Sweden through American Eyes

          I suppose the first thing I should do is introduce myself and explain how I know Lars.  My name is Rick Johns, and I am from the American Midwest, having grown up in Indiana and lived most of my adult life in Iowa and Ohio. By profession, I teach English to those who do not speak it as a first language and have worked at small colleges and universities both as a teacher and an administrator of English-language programs for nearly 15 years. I was employed as Director of the intensive English language program at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio when the university gave me the opportunity to go on a teacher exchange program to Sweden.  I jumped at the chance.

 Lars met me at the airport and generally showed me around my first few days there.  I was given an office just across the hall from his, so we spent time chatting each day.  Lars is director of the Teacher Education courses for the English section at Umeå University, so he keeps quite busy.  However, we managed to talk about language, music, culture, university politics, and his website of his research into his family history, which all of you have come to enjoy.  I hope all of you get the chance to meet Lars face to face someday as he is quite a nice fellow.  Anyway, just a few weeks ago, Lars asked me to share my impressions of Sweden and her inhabitants in order to, with any luck, give you a better appreciation of the land from which your ancestors hail.  I certainly make no claim to be an expert, and keep in mind I only lived in Sweden for three months.  I think, however, that I obtained some insight into the Swedes, and I hope I gave them a more favorable impression of us Americans than they may have previously held.

 I should probably add at this point that unlike all of you, I don’t have any Swedish ancestry as far as I can tell from my own genealogical research, and before going to Sweden I confess that my knowledge of the Scandinavian Peninsula was sketchy at best.  Had you asked me what the Swedes were like, I probably would have mumbled something about their being tall and mostly blonde and that they live in a place that is cold most of the year.  I suspect that this is the same answer given by many of you, who can in fact trace their descent from Sweden, but let’s leave that alone for now.

 I think one of the essential things you must understand about Sweden is that it is a forest—a very large forest.  Seemingly insignificant, this forest concept actually explains much in the Swedish character.  I am sure had Sweden been in some other type of geographical location, it would have developed into a very different sort of country.  For example, one of the first things I noticed about Swedes is that they hate to form lines.  At the bank, at the travel agency, at the post office, you will find nothing resembling a line.  Most of these sorts of places in Sweden now have an electronic numbering system, where you take a number, and then a number board tells you when you are next and indicates which clerk you should step up to. As they wait, however, the Swedes tend to not stand in a line.  They tend to stand in a semi-circle sort of formation as they wait for their number to be called.  Even at the bus stop Swedes will stand about in no organized sort of way until the bus pulls up and the door to the bus opens.  Then they form a line very briskly to file onto the bus.

 This tendency might lead one to think the Swedes lack organization and discipline, but believe me, nothing could be further from the truth.  They are the most law-abiding, disciplined people I have ever encountered.  When waiting at the corner for the crossing signal to turn to allow pedestrians to cross the street, Swedes actually do wait for the signal to turn regardless of whether there are any cars in the intersection.  What do we Americans do?  We ignore those silly signals and dash across the street the moment the intersection is clear of vehicles.  Heaven forbid we should be delayed an extra minute in the name of safety!

 The discipline of the Swedes is no better illustrated than in their driving habits.  Americans have the international reputation of being polite, safe drivers, and after having driven in the Middle East, I can assure you we deserve that reputation.  However, we could learn a thing or two from our Swedish cousins.  As a whole, the Swedes obey traffic laws, use their turn signals, and keep within the speed limits.  They are also very courteous to pedestrians and bikers.  In all other respects, Swedes drive more or less as we do when we are at our best.  I did not witness any road rage when I was there and cannot imagine such a thing occurring on Swedish highways. 

 In case you are wondering, Swedes do drive on the right, unlike the Brits who of course drive on the left.  Actually, until sometime in the late 60s, the Swedes also drove on the left, but being the sensible people that they are, they came to the conclusion that life would be a lot easier if they just dimply switched.  You see, by then both Norway and Finland, Sweden’s neighbors on either side, were driving on the right, so if Ollie from Oslo wanted to drive to Helsinki via Sweden, he had to make this difficult switch at each border.  Plus, and I find this interesting, by the late 1960s, most Swedish cars came with the steering wheel situated for right-side driving anyway.  So, late one night, all vehicles were banned from the roads for about three hours while road crews worked feverishly to make all the necessary adjustments to lines on the roads and to road signs and traffic signals, and voilà!  One could then commence with driving on the right side of the road.  Just like that!  I find this fascinating that they accomplished this so easily and without any big to-do.  I’ve heard that there were only two or three minor accidents, but no one was seriously injured.  That’s how, ladies and gentlemen, this kindly yet hard-working nation accomplishes things.  They have discussion, they make a decision, and they implement it.  One, two, three, and that’s it.  The Swedes to their vast credit manage to make a lot of very difficult things look very manageable.

