My Swedish connection collection Posted by jennie on Jul 9, 2010 in Culture
A while back I came out about my weird habit of counting Swedish things around me. Well, this behaviour (beteende) hasn’t got any better. In fact, it has gone slightly mad. But now my counting has expanded from Swedish things/brands/colours to people with a Swedish connection (samband). Is it just me, or is the world full of them? Some true (sanna) examples from the past week:
Monday morning, in a cab to the train station. It is stupidly early and I am not in a mood for small talk. The taxi driver though, is. He asks me where I am going, what I am doing and something about the weather (but of course…) and the beauty of bright light early mornings. I hum something back and just out of the blue, the taxi driver says: “But the midnight sun in Scandinavia, ah… that’s something quite special…”. Guess who instantly woke from the half dead? It turns out this man has spend five years living in Sweden and we did the rest of the journey talking about the sights of Göteborg – in Swedish…
Wednesday evening, in a sofa at a party watching the crucial game between Spain and Germany. My support for Germany is obvious and someone asks me if I am German. No, I am Swedish.
“Oh are you? I used to live in Helsingborg, I had a girlfriend there. Hur mår du?”
We forget about the game (boring anyway…) and talk about the beuaty of my country until a girl, who just joined us in front of the telly, breaks the news that she used to live in Gothenburg for three years when she was a kid. In September, she’s going back for the first time since and would love some tips. I was more than happy to give her a few.
Thursday evening, walking home from work. The phone rings, it’s a unknown number which usually means someone trying to sell me something. I answer anyway and quickly turn down his “very special once in a lifetime offer” of a magazine subscription (prenumeration). I blame the fact that I am going away for a while. As the polite (artig) and chatty salesperson he is, he asks me where to? Sweden.
“Really? My granddad was Swedish, we go back every now and then….”
And I haven’t even mentioned Christina, that I “met” last week here on the blog, a Swenglish girl who is living in the same city as me but who are just about to move her whole life to Sweden. There is a guy at the pub who speaks Swedish. Actually, there is two, come to think about it. And Shauna, a new random facebook friend in Australia who fell in love with Sweden by reading Selma Lagerlöf… Well, you get the picture! Wherever I look, I see Swedish connections.
Okay, I know I might be looking out for them a bit more than normal, but what about you guys? I know most of you obviously (uppenbarligen) has a some link to up there – presumably a strong one as well – but what is it? Bumped into any likeminded lately?
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Comments:
Christian:
I don’t have any link; I just love “norden” 🙂
jennie:
Well, that is as good as any! 🙂
nicky:
before i started learning swedish i thought i never saw anything related, now i see at LEAST something every day, many times.
Christina Pearce:
Hej!
Looking for all things Swedish is a very Swedish thing to do if my mum is anything to go by… Wimbledon would pass us by year on year. However, if there was a Swede playing (remember Stefan Edberg?) she would cheer and wave the mini wooden painted flag that sat poised for any such event on top of the telly.
When I move to Sweden I guess I’ll be looking for all things English! Probably I’d fall over in shock if I saw a traditional cream tea… 🙂 Suppose there is no need with fika on offer!
Christina, din nya blogg vän!
Letícia:
I too have no link; I just really like your language and culture (I’ve been listening to Swedish bands since I was like 12). And from the moment I decided to really learn to speak Swedish, I started to notice that lots of things around me are either made in Sweden or from a Swedish company – from the matches in the kitchen to this really cool cone-shaped clock I have since I was a kid. 🙂
Ida:
Oh yea, the Swedish connections are definitely present here in Portland OR. I’ve been coming here for three years, and the swedes are always lurking around some corner some where. Not very long ago I discovered, next to my husband’s office, a little place called “pudding on the rice,” basically a crazy risifrutti place, and the recipie comes from the owner’s Swedish grand-mother. Last year, I realized that the strangely quiet waitress at one of my favorite cafes was not bad at giving service per se, she was just Swedish.. 🙂 The guy whose apartment I subletted had had a Swedish girlfriend, some canadian guy at happy hour had a Swedish mom and had lived in Sthlm, my husband’s uncle was married to a “Doris” from norrbotten etc.. a couple of weeks ago a very talented acroyoga girl from goteborg was visiting with our neighbours and I got to chat away in swedish once more, it just goes on and on until last week when at a friend’s house two pure bred swedes walked in, together with the woman’s boyfriend we were 4 swedish speaking people at a party consisting of maybe 10, quite the high swedish ratio if I may say so…. oh, I almost forgot, my husband’s best friend who lived in sweden building furniture for his anything but a law-abiding american uncle who resides in Dalarna, buying furniture of auctions and shipping it to america, he also ships cars to Sweden, cars that change license plates once they’ve made their trip across the atlantic.. I could go on and on 🙂
Luke (Sydney):
So, did you end up subscribing? 😀
Minty:
Well of course my boyfriend is Swedish so I have a Swedish connection …
But I cant believe none of you report connections to Sweden!!! Just like you Jennie, I seem to run into people with connections to sweden everywhere I went in Australia, and now Im in Sweden everyone is eager to tell me about thier connection to Australia.
I meet at least one person a week I think who has a relative or a friend who has viswited or is living in Australia. For the last 6 months before I left Australia I would talk to people about Sweden, and I met soooo many people who had a daughter or a son living there, or who had visited there on extended holidays, or who just loved all things Swedish. My boyfriend could’nt believe how I could run into so many of these people haha!
