Swedification

Sometimes when you live in another country for so long,  you forget what's different from your own culture.   You adapt.  You become culturally aligned.  

                               Diagnosis:  I've become Swedified.

                                        The effect = irreversible.

Who am I??  OMG, what have I become?!?!  I'm  a CYBORG!!!!

  

You know you've become "Swedified" when you 

experience some of the following symptoms:

1. A stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume: 

       

        a)  he is drunk 

        b)  he is insane

        c)  he is weird

        d)  he’s all of the above

2.  You can see the difference between real blondes from the fake blondes. 

3.  You schedule your social events several weeks in advance.

4.  Your coffee consumption exceeds 6 cups a day.

5.  You greet everyone in the room by simply saying your name while giving a
       quick handshake

6.  The first thing you do upon entering a bank, post office, drugstore,  
       hospitals, clinics etc. is to look for the "queue number machine".

7.  You accept that you have to queue to take a "queue number".

8.  The reason you take the ferry to finland is:
        a) Duty free vodka
        b) Duty free beer
        c) Duty free cigarettes
        d) To party hearty…no need to get off the boat in helsinki, just turn
            around and do it again on the way back to sweden.

9.  You hear loud-talking passengers on the train, you immediately assume:
        a) they are drunk
        b) they are not swedish
        c) all of the above

10. The volume of your voice is way lower than before.

11. You know how to fix herring in 101 different ways.

12. It no longer seems excessive to spend 1,000 kronor on alcohol in a single
       night.

13. You no longer think Kalles Kaviar tastes awful.

14. You have only 2 facial expressions, suspicious or blank

15. You think it's perfectly normal to sit down & wait for 3-8 hours at the 
       hospital's Emergency Care Unit until you get the Doctor's attention  

16. You don’t think it’s weird for a couple to be engaged for 4 to 40 years and
        have no plans to get married.

17.  You assume that anyone who apologizes after bumping into you is a 
        tourist.

18.  You get into a Mercedes taxi cab and think nothing of it.

19.  You think it is normal that EVERYTHING is regulated and you obey the 
         rules voluntarily.

20.  Hearing the words "f*ck" on daytime TV or the radio seems perfectly
         normal.

21.  Seeing semi-porn to porn in evening time TV seems perfectly normal.

22.  You know think ”Extrapris” goods are cheaper, even though your english 
         mind translates the word as ”Extra Price.”

23. You think horse meat is a totally acceptable sandwich topping.

24. VD means "The Boss",  not something you need to get serious medical
         treatment for.

25. You say “I’m almost irritated!” when you're actually as furious as 
       humanly possible.

26. A 25 % sales tax on just about everything is no big deal & is perfectly
       normal

27. You know that “fan” is a swear word, and not an admirer or an air 
       conditioner

28. You're invited to a party and you're bringing your own booze to drink.

29. You can use the words "bra", "fart" & "slut" in the same sentence 
       without laughing.

30. You're no longer surprised when you see full-frontal nudity in a
       commercial or on TV.

32. You refer to weeks by numbers.

33. You're weekly diet composes of 30% dairy and it’s all the full fat kind.

34. You associate Friday afternoons with a trip to "System Bolaget" (liquor 
       store)

35. You think an 1½ cycle on your washing machine is a “quick wash”.

36. A sharp intake of breath has become part of your vocabulary, as has the
       sound ‘ahh’

37. You eat your pancakes & waffles with jam & whipped cream instead of 
       syrup & butter.

38. You make weird vocal sounds in the midst of normal conversations: 
        a non-committal “mmmmm,” a questioning “ååååh?,” and a surprised
        “OY-doh!”

39. You  feel weird if you don't take off your shoes when you enter someone’s
       house.

40. Your native language has seriously deteriorated... making stereotypical
       Swenglish mistakes without thinking just because you’ve heard them so
       often?  = THIS IS THE WORST ONE!!!

Living in another country

Living in another country

                                                                

  A very dependable feature of people who live abroad is finding them huddled together in bars and restaurants, talking not just about their homelands, but about the experience of leaving. And strangely enough, these groups of ex-pats aren’t necessarily all from the same home countries, often the mere experience of trading lands and cultures is enough to link them together and build the foundations of a friendship. I knew a decent amount of ex pats — of varying lengths of stay — back in Asia, and it’s reassuring to see that here in Europe, the “foreigner” bars are just as prevalent and filled with the same warm, nostalgic chatter.

