Leaking children, advanced queuing and weather complaints

It has been a while since my last lamentation on life here in Sweden, and some of the more optimist readers may have started interpret this as a sign that there are no more faults to this place. As a seasoned veteran pessimist, however, I am glad to announce that Swedish culture and life is far from depleted when it comes to producing intercultural difficulties. The absence of reports on such peculiarities is solely my own incapability to swiftly respond to them in prose worthy of Internet blogging.

To compensate for this terrible inadequacy, this post treats not one, but three peculiarities of Sweden. I will start with a mild entree  some more language issues. The main dish will consist of something Swedes can teach the rest of the world (queuing), and for dessert I finish off with something that is actually familiar coming from the Netherlands: weather complaints.

Language issues: Leaking children

First things first: leaking kids. There are all kinds of interesting traffic signs in Sweden, most of which roughly equal those in other countries. There is one mild peculiarity there at that Swedish signs are in the colors of the national Swedish flag, which is, to say the least, pretentious… Anyway, such nationalism can be forgiven, since the colors yellow and blue actually make the signs more visible in snow, compared to white ones…Moreover, signs here, just as elsewhere in the world, are susceptible to multiple interpretations at all times, so as to never make sense in any situation, and utterly confuse an already confused bunch of car-drivers and other traffic users. But that is besides the point, the point here being: one sign in particular that kept me halting and thinking for more than once: it is a ‘watch out-sign’ (for all those illiterate in the way of traffic-signs, a triangular sign with a red brim), which said ‘lekande barn’.

Now, my usual approach to Swedish words that I do not know, is to look for Dutch equivalents and see if that makes sense. Usually, this works. I can read the Metro like this – although errors can occur; for example thinking that ‘dor’ means door was my latest error, ‘dorrrrrr’  means door, and dor means dead, which is, I hardly need ask, some difference if an article deals with a ‘mighty dor(r) .  Anyway, following my ‘dutch-equals-Swedish’ approach, I translated ‘lekande’ into leaking or ‘lekkende’ in Dutch.

Made perfect sense…

Leaking children, three of them, BE AWARE, they might leak on your carseats!

Something that leaks can do so on the road, thus providing for slippery situations, right? Then barn, which is an English word, synonymous to shed. So leaking sheds?

That made no sense, there were no sheds in the vicinity of the sign. Are these malicious sheds, that hide behind trees and when we least expect it, jump onto the streets and leak all over the place?

Luckily, I was already aware of the word barn, so I knew that sheds had nothing to do with it, and that all the leaking was on the account of the less-grown-up individuals of society. Still, I wondered, how could leaking kids pose danger to cars? I know that especially young children tend to leak, but we have invented diapers for that, right? Their leaking should be well within the limits of absorption of most diapers, so the danger to the traffic in the vicinity did not strike me as particularly high…

I am still puzzled by this mystery, either Swedish kids leak more vigorously than kids elsewhere, or traffic here is particularly sensitive to the least bit of disturbance…

But on to the next issue of abnormalism!

The art of Queuing

Then there is the Swedish discipline of queuing. At first it seems easy, Swedes queue for everything, and so you do as they do. However, there is a trick to it, a Swede told me. Take buss-queues. You cannot stand in the buss-shelter, if there are other people. They were first, so there is no sneaking in front  of them! The buss-shelter is where the bus will stop, so the shelter goes first. This even seems to count when the weather is crappy, UNLESS there is a complete downpour, then you are allowed, with the proper amount of excuses, staring to the floor and muttering about the rain, to all cramp together in the one shelter.

But then the buss comes. Now, as you are standing outside of the shelter this effectively means waiting for the next buss…

But NOT if you are a master in the arts of queuing (as all Swedes are). My expert Swede taught me that this is actually the right time to inauspiciously shuffle forward step by step, toe by toe, looking behind you ‘as if pushed’ and spread excuses in front of you because ‘you’re being pushed’, all the while going forward step by step, until you are actually standing in front of those still sheltering in the buss-shelter. Note that this shuffle-process should take place well in advance of the buss stopping, so good attention should be paid to when the buss appears on the horizon!

Now you are first in the same queue that you began last in, without ‘offending’ any queue-rules (after all, you were pushed!). It is amazing, no one will be pissed off, and you will still get to go on the bus. How you survive that bus-trip, however, cramped in there like a sardine in a can, is a completely different story altogether (one that I will undoubtedly give a blog-entry once, soon)…

Final lament: meta-complaining (complain about complaints about the weather)

Finally, then, there are weather complaints. I am not surprised to realize that Swedes, like Dutch people, complain A LOT about the weather. I feel perfectly well at ease in replicating the same socially acceptable (even mandatory) behavior in the Netherlands; ‘weather complaints’ being one of those national sports of Dutch people. It is one of the three things you are allowed to talk about when you are conversing with a complete stranger: 1) the crappy weather (either current or past few weeks/months/season), 2) the crappy condition of the public transport or traffic jams (this, Swedish readers, must also sound somewhat familiar, no?) and 3) annoyance about the (lack of) change/decisions made by the current government.

In my opinion, though, Swedes have nothing to complain about at all, when it concerns the weather. True, November was crappy, with lots of rain, wind and well, basically ghastly weather conditions. But then came snow, and now all is well! For comparison, imagine the state of November, extended all the way through winter up to… May… (got that mental image?), then you know what Dutch people are going through every winter. Keep that in mind next time you complain about the beautifully white and clean look of the white tapestry that is currently covering the lovely country of Sweden! It washes away all the November-filth, leaving only a white piece of cloth, pure, clear, light (and especially the light-reflection is amazing!).

What is, however, a valid complaint is the public transport! Same as in Holland, trains appear to not be snow-proof here. The well-known excuse from the Dutch public transports (“But… we did not expect snow to fall! Not in December!!!!”) seems to apply equally here in Stockholm. We were not prepared for snow. No, of course you weren´t. Because… snow, that is something completely alien to Sweden, right? Who ever thought that snow would fall here, my god, is global climate change fucking up the entire world?!

Ah, so, my dear readers, there is fortunately still plenty to complain about, here. But I want to end with some positive notes, to set a nice December-tone! After all, it is the celebration month, and November (internationally acknowledged to be the worst month of the year!) is over!

• Fun on the road: traffic signs can bring much delight and interpretations on cultural practices and differences in child-education and sanitation.
• Integration via queuing is vital, and not impossible, as long as you learn it from a proper Swede. Inter-cultural guide books will not help you here!
• Snow = JJ