Swedes in Estonia

This Friday evening I finally managed to catch up with the Swedes meeting every week in Hell Hunt! It's telling that I have been in Estonia for more than two years, I have heard that swedes go to Hell Hunt on some day every week, but I have just been too busy and content with my social life to bother to figure out more about them.

Actually, I tried googling and reading on the Swedish COC to figure out where and when I could find the swedes, with little luck. It amazes me how hard people make it to find some of their things! I hope the Swedes will allow me to at least somewhat enable the connections between people, a little bit like the OpenCoffee Club.

Meeting the people at Hell Hunt this Friday was so nice! It was so peculiar to hear Swedish guys ranting about soccer and just being guys with their snus and all, but it was also so good to meet genuine Swedes in Estonia. There is something about your nationality after all...

Walking helmets to become mandatory by law in Sweden?

I recently borrowed a pretty hilarious book - "I trygghetsnarkomanernas land - Sverige och det nationella paniksyndromet" ("In the land of the safetyaddicts - Sweden and the national panic disorder") by David Eberhard. You probably can tell where this is heading, but I want to make a small quote below:

"... There is also a significant tendency, as with psychiatric traditional agoraphobia, that the behaviour accellerates over time. When you have prohibited the residents to ride without seatbelt or motorcycle helmet then automatically comes the requirement for bicycle helmet and seatbelt in the back seat. Every prohibition leads to another prohibition which in turn makes the nation's citizens wonder how earlier generations could survive at all. Will there in the future be raised requirements for mandatory walking helmets? It may sound improbable, but it's sufficient that one researcher can show that you can save the lives of five or six babies per year if they use walking helmets and the law will arrive like a letter in the mail!"

Do check out the rest of my books (and our bookshelf) and another review of this book.

What to do when you're in Gothenburg

A friend called me today and asked for where to go in Göteborg. Well, except of course Universeum, I couldn't think of any great things you shouldn't miss, but I just threw together a small Google Map to give an overview:

View Larger Map

There is also of course the map of sushi places in Göteborg, but curiously I can of course not embed it in the blog.

Goodbye to us-and-them prejudice

When botanizing in the great videos of TED.com, I came across an interesting one with Swedish Hans Rosling of gapminder.org. Among many other things, he says:

"I have shown that Swedish top students know statistically significantly less about the world than the chimpanzees [do]" - Hans Rosling, 2006

Go ahead and click the link, or see below for his dense and pretty brief lecture:



Rosling's project gapminder.com is (among other things?) an easily usable frontend to a wealth of databases for laymen to be able to present existing census data in very rich ways. Just as an example, I tried to find some parameters who say something about the development in the nordic countries including Estonia - I chose the density of cellphones and computers per hundred people:




It was really quite tricky to find any parameters which would tell something interesting on just a national level, even more so anything significant in which Estonia "beats" the nordic countries which maybe was a little surprise to me, but anyway, I made a little interpretation of these two graphs.

Firstly - there clearly are computers in Estonia, it should be a little wake-up-call for any colonially minded westeners who are sneering at Estonia, Kazachstan or any of the other post-soviet countries. Once the opening is there, some development goes very fast and indeed few Estonians may have had videogames as kids, but once they started getting computers and cellphones, they cought up fast and are on par with the rest of the western world when it comes to cellphones, and have caught up with at least Finland when it comes to computers.

The second conclusion I make from this data is that cheaper consumer products reach penetration faster than more expensive such. This is true not only for cellphones vs computers, but many other things in society as well - I have at least a hunch of that the more costly the more inertia an issue has, and people renovate the inside of their apartments before they get together and cough up the money to clean up the facade. It makes a lot of difference in the impression of the interested bystander.

I know my reasoning is simple and generalizing, but maybe you have an opinion of your own you'd like to share with us?

Gnosjö-spirit now also for digital nomads

Me and Christian et al have been posting some about digital nomads. Today I realized my tiny old home village Gnosjö will be one of the first in Sweden to free of charge provide WiFi coverage to it's residents. Respect for Gnosjö I say!

