Sweden

For Spring Break I made the unconventional choice to go to Sweden. That's right, while everyone else was in the Mexico or the Caribbean working on their tans I was bundled up in a snowy, Nordic state. It was really, really fun though. It was nice seeing all my old Swedish friends again and being back in the utterly gorgeous city of Uppsala. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a gasque while I was there, actually the day I arrived. For those that don't remember a gasque is a traditional student dinner where people dress up in a suit and tie, drink and sing. This gasque was much different than the previous ones I had been to. This might be because it was a different nation (I was a member of V-Dala, this was at Kalmars) or maybe because it was a specially themed dinner. They were serving a traditional Kalmar dish known as kroppkakor which are basically potato dumplings filled with pork. That's not all that interesting in itself, but it's served with cream, melted butter and lingonberry jam to pour on top. It was an odd combination but I cannot say an unpleasant one; I don't even like lingonberries so that's saying something. I think the thing that set this gasque apart from the others was the quantity of food. At the V-Dala gasques, and from what I gather most other nations' gasques as well, the portions one is given are so meager is common to eat a pizza before going to dinner. But at this gasque the chefs had made so many that they had a contest to see who could eat the most. Everyone could eat their fill, and then some. It was actually Anders, the Swedish gourmet who invited me to the gasque, that won the contest with 18 kroppkakor (would that make him a gourmand, then?)

One of the things I thought was so amazing when you step back and look at it was how incredibly Swedish this whole thing was. Not just the ceremony and the tradition behind the whole thing but on a more fundamental level. Look at what the dinner consisted of: pork and potatoes, butter, cream and milk and the beverages were generous amounts of alcoholic beverages being served. Physically, most human beings could not eat this dinner. 70% of adult humans are lactose intolerant, plus there are plenty of ethnic groups that don't handle alcohol too well. Then there's the pork, that at least culturally restricts Muslims and Jews. That's how unique and special this dinner is, only a select number of people on Earth would be able or willing to eat with us that night. It's exclusive but without being exclusionary. I think that's beautiful.

While I was in Sweden I took the opportunity to purchase some hard to get items as gifts and for my own personal use. First was a massive Swedish-English dictionary set, selected because it had the definition for a sexual term I roughly knew the meaning of but not the exact definition. I also bought some cloudberry liqueur, this time it wasn't the cream kind, so there was no danger of it curdling during the trip back home.
And of course I stopped by the local music store to pick up some Swedish tunes. The clerk actually remarked how every one of the CDs I picked out were from Swedish artists. I got 2 CDs from Kent, the most popular contemporary Swedish rock band in Sweden. One from Säkert, the Swedish language version of Hello Saferide, it's pretty much the same style but a little different sound. Plus when they sing in Swedish you don't get the weird vowel syndrome that seems to be present with every Swedish singer singing in English. Sahara Hotnights seems exempt from this rule for the most part, at first I thought it was because theirs is a different genre than most of the Swedish music I listen to and that requires them to sing differently, but The Sounds are pretty much the same genre and the lead singer still has the weird vowels. Which brings me to Lykke Li, who, aside from having the cutest name ever and being totally adorable, also sings with weird vowels. Somehow she manages to get "B" and "me" to not quite rhyme, but after listening to her CD I realize now she does that on purpose. She has some spoken word poetry that she says with no hint of a weird vowel. This makes her that much cooler since what might otherwise be a charming involuntary quirk is something she chooses to use to express herself better. Learning that made me even more upset that I missed her when she was performing in Uppsala in my nation (the same Rock Gasque where I saw Hello Saferide live 2 years ago) only 2 weeks before my visit!

