citizen. She now has the best of both worlds all by herself.
I’m proud and happy for her, but I still remind her that, even if I don’t have a Danish passport, I’m the only one in our family with proof that I speak and write Danish perfectly.
Report cards never lie!
Stay safe, Always Care
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I love your humour when approaching these bureaucratic matters, Paul. Also, "I said no thanks to the offer, on the ethical grounds that someone from Kenya wouldn't be offered the opportunity to sit the exam in Swahili, nor would someone from India be able to take it in Hindi. I did my best, passed the test, and got my visa extended."
I haven't thought about doing this, even though I realize how unfair it is. Sometimes I'm a hypocrite. I complain about the unjust system while using all the benefits of being an English speaker. I want to say I'll choose the Spanish document over the English one next time I have to deal with banking papers or legal documents, but they make me frustrated enough in English.