As is common with smaller places in the countryside, you sometimes get the feeling that progress is running slowly, but I've actually noticed such a modern thing as that the head of the municipality Lars-Åke Magnusson sporadically writes a blog at blogg.gnosjo.eu. Also there are some connections between Gnosjö and Estonia, such as that the husband of my cousin (I know I got that mixed up when I ran into them once!) works for IMA Norscan which have an office in Tallinn and Estonian Windrox seems to have some work in Gnosjö.

It may appear strange that I am writing about "Gnosjö spirit", but I don't come from just any old village - Gnosjö is legendary in Sweden for it's age-old spirit of cooperation and industriousness, achieving excellent integration and record-low unemployement. Christian writes more about that here.

What swedes talk about - the death of gender

Today I've had a look at Swedish social bookmarking/blog monitoring sites pusha and knuff.se, swedish sites similar to digg and reddit. There's also of course Estonian blog.tr.ee which I've checked out but couldn't be bothered to make my way around due to the language barrier (wow, that logo is really similar to that of livejournal). Actually I'd want some sort of aggregate social bookmark tool to put by the blog posts, but I don't like AddThis since it only has del.icio.us which I actually use, but not the Swedish sites. Any suggestions?

So what are swedes discussing the most avidly right now? Well, obviously that the women Jessica Zandén and Cecilia Gyllenhammar are crying "Equality is suffocating us! Give us back the real man!".

Ever since swedish weight-lifter Lennart "Hoa-Hoa" Dahlgren posed for the male parental-leave-ad, Swedish gender has been a very advanced topic. Actually, at least already in the 40's Karin Boye chipped a piece of the Swedish gender façade, and since then the illusion of those roles has been falling to pieces.

Personally, I respect the opinions of those debaters, they miss the classic man, that's fine. However, I definitely do not agree with their opinion that there are no men and that essentially everyone are as opressed by feminism as they feel. Many of us are actually feeling less opressed and more liberated with the absence of accepted gender roles, that we can be whatever person we actually want without squeezing ourselves into some badly fitting gender costume. With the debating and images which have been popular over the years though, agreed some are probably a bit confused in their self-image, but the current debade is just reactionary and silly.


(Update: Zandén and Gyllenhammar had a short spot at Janne Josefsson's SVT Debatt. Josefsson is as usual extremely tough and clueless, the debate starters made a bit more sense in person, but if they wanted to bring light back to the combination of sex, machismo and violence, they could have done it infinitely better. And they could have been sober when they write the article)

Sommar i P1 is nearing it's end, with Mia and Klara, the dynamic bitterness duo

Today two of my favourite comedians were on the Sommar in P1 program, Mia Skäringer and Klara Zimmergren - the geniuses behind the old show Roll On. No one can beat them at really squeezing the bitter juice out of life, serving it to you with a remotely polite smile while clearing their teeth of some remaining snus with the tounge.

Not everyone, actually probably quite few, enjoy the humor of Mia and Klara and Roll On, but I love it and sometimes go back to listening to it - that and Riskradion. It's so Swedish.


Anyway, I just figured I should mention that the list of mp3's of the shows, with all music still included, was just updated. Enjoy!

(Update: To know which is which of Klara and Mia - Klara is the older and blonde, Mia is the younger, (visibly) tatooed and dark-haired, and she has a blog! Wohoo! *subscribe*)

(Update 2: Also, don't miss the excellent TV-series version of Roll On simply called Mia och Klara)

Estonia - a nation alive with tradition

The other day I was asked to get some proper food, so I and a friend went to the Keskturg local market (this time some translation and guidance was necessary, and someone to play around with the camera - next time I can go there on my own).

My girlfriend is regularly somewhat cheerfully amazed with what crap Swedes eat (or what Swedish students like I used to eat at least). We think it is processed beyond recognition, preserved, intermediate goods and fast food. Estonian cousine, to me, is predominantly fresh, non-preserved, home-cooked and eating at restaurants.

