(Lucky this has changed 2 years ago, now you can have a Swedish identity card,with your personal number ,which I have now, and no problems more)
,
Sometimes I absolutely quiver with rage.
You will bang your head against the wall. You will wonder what kind of madhouse
you have ended up in, and in the end, maybe, you will love Sweden.
You have come to the first country in the
world that banned corporal punishment of children. What does that prove? It
proves that Sweden is a country that is not afraid to acknowledge who are weak and
need protection. There is a respect even for the weakest of all – the children.
(if this sometimes is the best solution, I
don’t know, they talk here with there children, !!!!! They totally have no
respect more for there elders, everything is handed out to them, they go to
school till there 21 and they get paid for this!!!
Sweden is also the first country in Europe to grant municipal voting rights to immigrants without Swedish
citizenship.
(We done this once, we came in a small
building were papers were with Yes and No and they asked you which one you
wanted! We took both, they said yes but you only can vote Yes or No, Yes we
know but we don’t want you to know what we vote!!!)
By my path to loving Sweden
has not always been an easy one. (Which I find out over the years, all the way
it has been a fight and it still is, I have spoken to many people who moved to Sweden,
and many who live here even for more than 30 years you will never be one of
them. People are friendly but very closed and distant.
I often get angry, There are so many
bureaucrats, ( I think halve of the jobs are in counsel jobs)
My first years, I did everything wrong,
Swedish is not an easy language, but they said I spoke good Swedish but they
never correct you! They are frightened to correct you and that they make a fool
of themselves. They won’t help you to learn the language. And I made mistakes. Lot’s of them. Mistakes that
made my cheeks burn, when I think back on them today (and I still make many
mistakes)
It took me a few years before I
started bothering by typically Swedish things I thought were ridiculous. I made
lot of blunders. I stumbled across thousand invisible boundaries and when
acquaintances got angry. Years later, I realized that the pained silence around
the coffee table was caused by some taboo topic I bought up in the
conversation.( but we Dutch people are very open, and that you can't be in Sweden )
And since no one here will tell you what it
was, it will take some time to fine out what is right and wrong.
I still don’t know what the social code
is!!
I try to understand of the Swedish unspoken
rules, and to know how to break them. Because now I know what they are (not
always, I still make mistakes) never just tell it like it is; never contradict
any one, even in a debate; never try to show that you are better than any one
else. (That they thought when I had the Quilt club, there I became better than
them, which I not was I only wanted to help them to get better!)
I try to observe the way the Swedish doing
things! A lot of things surprise me! And even make me sad. Almost everyone is
friendly and helpful. Unless you ask for something that is against the rules.
Then you run right into a brick wall.
I spoke to many people, who are angry, who
believe (as I do sometimes as well) that we are victims of discrimination and
sometimes they are- discrimination against people from other countries; it is
not uncommon.
But as often as not, it’s question of
rules. Most Swedes are absolutely unwavering: if the rules say do it this way,
this is the way to do it. There’s no point in discussing it, you will just make
a nuisance of yourself (which I often did, because I did not know). That is not
discrimination- it’s the same for native Swedes.
You have to put up with a lot, living in Sweden.
You can’t give up; you need give Sweden
the benefit of the doubt! Even if it sometimes difficult, it is a beautiful
country, and every 3 months I need to run away to meet people, with who I can
discuss and can say what I think, but after a few weeks when I arrive at the
airport in Sweden I am happy to be home.
I survive Sweden with my E mail friends and
with my web-site , I miss my freedom of speak the thought which I have , we
Dutch people are very open , so sometimes we speak quicker than our brains, and
that will be my dead fall in Sweden.
So now you know how live in Sweden
is.
Sorry dat dit in het Engels is, maar dit verhaal had ik al een paar jaar geleden geschreven, hoop dat julie het toch begrijpen.
Fijne dag groetjes Joke
Fijne dag groetjes Joke
