Cultures different from ours: Cambodian society is incredibly hierarchical in nature and there is a great emphasis on acknowledging other's status in relation to you. For example, when sitting with someone of higher level than you, you must roll out a mat for them so they are seated higher than you. The hierarchy is not based on groups like a caste or social class, but rather on an individual level, depending on how much power one has. They believe that power comes from a divine but finite source; that means that the more power you have, the less power someone else has.
Equally astounding is how they do not make social networks among those of equal level to them, but try to make connections with those higher or lower than them. This is because in Cambodia those in power will use that power to further their own means and those of their associates. Our professor pointed out that in Western civilization that is the definition of a corrupt official, but that is simply the accepted order of things in Cambodian society. Also, while Western societies consider it the duty of the powerful to serve the will of the people, it is certainly not the case for Cambodians. The powerful do not need to answer to anybody and can do whatever they please, whenever they please. This is a sign that they have power, because if they can no longer get away with doing what they want, it means they have lost their power. It's the embodiment of Social Darwinism in society, a capitalist utopia of sorts. Given this cultural background, anything more socialized than a representative form of government (and they're still not totally used to that concept either) is doomed to fail.


The Swedish word for strawberry is the least appetizing word for it that I have ever heard: 'jordgubbe.' I had originally based that on just the sound of the word but the literal translation make it far worse. 'jord' means soil and 'gubbe' is an old man. So the word for strawberry means dirty old man. Covered in whipped cream. *shudder*

The Swedish word for 'hiss' is 'fräsa', which is pronounced like the Spanish word for strawberry. Depending on what language you speak, your cat could either be angrily calling you an elevator or a strawberry.

The other day my friend was at the gym and heard Gunther's "Tra la la" song, Nickelback and O-Zone's "Dragostea Din Tei" (better known to Americans as 'Numa Numa') on the radio, one right after the other. What was strange was that people actually listen to Gunther and O-Zone in Europe while they're only appreciated for their comedic value on the internet in the US. What was even stranger was that Nickelback was lumped in with them. At least they're not listening to Zlad, yet.

better without context: "I do most of my killing before breakfast."

Today I went for a hike in the forest outside Uppsala. It was really spectacular. I'd show you pics but I had an Ellen Feiss moment with my camera so I hardly have any pics at all. Kind of...a bummer. Anyway, the way there was also amazing, in the morning there was this mist that covered the town and made everything crisp and cool. The houses all have green lawns and big sheltering trees, the way I imagine a neighborhood should look. I dunno if it's an old memory of living in a place like that or just the fact that it's so different from Tucson, but found the whole thing to be very enchanting.
Getting to the forest was less exciting than I originally hoped, what I thought was a forest is really just a large wooded area surrounded by highways. Once you get into the middle of it it looks great but it kind of ruins the effect when you hear cars in the background. I went around exploring other wooded areas nearby and ended up stumbling into a nice quiet mini forest. I found wild blueberries and raspberries, which was really awesome, I had never seen wild blueberries before.
Then I found this walled garden looking thing, I went inside and looked around, really peaceful, grassy open areas and a place in the middle surrounded by big trees. On my way out I saw some tombstones and a sign that said "kyrkogård", apparently this was a brand new cemetery that didn't have many 'residents' yet. There's got to be some greater meaning to that: the more humans die, the more nature gets destroyed to make room for our dead.
As if to further the oddness, I found an abandoned playground not too far away with a cluster of mushrooms best described as anti-flowers. These I did manage to get pics of; tar black, curled up, crawling with bugs and since it released all its spores the area around it was covered in a greasy black substance. It looked as if these mushrooms were radiating death. That's not quite right, these clearly did not look like dead things, they looked like...anti-living. Like something from a parallel dimension that countered life around it.
The rest of my trek had more classic beauty; I found the river that runs through Uppsala some ways downstream with ducks, fish and water reeds. It was nice to see that the river still looks like a river, especially compared to how artificial it looks downtown.

I think I'll do this more often, and next time have some pics to bring back.

Word of the Day: pulchritudinous-Characterized by or having great physical beauty and appeal. (also the word that sounds the least like what it actually means)

Lars: Urg....
Per: Are you going to vomitate?
Me: You'd better not vomitate!

I finally remembered to post the pics of Sweden online.