"Oh you're exagerrating, it's just your life which has changed since you moved there and you stopped being a student bachelor or something", you may think, and of course there is some truth in that objection. But ask yourself what Sweden would be without Gorby's piroger and a "pizzeria" at every other corner? On the other hand, I'm convinced part of the reason Estonia has so little fast-food options (and instead sell more ready-made lunches in grocery stores) is the lack of Iraqi, Turkish or Balkan immigrants to run such businesses. I find it almost impossible to find proper junk-food in Estonia! Anyway eating out at restaurants is generally more affordable and common (possibly also for the natives) than in Sweden. And so this time we went overboard in the other direction by visiting the local market to get ourselves some quality vegetables.


This time the market visit resulted in, among other things 2kg wonderful strawberries, half a water-melon and the ingredients of an excellent dish of "new potatoes" with fried onion and chantarelles and a (admittedly ready-made) piece of meat loaf on the side.

Another thing which may appear curious to visiting Swedes is how happy Estonians are to be Estonian. Sure many of us are happy to be Swedish as well, but comparatively we're not proud to be Swedish and "nationalism" has much much more negative connotations in Sweden than in Estonia where even such a thing as the "Fatherland-party" (IRL) is considered generally unremarkable.

The most curious thing about Estonian mentality for a swede how carelessly they dress upp in "folkdräkt" (traditional costume) and participate in various traditional events such as the song and dance festivals. When did you last actually dance "Små grodorna" around the may-pole? Traditional costumes are specific to each village or county and it's perfectly acceptable to wear them also at other festive events (it's not like in Sweden only the oddballs who wear "folkdräkt"). At Viljandi folk-music-festival each and every person is wearing the traditional Estonian hats, and my spontaneous reaction is of course "OMG LOL, they must get so teased about them!". But no-one teases anyone, not even the kids seemed to mind, because everyone wear these odd clothes and hats. It's just very Estonian.


PS. Check out the Estonian foreign ministry on flickr, they have lots of pretty pictures of Estonia

Summer is here - P1 Sommar presents the list of sommarpratare!

Saturday it's time again, for Swedish radio's longest running and greatest annual show, in itself a symbol signalling the summer season - P1 Sommar, or "Sommarpratarna" (eng. "The summer talkers") as it's also called. Comedian prank-caller turned language guru Fredrik Lindström will open the race.

The form is simple, for each day during the entire summer someone is selected (one is elected by listeners, this year 19-year-old Yrsa Walldén on the 16th of July) to do whatever they want with a 90-minute program - tell a story, play their favourite music, whatever they can think of. Obviously not all stories will be interesting, but on the whole it's great, you get a very personal and relaxed view of your favourite people. Fredrik Härén wrote a story about the initial gathering of all the talkers, and there's web-TV from it too.

P1 Sommar is actually a pretty unique program in that its brand involves a lot of diversity - both young and old listen to it and it does not shun conflict, like when Lena Andersson caused an uproar with her "Agnostic mass" in P1 Sommar 2005, and she's back this year again! Maybe in the world of IT, shoutcast and podcast, it's less relevant to have state radio program with a limited number of slots like this, but being a "Sommarpratare" still offers a bit of glamour and the show does have a ton of listeners.

I'm very much looking forward to it, and keep an eye out so you can download the programs afterwards. Or you can download them with music yourself!

This is the schedule for the talkers I do want to hear:

June
21 Fredrik Lindström - programledare, författare
22 Lena Andersson - skribent, författare
23 Max Tegmark - professor i astrofysik
25 Fredrik Härén - författare, föreläsare
26 Maj Briht Bergström-Walan - sexualforskare, psykolog
29 Margot Wallström - EU-kommissionens 1:e vice ordförande
30 Elisabeth Massi Fritz - advokat

July:
1 Amelia Adamo - tidningsmakare
2 Peter Wallenberg - styrelseordförande
3 Jana Söderberg - samtalsterapeut, kommunikationstränare
5 Jonas Wahlström - djurexpert, chef Skansenakvariet
6 Peter LeMarc - sångskrivare, artist
10 Isabella Lövin - miljö- och kulturjournalist, författare
11 Leif Silbersky - advokat
12 Tina Nordström - kock
14 Åsa Nilsonne - psykiater, professor, författare
15 Antonia Ax:son Johnson - familjeföretagare, entreprenör
16 Yrsa Walldén - studerande, Lyssnarnas Sommarvärd
17 Mattias Klum - fotograf, filmare
18 Hasse Wallman - grundare och vd Wallmans nöjen
19 Dolph Lundgren - skådespelare, regissör
20 Robyn Carlsson - sångerska, låtskrivare
21 Nils Simonson - kirurg, föreläsare
22 Eva Swartz - vd Natur & Kultur
23 Raymond Ahlgren - egenföretagare, författare
26 Manuel Knight - affärsman, psykolog, föreläsare
27 Jens Lapidus - författare, advokat
28 Annika Söder - undergeneraldirektör, diplomat
30 Göran Hägglund - socialminister, partiledare kd

