Blackladder

Hi all,
I first came to Sweden in 1968 - year of the Prague Spring. Moved here in 1969 and have now only 10 months to go before retiring after a lifetime as a freelance translator and interpreter. I'm moving south-west (love the sound of that!) to warmer climes and here are some thoughts after more than 40 years' experience here. BTW I'm British born and bred.

1) The Swedes are best in the world at everything, especially humility.
2) On crime, apart from the southern city of Malmö, not far from where I am, you are pretty safe here. The biggest danger is of being hit on the head by a Swede who's jumped from the 7th floor of his/her ridiculously expensive flat cram-packed with *kea tat.
3) On taxes, the tax form is quite simple, only three sentences: 'How much did you earn last year? What've you got left? Send it in!
4) The climate, you are likely to die of pneumonia, unless frostbite gets you first, while waiting for the ambulance that never arrives.
5) On food. I quote Bill Bryson from his highly illuminative Chapter on Stockholm in his book 'Neither Here Nor There' "Every meal is another heart-break".
6) The Swedes are a finger-wagging nation of moralists, for ever seeking out the moral high ground where they can clamber up and preach to the rest of us about how to run our lives. But there is hope, another quote, this time from Leo McKistry giving the best description of the Swedes I have ever read: 'Sanctimoniousness tempered by cowardice'
7) From personal experience, those employed (?) in the public health care sector can be sorted into two categories: 'worthless' and 'utterly worthless'.
8) On communications and social skills: The Swedes own more cell (mobile) phones than any other nation on earth. Which is surprising since they never speak to anybody. In fact it must be hell being a paramedic in this country, never sure how to tell a dead Swede from a live one (the dead ones usually have a faint smile).

If it is at all humanly possible, do have a good time here and, by the way, when are you leaving?
Blackie

Beccarose

Just curious, what made you spend so many years in Sweden? And where are you headed to?

I really love the comment about telling the alive Swedes apart from the dead ones! And actually so true...

David Armstrong

Hi Blackladder

I'm really hoping your list of 1-8 was a very big "tounge in cheek" poke at the Swedes and nothing more serious than that, and not a vague attempt at "trolling"

I'm trying to work out why do you sound so bitter?

I have been living in the Stockholm region for 15 years now and since my arrival in 97 I have been accepted and helped by many friends and strangers alike to "aclimatise" to my new home and to learn the language. Most of your (meant to be funny, I'm sure) comments in your list don't sound like the Sweden I know. I can give many examples to counter all your 1-8 comments from first hand experience.

I very surprised that it has taken you 40 years to decide to move "south -west" if you have been so unhappy with the situation here.

I would be interested to hear (and other forum readers) what you thought were the good points of living here for the past 40 years were? I really hope you have found some good whilst you have been here, if not that would be too sad

Blackladder

Hi,
Yes it was a bit tongue in cheek as you say. I live in the far south and do love the countryside here, a keen birdwatcher, I get enormous pleasure from actually doing the eider count in spring as they sweep north along the Baltic coast (have actually counted 24,000 in a single morning!) and regularly visiting my local small lake to watch a variety of birdlife I would have to travel the length and breadth of the UK to see. So I have no argument with the natural side of Sweden at all.

Sadly, it's the people I have never really been able to get on a wavelength with, meaning in effect that after 40-odd years I don't have a single Swedish friend. On the other hand, I have already made numerous friends in the 2 years I have been visiting SW France, where I shall be moving to sometime during 2012.

I think it has something to do with the 'best in the class' mentality I encounter here. Whenever there is a wave of crime here in the south, the knee-jerk reaction is to blame it on the foreigners, the same applies to drug smuggling and the illegal weapons trade. Some of the worst smugness of the Swedes makes me still boil with rage even at the age of 64! When the Estonia went down in the Baltic, to take one example, the first reaction from the Chairman of the Swedish Merchant Marine Union was 'It would never have happened if they'd had a Swedish crew (jesus). Even only a couple of days ago, some Swedish clown of an actor claimed that if he had been on board one of those flights that hit the Twin Towers, the plane would have been saved and landed at the nearest airport, with a lot of blood on the flight deck! Unfortunately, I find that this kind of attitude is very common and insufferable.