It's strange seeing people here that look a lot like people I know back home. I guess with a more homogeneus society that's more likely to happen, but it's still weird. Especially when the person looks so much like the person you know that the only way you know it's not actually them is because of the logical impossibility of it. Then they look up at you and in that split second of eye contact there seems to be a glimmer of recognition, that's when it gets really trippy.

Walking around Uppsala one can't help but notice the enormous amount of baby carriages, child seats on bicycles and little infants everywhere. At first I thought it might just be in my head, but I'm not the only person to notice it. It was then that I remembered a few years ago when I visited Stockholm there were a lot of pregnant women. Admittedly it took longer than it should for me to realize that those two observations were of the same event.

There's a store in town that I pass by rather frequently that claims to be a US fashion store. I finally indulged my curiosity and went in to see how authentic their merchandise really is. And wow, no self respecting American would be caught dead in those clothes. It was more like a caricature of American clothing, taking the idea of in your face and/or amusing slogans like shirts from Abercrombie and Hot Topic and making them pointlessly blunt and not funny at all (unless you can appreciate the irony of it). One of the jackets they had was covered in corporate logos, like you would expect a racecar driver to wear. Now I know Americans have a reputation for being consumer driven, but we don't wear advertisements on quite that level. I don't know what I was expecting to find going in there, maybe pink polo shirts, flippy skirts and ugg boots, (though uggs are quite practcal here) maybe something that would make me step back and realize that how easily definable American fashion is. But nope, they got it all screwed up. On the other hand, there was an American food store in Stockholm that I visited that had it right on the money: peanut butter, root beer, Lucky Charms and Gatorade.

Some of the things that I notice are different I think are more a product of being from the Southwest specifically than simply from being an American. No smoothies or other semifrozen beverages here. Not quite the ideal climate for it, but back home you can enjoy an Eeegee's any time of the year.
No drinking fountains in Uppsala, possibly in all of Sweden. I'm still having trouble fathoming that. That might not be so shocking for someone on the East Coast but for a Tucsonan it's torturous.
As expected, no Mexican food. I asked if there were any Mexican restaurants in town, and I was told there were "one or two." I don't think I've ever been told that with a straight face before. The best I could do was a Mexican pizza, and they couldn't even get that right.
Most everything closes at 10PM here so if you want a late night snack you're out of luck. This comes as a particular shock considering my last days in the US when I went out to Denny's or IHOP at 3AM. Good times.

I really like it when two or more of my classes intersect subject matter by accident and explore the different facets of the same material. For example, Hans Blix gave a lecture at Uppsala University yesterday and our first assignment for my Peoples of the Baltic class was to attend. Aside from the awesomeness of being able to attend a lecture with such a notable international figure (who grew up in Uppsala and is an alumnus of the University) I found his speech to be enlightening and interesting. He addressed the topic of the various armed conflicts in the world (tying in nicely with my other class) and how the UN works as a peacekeeping force. Pointing out to all those naysayers that presently there are fewer conflicts in the world than there were ten years ago; 25 presently down from about 50. He also explained that the UN works in a similar fashion to an orchestra in that it only works at its best if everyone in it is playing the same song. There is the temptation to think of it as a sovereign entity with executive powers it really is up to the group as to what gets done. So basically, if there's some terrible human rights violation in the world and the UN fails to stop it, it's not the fault of the UN as an organization but rather the fault of its members for not getting off their asses and doing something.
And moving right on to the link between the classes, tonight was a lecture on genocide. Anthropology sure may not be boring but it isn't the most cheerful science either. The lecturer said that he thought that genocide should not be used as a term because it is too specific and too vague at the same time. The UN's definition of genocide is "acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such." Seems good enough, but political groups are not listed because they needed the USSR to agree to the definition and Stalin wouldn't sign it if it meant that the 30 million people he killed for political reasons constituted genocide. So now the tricky part is this, since political affiliations are clearly potential targets for genocide (and who will disagree with figures like 30 million?) would any conflict involving the elimination of a political doctrine constitute genocide? Would the French be guilty of it by killing off the Royalists in the French Revolution? Or the Allies for killing Nazis? That doesn't sound quite right, does it? And if the targeting of religious groups for extermination is clearly genocide, then one would have to agree that the US's efforts to destroy the Taliban is genocide. And what about the attack on the Branch Davidians? No one would call that genocide but legally it is. And it's because of legal traps like that that no one intervened with Rwanda. Now there's a supreme irony: the subjective definition of genocide actually allowed the act of genocide to occur.

