Navigating the Quirks of Swedish Culture in my book 'Ten Years in Sweden - A Disenchantment'

-

Hello, I'm Javier Toms, and I'm excited to share with you my journey captured in "Ten Years in Sweden - A Disenchantment," now available on Amazon. This engaging read is available in Kindle format from $2.99, as a 168-page hardcover for $16.90, and as a paperback spanning 168 pages at $12.90.

>>> Book "Ten Years in Sweden"

In my book, I take you through Swedish culture's intriguing and sometimes bewildering world, where I spent a decade trying to understand and adapt. The book is a candid look at the complexities of Swedish social norms and work culture, especially the unique Swedish tendency to prioritize collective contentment, often at the expense of confronting deeper truths.



One of the most humorously perplexing aspects I encountered was the Swedish tradition of 'Snus,' or chewing tobacco. In the chapter "Snus," I recount my initial encounters with this peculiar Swedish ritual, particularly in the corporate setting. Picture this: esteemed colleagues in a sleek, minimalist office, nonchalantly placing a pinch of tobacco under their upper lip. But the real culture shock wasn't just the widespread use of snus but the spitting.

Imagine sitting in a meeting, trying to maintain professionalism, while a colleague gets up, strides over to the nearest wastebasket, and expertly ejects a stream of tobacco-tinged saliva. The first time I witnessed this, I was caught between disbelief and a desperate attempt to stifle my gag reflex. This routine, repeated like a bizarre ritual, seemed completely normal to everyone else. As I sat there, grappling with my horror and a creeping sense of fascination, I realized that this was just one of the many cultural peculiarities I would have to navigate in my Swedish sojourn.

"Ten Years in Sweden - A Disenchantment" is more than a narrative of cultural adaptation; it's a story filled with moments of humor, disbelief, and profound insights. Join me in exploring the eccentricities and paradoxes of life in Sweden, as seen through the eyes of someone who experienced both the charm and the challenges of adapting to a unique cultural landscape.

Book "Ten Years in Sweden"

Popular posts from this blog

Hurray for Swedish dissatisfaction

-
Image
One of the most striking and noticeable characteristics of some of the new colleagues was their pronounced tendency towards dissatisfaction and associated complaints. This tendency was disturbing in its regularity and intensity. What was particularly striking, however, was how these complaints were expressed - or instead were not expressed. Instead of openly and directly addressing their concerns or dissatisfaction openly and directly, they chose an indirect route, bypassing their divisional managers and me as the higher-level manager. These people were all amiable and polite. They were always smiling and cooperative, but behind this friendly face was a world of dissatisfaction and criticism. You could sometimes have good, short conversations with them and think that everything had been said or that they would directly address what was on their minds without hesitation. But to my great surprise, that's precisely what they didn't do. I knew from my previous years that Swedish co...
Read more

The Estonia Case: Challenging Sweden's Blind Faith in Government

-
Image
The Estonia disaster of 1994, in which a Baltic Sea ferry sank and hundreds of people lost their lives, symbolizes a problematic phenomenon in Swedish society: faith in the state. This event has raised deep questions about the limits of trust in state institutions, especially in Sweden, a country known for its strong faith in state institutions. The immediate reaction to the disaster and the subsequent investigations showed that many Swedes, even those who had lost loved ones, offered little audible resistance to the behavior of their government. This casts a disturbing light on state faith, especially considering that the most intensive investigations into the disaster were not conducted in Sweden but in Germany, which was not directly affected by this catastrophe. In the video "The sinking - How did Estonia really sink? - in an interview with a journalist, the Swedish government is criticized, particularly the then Prime Minister Karl Bildt. The journalist says that Bildt and hi...
Read more

The nanny state

-
Image
Sweden is a nanny state. Some people there don't like to hear that. It's a humorous, sometimes slightly mocking term for a social system in which the state plays an overly caring or patronizing role. Imagine an overprotective nanny constantly following behind you to ensure you're wearing your scarf so you don't catch a cold or constantly looking over your shoulder to ensure you're eating your vegetables. Now, scale that image to the size of an entire country and its society. In a nanny state, someone else always looks after aspects of life, often with the best intention of protecting health, safety, and well-being. In such a nanny state, profound psychological effects arise. This constant availability of support and the expectation that a solution exists for almost everything subtly shapes people's self-image and worldview. In such an environment, individuals often find it difficult to take matters into their own hands, as I have often seen in Sweden. Then, in o...
Read more