Sure I love poking fun at them, because they take themselves so seriously - maybe that's the Irish half of me 'Is there a government here? I'm agin it.

Thanks for your replies
Take care
Blackie

David Armstrong

Ok now I understand, yes I must agree, from time to time there is the small element of "It can't possibly be us so it must be someone elses fault" fortunately I experience this situation less and less as the years go by and the new upcoming generations become more tolerant as they reach adulthood.

Sweden, politically and socially has always been a self proclaimed island in the European arena based on their own pious attitude and has been unwilling to adopt a more open approach to their European partners. This I'm glad to say is changing if albeit slowly (Rome wasn't built in a day )

I am aware of the (few) failings of this nation and the unpleasant things that go along with it. With that in mind I try to avoid them and seek out the greater things that this country has to offer.

I'm sorry to hear that you have not made a single friend here in the last 40 years, but having said that you might have more than you think! As you know Swedes aren't always as open about their relationships as we are and aren't always the first to admit they have a friend, more likely a "Arbetskamrater, kollegor eller bekanta" it seems the younger generation are more freely admitting to having "kompisar eller polare". For my part I guess I got lucky and found the common "Wavelength" by accident.

Anywho, now I understand the "Tone" of your post and it doesn't seem as harsh as it first appeared. Wherever you end up good luck to you. And I guess I'll still see you floating around in the forums albeit in the French one!

P.S. I'm not sure how you would go about counting 24000 of anything let alone birds on the move, impressive!

Blackladder

Hi again,
Thanks for the good wishes, funnily enough my bookmark takes me straight to the French board where I have been posting for a couple of years now, just found the Scandinavian board by chance. Has it been going long?

Take care
Blackie

David Armstrong

Hej!

No actually it hasn't, when I joined ex-pats (a month ago) it didn't exist.

I wrote to Sue (Moderator) asking if and when it would happen, she replied saying that the site had seen an increase in Scandinavian activity and there might be a possibility of one coming up, low and behold one week later............ TAH DAH!!! A Scandinavian forum!

Paracletus

Thought Swedish dentists were meant to be the dogs bollocks.

I recently moved to Norway, and a similar list could be compiled about them. Self deprication? What is this strange thing you talk about?!!

I hear the Swedes are even more politically correct than their Scandinavian neighbours.

Blackladder

Hi Paracletus,

Yes, Soviet Sweden is the land where everything that isn't forbidden is compulsory, but I'm soon out of it tho', thank God.
Blackie

Paracletus

So on par with the last Soviet state Norway then? I have not been to Sweden for some years..I don't think I need to either, it appears half of Sweden is here anyway. I hear the supermarkets are better though. You had butter in Sweden, and booze is cheaper. But the vinmonopol is quite extraordinary, state monopoly I can support.

I find it funny, but I can't imagine I will live here for that many years.

Blackladder

Paracletus, a word from the wise - don't get stuck.

I got stuck in Sweden, you know, marriage then kids and home building and all that, get in a routine of accepting what's going on around you because - well, what are the alternatives? Things work well for a while, even if you don't like the Swedes much and their politics, history, taxes, food and weather even less. Then comes the crisis and the misdirected feeling of loyalty towards your children - never repaid. Then you spend years literally sleep walking, (I've been lucky because I have been my own boss and made a success of my little business), going through life with a sigh of homesickness now and again, then knuckling down and getting on with making the best of life.

Now, as retirement beckons from just around the corner, I have only 4 months left in this sh*thole before I can move to my little house in France, and after that - well, I have a niece who lives in Lyon - and that is as far north and as far east as I'm ever going to travel!

Beccarose

Blackie, I am curious, if you hate Sweden so passionately and you have been your own boss why haven't you moved on long ago? Surely you could freelance and be your own boss in other places? I'm just not sure why someone would stay in a place that they clearly can't stand for so long. Yes, I get that you got 'stuck' with marriage and kids but why have you chosen to stay until retirement?