OK, the next few posts are going to be lighthearted and jolly, or at least not so damn depressing. I promise.

No point to this post this time, just fun and random/interesting bits.
It's so much nicer when it rains, especially in Sweden. I always liked cloudy days and rain is soothing to me. The only bad thing about it is the Tucson variety that comes all at once, uprooting trees and flooding major streets. Here there is a lot more rain but it is so much weaker. Today was really windy and rainy but as hard as it tried it couldn't really match the awesome might of a Tucson rainstorm.

A few weeks ago I was at a department store where I saw a cart full of stuff with a sign on it saying "HISS!" turns out that means 'elevator' but at the time I thought it was a clever way of telling people to leave the cart alone.

There is no Swedish word for jerk; all they have are either insults to one's intelligence or coolness. The only words that define someone as rude and mean are very antiquated and are the equivalent of calling someone a ruffian.
I gather that the high school social class system is different in Sweden as well. The closest word for prep is "fjortis" which refers to anyone, male or female, who acts like the stereotypical teenager. I guess teeny-bopper is pretty close approximation.
Conversely, there are words that exist in Swedish that do not exist in English. One such example is "återställare" the drink one has when one wakes up to dull the pain of a hangover.

There are different dialects in Swedish that are often difficult to get a grasp of. The people from the north of Sweden will pronounce "sj" like "sh" in contrast to the colloquial dialect that pronounces it closer to if you blow out a candle. There's also the Stockholm dialect which sounds close to the colloquial dialect but to the Swedes it sounds snobby. It's impossible for me to convey it in typed words so just try to imagine a Swedish accent with a little bit of valley girl mixed in.

I never really thought about pop up and banner ads being different depending on where you lived. It's really strange seeing banners telling me I've one ten thousand Euros or offers to get me a green card.

What would the world be like if it went Goth? Better and worse at the same time.

Words of the Day: autochthonous- Native to the place inhabited; indigenous.
bivouac- A temporary encampment often in an unsheltered area.

I went to a dojo in town today to get back in the swing of martial arts. Finding these places is really difficult, primarily because I don't read Swedish but also because the numerous flyers I see don't tell you where their dojo is. Anyway, since I originally started with aikido, and later transfered to jujitsu due to aikido's relative unpopularity within Ko Sho, I figured that this would be a good opportunity to go back to my roots. Unfortunately this aikido was a bit too...soft for my taste. It turns out that they don't ever actually want to inflict any amount of physical discomfort on the students, so the techniques are watered down. "Pure" aikido some might call it.
One technique involved pushing the uke's arms back while stepping to their missing leg, this got them off balance but not enough to make them fall, so I kied through. My partner was not pleased by this saying I didn't need to push, how aikido is about not using your own energy and then demonstrated that she could push if she wanted to, in a "How do you like it when I do it to you?" tone (in the process doing the technique more effectively than she had done previously). The same person was correcting my footwork and showed me that the left leg goes directly behind the leg of the uke right before they fall over. "Ah, so you could trip them too." I mused, and she seemed surprised that I would have thought of such a dreadful thing.
Other people I was partnered with seemed confused as to why I was not going down when they tried to take my balance, not in the sense that they didn't know why their technique wasn't working on me, but why I wasn't falling over for them. Maybe I read too much into their expressions, but that's how it seemed, at least.
Another technique that we practiced bore a striking resemblance to a technique I learned back at Ko Sho. The major difference was that at the end they just hold the arm without any joint locks or anything. I *gently* applied pressure to my partner's elbow until he tapped, as would be expected. I didn't know he was bothered by this until he told me, "Where did you learn to learn to do that lock? That's dangerous! You could easily break someone's elbow!"
Fancy that, I could concievably hurt someone with an aikido technique!

Now granted I have gotten accustomed to the rough and tumble nature of the Ko Sho system, especially with the incorporation of karate, jujitsu and who knows how many other myriad martial arts into our aikido program, but I figure no pain no gain is an established fact of learning any martial art. I'm beginning to see why the head instructor back home had such a poor opinion of aikido.