August:
2 Svante Axelsson - generalsekreterare
4 Stavros Louca - matematiklärare
6 Sissela Benn - skådespelerska, komiker
7 Per Hallberg - Oscarsbelönad ljuddesigner
8 Boris Grigorjev - KGB-överste, bosatt i Moskva
9 David Batra - komiker, programledare
11 Carin Götblad - länspolismästare
13 Hassan Brijany - skådespelare
14 Mia Skäringer och Klara Zimmergren - komiker
15 Mikael Tornving - komiker
17 Sommar i backspegeln

These are the talkers I am more likely to skip listening to:

June:
24 Lennart Johansson - före detta UEFA-president
27 Björn Ranelid - författare
28 Lars Winnerbäck - artist, låtskrivare

July:
4 Fredrik Skavlan - norsk journalist, tecknare, programledare
7 Olle Carlsson - präst
8 Kajsa Bergqvist - världsmästare i höjdhopp
9 Michael Segerström - skådespelare
13 Björn Ulvaeus - kompositör, textförfattare
24 Katja Geiger - modeskapare, "Katja of Sweden"
25 Måns Zelmerlöw - artist
29 Martina Lowden - författare
31 Karin Mamma Andersson - konstnär

August:
1 Annika Norlin - artist, låtskrivare, journalist
3 Pia Johansson - skådespelerska
5 Åsa Borgström - hemmansägare
10 Pernilla August - skådespelerska
12 Ann Henning - författare, översättare
16 Marie-Louise Ekman - blivande Dramatenchef

Do you disagree with me, who are you going to listen to? Go on and comment!

(PS. I am aware this makes limited sense to write in English, but please bear with me)

(Update: I noticed the links to SR's site are broken and will try to fix them)

(Update 2: Hah, ok, SR has bigger problems than bloggers linking into their content:


Seems that their CMS is broken. Guess I won't be hearing Jonas Wahlström just now then :-) )

(Update 3: This is fun - Fredrik "Bison" Wass has made his own Sommar i P1 program. Just email him to get to listen to it. In a wired world, who needs Swedish Radio sanctioning?)

(Update 4: Now you can download all of the programs through The Pirate Bay)

The best swedish SR radio and SVT TV online and podcasts

One of the things I miss the most in Estonia is the high end of the Swedish media selection (as denoted according to some arbitrary scale). Maybe it's the great things in Estonia which keep missing me, but either way, there is a lot of Swedish stuff I really like. Modern technology makes it all the simpler not only to never miss a show, but to view it even when you're abroad, so here goes! In the words of Percy Nilegård: "Det är humor, det är humor, det är humor"

I find it somewhat curious that Swedish media distinguish between streaming and downloadable media (after all, it's nothing a mplayer -dumpfile foo.wmv -dumpstream mms://fooserver.com/foo.wmv won't take care of), but anyway they strip the music away from downloadable media, so that means that you have to capture those awesome P3 Live concerts in real-time.

Swedish Radio provides most of its programming and then some (except major sport events?) through its online radio. Beside this, many of the programs have their own homepages with pictures and additional material (plus some have the dubious habit of posting stuff on youtube)

• P3 Dokumentär (podcast)
  
• P3 Mammas Nya Kille (podcast - with the Free-circus artist Katla and the other adorable returning characters from the Klungan-gang)
  
• P3 Pang Prego (podcast)
  
• P3 Deluxe (podcast - ended, but has moved on to Förnimmelse av Deluxe with their sacrilegious impression of children's-heroes Björne and his now murderous Snigel, Leif GW Persson et al)
  
• P1 Kaliber (podcast)
  
• P1 Public Service (podcast)
  
• P1 Konflikt (podcast)
  
• P3 Clownen Luktar Bensin (ended)
  
• P3 Roll On (ended since some time, featured a lot of painful social truths)

Finally of course, one must not miss the P1 Sommar programs which vary from amazingly cool to really boring every day of the summer, depending on who's hosting the program.

