Where is Europe?

[Asiamaniac]

Sweden, Norway and Finland (perhaps Denmark?) as Scandinavia.

Similar to my point of seeing this. Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are Northern Europe for me - so I imply these countries are of course Europe.

But hell, what do I do with Iceland?

[eddydevries]

Similar to my point of seeing this. Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are Northern Europe for me - so I imply these countries are of course Europe.

But hell, what do I do with Iceland?

To me, it's Europe also (maybe, because they feel (and they are showing in too) more related to Scandinavia as to Northern America). And the flying time is more continental (about 2-3 hours in stead of 8 hours to USA).

Even Greenland feels to Europe to me, allthough it's close to Canada (but maybe this is because I flew here from Iceland).

[Tik Tak]

That European culture is what comes from elsewhere. It is not necessarily bad, but it is for sure not indigenous.

(...)

If I say "I'm going to Europe for holiday", a Finn will see nothing weird in that.

It also happens in Portugal. Europe is the rest, or in fact, it starts on the Pyrenees. I guess in general we also don't look to Spain as Europe, it's just our only neighbour and many times it's seen in fact as our obstacle to get to Europe.

It helps to this feeling that most of portuguese history was lived towards Brazil, Africa and Asia. Europe is an extremely recent "project" to us. Until 1975 Portugal still had colonies in Africa. And Macao was only returned to China in 1999. So.. Europe is all new to us. And except for Spain, France, England and Italy, I would say we don't have much common history with other countries, just some colonial disputes with the Netherlands too. In part that's also the reason we feel so small in Europe, all the "familiar countries" are bigger and richer then us.

Then culturally of course we share the "americanization" with the rest of the continent, and the world in fact. But apart from that we're closer to Brazil then to Europe. Example, you'll see many brazilian soap operas on portuguese tv, but except for a few british programs, you'll hardly see any other european series or shows.. and never on prime time (well, not even the brits get that, just portuguese or brazilian soaps).

[Asiamaniac]

More and more I love this thread. It is so interesting and fascinating to see and to learn from each other about what we feel and think about us and our surroundings. Tik Tak really opened up a very interesting vision into Portuguese thinking.

[Tik Tak]

Tik Tak really opened up a very interesting vision into Portuguese thinking.

Thanks! So I'll ad a few more notes.

Portugal is changing very fast since the end of our fascist dictatorship (25th April 1974), and Europe is a part of that change. I would say that younger generations are feeling more european, specially the ones that have been on Erasmus or Inter rails.. Also more and more portuguese chose Europe to emigrate, while the traditional destinations are no longer attractive.

It was around the 60's that big migrations from Portugal to France started, and then also Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany and nowadays to United Kingdom, Netherlands and Spain. But, besides France, the bigger portuguese emigrant communities are still the ones in the USA, Brazil, Venezuela, Canada and South Africa. So the emigrants in Europe help to accelerate the "european integration", but there are still more portuguese people elsewhere in the world...

As to the people that come here, they're mostly non europeans: africans, brazilians, chinese or indians. Only recently we had some waves of eastern europeans, mostly ukranians - but I guess they also don't feel that much european.

But "being european" is very hard do define. I guess the people in countries surrounded by other european countries (except if it's Russia) and without a colonial history, would definitely feel very european. But then we look to Switzerland, and they're not in the EU.

And that indefinition probably isn't that bad. I like the idea that EU will never be a nation, so that there won't be an european nationalism, what we do have in common is a geographic relation - but even that is far from having clear borders. Actually, EU has a legal border with Brazil (trough French Guiana)! So I don't understand the ones, like mr. Sarkozy, amazed with the possibility of the EU bordering Iraq (trough Turkey). Europe is more like a cultural gradient, or many gradients in fact, and not an isolated unit.