Hoilund: Some. . . some famous persons or places or. . . yeah. I think when I ask my students, “Why did you choose Denmark?” then what they know about Denmark is Hans Christian Andersen, the poet, and the Legoland. They always mention Legoland because they played with those Lego when they were children and somehow they know that it’s from Denmark. And maybe Tivoli Gardens, maybe that we have a queen, we are maybe the oldest kingdoms in the world. Maybe the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. We have actually a PhD student now who is learning Danish to be able to read his works in their original language. Some of my colleagues, Japanese colleagues in Danish, they say that before my students go to Denmark, to visit Denmark, it’s good for them if they know more about how we interact, you know. We shake hands, for instance. We can hug each other. You never see that in Japan, right? So it’s good for them to know that this is how you do it when. . . if you want to adapt to how Danes do things. Also, I know that the students are very, very polite here in Japan. Very polite. But they’re polite in another way than Danes are. So sometimes they will know Danish words for, for instance, “Excuse me,” “Sumimasen,” then they would say the word in Danish, but they will say it too much. So it is strange for us. We don’t have a culture where you would say “Excuse me” all the time. Sometimes we would say, maybe, “Thank you” instead in the same situations. So, yeah, that is the cultural difference that I’m aware of.

Interviewer: By the way, your English is very, very good. Better than my English, maybe. And I heard that English and German languages are most widely spoken foreign languages in Denmark. Are there many people who can speak English fluently in your country?

Hoilund: I think so. Yeah, we have English from third grade actually, so the children are, what are they, eight or nine years when they start to have English. And then German. You don’t have to have German as far as I know in elementary school. I think they can choose it, and I think they choose it from sixth grade. And then they can choose French as well from seventh grade, I think. I’m not an elementary school teacher, so I’m not quite sure. But I know that they, a couple of years ago, changed the system, so now, um, the people, the students, or the pupils must be, eh, must learn English from third grade. Before it was, fine, I think, fifth grade, so now it’s third. That’s very early. So, yeah, I think they, well, the Danes, they speak English . Of course if you don’t use it, then you will forget it, maybe. But there’s one thing that I also noticed here in Japan. When we see a movie in the television, then you will. . . very often you will dub it and you will. . . instead of having subtitles, so we could listen to English or whatever language. Then you dub it. I think maybe one of the reasons why we are maybe better in Denmark in different languages, maybe in English, is because we always hear it. Always. And we also listen to music, English music. And some of our groups or performers, they will also perform in English. So we hear it a lot of times. Maybe we don’t speak it as much. I will probably only speak English in Denmark if I meet tourists. So. . . But we learn it. We listen to it a lot. Yeah.