I spent most of my time in Uppsala, sightseeing and hiking around. It was really strange being a tourist in a place I consider my second home, everything is the same but a little different. It's the same city but it's no longer my Uppsala; most of the people I knew exchange students and Swedes alike all moved away. I didn't expect anything less, it was just strange actually experiencing that. I managed to walk downstream of the Fyris River (it feels weird not saying Fyrisån) a fair ways and ended up in some beautiful lush wooded area. It was cold, but it wasn't an unpleasant, biting cold. Rather it was that crisp, clean cold that a Nordic forest should be—the kind of forest that inspired myths of elves and fairies.

My last couple days I spent in Stockholm, having met up with Kaveh, the Swedish exchange student at the U of A last year. He showed me around the town and told me where to get cheap beer downtown. None of the places were shady, surprisingly enough, one was a karaoke bar. I was surprised how similar the selection of karaoke songs are in the US and Sweden and that the Swedes are just as tone deaf as Americans.

With luck, I'll go on a fieldwork trip to Sweden sometime during grad school and have the opportunity to live there again. I love that country so much. And by then my Swedish, which had improved considerably since the last time I was there, will hopefully be good enough to sustain a real conversation with some snygga brudar...

Poly Ticks

From comments made in some of my classes I'm beginning to suspect that people who are angry with the government aren't really angry at the actual government, but regard "the government" as an abstract thing. They know the government runs everything and is responsible for everything bad in the world, so when they're unhappy it's "the government's" fault. The general feeling I get is that people are so cynical towards politicians, government and society in general that they start making absent-minded statements about how the world works. For instance, the professor asked the class what are some traits American society values or rewards. People listed the usual: honesty, ambition, hard working... Then someone said that based on the people we elect that honesty can't be an American value. The professor used that to point out the Freudian conflicting nature of the American collective mind. I didn't have the opportunity to point out that no one has ever, or likely will ever, run on a platform of being a lying, philandering scumbag because no one wants dishonest politicians. They always play up how honest they are and accuse their opponents of being dishonest. In that respect at least people vote their hopes and not their fears.

The other comment that irked me came today in my favorite class, Cultural Astronomy. The debate was whether or not it was OK to invite a French ship builder who specializes in replicas of ancient Oceanic designs to this event where Polynesian ships would sail to Hawaii to demonstrate how it might have been done in ancient times. The Frenchman was told he was not allowed to participate, despite the fact that he had been invited by a Tahitian cultural representative. The representative, however, did not tell anyone else that he invited him and was not a part of the actual sailing event. The event was allegedly for Polynesians only (though the Hawaiians originally wanted it only for Hawaiians) and that was really the big hangup everyone had during the actual event. The class was more hung up on how the representative, always referred to as "The Politician", could have the audacity to make such a decision. Granted, not telling anyone and not being there when the guy showed up was bad form, but people were asking what right this cultural representative had to make decisions for other people. Evidently I was the only one in the class who thought that it's not only the right of a politician to make decisions for other people but it is in fact their duty. Furthermore they questioned whether they had to honor such an arrangement if they did not agree. Again, not telling anyone complicates the matter, but if an official representative of Tahitian culture invited the guy they should damn well honor it.

I pointed out that the title of representative allows him to speak for the Tahitian people and everyone retorted that politicians never represent the interests of the people. Again, people fail to understand that politicians always represent someone's interests or they would never get elected and certainly not repeatedly reelected. Regardless of whether or not they're representing the people they promised they would look after the votes give them a mandate to make decisions for the masses until their term is up. The only way I can see the criticism of whether or not this guy had the right to invite someone to participate in a giant international cultural/political stunt is if this representative had been appointed and not elected. Criticizing the authority of an appointed official implicitly criticizes tribalism, the old ways and the authority of chiefs. And since the entire point of the sailing stunt was to spur a revival of traditional Polynesian ways, having these people be upset at an official making a decision over their heads essentially says that the old ways are not necessarily worth bringing back.

So I guess the bottom line I was trying to get at is: no one ever elects someone they don't think they can trust (or at least trust more than the other guy) and whether or not you approve of every decision they make, (barring the genuinely corrupt) politicians do have the right to make decisions for others.