If you are a talent and considering moving to Denmark, I recommend reading this article and looking at the type of comments and Zombie-like attacks from Danes to this simple comment on a post on LinkedIn. That post, similar to many other similar ones that I have seen in the past few years, was written to passive-aggressively attack American policies by offering American talents to come to Denmark as refugees! (Danes see refugees as lower class and are unhappy of the fact that Trump wants to take over Greenland) Similar to what happened to Ukrainians. (cases where for example my Danish colleague was proudly saying that she was happy that now she could hire a highly-educated Ukrainian with Master's degree, as a safe person, to come to her house and wash her toilets for cheap!)

Things you might hear about Denmark vs the reality

1️⃣ "Denmark is the happiest country in the world!"

If you found one happy Dane, let me know! The only people you see smiling on the streets are either tourists or alcoholic locals on Friday evenings!

2️⃣ "Healthcare is free."

Yes, only if you are willing to wait 1-2 months to have your CT scan done, 2-6 months to see a specialist, or 8 hours in the emergency room to see a doctor checking your broken leg!

This is not too bad in Copenhagen municipality and expensive areas like Frederiksberg, but if you live in Jylland or other parts of the country, good luck! The 8-hour thing is actually what happened to one of my friends in Aarhus! And the rest happened to me or other friends, some even in Copenhagen!

3️⃣ "People are equal."

If you are not European, Denmark is the only country in Europe that does not give an "EU Health Blue Card" to foreigners. (they only give it to refugees, due to international laws, not talents like us) That means if you are from China/whatever, living in DK, going on a vacation to Spain, and end up needing to go to the hospital, then you are facked! Also, almost all Danish private insurance companies require you to have that EU-Blue card as the base coverage so that they can cover only the extra expenses of the incident happening in another European country!

The salary gap between Danes and foreigners is also not negligible, especially if you are not European. For example, I know a JAVA Developer / CTO who moved to Denmark with a salary of 50K DKK per month, while a Danish consultant programmer was getting around 120K DKK per month, even though he didn't even know the simplest things like how to work with Git!

I can talk about this for hours...

4️⃣ "Denmark cares about Diversity."

In this country, diversity is nothing more than words and numbers that the government needs to compete in the "list of happiest countries" to show Denmark is good, so then they can use it as a trap to attract talent.

I still remember two Danish guys, in a meetup, calling us (expats) stupid for not accepting what they were saying, which was: "Scientifically, it has been proved in Denmark that women have smaller brains than men!!!!! And that's why they should NOT have similar jobs like men!!!!!" Something that I, as an Iranian man, was shocked to hear! You can never hear such things in Iran.

I still remember my Danish boss (CTO of a large Danish company) telling me NOT to hire a woman (a non-Danish frontend developer) as he thought it would be more difficult for her to integrate into our "all-men team", instead he wanted to hire a Danish man!

I can talk about this for hours...

5️⃣ "Danes are open-minded."

Even though people pretend to be open-minded here, being open-minded and listening to criticism to first understand problems before solving them is not a part of Danish culture. Instead, this society values attacking whoever questions the fake "positive brand of Denmark." The only way to be safe from these social attacks is to repeat their propaganda about "how good Denmark is and how thankful we should be for paying high taxes and getting nothing out of it."

6️⃣ "In Denmark, we have freedom of speech."

Of course, only if you spread hatred against Islam, Arabs, Persians, Chinese, Russians, etc. This is a photo I took a few days ago:

It is quite common to see someone spreading hate speech on the streets with the support of police officers! There was even a famous far-right, anti-foreigner, racist politician that I wrote a bit about in this article.

Conversely, if you speak up against racism, you can even lose your job!

7️⃣ "Danish Design is the best!"

Of course! 😆 I mean if you are willing to pay more than 8,000 Euros for this simple lamp:

While IKEA sells an almost identical thing for about 50 Euros:

Or if you think a regular chair like this should cost more than 2000 Euros:

Danes are good at selling things and creating fake brands around things. In Iran, we call it "people who can sell a frog as if it was a diamond!" The same concept of "Danish design" applies to the whole brand of this society. That's why I was laughing when a friend, who had never been to Denmark, called me about 7 years ago and asked me about this thing called "Hygge". With the marketing around Danish stuff, he thought it should be "some sort of the best party in the world thing! 😂" The poor guy didn't know Hygge simply means to enjoy the vibe of having nothing and doing nothing, in the dark, probably with candles if you have, like a koskhol.

8️⃣ "Danes are direct!"

No! Danes are NOT direct! They only say it to expats to protect themselves from the consequences, if someone dares to speak up or questions their "ways of saying". In reality, Danes are famous for their passive-aggressiveness. That means if they directly tell you something, they really mean it, and this is their last saying before starting an all-in fight (either physical, socially terrorizing you, etc.)

9️⃣ “Foreigners are aggressive, Danes are calm.”

I bet none of you have heard about the recent terrorist attack in the Field's shopping mall in Copenhagen.

The attacker was a white Dane, and that’s why no media ever talked about it. Later, the Danske Politi (Danish Police) decided not to call it a t3rrorist attack! Like always, it was one lone wolf suffering from mental issues, just because he was a white man. 😂 If it was a Muslim or a foreigner, trust me, you would have seen it all over the news, and everyone would have called it a “terrorist invasion” from the first seconds of it! Interestingly, this happened in the middle of a gang war between Danish gangs. Later, a large bomb exploded in the HQ of one of these armed gangs!

So, who might like Denmark?

There is no "THE good" or "THE bad", and of course, living in different countries has its pros and cons. While Denmark is far from ideal for talent, it definitely has some good things (for example, a fully digital government like Estonia, China, and Iran) and is suitable for some:

• Denmark is an ideal place for Danes who are raised in this country. But if you come after age 25, apart from contributing a high tax to the society for Danes to enjoy, there is not much for you to get out of what you pay.
• If you come from a poor country or a poor family in a non-social country like the US. In that case, there's a lower chance of ending up on the streets, especially if you can get Danish citizenship after 10+ God knows how many years.
• If you are not used to living in large/lively cities like NY, Tehran, etc. (or if you did NOT have the money to experience an okay life there)
• If you are from a country that is not as crazy-expensive as Denmark, you can earn a higher salary here (even by working as a bartender) and then bring back that money to your country and live like a king. This is quite common among Indians, East Asians, South Americans, and East/South Europeans. I remember a Thai woman who became crazy rich in Thailand after visiting Denmark a few times! Also, this country, like Sweden, is a Heaven for criminals.
• I previously wrote another article about one example of these organized gangs welcomed by Nordic governments/societies. At the same time, if you come as a talent from the same region, all you get is HATRED and exclusion because they think "you have stolen their high-paying jobs" without accepting the knowledge gap difference between us.
• If you have 2+ kids, especially if they are "blonde enough for Danes not to be discriminated against", then Denmark might be a good country for you to raise them for free. Expats pay high taxes, so at least someone should benefit from it.
• If you dislike driving (which is something, for example, I was tired of), then you will have a chance to bike and even walk in small cities in Denmark. This is quite common in Europe, though, unlike many non-European countries.
• If you don't care about your social life, your wife/husband/kids are enough for you, or even if you are anti-social (I hope not).

Previously, I had already written another article about this: As an expat, should I move to Denmark?