I can honestly say that yesterday had not even any hint of football around. But that was fine with me. I think yesterday was just a day to round up my compassion for those concepts that are different. The Copenhagen Zoo and the Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Art) were both forays into tolerance.
The zoo was a magnificent facility, with a wide variety of creatures, from the seals jumping up and barking every second, to the monkeys toying with your playful side right next to an indoor environment set to a temperature, humidity and foliage of a rainforest. Elephants also abound here; they are by far the biggest attraction, with a massive dome under which they live and huge roving grounds considering their captivity. Apparently, I heard, the Carlsberg Beer brand has a huge theme on elephants; they seem to be abundant at the factory here in Copenhagen and feature on one of the logos. In any case, we see that a creature largely associated with Africa and Asia can have significance in, of all places, Northern Europe as well. Normally, the zoo going crowd is displayed as a mob of gawking tourists who carry the animals as amusement. I felt here though, with the well-kept environment, I could see them as my own kin. It’s almost like I’m reverting back to my role from the musical I was in this past semester; in my background story, my character loved to go to the zoo and hang out and relate with reptiles, and I pretty much feel the same about my zoo visit yesterday.
Never have I seen an art gallery where juxtaposed on four floor-to-ceiling walls of, let’s say, 10 or 12 meter height, are hundreds of paintings from all different countries, encompassing the entire wall space. It was overwhelming the number of sceneries in one room; there are a few of these in the Statens Museum for Kunst, and arguably it would take a few hours to conquer each of these rooms in a much more vast museum. The Museum was a lesson in tolerance not only because of the variety of peoples represented in the collections (the biggest installation in the place is actually by an Argentinean), but also because of the variety of subjects that Danish painters took. It was interesting to see in the section about national identity in Denmark so many paintings of blacks and Arabs. I thought this was wonderful because it meant that the country, at least from an aesthetic point of view, was accepting these cultures as part of their development. There was one particular piece made of contrasting political viewpoints that I’d like to quote here:
“I often catch myself defending my own country. BUT DO I REALLY THINK IT’S THAT GOOD A PLACE? Or did I just grow up believing it is?”
“I often catch myself criticizing my own country. BUT DO I REALLY THINK IT’S THAT BAD A PLACE? Or am I just afraid of seeming nationalistic?”
In Europe, this dilemma seems to be quite common. But what really matters, in my opinion, is what scope of the people of the public use to weigh their opinions. To revisit football for just a second (contrary to the first sentence of this post), the majority of the French National Team is black though the population of the country is largely white. Does this mean that the team does not adequately represent the spirit of the people? Absolutely not. These are all French men who are playing for the same national pride as the citizens are supporting, regardless of their heritage. We could say the same about food; Nicolas, a roommate from Berlin, and me were talking about cuisine influences in Europe on walk. We came to the conclusion that the pure cuisine of each country may have some variety, but that these menus really owe it to immigrant influence for a large part of flavor. Copenhagen itself is a veritable melting pot, with many Asian, Middle Eastern, Indian and Africans living here; they all make an effort, though, and often succeed at speaking Danish and accommodating their culture with the functionality of the nation. This is the Europe of now, and I am happy to see that people are accepting that.
My trip pretty in this city pretty much ended with conversations across many countries about economy and food; the most exciting parts of the conversations were where something was found in common that we could all laugh and agree upon. It was Poland, Russia, America and Italy at one point trying to find similarities in cuisine. One thing I really love about Europe is though it has so many distinct nations and cultures, the continent is so small that influences are often across the board. People can maintain their cultural sovereignty but still empathize across borders. This, my friends, is tolerance.
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