Surely your kids would have been better off with a father in France or wherever you end up than an incredibly bitter father who seems to outwardly hate everything about their homeland.

Paracletus

Don't worry about me..I've been moving constantly since I was 5, never been in the same place for more than 5 years at the most..and I would have no problem dragging my kids around the world if and when I have them. I'm also generally quite accepting of wherever I find myself, I appreciate I belong nowhere. My main beef really is just the seriousness of the people, underhanded jokes goes straight over their heads. It amuses me no end.

Good luck with your move and enjoy, I know alot of people who have dedicated their lives to their careers and retire somewhere nice.

Blackladder

Hi Beccarose,
Don't get me wrong entirely, I don't hate Sweden, I'm just disillusioned and fed up with it. When I first got here in 1968 I was really enthusiastic about the country, I learnt the language so that I (according to others) sound like a Swede. I have worked as a translator and interpreter (which would exclude working from abroad, since even after the Internet, customers mostly prefer their translators and interpreters to be close at hand) and made every effort to become assimilated and accepted, God knows I have. But, and this is a big but, I have gradually seen the country on the slippery slope and have had enough of paying more than half of my income in one form of tax or another, only to be told that there is a six month queue for this or that in the health care sector which they boast so much about. To be told that I will have to work another 2 years to get my full pension. To be informed that while children's allowances will (natch) be linked to inflation but not pensions. The list goes on and on. Before the alternative of living in France arose, I was resigned to living and dying here, but now I have had a taste of life in a warmer, friendlier, altogether more positive culture, I'm just in a hurry to get there permanently!
I'm sure I'm not alone in this situation - there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants throughout history who never accepted life in the US for example. Italians who never learn a word of English, Chinese who congregate in their own chinatowns to avoid 'the round eyes' and so on.
Thanks for the good wishes Paracletus! There will be a glass of rouge waiting for you!
Blackie

josda

I'm Swedish and didn't find your list offensive at all. In fact, I'm shedding a few tears as I read it and agree with every single word. Well, almost, I'd have to disagree at least partly, with your assessment on food. I don't have much positive to say about restaurant food, but I do love real Swedish food. As I write, I'm eating dilled veal for the first time in years--it's heaven.
However, for someone with a preference for spices and heat, I can imagine our food is quite bland. But not much unlike British food, is it?

I moved away when I married and have come back a few times, thinking I could make a go at living here again. Now I'm here for the third time and been here 3 years soon. Can't wait to leave. What I find most unbearable is the complete lack of self-determination and autonomy. We lived in the US for 11 years and got nice and cushy with their more liberal laws (we homeschool), as well as a higher degree of live and let live attitude (though I would never say it's a non-socialist's paradise--it's getting worse and worse by the hour).

I also struggle with an absence of livsglädje; I imagine it is difficult to tell a dead Swede from a living one. How sad. I find comfort in convincing myself it wasn't always like this. Our politics are certainly entwined with Soviet communism since our elites have worked closely together throughout the years, but our special brand of socialism is more insidious on a spiritual level--it completely kills the soul. It's not the people's fault.

Have you lived in Skåne the whole time? I haven't been to Österlen or to most of the province. I visited my sister once in Helsingborg and found people extremely cold and unfriendly. Much like in Stockholm. Where I grew up, Falköping, I find people are generally quite friendly and a bit more cheerful. Still bland and a bit boring, but more tolerable than elsewhere. Where I'm now, just north of Västerås it's alright, as long as I stay out of Västerås. Härjedalen where we spent a few months is quite unfriendly as well.

When you say you haven't made one Swedish friend since you got here, I assume that what you have experienced is the highly developed ability Swedes have to smell a person out--they can spot dissenters from a mile away. I'm Swedish but I still can't seem to make friends here. I'm different, both culturally and politically and it makes Swedes unnerved. I think it's their fragile self-esteem, afraid of being indirectly criticized by your simply being different.

Good luck on your new life in SW France. I've always dreamed of going there myself, hope to get there one day.