The day society goes to hell

Watching the Swedes is about my observations of Swedish behaviour. Sometimes, it’s easy to think that I am describing ‘typical Swedish’. However, it’s important to remember that I describe individuals I see and these people may behave in ways that are typical to themselves but not reflective of Swedish society as a whole. I am glad to say that, sometimes, it’s just the questionable behaviour of one person.

One example of this happened today. It is an example that makes me angry, sad and frustrated.

Today a 74 year old Swedish woman died in hospital. She died after she was assaulted in a car park outside a supermarket in the south of Sweden. The whole thing started as an argument over a parking space between the dead woman and a man in his 20’s. It resulted with the man punching the woman’s wheelchair-bound husband, and then punching the 74 year old woman right in the face. He hit her so hard that she fell to the ground, smashing her head on the tarmac. The internal bleeding she suffered led to her death in hospital today. The young man is still unidentified.

What kind of a person hits someone in a wheelchair and then thumps a pensioner in the face?

Thankfully, this kind of thing is in the minority. I am glad to live in a country like Sweden which is relatively safe, and where people are relatively respectful of each other. This is why, when things like this happen, I feel shocked and angry.

I hope that it continues be a rarity and I continue to react in the outraged way I do. I hope everybody does. The day we are complacent is the day we condone this kind of behaviour. It’s the day we say that it’s ok to behave in this way.

And it’s the day society goes to hell.

Sweden – the feminine society

Last night, I experienced something that I rarely experience in Sweden. I found myself at O’Leary’s Irish Bar. O’Leary’s is a sportsbar. Screens and televisions on every wall blare the latest football and hockey matches. Lots of different matches, on different screens – all at the same time. The beer flows and the menu consists mainly of burgers, spare ribs and buffalo wings.

But it wasn’t this that was a strange experience. The strange experience was the masculinity of the environment. Apart from two women, the place was full of, presumably straight, men. For me, this is a rarity in Sweden – an environment devoid of women and overflowing with testosterone.

When we talk about culture, we often describe it using various cultural dimensions. These dimensions help us compare different cultural tendencies. One such dimension is called ‘masculinity-femininity’.

According to research Sweden is the most feminine culture in the world.

This doesn’t mean that all men in Sweden are ‘pussies’, although the Finns tend to think so. What masculinity-femininty is about, is partly about the prevailing values of a society and partly about the gender role division.

In masculine cultures, men do things which are traditionally ‘male’. They have the higher education. They bring home the wages. They often have the power, the money and the position in their societies. Women stay home and look after the house and the kids. People in these types of culture tend to strongly value competition, assertiveness, individualism.

Feminine cultures, on the other hand, are culures which tend to value cooperation, nuturing, understanding. They are cultures where the gender roles are more diffuse. So, in feminine cultures you will find men taking parental leave, changing nappies and fetching at the day care centre, for example. You will see women with a high level of education and in roles that are traditionally ‘male’ – eg doctors, judges, politicians etc.

It’s easy to see how problems can arise when people with these fundamentally different views meet to work together, or even to start a family.

And with this definition, it is easy to see why Sweden is the most feminine culture in the world.

However, this is probably not something I would have said last night to the drunk lads in O’Leary’s!

The dangers of direct translation

A colleague of mine was running a course for a group of Swedish people. As part of the course, participants had to get up and make a presentation. One after one, participants stood up and presented, with varying success.

It came to the turn of the second from last person. Feeling nervous, she stood up and started to talk. Her nerves got the better of her and she started to cough and splutter. She stumbled over her words.

Embarrassed, she said, ‘Excuse me, I’ve had a cock in my throat all morning.’

How wrong it can be when we directly translate!

Note: The Swedish expression ‘tupp i halsen’ translates literally as ‘a cock in the throat’. In English, the closest we get is ‘a frog in the throat.’

Not that this makes more sense, but at least it’s not as dirty.

Let the sun shine on

Today as I waited to take a train out of town, I noticed an unproportional distribution of travellers on the platform. The sun, positioned directly above, cast the majority of the platform into shade, apart from a thin strip of sunlight that was cast along the knife-edge of the platform. Lines of travellers teetered on the edge of the platform and leaned slightly over the tracks into the sun. The light shone down on their faces as they felt the warmth of the spring sun. The rest of the platform was almost empty.

This isn’t an untypical sight in Sweden this time of the year. Not surprisingly, Swedes seek the sunny side of the street or stand frozen on a street corner face turned up to the sun. If the sun happens to strike a wall, whole groups of people will take a pause in their day, lean against the wall and, eyes squinted, glare up into the sun to soak in the rays.

The myth has it that sunflowers turn their heads to follow the sun as it glides across the sky.

Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but I do know it’s true about the Swedish.

A nation of hard workers

According to statistics from the Swedish Statistical Office, unpaid overtime in Sweden increased by 40% last year. It was a majority of men who worked additional overtime and it is believed that this is the result of the financial crisis.

Ask most Swedes how hard they work, and the majority of them would say they work extremely hard. Unfairly hard, some of them may even say.

And yes, they do work hard. As long as it’s not before 9am or after 3pm of course, since they have to go to day care to pick up the kids. And not between 11.30 and 1pm because that’s when they eat lunch and exercise. Nor should it be mid-morning or mid-afternoon because that’s the coffee (fika) break. And as long as it’s not on a Friday afternoon because then they’re winding down for the weekend.

Nor should it be anywhere between the end of June and the second week of August because that’s the summer.

And as long as it’s not on a bank holiday (of which there are many), or a day between a bank holiday and a normal weekend, or the day before a bank holiday.

Yes, apart from that, they work very hard.

Big babies and the ageing process

One thing that strikes me as I walk the city streets, is the size of children in pushchairs. They are humongous! Kids that can obviously walk are transported about by Swedish parents all over the city. I don’t know if the kids are lazy, or the parents, but they are huge!

I’ve always thought that the parents weren’t willing to accept that the children were growing older. That they wanted to keep them young and ‘babyish’ for as long as possible. My theory was given credibility with the fact that Swedes remain as students for longer than many other nationalities and there is a high proportion of grown adults still living at home.

This is why I was surprised to see the see the results of a recent survey from the University of Kent, in the UK. The survey was about when different cultures think that we stop being young.

According to the survey, Swedish people think that we stop being young at 34. This is much younger than in many other countries.

In the UK, we think we are young until 35, apparently. And in Cyprus – the age where youth ends is 45.

In fact, Portugal is the only surveyed country that thinks that our youth finishes earlier than the Swedish average.

So, my argument about why big Swedish kids are still in pushchairs doesn’t hold.

Or maybe it does.

Given that their youth ends earlier than most other countries in the survey, it’s necessary to hold on to it while you’ve still got it.