There were some good points to the class though: since the every non black belt wears a white belt it makes practicing with them unpredictable since I have no way of knowing their skill level. Also, I learned an interesting variation on that technique that I recognized from the dojo back home. I'll go back there a few more times and see if it improves, if not I'll shop around for another dojo that's more my taste.

And to end on a high note, martial arts humor!

Shadows of War by Carolyn Nordstrom. This book was unsettling, not just because it shines light on something she believes people don't really want to know about, but also her analysis of the situations was so clear and eloquent it made me wonder why something so obvious hadn't been written a long time ago. Following the best traditions of anthropology by probing deep into the world of war in southern Africa, Nordstrom addresses some very basic questions that are quite difficult to get answers for. Namely how does war function, why does it function that way and, knowing the answers to those questions, how can peace be established? She focuses heavily not just on what war does to the population in terms of the trauma and often horror of war but also on how people live, even thrive, in a warzone. The comparison was made to Catch-22 in terms of how absurd the nature of war really is; enemy leaders often knowingly help each other in order to further their own financial gains. The very people who supposedly want to stop the conflict are the ones who profit tremendously from the increased demand for basic necessities and so they act very slowly to end the fighting, if they act at all. There is a realization that the black and grey markets play a vital role in the legitimate economy. Globally, most of the transactions made are of an extra-legal nature, yet there is nearly no effort put into studying this. When Nordstrom actually confronts economists and others who ought to make it their business to study the black market, they make replies like "fieldwork is too dangerous!" She makes the very salient point that if the US intends to stop Al-Qaeda, an organization that operates entirely in shadows, then a study of the black market is in the interests of national security.
One flaw that was brought up with the book was that Nordstrom collected a large amount of quotes from people living in warzones in Sri Lanka and Angola, she reproduced these block quotes but offered little analysis of them. When I was reading this I didn't notice (and maybe that's why I'm not an English major) but even after it was pointed out I don't think it's really necessary, if her intent is to show us first hand accounts of war then an analysis of those accounts is redundant. Also, I think it would be presumptuous of her to take an account that pretty much speaks for itself and then say "What he was trying to say was..."
The final analysis seems to be that it's nearly impossible to stop the illegal flow of goods and that even if one were to study black market trade it would not offer a completely reliable picture. She does, however, have a solution for war: Since governments have to have the support of the people to wage war, eliminating that support will eliminate their ability to make war. She points out, "Ten thousand soldiers can't control a million people unless people accept the right of the militaries to control the means of violence and the rights to power. Thus, a great deal is invested in maintaining the illusion that governments and their militaries not only have the right to power, but indeed have power. If their millions of citizens simply refuse to recognize their right, and turn to other means of governance, a particular government simply ceases to have authority. It ceases to be. Regimes likewise fade, the way kingly rule was eclipsed by the modern state."
Granted, this is easier said than done, but if people were to collectively realize this (and they've done it before) it would go a long way towards ending war.

I went to the freshman Gasque at V-Dala nation on Friday. That's a formal coat and tie dinner with songs and toasts and a great amount of ceremony. After contemplating the greater meaning of the event for a day, I think it represents many of the Swedes' cultural personality traits. It starts off with all of us marching from our nation to this opera house thingy while we sing our nation's anthem. Once there we listen to an hour's worth of speeches that I'm sure would be very touching and inspirational if I understood any of it. After that we head back to the nation to start the dinner.
The word 'Gasque' comes from the old Viking phrase "Where the hell is my food!?" Advertised as a three course dinner I was expecting to be full, or at least satisfied. In Sweden a three course dinner consists of a half a cup of soup, followed by potatoes about three hours later and then a cup of pudding. To alleviate the boredom, and the hunger, about every five minutes we were prompted to start singing. The Swedish songs we had to learn were really confusing but ultimately fun. And the system of toasting in Sweden really takes some getting used to: you have to toast to the person on your left, then right then across from you (the order also depends on the gender of the people in those seats), drink, then toast to them again in reverse.
The actual amount of alcohol that Swedes drink isn't really so much different than what college students in the US drink, but there's a ceremony to it; a great amount of formality, tradition and custom centered more around camaraderie than getting drunk. Some of them claim that it's just an excuse to drink, but I think there's more to it than that. I dunno, maybe I'm just enamored with the culture and so am making justifications, but there's something about chugging cheap booze from a beer bong until you throw up that just lacks the class of a gasque.

