Tomorrow I’m traveling to Sweden and I’m teeming with anticipation. Even though I have briefly visited the capital city of Stockholm a couple of times, I’ve been nothing more than a tourist there. This time it’s for real; backpacks are packed, cargo is on it’s way and the plane leaves early tomorrow morning from Vantaa. In a nutshell everything is ready.

This time the move is very different from when I’ve moved from Slovenia to Finland. Then my knowledge about the Nordic countries and Finland was in bits and pieces. But basically I was pretty much clueless in comparison to the whole range of insights I have gained about the Finnishness and Nordicness, which also meant I was ready for anything. But now all these insights I’ve gathered here have more or less permanently tainted my perspective on my new host country too.

Let me think. What is the usual opinion about your immediate neighbor? Whether a drunkard or a country next door, it’s likely you have strong emotions about them. So, what do today’s Finns think of Swedes–the nation who ruled Finns for no less than 600 years or, what have I already learned about my new host country from Finns?

Sweden is the land of bureaucracy and restrictions. I’ve already had a few encounters with the bureaucracy, but am yet to face any restrictions. However, Finns like to say that no fence in Sweden is allowed to be too low and nothing should be too daring. Figuratively speaking, that is. I’m looking forward to experiencing a Swedish roller-coaster, though. I know that spending a day on Finnish ones gives me at least a two-day hangover.

The people. If Finland is the nation of butches, then Swedish men are overly effeminate. As I’ve been told over and over again by Finnish men (and sometimes women too), Swedes are in fact so feminine it’s not uncommon that Finns label Swedes as gay. How so? Swedish men wear pink shirts and make-up, regularly visit solariums, carry purses and are overly gentle and tender by nature. You get the picture. Quite distant from their violent war-loving conqueror beer guzzling Viking ancestors I say. But then again, that’s retrosexuals speaking about metrosexuals.

The language. Swedish language takes an interesting twist when it comes to expletives. After all, I though that Slovene language has the worst expressions of profanity as “Three hundred hairy ones!” is quite a tough one to swallow by the recipient (”Tristo kosmatih!” if you were wondering what it might be like in the original). Was I wrong or what. Swedish definitely tops it off with “Sjutton!”. Seventeen as a swear word? Give me a break.

More about the language. If Finns call it kännykkä, English speakers mobile phone, Swedes named it nalle, or literally a teddy bear. Teddy bear? What the hell? The term first appeared in the 1990’s when the only owners of mobile phones in Sweden where yuppies. Consequently mobile phone got nicknamed yuppie nalle, or teddy bear for yuppies. Later when yuppie nalle became accessible to practically everyone, yuppie disappeared and nalle stayed. So tacky that it sticked.

Telling bad jokes is dull, but the one that follows tells in just few sentences what I wouldn’t be able to tell in a few paragraphs if I want to be politically correct. It’s again about how many Finns feel about their neighbors Swedes (I heard it from a 10-year old girl, in fact). Here it goes:

A Finn goes rowing on a lake in a canoe. When he reaches the middle of the lake, the omnipresent God comes up with an idea to make a little experiment.
So, he removes the left side of Finn’s brains and Finn goes: “Yksi, kolme, viisi, seitseman,…” [”One, three, five, seven,…” in Finnish].
Then God returns the left half back and takes the right half away.
Then Finn goes: “Kaksi, neljä, kuusi, kahdeksan,…” [”Two, four, six, eight,…” in Finnish].
God scratches her head and a moment later takes Finns’ brains away completely. And the Finn starts counting: “Ett, två, tre, fyra, fem, sex,…” [”One, two, three, four, five, six,…” in Swedish].

Gotta catch the train now.

Mladen

About two months ago, in November 2006, one of the largest Finnish diary manufacturers Valio rolled out a series of milk containers with poems printed on the sides of eight different cartons each carrying a different milk product and a different poem. Valio has commissioned six contemporary Finnish poets, from already established to promising young talent and even a Finnish rock-star poet, to write short poetry suitable for milk containers.

All in all 18 poems (three by each poet) will be published in this unique way on hundreds of millions of milk cartons. It’s a great way to bring poetry closer to people. If you’re living outside of Finland you can still enjoy these poems and wonderful lucky cows on Valio’s milk pages, where you can also listen to each poem and print it out as it appears on the carton.

This great idea of popularizing art is not the first conceived by Valio. In the late 2005 they have commissioned several contemporary visual arts artists who were asked to come up with imagery for their milk cartons.

I really enjoy such campaigns as they bring life to everyday items we might not even notice anymore. Every time I grab milk from the fridge, I check whose poem is on the carton and read it even though I am not really a big poetry fan.

Mladen