Xenophobe's Guide to Swedes

by Berlin, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781902825441
• ISBN10: 1902825446
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-01
• Publisher: Oval Books

Summary

After the considerable success of The Xenophobe's Guides series, which uncovers the quirks and curiosities of other nations for xenophobes (people who fear foreigners) a series of phrase books is now being launched for the 'xenolinguist' -- people who are afraid of speaking a foreign tongue.When visitors are traveling abroad, they have to expect to meet foreigners. Most of these foreigners will not speak English. The Xenophobe's Phrase Books series aims to help users overcome this setback and cope with the unexpected difficulties that may arise should they need to communicate with the natives.

Author Biography

Peter Berlin left his native Sweden the day after graduating from university, and has always looked back since. He maintains that you have to go abroad to view your country in perspective, for how can one size up a whale from within? Of course Sweden is not a whale but a slightly fermented herring, usually delectable but sometimes hard to swallow.

His Canadian wife, a textile artist, has given him a wider focus on Sweden. When there she roams the forests in search of mushrooms for dyeing wool and places each day’s harvest on the hotel room radiator to dry overnight, slowly asphyxiating her husband in the process.

But there is life in the author yet. After 25 years in the satellite and rocket business, he took early retirement to become a full-time writer. Instead, he found himself re-employed to gather intelligence at Siberian and Kazakh space centres previously unknown to the West. He also gives seminars in Cross-Cultural Awareness during which he offers living proof that your cultural luggage stays with you for life.

In conformance with their theory that if you marry a foreigner you should live in a third country (because you both become expatriates with all the attendant joys and sorrows), the Berlins have lived in Seattle, The Hague, Paris, Toulouse, Darmstadt, London and Moscow.

Table of Contents

Nationalism and Identity	p. 5
Character	p. 8
Beliefs and Values	p. 10
Behaviour	p. 17
Manners	p. 24
Conversation	p. 26
Eating and Drinking	p. 29
Obsessions	p. 35
Sense of Humour	p. 37
Leisure and Pleasure	p. 38
Health and Hygiene	p. 41
Culture	p. 43
Custom and Tradition	p. 48
Government	p. 51
Systems	p. 54
Crime and Punishment	p. 56
Business	p. 58
Language	p. 63
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Soulful sadness
A common trait among Swedish people is a deeply felt svårmod, a dark melancholy born out of long winters, high taxes and a sense of being stuck far out on a geo-political and socio-economic limb. They brood a lot over the meaning of life in a self-absorbed sort of way without ever arriving at satisfactory answers.

Love all
The Swedes indulge in sport for leisure and sex for pleasure. Some people treat sex as a sport in order to combine leisure with pleasure, and thus save time and energy.

Nurture nature
The Swedes have a dream: to save Nature from Man. This is more than just a vision - it's as close to a passion as the Swedes ever get.

Net loss
Becoming rich in Sweden has never been easy. As Ingmar Bergman found out, even millionaires can have difficulties making ends meet when income tax is levied at 102%.

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Excerpted from The Xenophobe's Guide to the Swedes by Peter Berlin
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.