So what can we learn about the Swedes from the gasque? They are very friendly, warm and inviting, they have many of these gasques throughout the year. They have a great sense of tradition and custom, from the marching color guard to the speeches to the toasting etiquette. They start out reserved and polite, as seen by the first half of the evening, then once they have had a few drinks are lively and social. This explains how they can have a reputation for being both outgoing and reticent. The Swedes are also a patient people, otherwise they wouldn't have put up with the "three course meal" hoax. Then again, that might also explain why they're so thin.

People rarely actually live through their school nightmares. The only example that I can think of is my AP US History teacher who in college had registered for a class he didn't want, so he dropped it. Only at the end of the year did he learn that he had not been dropped and now had to take a final for a class he had not been to all year. I don't remember how this story ended, whether he talked to the administration and explained that he had in fact dropped the class or, more heroically (and equally likely given his superior intellect) he actually crammed for the final and passed.
You know the nightmare where you have to take a big test and you are handed it and you realize it's in a language you don't understand? Yeah, I did that yesterday for my Swedish placement test. It's to see how much Swedish you know and what class to place you in, it has to be standardized and at the same time challenging for those who have advanced knowledge of Swedish. In the nightmare you normally blunder through multiple choice and fill in the blank questions wondering what fast food establishment you will be sentenced to for failing this test, then you get to the end and see an essay question. Right about then you wake up, but not me. I had to answer an essay question in Swedish, now I don't know if you've ever tried to write an essay without using past tense or any words larger than those in a six year old's vocabulary, but it isn't easy.
I did learn a few things though, for example in that situation you learn Swedish in much the same way that an infant learns language; you see a word used in a certain context over and over so you associate that word with that thing. This only gets you so far because "hot" doesn't mean "don't touch" but that's the context for an infant. I also learned that I completely misunderstood the prompt for one of the essays, and ended up writing about NOTHING! How the hell was I supposed to know it said "compare and contrast"!?

I've recently started my class "Culture and Armed Conflicts", which is already shaping out to be one hell of an interesting class. The lecture yesterday dealt with the role of women in warfare, specifically female combatants. The main issue was that they destroy the notion that women are instruments of peace while men are instruments of war. The fact that someone actually said that was a refreshing idea and a punch in the face of all feminazis. The examples of female combatants she presented all had personal reasons for fighting, while the men had political reasons. The lecturer alleged, though admitted she did not have any real evidence, that women in war can act on political motivations. Now, I know for a fact that women do have strong political beliefs, so politics doesn't seem like such an unlikely motive to me.
Supposedly, the men fighting alongside the female soldiers, as well as those who fought them, say that they are more cold-blooded and brutal than the male soldiers. The argument there is that they might be acting just as violently the male soldiers but the dichotomy between the idea of a loving nurturing woman and a merciless fighter makes them seem worse than they actually are. So if the idea of women being able to fight and kill as effectively as any man is so shocking, are phrases like "Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn" meant in jest?
Towards the end of the lesson, the lecturer mentioned that women were not normally placed on the front lines but relegated to guard duty and other such things. One such example also highlighted the demonstrable cruelty that the female combatants were known for. Many of the women, often between the ages of 16 and 20, were in charge of shooting unarmed prisoners. One of the other teachers then asked rhetorically if killing helpless people is really "macho," suggesting it isn't as shocking for a woman to be an executioner as a front line soldier.
Personally, I don't consider female fighters to be so shocking, especially after witnessing and experiencing the swift ass kicking that women at the dojo can administer. As for cruelty, are people shocked by the people who commit the atrocities or the atrocities themselves? Now I suppose if I saw a soccer mom gunning down a row of people I'd be more shocked than if I saw a burly commando doing it, but that has more to do with social roles than gender. If violence and cruelty committed by females is more disturbing than male violence, then are movies like Kill Bill and Sin City banking on that shock for their success? Or is it the violence itself that is the main attraction, not the gender of the perpetrator?

