[August 2012] Odense in Denmark is the town where Andersen was born and there is a good museum about him there.
The first thing I noticed was that in the Japanese leaflet given there, there is a heading saying ‘Andersen’s looks’.
He was as ugly as that they have to make this heading.
He himself was ‘The Ugly Duckling’.
Other things I learned there were that his poor parents got married after mother got pregnant, and Andersen did never got married and so on.
The funny thing was that he and British author Dickens were friends and he stayed with Dickens’ family, and he regarded this stay as a meaningful one, but the family members of Dickens apparently wrote ‘ he is a real bore.
I hope he leaves soon’.
The house he was born in was relatively big and I thought even poor people had a good house, but when I read the information closely, it said that up to 5 families were living in this house.
His father was shoemaker and mother was a cleaning lady.