By the way, Ive been writing a blog about Swedish culture since I moved here, so please check it out and leave me a comment!
mintyinsweden blogspot
Minty:
Well of course my boyfriend is Swedish so I have a Swedish connection …
But I cant believe none of you report connections to Sweden!!! Just like you Jennie, I seem to run into people with connections to sweden everywhere I went in Australia, and now Im in Sweden everyone is eager to tell me about thier connection to Australia.
I meet at least one person a week I think who has a relative or a friend who has viswited or is living in Australia. For the last 6 months before I left Australia I would talk to people about Sweden, and I met soooo many people who had a daughter or a son living there, or who had visited there on extended holidays, or who just loved all things Swedish. My boyfriend could’nt believe how I could run into so many of these people haha!
By the way, Ive been writing a blog about Swedish culture since I moved here, so please check it out and leave me a comment!
Minty:
Sorry about double post, took over an hour for them to show up…so I thought it didnt post. The comments normally show up straight away for me.
jennie:
Nicky; Haooy to hear I am not the only one 🙂
Christina: I can’t wait to ehar about your English connection collection, I’m sure there will be loads! Wonder what you will miss the most from here?
Ida: IThank you, I loved reading that! Yup, the Swedish connections are def popping up everywhere, glad that you shared yours. Love the sound of the rice of the pudding place, Portland you said?
Luke: No, I am not THAT kind to all my fellow Swedes…. 🙂
Leticia: What clock is that?? Sounds cool 🙂 Any thoughts on Måns Kallentoft?
Minty: Cheers for that! Glad I am not alone. And please send us the link to your blog, would love to read.
Letícia:
Hej, Jennie!
My brother is at home and I asked him to snap a picture of that clock so I could show you. Unfortunately it’s not a good one ’cause from that angle you can’t see the pointer, a single red vertical line on the transparent cone, but I think you get how it works – the hours, minutes and seconds spin to be pointed. 🙂
http://a.imagehost.org/0216/DSC05818.jpg
Cool, uh? I’ve never seen another clock like that.
On the top it reads PROing AB – Teknisk rådgivning i tiden!
About Sommardöden, I’ll tell you in a bit in my comment on your Swedish summer post!
jennie:
Wow, I absolutely love that clock!! That is exactly my style! Very impressive, make sure to take good care of it 😉
And thank you very much for sharing!!
Minty:
Jennie, just click on my name when i post, or search for mintyinsweden on blogspot!
John:
Hej Jennie,
How are you? I’m glad I found your blog, though I suspect I may have come upon it previously…though it’s been a while. 😛 (As I been on transparent.com before.) It’s interesting to read about all the ongoings in Sweden or just Swedish culture in general. I’m sure I’ll read more of your entries, but I felt like I should comment now or forever hold my…thoughts.
Haha, I think everyone somewhat becomes “pseudo-patriotic” when they leave their country, even if simply on vacation…like when you described becoming so enthusiastic with Swedish traditions when outside of Sweden. Perhaps it’s a method of preservation of memory. Kanske.
When travelling, I tend to easily mention Canada, haha. I think in some ways, the more I travel, the more I see just how otroligt bra Canada actually is…of course, politicians everywhere kinda suck. 😛
When I was in Sweden, I found it to be really safe…the feeling was like people wanted to keep to themselves. I think I scared a lady on the street by saying: “God morgon!” xD (I think she made a small cry for help…:D) Sweden, though, doesn’t seem to have any major faults…except, haha, that people come off like everything is ok…like “political correctness” doesn’t seem odd, because everyone is fluent in it. 😛 That is, there are no “bad” opinions…only discussions of bad opinions, haha. It can be similar in Canada/States, where everyone will just be so traumatized if you say something that is perceived as negative concerning a certain thing… Although I think everyone should be good to one another, people must first understand why…not simply be forced to pretend to be accepting of everything. Variety is the spice of life—it doesn’t always fit in with a certain view.
Oh, well after all that, I am commenting now about my recent “Swedish connection”! I went on a weekend trip to Pennsylvania with my sister and friends and I wasn’t able to sleep during the night. So, I went downstairs and watched some TV. I flipped to a Catholic channel that I had flipped through earlier that evening, though this time I saw subtitles…and my ears perked up and heard Swedish! I was laughing because it just seemed so bizarre that they’d have Swedish on…especially at around 2 am in the morning. Anyway, it was an interesting documentary about a girl who becomes a nun and how it affects her family. It was kinda sad in many respects, especially when he younger brother was talking… He basically said that he missed her, especially when she first left, but that’s how life is (difficult)…however, it’s ok, because, one day, when he’s dead, he’ll get to play with her forever (I guess in Heaven…:P). It was so, so, hemskt. Sheesh. The peculiar thing is that it was a religious household…it was like they had their own parish. Oddly enough, the mother expressed her view by saying it without saying it (paraphrasing):
“She’ll come here (house/farm) when I’m dead, which I think SHE will be happy about. (Because the mother will be in Heaven.)”
I think the mother was saying that life, rather than death, should be what we concentrate on…so in a way, she felt like her daughter was wrong/selfish to stay within the convent. And this is not a woman who’s an atheist, but a Christian. 😛 It’s a sort of paradox, why the mother would be unhappy that her daughter wanted to devote her life to “God”.
Then again, it’s quite easy to see why she would be unhappy—families who live on a farm tend to rely on each other. Family is a big part, whereas in cities, it stereotypically is less important. What was great about this documentary was that I say real emotions from Swedes, haha. I also learned the word: kloster.
Anyway, I also have some other Swedish connections, men nu borde jag gå till sängs.
Ha det bra,
John