I asked a Swede today if politics is something that one can discuss at any time with anyone or if there are rules of etiquette associated with the topic. She at first had difficulty explaining the parameters of the etiquette, saying it's not the first thing you would ask someone. I'm guessing it's roughly the same as in the US, which means the people I've been running into lately are just jerks. It's really annoying when you're ordering a pizza and the guy behind the counter asks "American eh? So do you like Bush?" Do I not get the pizza if he doesn't like my answer? I'm willing to have political conversations, just not with complete strangers and not when I'm ordering food. Time to bust out the CCCP shirt.

Before I start, let me correct a previous post. It's Östgöta nation, not Ostgota. 'Öst' is east, 'ost' is cheese. Though I've taken to calling them that now ever since I went to their sucky club. I didn't know they had emo kids in Europe, I figured they'd be sophisticated beatniks or something like that.

It's really an odd experience going to an international student corridor party. There are people from everywhere and they all speak the same language. English rocks! Anyway, I have barely met any Americans at all here, which I thought was a little odd. There are tons of Australians here though, and Germans. All the different accents floating around makes for an interesting, diverse experience. The Finns and Swedes take it upon themselves to teach all of us useful phrases such as 'bakfull' (hung over)and memorize drinking songs.

A Finnish girl said that a big difference she saw between American and Swedish culture was dating. In America, she explained, guys will actually be interested in taking a girl out on a date and getting to know her. In Sweden the guys just want to have sex. At first I thought she just had a very good experience in the US (after all how many American girls would ever agree with a statement like that?) but when a Swedish guy imparted dating advice to me later on I realized that Americans must look like the most sensitive bunch of guys in the world. One thing I thought was odd was that the rules that matched American dating rules matched for totally different reasons. For example, in the US after you get a girl's phone number you don't call her right away because you don't want to come off as clingy or needy. In Sweden you don't call right away because you don't want to call her when she's hung over.

Lastly, why can't the Swedes use spaces between words? At first it seems like you don't need them, 'fyrarumslagenhet' for example is "fyra rum lagenhet" (four room apartment). Once you know the language you can see where one word ends and the other begins; they put in an 's' to make it easier. The problem arises later when words that they stick together are difficult to pull apart. "Kungsängsgatan" is a street (gatan=street), now looking at that, it's either "Kungs äng" (king's meadow) or "Kung säng" (king bed). Another one that came up today was "Balderskolan" that's apparantly a daycare center. I didn't have that context when I translated it to "Balders kolan" (Balder's toffee) when it's actually "Balder skolan" (Balder school). Damn Swedes. I'm so gonna set up a candy store right next to that place and call it Balderskolan just to mess with them.

The Swedes really like forming lines, anywhere were it's possible they'll make a line (or queue as they call them here). They have those numbered tickets here to make sure no one cuts, sitting at the bank or migration office is a lot like that waiting room scene in Beetlejuice. There's a nation here called Stockholm, it's one of the bigger, more impressive nations with a real big dance club. Unfortunately they're a tad snooty, so there's a bit of mutual animosity between Stockholm and all the other nations. There was a huge line to get in, they wouldn't let anyone in until 2 hours after they officially opened. What was the purpose of this line? Nothing, save that the Swedes like queues.
Once in, I was confronted with a new problem: I'm probably one of the youngest people at Uppsala University. It seems that students in their 1st or 2nd year either take a break from college or go studying abroad. Consequently roughly 3/4ths of my graduating class is not at Uppsala. The result of this can be summed up in a brief dialogue:

Hot Swedish girl: So how old are you?
Me: ...Almost 20.
Hot Swedish girl: If you're 19 that means I'm 4 years older than you.
Me: *polite smile* (fuck!)

Another thing I've noticed in the clubs so far is that Swedes, the girls especially, can't dance. This sort of makes me feel better cuz I blend right in. Maybe that's because they go right from reserved awkwardness to drunken awkwardness without that graceful period in between. A notable exception to this rule are these real weird students who are in charge of welcoming new students. The different departments at Uppsala (law, computer science, medicine etc.) all have initiation rituals for new students (the 1/4th that's still here?) where they play random games and make the new students wear shower caps or big orange cards (see above photo, the ones in capes are their masters). Anyway, these people, who can best be described as 'nerds', are really good dancers. Now just try to imagine a universe where hot blonde nerds are the best dancers on the floor.