Cultural reasons-borrowing names for being chic, whatever

Have started to read abit about Copenhagen so I have some context for what I will see there.

City has a recently built new art gallery/museum called "Louisiana". I made a half-joke to dearie (who understands German culture because that's his family background): did the Danes want to spice things up and make something artsy-nouveau-chic, by naming it, "Louisiana"?? May the city of Louisiana see this as a compliment.

Or a hip restaurant-bar in Beijing named: Apothecary. Must be the cool cocktails.

But hey, if it draws in the crowds, great. :)

Any place, however humdrum, is exotic to someone.

I think one of the funniest is Häagen-Dazs, with the random umlauts thrown in. It's meant to look Scandinavian, but doesn't mean anything, the letter combinations don't exist in any Scandinavian language, and are in fact quite impossible to pronounce.

Which sorta happens when you just pick letters at random... :D

When we lived in Japan, our apartment name was: Dwell Sun Cooler.. I have no clue where they came up with it but hey..Many many more with similar type names in the Kanagawa region...

I won't go into some of the place names in Newfoundland..;) :o I just had to visit one particular place...ha haaaa

FOr some odd reason..Many New Zealand and Australia towns/cities have streets named after Canadian cities..Not sure why. I've never seen an Australian/NZ named town on a Canadian Street. Yes, I know about Sydney, NS, Anzac, Alberta

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Originally Posted by lph

Any place, however humdrum, is exotic to someone.

I think one of the funniest is Häagen-Dazs, with the random umlauts thrown in. It's meant to look Scandinavian, but doesn't mean anything, the letter combinations don't exist in any Scandinavian language, and are in fact quite impossible to pronounce.

Which sorta happens when you just pick letters at random... :D

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LOL, I didn't know that! This is funny - and doesn't detract from their wonderful ice cream :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by shootingstar

Have started to read abit about Copenhagen so I have some context for what I will see there.

City has a recently built new art gallery/museum called "Louisiana". I made a half-joke to dearie (who understands German culture because that's his family background): did the Danes want to spice things up and make something artsy-nouveau-chic, by naming it, "Louisiana"?? May the city of Louisiana see this as a compliment.

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Louisiana is a state. :p
And a state of mind. :cool: Officially a bilingual state, English and French, by the way - although almost all the signs are in English unless you're in the deepest backwaters of Acadiana.

So does the gallery have "Olde South" stuff, or Cajun stuff, or Oil Field stuff? All with a bottle of hot sauce on the side, such as Tabasco, from New Iberia? ;)

Aiiiyah --yes of course Louisiana is a state. My amnesia! :eek: It's a modern art gallery in Copenhagen. Not sure if I have time to go to it. I want to see the older stuff in Denmark and can get contemporary art elsewhere.

But I see Danish culture as....a restrained culture. (even though contemporary Danish culture seems liberal, etc.) It appears not to have the energetic warmth, joi de vivre compared to the Latino-based countries, to Italy, even France. So Louisiana concept appears just so exotic and spicy against that Danish cultural history. I probably have a ton to learn here with my own preconceptions.

(I hope any Danish person is not offended. For instance, I do see some cultural correlations between Germans and Chinese --hyper, technically focused, tendency to be hard driven, etc. And I say this after working with German professionals and for a German company for several years. Dearie doesn't disagree with me. :) )

Had no idea about Hagen-Daas --its lack of coherent semantic history. :p I agree, lph something that appears exotic in one culture as a "marketing" ploy vs. somewhere else where the concept is just ho-hum, part of the culture/history.

Really, cc, Canadian city names in Aussieland and kiwiland? What are the examples?

Guess, some of this is no different than some people sporting a Chinese ideogram tattoo but not know what it means. But it looks 'other world' or cool.

Courtesy of Wikipedia: apparently Häagen-Dasz sued a Swedish brand of ice-cream called "Frusen Glädje" in 1980-something, for lookalike "Scandinavian branding".

It's just that "Frusen Glädje" actually IS real Swedish, and means "Frozen Joy" (or "gladness").

Which is sort of like the art gallery Louisiana suing the state of Louisiana :p

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Originally Posted by lph

Courtesy of Wikipedia: apparently Häagen-Dasz sued a Swedish brand of ice-cream called "Frusen Glädje" in 1980-something, for lookalike "Scandinavian branding".

It's just that "Frusen Glädje" actually IS real Swedish, and means "Frozen Joy" (or "gladness").

Which is sort of like the art gallery Louisiana suing the state of Louisiana :p

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that's amazing~!! they sued, but did they WIN?

Wikipedia to the rescue. Louisiana is named for the land owner's 3 wives, all named Louise!