Youtube hearted comments of Halfdan Ingolfsson (@Halli50).
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I spent 2 years in a multinational setting in Africa in the early 1990's (doing war zone relief flights for the ICRC). Coming from one of the Nordic countries I am used to North-European custom of just bidding everyone "Good morning", and I found the English/French-speaker custom of a "How are you/Fine, and you" ritual a bit over the top, ESPECIALLY after coming down to breakfast one morning feeling really miserable due to having caught a head cold (yes, just south of the equator!) and being asked "How are you" by one of my American colleagues. Well, I actually told him how I was (miserable! - he ASKED, after all) and he was actually offended! Apparently he was just going through the motions of a ritual, he was not really concerned about my heath at all.
Where I come from, we simply wish everyone a Good Morning, no response required. Seeing a friend or colleague appearing under the weather will, however, prompt a concerned and sincere "hey, you look a bit off, is there a problem?".
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The concept "Viking" is a job description, not an ethnicity. In modern times we would call them Raiders, Pirates or Pillagers. The vast majority of Northmen (Norse, Danes, Swedes, Icelanders) were traders and eventually settlers that assimilate into the cultures they settled in - while still leaving their cultural marks on said cultures.
In the Sagas, the concept of "að leggjast í víking" literally meant "to commit to go viking", i.e.go raiding. The Vikings were the brutal bits of Nordic society that would be called "criminal gangs" today. They usually brought back a stolen loot and, one way or another, this kind of behaviour became normalized.
In hindsight, the Viking age is a blemish on us, the Nordic nations.
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