But one thing that undoubtedly exists between all of us, something that lingers unspoken at all of our gatherings, is fear. There is a palpable fear to living in a new country, and though it is more acute in the first months, even year, of your stay, it never completely evaporates as time goes on. It simply changes. The anxiousness that was once concentrated on how you’re going to make new friends, adjust, and master the nuances of the language has become the repeated question “What am I missing?” As you settle into your new life and country, as time passes and becomes less a question of how long you’ve been here and more one of how long you’ve been gone, you realize that life back home has gone on without you. People have grown up, they’ve moved, they’ve married, they’ve become completely different people — and so have you.

It’s hard to deny that the act of living in another country, in another language, fundamentally changes you. Different parts of your personality sort of float to the top, and you take on qualities, mannerisms, and opinions that define the new people around you. And there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s often part of the reason you left in the first place. You wanted to evolve, to change something, to put yourself in an uncomfortable new situation that would force you to into a new phase of your life.

Many of us, when we leave our home countries, want to escape ourselves or explore new things, new ideas, discover new dimensions or just simply because of "love".  We build up enormous webs of people, of bars and coffee shops, of arguments and exes and the same five places over and over again, from which we feel we can’t break free. There are just too many bridges that have been burned, or love that has turned sour and ugly, or restaurants at which you’ve eaten everything on the menu at least ten times — the only way to escape and to wipe your slate clean is to go somewhere where no one knows who you were, and no one is going to ask. And while it’s enormously refreshing and exhilarating to feel like you can be anyone you want to be and come without the baggage of your past, you realize just how much of “you” was based more on geographic location than anything else.

Walking in streets alone and eating dinner at tables for one — maybe with a book, maybe not — you’re left alone for hours, days on end with nothing but your own thoughts. You start talking to yourself, asking yourself questions and answering them, and taking in the day’s activities with a slowness and an appreciation that you’ve never before even attempted. Even just going to the grocery store — when in an exciting new place, when all by yourself, when in a new language — is an agonizing yet thrilling activity. And having to start from zero and rebuild everything, having to re-learn how to live and carry out every day activities like a child, fundamentally alters you. Yes, the country and its people will have their own effect on who you are and what you think, but few things are more profound than just starting over with the basics and relying on yourself to build a life again. I have met some expats who I didn’t find calmed by the experience. There is a certain amount of comfort and confidence that you gain with yourself when you go to this new place and start all over again, and a knowledge that — come what may in the rest of your life — you were capable of taking that leap and landing softly at least once.

But there are the fears. And yes, life has gone on without you. And the longer you stay in your new home, the more profound those changes will become. Holidays, birthdays, weddings — every event that you miss suddenly becomes a tick mark on an endless ream of paper. One day, you simply look back and realize that so much has happened in your absence, that so much has changed. You find it harder and harder to start conversations with people who used to be some of your best friends, and in-jokes become increasingly foreign — you have become an outsider. There are those who stay so long that they can never go back. We all meet the ex-pat who has been in his new home for 30 years and who seems to have almost replaced the missed years spent back in his homeland with full, passionate immersion into his new country. Yes, technically they are immigrants. Technically their birth certificate would place them in a different part of the world. But it’s undeniable that whatever life they left back home, they could never pick up all the pieces to. That old person is gone, and you realize that every day, you come a tiny bit closer to becoming that person yourself — even if you don’t want to.

So you look at your life, and the two countries that hold it, and realize that you are now two distinct people. As much as your countries represent and fulfill different parts of you and what you enjoy about life, as much as you have formed unbreakable bonds with people you love in both places, as much as you feel truly at home in either one, so you are divided in two. For the rest of your life, or at least it feels this way, you will spend your time in one naggingly longing for the other, and waiting until you can get back for at least a few weeks and dive back into the person you were back there. It takes so much to carve out a new life for yourself somewhere new, and it can’t die simply because you’ve moved over a few time zones. The people that took you into their country and became your new family, they aren’t going to mean any less to you when you’re far away.

When you live abroad, you realize that, no matter where you are, you will always be an ex-pat. There will always be a part of you that is far away from its home and is lying dormant until it can breathe and live in full color back in the country where it belongs. To live in a new place is a beautiful, thrilling thing, and it can show you that you can be whoever you want — on your own terms. It can give you the gift of freedom, of new beginnings, of curiosity and excitement. But to start over, to get on that plane, doesn’t come without a price. You cannot be in two places at once, and from now on, you will always lay awake on certain nights and think of all the things you’re missing out on back home.