SVT television doesn't really provide anything for real-time streaming, but SVT Play provides at least most of the programs which are own productions, and its open archive is pretty amazing (as a complement to the funny stuff you anyway find on youtube nowadays). Some key programs are also available as podd-tv (vodcast).

• Kobra (play)
  
• Musikbyrån (play - just started another season!)
  
• Klass 9A (play - ended, the first episodes are available as torrents)
  
• Rapport (play, vodcast)
  
• Dokument Inifrån (play, vodcast)
  
• Uppdrag Granskning (play, vodcast)
  
• Papas Kappsäck (play - ended, but I've found torrents)

Usually after watching a program I just keep the video file I have streamed down, so if someone would for example be passionate about my collection of Kobra episodes, we can do something about that as well.

(Update: copyriot has a great blog-post about the legality of radio ripping (in Swedish), cudoz to him)

Are swedes really that normal?

A friend sent me an article today - "Are Swedes really that normal? (PDF)" by Colin Moon.

To quote some from it:

To communicate effectively cross-culturally the first thing you need to realise is that someone somewhere in the world probably sees you as really quite strange.

That may be difficult for some Swedes to swallow. How could anybody in their right mind consider normal, efficient, level-headed Swedes as strange?

...

This, in Swedish, is called the förankringsprocess ("anchoring [of a decision]", to gain acceptance for a decision before it is pushed through). If Swedes mention the word ‘process’ then it’s better not be in a hurry. There’s a process for everything. This one means getting everybody involved in everything.

...

However, fair’s fair - when they’re at work they’re very effective. But not before 8.30 as they have flexi-time, and not after 4 pm, thank you, as they have to pick up the kids from play school, and not after 2 pm on Fridays, if you don’t mind, and preferably not between 1 May and 10 August.

There's no way I can not whole-heartedly agree with that author. To begin with, the article is simply too densely satirical to be taken seriously. Because that's supposedly how it is intended, the author (let's not repeat his name, nor link to his homepage, thus promoting him) holds seminars in business communication and is a self-entitled expert in Swedes. I just hope the rest of his writings and teachings are less generalizing, superficial and pointless.

Obviously there are some points in what's stated in the article - maybe Swedes in general are less prone to work themselves to death (read: lazy), and maybe the general policy is to value the insights and objections of everyone, thereby avoiding poorly founded costly decisions (read: decision impotence). Regardless, all those patterns and behaviors have developed through decades of business and frankly, Swedes have many great achievements to be proud of, they can't all be contra-productive. I usually refuse calling entire groups of people stupid, and neither are the Swedes - there is a generally accepted collective behavior, it's nothing uncommon, and it's at least not always the case that people conform to a social pattern because they are slaves under it, maybe they actually enjoy it! Besides - "lagom" is a great and flexible word.

One point in the article I find more true and interesting than the others - That Swedes love to think they are normal. I suppose it is a common thought among non-internationalistic bigots of all nations, not realizing that their little tribe is just one of thousands, and thus losing out on the opportunity to liberate themselves from the need to conform to the own tribe.

I have met Estonians who seem to think they will be great just by being not like the Swedes. It's ridiculous and annoying, and sometimes that's what I respond to their Swede-bashing. There are plenty of things to despise about the Estonian culture as well, but... I try to focus on learning about the drawbacks and benefits of many cultures, growing as great I can personally instead. Next blog post I should make about cultural quirks I love!

Ending this post with a few links:

• More humorous Swede-bashing, this time spewed out by Australians.
  
