Halloween: Spooky SZN Danish Edition

“Hej, my name is Alvin and I heard you speak English. Would you like to talk to me? I love to speak English. I learned everything I know from YouTube. Wow, this is so cool to meet you!”

– Freja’s friend, Alvin (11 yrs)

This weekend, I got to experience Danish Halloween and meet Alvin. Both are competing for highlight of the weekend, although Alvin will probably take the cake. Allow me to explain.

The neighborhood that I live in hosts a Halloween carnival the Friday before Halloween every year, and my host family has a tradition of having dinner before it with their family friends and then taking their kids out to get candy. I was invited along, and happily agreed to come. Free food, wine, candy and cake? How could I say no?

My host parents mentioned that their family friends had a son that was in class with my host sister Freja and that he was excited to meet me, as he spoke pretty good English. This was an understatement. He was ecstatic to meet me, and from the moment he introduced himself to the moment we said goodbye, he made only like 5 mistakes. I was floored, but also loved it because my host siblings don’t speak English yet, so it was amazing to have a full blown conversation with someone their age.

It quickly became apparent that he was an up-and-coming hype beast. I’ve provided a link to Urban Dictionary’s definition, but you’ve all seen a hype beast before. They’re the kids wearing a pair of Jordan’s, sweatpants, and a Supreme sweatshirt with a fanny pack clipped over the front. Here’s a photo of my cousin Pablo demonstrating:

I found it wildly entertaining. Although I don’t know much of the clout culture, my brother has made sure to provide a foundation education, so I was able to keep up with Alvin as we spent an hour discussing the trends of Supreme clothing and the street-wear fashion culture in America. The part I was most impressed by was the fact that he totally kept up with my language level! He understood 99% of what I said, even with some complex things, and he only had to pause once or twice to ask his mom to translate a word into English. I was thoroughly impressed.

We also had an interesting discussion about Danish education when he revealed that he was word-blind. At first I didn’t understand what he was saying, and then I realized that he was explaining that he is dyslexic. So he’d much rather watch YouTube videos and listen to them talk in English than read books in class because it’s so much harder for him to learn that way. First off, mad respect to Alvin because he totally applies himself in school even though it’s harder for him than his classmates. Second, I told him that it was awesome that he was finding other less conventional ways to learn, and he said that his school was working with him to help him learn more smoothly.

Later that night, we went out to the fair, which was such a cool cross cultural experience. Alvin made sure to translate anything he could for me, but so much of it was familiar to me. I saw children dressed up as their favorite characters, heroes, or scary villains running around with plastic bags screaming, “slik eller ballade“. Which translates directly to “candy or trouble“, but is the Danish version of trick-or-treat. It instantly filled me with nostalgia and reminded me of the nights that I would go trick-or-treating in my neighborhood. Wow. Crazy that I could be filled with nostalgia in a different country in an unfamiliar neighborhood, but a very familiar activity.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ll be in Germany and the Netherlands next week, so stay tuned for all the photos to come!