Posts in September 2008

Winter Is Coming

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Sep
30
2008

Oh no!

Ceci made a comment about the weather and how wonderful the autumn colors are this time of the year. Yes, they indeed are. But I’m not a fan of autumn. Why? Winter comes next!

In fact tonight is the perfect time to begin writing about winter. It’s the first time this fall (winter?) that the temperature has dropped below zero Celsius. Or at least, it’s the first time that I’ve noticed how cold it gets at night. Soon, it will also be cold during the day. And then the snow will come.

Sometimes I feel, and I mean literally feel, that all this talk about global warming is just a talk.

Last year I attended a very interesting lecture given by a visiting professor at the university here. The guy, sorry, I don’t remember his name now, said some really interesting things about this part of Norrland. He said that we are at the very end of an ice age, and the changes we are seeing here in the north are due to the normal reaction of the land that had been covered with a thick layer of ice for several thousand years. He used the Ume river and the area around Umeå and Holmsund as an example.

Back in the olden days the river was much deeper and even sea going vessels could easily get to Umeå. This is no longer possible due to the river getting shallower and shallower each year.

He explained this phenomenon by using a mattress analogy. (Don’t worry, this is all very innocent.) When you sit or lie down, you’re pressing down on the mattress. Depending on how soft your bed is, the weight of your body compresses the mattress slightly. And then you get up. The indentation made by your weight will remain for a while and then the mattress will spring back to its original state. Well, the professor said that the same thing is happening with the area all over the Gulf of Bothnia. The ice sheet had retreated and now the ground is springing back. Of course, since northern Sweden is not exactly a mattress, we are talking about thousands of years of slow springing back here. But that’s why the Ume river is getting shallower and that’s why the whole Gulf of Bothnia will eventually disappear.

The professor tied it all very nicely with global warming, but I was so taken with the idea of being able to walk to Finland in a couple thousand years that I missed that point completely.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, winter. So, because we are at the tail end of an ice age, things are supposed to be warming up. I truly hope that this will be one of those “warm” winters. The last one wasn’t that bad. It was just long. And the one before wasn’t that bad either, except it was super-snowy. And the one before that was awful. But as far as I remember, it was awful everywhere. I went through three car batteries that year. Let’s hope that this year I can get away with only one!

 
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Illegal Immigrants in Sweden?

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Sep
28
2008

I’ve been reading the news like I always do and because this is Sweden, the news are not all that interesting. An elderly man died after swallowing his dentures. A hurricane warning issued for Norrland for this weekend. Yes, it’s blowing like crazy, branches are falling off of trees and stuff. For real. Three charged in a human trafficking case. Wait a sec! For real? I had to look up the story for you in English, and here it is.

Now, excuse me for a moment, while I’m scratching my head in disbelief. 49 people PAID money to be smuggled to Sweden. At least that’s what the story says, the actual number might be higher. Haven’t they done their homework before deciding on Sweden? Wasn’t the unusually low smuggling fee (10000 SEK) a tip-off that Sweden might not be the hottest destination for illegal immigrants?

Please don’t get me wrong, Sweden is a great country, but really, if you’re going to be smuggled somewhere and live as an illegal immigrant, do yourself a favor and conduct some basic research before making your decision. And besides, Sweden has some of the laxest laws regarding refugees and asylum seekers in all of Europe, and to pay someone to smuggle you here is simply dumb.

And once you’re smuggled here, how do you propose to go on living? What will you say when at every step you are asked for your personnummer (social security number)? Personnummer in Sweden are created using your birthday followed by four seemingly random digits. But they’re not really random at all, one of them identifies your gender (guys get an odd number, ladies – even) and up until recently, those numbers could also show where you were born or if you were an immigrant.

