Saturday is usually a reading day in the Božjak household and I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn about the Swedes. I had an idea to ask Reddit for a book that describes the Swedes in a humorous, Bill-Bryson-style, manner.Reddit's /r/sweden came up with The Xenophobe's Guide to the Swedes and boy oh boy does it deserve every up-vote it got! It was such a great read I read it cover to cover in just two immensely entertaining chunks!
Now, before you start investing your time on a perfect argument let me just say: I KNOW! The book is full of stereotypes, over-generalizations and anecdotes that while funny don't mean anything in real life. But that's exactly what I wanted, not because I would want material to make fun of the nation I'm trying so hard to join, but because it's stories like this that make the nation seem real to me. No nation is perfect and the ability that one of your own countrymen can compose such a funny and insightful book makes me like you that much more!
In the book I have learned many great things about Sweden that are just brilliant Who could have thought of founding a religion that worships information and thus its focus is to distribute it far and wide, no matter what copyright labels are attached to it. Apparently the Swedes did and now if a member of the Copymism Church were to be prosecuted for copyright infringement she could allege religious persecution. While I'm not sure that would work, I love the ingenuity!
There is one anecdote from the guide that stuck with me the most and I simply must share it with you. But for it to make any sense you have to know that while here in Slovenia where the hostess of a dinner party will insist every last bite of the food must be eaten, it is quite different in Sweden. Apparently when hosting a dinner the host is expected to prepare a bit more food than the guests are likely to eat. If all of the main course gets eaten, it is a sign that the host didn't prepare enough of it.So on a typical dinner party the hostess prepared amazing Swedish meatballs and one was left on the serving plate. Even though all the guests were craving for it no one would take the last one out of respect to the host. But then while preparing the pudding a short-circuit occurred and the lights went out and a few seconds later a terrible scream echoed across the room. A torch was quickly found and it's light revealed one adventurous guest with a meatball on his fork and 5 forks stabbed in his forearm!
I have had a great time learning about the Swedes and am now even more excited about the move. Hopefully I will get a reason to visit your country soon (a job interview would be nice) and experience all this first hand!
Do you have any good anecdotes to share? Or another great book to recommend? Please get in touch via Comments / Email / Google+ !
I have learned so much from your blog today, I want to read the book and I want to learn the language! Well done! Good luck with the job hunt!
ReplyDeleteAnd a happy 24th Birthday on Monday!