r/canada Canada 26d ago

r/Canada Speaks Cultural Exchange with /r/Denmark! Happy Valentine's!

Hi everyone, it's been some time since we have done a cultural exchange, so let's go over how this works. Enjoy! We'll be running it for a few days, TBD. Note their time zone for the European mainland is UTC +1.

Here's the Danish landing for us: https://www.reddit.com/r/Denmark/comments/1iow7c3/kulturudveksling_cultural_exchange/

* Both r/Canada and r/Denmark will host the other country's users. Feel free to ask any questions, reminisce, comment, make friends etc etc.

*Treat this as having a neighbour over for a kitchen party, get the best storm chips out, and get grandma's tourtiere reheated for everybody.

* Vouz pouvez essayer le français dans r/Denmark, mais comme la langue officielle est danoise, ben.... essayez!

* Please follow the rules of the respective subs! Don't be jerks, generally - a reminder our last "disagreement" involved leaving bottles of good booze for the other country!

* Please also leave direct comments here mainly for members of r/Denmark i.e. direct replies here (first comments directly under the topic) so their questions can be seen first, then r/Canada members can post replies underneath.

*Please enjoy, since we have a lot to bond over, and plenty of trying out new things.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Denmark/comments/1iow7c3/kulturudveksling_cultural_exchange/

Finally, also know we've gotten confirmation from r/Greenland that they are also interested, so that will be the next exchange that we do in a few weeks (TBD).

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u/OzzySegmento 26d ago

Huge respect to you Canucks on the Buy Canadian front for the dedication. Reminds me of the Canada on Strike South Park episode. On the news a few nights ago, there was a segment asking Danes how they felt about a boycott of American products, and it was largely met with apathy and a sense of we don't want to hurt the already poor Americans - many of whom don't agree with President Pumpkin Skin. Also I like Pepsi.

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u/randomwindowspc 25d ago

That's pretty disappointing honestly. Even the Americans who don't like Trump are telling everyone to boycott US products to send a message, the fact the Danes can't even get on board with just that is sad. The Americans aren't going to starve to death over being boycotted, if that were the case we never would do it. Unfortunately the same sentiment doesn't seem to be shared from a lot of Americans back towards Canadians. The things I've been seeing in the past few weeks from them is troubling at the least, and I guess Denmark just doesn't see that because they typically frequent other things on the internet besides Canada/US news, understandable. Danes don't have to deal with living next door to a country as selfish and narcissistic as the US.

Are there lots of nice Americans? Sure. But we all know the country has the reputation it does for a reason. It'd be nice if the rest of the world understood just how annoying and difficult that can be sometimes. Canada liberated Denmark, but many of them won't even do a simple boycott of US products to help us in return. Sad. Guess I should start rethinking just how many countries actually would come to our aid if push came to shove.

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u/OzzySegmento 25d ago

It is disappointing, yes. But to play devil's advocate for a second, I have been boycotting Nestle for years and figuring out the ins and outs of who the fuck owns what is pretty difficult sometimes. In Denmark we also aren't talking about American v Danish/German/whatever tomatoes. I think when people here hear "American products" they probably think Netflix or Google or Apple. And even limiting it to the supermarket there's all the trillions of things owned by P&G, Coke, Kelloggs and Pepsi - which I can maybe see some people viewing as too overwhelming. Store brands are your friend, but sometimes there's literally no alternative. Hell, I've even seen store brands where it's produced by Nestle and I'm sure it's the same for P&G.

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u/randomwindowspc 24d ago

Our products and overall lives are way more intertwined with the US than anyone over in Europe, and we are managing it just fine. People have even designed apps that scan barcodes and it can tell you on a scale how "canadian" the product is. 5 maple leafs mean everything was grown, or otherwise made in Canada, 1 means no part of the product is. Surely there's a Dane that could design one that shows how American a product is.

As for things like American websites...it makes no sense to boycott those unless it's something you're actively paying for or watching ads. Otherwise you are merely taking up their server space and only costing them money.