International Culture Communication, TACK!

WARNING!: This is another very big and perhaps boring post! Feel free to wait for the next one without reading it. I would say the content of the text is good but that is up to you to decide, so hope you'll like it!

I went to a meeting organized by the ISS, International Student Service of KTH where we were briefed on the culture and habits of Swedish people. This a very short resume of the points discussed in the meeting.

1- How to address:

Unlike many other languages such as portuguese and french swedish is a very flat language (I would say even more than english). So there's a need for words to express politeness when talking to someone. We could say that in english you could use sir or madam but in swedish the special word they use is TACK!. Meaning thank you and you are welcome, this word is used everywhere and all the time. Swedes even use it several times in a row and you can actually hear people saying tack! tack! tack! many times during the day!

In the same point we also discussed the way to communicate when writing. One of the things to retain was NO USE OF CAPS LOCK IN AN E-MAIL. As the speaker said: "Swedish people find it very, very offensive, even more than in any other country" (is there any way to prove this statement?!)

2-Food:

We didn't discussed much about this point, but there was one thing that was very clear: FIKA. Fika, as wikipedia states it ("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fika") means having a coffee with one's colleagues, friends. The point stressed on the meeting was: always say yes! Even though you go there and drink nothing you should always say yes, because this is the appropriate time to invite people to do something else besides work or school and to get to know each other better.

3-Swedes in Business:

This are some important characteristics of swedes concerning the way they look and feel about work:

-Effective: Swedes always like to keep the agenda. If there is a meeting schedule to last 2 hours then it will last to hours, not more nor less. If the subjects are not completely discussed another meeting shall be scheduled.

-Punctual: This is mandatory when you want to be effective as said in the previous point.

-Non-social: Normally swedish people don't like to socialize after business meetings or conferences. Example: "There is a meeting in Denmark. A typical Swede would leave his home in the morning, take the plane to Denmark, go to the meeting, take the plane back right after the meeting finish and rest at home in the same night. In many countries business are closed after meetings, while having a coffee or having a fancy dinner. Not with Swedes!"

-Honest/Trustworthy: This is one of the most appreciated characteristics of Swedes. Also they also appreciate that someone looks into the other person's eyes when telling the truth.

-Hierarchical(less): Everyone's opinion is valued and a discussion or argument is only finished when a consensus is reached.

-Under-dressed: Most of the professions in sweden don't require one to have very fancy and outstanding clothes. I've been to a bank and found men that weren't using suits... How strange is that?

4-Do vs Don't

The next table was also presented on the meeting, as it's resume.

One point that I would like to comment on is the "take a queue number everywhere". I found a nice webpage about Sweden were there was a small text commenting on this:

Sweden is a very organized country. Everything has its place and there are rules and regulations for just about anything. Some rules don’t even need to be officially written down, they technically don’t exist, yet people here follow them anyway. That of course makes life a lot easier in many different situations – when boarding a local bus, for example. Everyone lines up neatly to get on and waits their turn. Even when it’s raining.

When entering a store, library, clinic, even ER, everyone lines up nicely to get a “nummerlapp” (= queue number, which you get from a special machine that dispenses them, normally somewhere near the entrance) and then patiently waits their turn. Nummerlapp is not a strictly Swedish invention, I have seen it utilized in such far-flung locales as India and Cape Verde, but Sweden, without a doubt, is the country that has turned it into an art form.

If you are interested in knowing more about the country and it's people go to the website: http://www.transparent.com/swedish/

Lagom is another concept very characteristic of Sweden. You can find a full description of it on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom, but to make the long story short it all goes back to the middle ages, when Vikings ruled the seas. Lagom is the word composed by Lag (team) and om (around) and describes the the following tale: Vikings used to have a very big cup of beer to share around a table so each one of them could not drink too much nor too little so that all could have the same amount. They would drink exactly the right amount so that the last one to drink still had the same as the first.

To end with this long post there is just a last thing to present. This picture

The W-curve of Intercultural Sojourning

was drawn by Oberg and Gallahorn in the 60's and it plots the mood of a person living in a new country with time and his return home. If you are curious about this point take a look at http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/heroadventure.html where you will find very good information regarding this topic.

Okay! This is the end of the post! Thanks for your patience and I hope you keep reading this blog =D

Here's just a small photograph to amuse you after this boring text ;)

That's me juggling with red onions