Month: March 2010

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.

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.

At 17.32 today, we will experience the vernal equinox, when night and day are of equal length. From tomorrow, the days get longer and lighter. Spring and summer are on the way, and the temperature is rising.

This time of the year, it’s easy to feel that everyone is Sweden is either going away or has already been away on a long-haul holiday to the sun. Thailand is the favourite winter destination for Swedes, followed by the Dominican Republic and the Canary Islands.

But not everybody can afford an overseas holiday. Not everyone has the means or the state of health to sit on a plane and be catapulted to warmer climes. But there is a solution. In the Swedish town of Västerås.

At the care home for the elderly, ‘Södergården’, the staff have created a South Pacific room for the residents.

In the ceiling, there are infra red lamps which provide heat and solarium tubes which provide ultraviolet light. Electric fans provide a light sea breeze. The room is filled with sand, and projected onto the walls are images of a Hawaiian blue sky, sea and palm trees. These images can be changed so as to alter the theme of the room – for example to an archipelago scene or city view of Paris or Rome. The residents lounge in deckchairs or sit at the bar and sip exotic fruit cocktails.

This is such a fantastic idea to brighten up the existence of the residents in an old folks’ home. Apparently it hasn’t been proven yet, but experts believe that a room like this can lead to better sleep patterns, more energy and reduced anxiety for the old timers.

When all you hear are horrific examples of how old people are treated in residential homes, this comes like a breath of fresh air.

When I hear examples like this, it’s almost as though I’m looking forward to becoming old in Sweden.