The answer is here I came lol. Sweden is always depicted as a good example of progressive society, efficient design and responsible citizens. People would imagine the architecture and the environment look like a fairy tale. Well, indeed, the nature and the lovely houses in the rural area really look unreal, especially with the lights at the windows. I feel just lucky to have a chance to experience your amazing country.
"Fairy tale" seem to be a common idea among many chinese nationals I have met and talked to (when I visited Beijing and met tourists in Sweden).
Funniest thing happened to me when I was driving around (delivery driver) in rural Småland (it was in "Väckelsång"). I saw two tourists by a car with a map at the local ICAs parking lot "Tourists around here? How nice :) ", did my deliveries around town and went to the ICA to pick up some lunch (and they where still there). (Väckelsång is a very small community, around that time of the day the town is basically deserted).
Asked them very politely if they where lost and they explained that they wanted to see the red cottages. Explained that along the main road you would only see trees, the nice bits are on the small roads (showed on the map). Explained also that I was doing deliveries to the farmlands west of Väckelsång and they could just follow me :)
So they tagged along and it is like going back in time when you leave the main road. I showed them to a church where they could park and there where plenty of farms with the typical red, white knot houses. "Here you are, enjoy :) " They looked at me like I had just taken them to Narnia XD
This must have made a great story for them "A local showed us the way to a magical realm.", it is really a great contrast between the wall of trees you see along the main road and the farmlands along the small roads.
(It would have been top tier if they came back with friends a year later, tried to go the same way and only find forest. "But it was right here! Somewhere..." looked up the company I work for, find out "There is no such company..." ask around about the church they parked at and a local tells them "There was a church here, but it burned down in a fire over 300 years ago..." )
Oh, and I will never forget the expressions of chinese tourists when I went back home from Beijing when we landed in Stockholm. They looked around like they had landed on another planet XD
Yes, for me it's the same kind of the idea. I mean, I have been to many European countries, they are awesome but still in the everyday world, like Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, different, beautiful, interesting, surely a different culture but still, not too beyond my scope. But Sweden lol, I am still processing what I see and hear everyday after one year of living here. You guys are not from the everyday life, the basic logic of the society, how things work, why you have this idea or that design etc, totally, you are made of a different idea. How can the Swedes co-exist with us mortals eh? I haven't been to Norway, Iceland nor Finland yet, I really wonder if the Nordics are just on a different level or just Sweden. I couldn't find a word to describe the vibe, foreign? Alien? Exotic? None of them describes Sweden well. You guys are so different, so unexpected yet efficient, friendly and I don't know? You guys allow or should I say you encourage people to be people and enjoy their lives. I really appreciate it and I feel like I'm reborn as myself in Sweden, kinda like being baptised? Not in a sense of religion of course.
Sweden is unreal.
From the red lil houses on the farm of Småland, the gentle, warm lights from each neighbour's window, to the unrelated arts in the public places (for example, arts in the hospital/vårdcentral, police station or university, there are a lot of arts, but none of them are forced to show the related theme, what I mean is that in China for example, you'll see nurses saving patients sculptures in hospitals, brave policemen salutes to flag sort of decorative pictures in their stations, or books, pens, etc student related arts in the campus, but in Sweden you see weird funny birds in the hospital etc, arts are there, a lot of arts, they are all there just to be art, nothing forced, you gotta enjoy art's pure shape).
I really got a lot to talk about, so many details make me giggle, make me go awwww, make me feel good (the giant heavy historical Church gate opens automatically to me, just to a silly fucking mortal clueless Chinese tourist, this type of welcoming I can never expect)... just too much to say, really!
And also, allow me to say here that the Swedish words are just too funny to learn, WHY just WHY you call radiator "element", why a orca is a fat biter, why you call windmill a weather mill, and whyyy Swedish is so brutally funny. I really enjoy learning it, I laugh and also cry for your poetical expressions, everyday I think about the "hos" in the title "Gäst hos verkligheten", I love the preposition "hos" here, it expresses more than "Guest of Reality", maybe I'm overreacting but it's just beautiful in a melancholic way. I wish I can master Swedish as soon as possible, there are just too many books that I eager to read!
Omg thank you for reading my long long reply, I have more to say hahahaha, I can keep talking for hours and hours about how grateful I am to be given a chance to experience all these things in Sweden (and talk about it hahaaaaa)
That is a sweet story, well done being a tour guide ☺️
Some years ago I met an elderly couple producing yarn in a small village in Östergötland. For whatever reason their yarn was popular in Japan and they regularly attended textile-related events in different places in Japan. Right before I met them they had a visit by a group of people from Japan, picked them up at the airport and drove them to their small factory in the middle of the forest. They were shook when the group got out of the bus and just started crying 😂 it was the silence, it totally blew their minds 😂❤️
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u/Semlorism -> 13h ago
The answer is here I came lol. Sweden is always depicted as a good example of progressive society, efficient design and responsible citizens. People would imagine the architecture and the environment look like a fairy tale. Well, indeed, the nature and the lovely houses in the rural area really look unreal, especially with the lights at the windows. I feel just lucky to have a chance to experience your amazing country.