• Industrious, humorous and inspiring disruptive.nu (in Swedish only) about venture capitalism and entepreneurship. Plenty of interviews and food for thought about "un-Swedish" (sv: "osvensk", it is hilarious that such an expression exists and is frequently used) mentality
  
• Mosquito and Governor Andy on Youtube. Mosquito is the kind of Swedish 90s TV, grabbing any cool animations they could find, I grew up with and love. Governor Andy is funny because it is good music and he has an absolute menagerie of Swedish reggae profiles lined up in the video. Spot Dr. Alban!
  

”Now there’s a red light blinking there, has it been all the time?”

Lately I've been following the "Chairman Persson" documentary on swedish television. For those of you unaware of the situation, Göran Persson was first a high-ranking official in the social democrat administration, later became minister of finances and finally sat as party-leader and prime minister for some eleven years. Already at the beginning of that story, in particular one reporter, Erik Fichtelius, got his background stories much through Persson and managed to get an agreement to continue that kind of semi-confidential interviews throughout Persson's career. Among other conditions, the interviews were made with the agreement that they would not be released in full until Persson stepped down. No one realized then it would be that many years...

Last week SVT released the material in four hour-long episodes, plus at least as much material only online, plus that the entire unedited material will be available for scholarly analysis. Keep any thoughts you want about the social democrats and Göran Persson, but the amount of interesting thoughts (on politics, primarily), not to mention the amount of insane blunders anyone would let out in front of the camera in such long time is absolutely amazing.

It makes me a bit nostalgic and proud to be a swede when I see a project like this made. The programs had some 1.5 million viewers, and I feel like blurting out "And me!", and it was important enough to watch it online from Estonia! Debate afterward has been thin at best though, reminds me of the media-judgments in the sulphur-reaking monologue of Carl-Johan Vallgren. Documentaries and debate- and cultur-pages may be hard to digest, but I still instinctively resist the lazy approach some people have that "what would the world care about this?". I think that at least taking some part in what's going on in the world around you is essential to expanding your understanding and intelligence. If a reasonably mature arena for public debate is not maintained a society may face total political bankruptcy and citizen participation goes extinct. If nothing else, as a necessary basis to enable action it is necessary, or as Doktor Kosmos so wisely put it "Actually what you say matters, not only what you do".

One recent topic of public debate here in Estonia has been that the Estonian Lutheran Church decided to do a Church of Nigeria (quote: ”our commitment to the total rejection of the evil of homosexuality which is a perversion of human dignity and encourages the National Assembly to ratify the Bill prohibiting the legality of homosexuality”) and announced some kind of objection to that Church of Sweden has decided to perform same-sex unions. I wish I could read that article but anyhow try follow the debate closely, the schism is a fascinating one.

What seems to be the case is that Church of Estonia fail to, or refuse to see the decisions Church of Sweden had to make. Facing an increasingly secular society where religious fundamentalists gather in more charismatic movements, the "state church" saw their clientele fleeing, especially if they would take the conservative path in issues like that of sexuality. Especially the former arch-bishop K.G. Hammar was one very strange but successful bird in reforming the swedish church, with statements such that he considers the biblical texts on virgin birth "poetic" and when supporting the Ecce Homo exhibition.

Now the government were releasing their groundwork on reforming marriage law, and Church of Sweden did essentially all they could, stated not only that they are willing to accept same-sex marriage, but that they support equal rights for all, especially for such a persecuted group as homosexuals. Essentially they would have lost their right to register any civil unions otherwise. Still, they guarded their integrity and think the tradition-laden word "marriage" should be kept out of civil unions law altogether. Fair enough, in my opinion. Let them those who want remain bigots, and all others marry!

PS. Work here in Estonia has granted me some fascinating insight into the true story and people behind Skype. So go check out Bluemoon and compare their people list with that of Skype (the page I meant to find was here), as well as the great coverage back in the day by CNN

Update 2008-01-11: The international version "A Prime Minister - Ten Years Behind the Scenes" was released a while back, so now anyone inclined and fluent enough in English can get an insight into our dear Swedish social democracy lunacy. If you don't want the web fluff you can simply open http://svt.se/content/1/c8/01/01/97/71/op_int.asx in your favourite media player, or for you advanced geeks (i.e. Me) dump the stream from mms://qstream-wm.qbrick.com/00928/sthlm/dokumentar/dokumentarfilm/op_int.wmv