 When I tell people I lived in Sweden, they invariably ask about the weather and how I “coped” with the winter temperatures there and the snow.  I do recall being surprised when winter seemed to come so early to northern Sweden the year I was there.  I awoke one Friday morning in October and began to get ready to leave for the university when I looked out the window and saw a thick coating of snow everywhere, and it was still coming down.  Keep in mind—this was October.  That day was to be a big day in the department as one of the graduate students was having her doctoral thesis displayed in the administration building, the ceremony of which is an important one for all doctorate recipients.  There was to be a party in the department after this ceremony, and the graduate student, named Berit, I knew had invited several family members and friends as well as colleagues.  I worked with Berit on the Academic Writing course, and I knew how important this day was to her.  Seeing the snowfall, I immediately began to think like an American Midwesterner, worrying about whether the ceremony and party would be delayed or perhaps even cancelled.  I wondered if people would have trouble driving in to the University, and I felt so sorry for Berit and the potential for having her weekend ruined by Old Man Winter.  I bundled up in my woolies and boots and trudged in to the department.  More than one person said to me upon arriving, “Oh Rick, isn’t Berit lucky to have such a beautiful day for her party!”  I was dumbstruck.  Folks in Ohio so often let snow ruin plans.  Not in Umea.  To be fair, snow is a part of life in northern Sweden, and the natives have learned to live with it, not to fear it or spend too much time fretting about it.  The ceremony and party commenced, and all had a marvelous time, despite the snowfall, which continued throughout the day and well into the weekend.  If you ever find yourself in northern Sweden in the winter, you will find it is actually quite beautiful.  There is a path through one end of the campus in Umeå, lined with fir trees, that is incredibly beautiful in winter time, with the snow clinging to the fir branches.  Winter can be so dingy in Ohio that being in Sweden gave me a new appreciation for winter’s loveliness and the crispness of the air wafting across your nose and cheeks.

 One thing that I had to adjust to in Sweden is the differences in the custom of eye contact with strangers.  When walking down the main street in Dayton, if your eyes meet someone’s, you smile and perhaps even say “hello.”  Your smile will certainly be returned along with a “hi” said back to you.  This is, however, not the case in northern Sweden.  Strangers in the street seemingly go out of their way to not make eye contact with you.  And if you speak, they WILL look at you incredulously as if you had just broken a law.  I think this is why foreigners often mistake the Swedes for being cold or rude.  When I spoke to students at the university wishing to go study abroad in the U.S., I often asked them if they had ever been to the U.S. or to any other English-speaking country.  If the answer was “no,” I would talk to them about how Americans make eye contact in initial meetings and retain eye contact so that the Swedish students would not be surprised as I was when encountering the reverse.  Swedes who have traveled extensively understand this.  I lunched one day with a business professor taking some students to the U.S. for a trip and we spoke about this very thing.  “Oh, yes, you’re quite right,” he said.  “Swedish students who haven’t been to the U.S. get mistaken for being shy because they won’t make eye contact.”  This is an area where cross-cultural misunderstandings can easily occur as Americans often mistake Swedes for being shy and Swedes sometimes find Americans brash or forward.  Please believe that the Swedes are not as a cultural group cold or rude.  Once they get to know you they are very warm and kind and wonderful hosts.  If you are, however, in the downtown area and feel that people are avoiding your gaze, it probably has nothing to do with how effective your deodorant is. 

 One last thing you must know about Sweden is that they love to eat fish, and sometimes in rather interesting forms. I kept hearing about this thing called surströmming.  Everyone kept saying, “Oh, you must try it” followed by a slightly evil sort of laugh.  One day, Lars came into my office and asked, “Would you like to try surstromming?”  Stating that I would, he invited me to a party at his house for his band.  His partner, Marianne, picked me up at my flat and on the drive to Lars’ house, she kept reiterating, “Now, it’s perfectly fine if you don’t like surstromming.  Most people from other places don’t.”  Perhaps I should at this point explain what this dish is. Surströmming translates directly into English as “rotten” or “sour” herring.  Perhaps a more accurate translation would be “fermented” herring, for what the Swedish fishing industry does is catch herring from the Baltic Sea and store them in barrels, layering them in the barrels with salt between the layers.  Here the herring remain for months after which time they are sealed into cans with certain spices and there they ferment.  The cans sometimes expand as the gases inside the can expand for which reason Scandinavian Airlines forbids bringing surstromming cans onto aircraft lest they explode in mid-flight.  The cans, not the aircraft.  Anyway, the cans are opened at parties and other sorts of festive occasions and the fermented herring are served.  Often, the smell from the cans is the thing that turns everyone off, so hosts will usually open the cans either outside or under water.  The contents of the cans are poured into bowls and placed onto the table.  What the Swedes do to eat fermented herring is spread chopped onions, potatoes and tomatoes onto flat bread (tunnbröd), which is very similar to what Americans would describe as a large rectangular-shaped cracker or wafer.  You can also add sour cream if you like.  Then they take a piece of herring from the bowl and filet it onto a plate and then put the filleted pieces of herring onto the flat bread with all the other stuff and then eat the herring as either an open-faced sandwich or place another piece of flat bread on top.

 Lars was good enough to filet a piece of herring for me.  There is truly an art to it.  He was quite surprised when I asked for a second sandwich of fermented herring, as were many of his guests.  “Oh, that’s all right!  You don’t have to eat another one,” someone said.  “But I like it. I want another one!” I insisted.  To this day, I don’t know if they believed me, but Lars served me another one, and looked still surprised when I ate it all.  He presented me some time later with a certificate for valor for having eaten surstromming, but I can assure all of you that if you are ever in northern Sweden at a party, don’t be afraid to try the stuff.  It is actually quite tasty—just stand back when they open the can!

 Well, I think the above gives you some idea about my experiences in Sweden and my reactions to the natives. Swedes are fascinated by American culture. I think perhaps they judge the U.S. too much by our media witnessed by how many of our TV shows are on Swedish Television and how many American films find their way even to Umea. Many American events are covered thoroughly in the Swedish press, and I sometimes found myself wondering what all the fuss was about, for I do think that this small country made up of hard-working, honest, law-abiding, fair-minded, and liberal thinking people could in fact teach us much more than we could ever teach them.

 If you would like to discuss Sweden further, don’t be shy about emailing me at aquarius1066 @hotmail.com.