Those ten digits define your life in Sweden. Without them, it’s impossible to do anything, including using a public restroom. You will need your personnummer when seeing a doctor, or a dentist (even a private one!), when opening a bank account, when trying to get a loyalty supermarket card, when applying for an ID card, when getting your mobile phone registered, when signing a contract with an internet provider, in some shops you will be asked for your personnummer when returning high-price merchandise. And that doesn’t even include the intended use of personnummer, which is as a taxpayer’s ID number. Your personnummer will be the first bit of info required by your prospective employer and without that your chances of getting a job will be slim to none.
True, there’s always the black market, but you’d be surprised than even many people in that grey area of economy will ask you for your personnummer to make sure you are in the country legally. To “work black” in Sweden means working without paying your taxes, not necessarily that the worker is an illegal immigrant. In fact, most people working “black” in Sweden are Swedish citizens or legal residents.

See what I mean? I have no idea how illegal immigrants can even survive in Sweden. Their numbers are estimated at between 60 000 to 100 000 and their lives are truly miserable. Because Sweden places more restrictions on healthcare provision for illegal immigrants than almost any other country in the European Union, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, getting medical attention if you’re here illegally might be almost impossible. And though Immigration minister Tobias Billström hinted that he was open to offering subsidized public healthcare to people without proper ID papers, this measure was rejected by Sweden’s parliament last May. This month the province of Skåne took things into their own hands and is planning to offer emergency dental care for illegal immigrants, but how well that will go over, nobody really knows yet.

But, back to our quest for personnummer. Where do you get it? As an immigrant to Sweden, legal of course, you get it at the Tax Office (Skatteverket).

Once you have the number, you will find yourself in a slew of government computers. You will magically appear in the population register and find yourself assigned to a local health clinic. Unlike in the US for example, here all those government systems are interlinked and they talk to each other. And it all starts at Skatteverket. From that time on, there’s really no need to remember your name, all you need is the number. But without the number you are stuck.

Ok, so we’ve established that being an illegal immigrant in Sweden is a bad idea. A really bad idea.

And speaking of, there is even a movie on the subject. “Förortsungar” (English title “Kidz in da Hood”) tackles the issue in a light-hearted musical way, but nevertheless, it can give you an idea of the kind of hardships that illegal immigrants have to deal with in Sweden.

 
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Job Scam Targeting English-Speakers

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Sep
25
2008

I was going to tell you about “tvättstuga” today, but then realized that there are more pressing subjects in the world today. And no, I am not talking about the American banking crisis.
I am talking about this article in The Local:

“An experienced scam artist has been targeting English speaking jobseekers in Sweden, luring them with promises of non-existent jobs, police say.”

A few people outside of Sweden can even imagine how hard it can be for a foreigner without any Swedish skills to enter the job market here. So an ad like that, seeking applicants for an office job and not requiring fluent Swedish was indeed a dream come true to hundreds of people.
In reality, neither the company nor the job existed. It was all an elaborate scam. But what’s puzzling is the motivation of the scam artist. He didn’t bilk his victims out of thousands of kronor, and his personal material gains seem rather slim – just a bunch of laptops purchased on credit. So why did he do it? The article claims it was simply for the thrill of cheating unsuspecting people and destroying their lives. From what I’ve heard from the English-speaking community here in Sweden, one poor guy actually quit his job in the UK and moved here for this non-existing opportunity, only to find out he’s been scammed. Another one, like in the article, declined a different job offer and moved from another city to Gothenburg.

And the saddest part of it all? There is nothing that the police can do, because much of the damage caused is not legally criminal.

But why was it so easy for a smart, sensible person to fall for this scam? As the guy interviewed in the article said: “When you’ve been trying to get a job for a long time, you don’t question [things].”

And this statement sums up nicely something that many prospective immigrants to Sweden do not realize, or simply choose to ignore – that getting any job here will be hard, and getting a nice, cushy office job will be even harder, if you don’t speak Swedish.

So, the moral of this story? If something looks too good to be true, then it probably is, even in Sweden.

PS. And the truly scary part of this is that the website of this non-existent fraudulent company is still up! The firm hosting it, even though notified about the case, did nothing to pull it down. And the scammer is thought to have moved to Copenhagen and might be targeting expats there.

 
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Swedish Verbs, part 2

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Sep
23
2008

A few posts back we started to discuss Swedish verbs, remember? And I told you that those verbs can be divided into two big groups: “ar” and “er”. I also mentioned that there is a third group and then promptly refused to say anything else about it.

Oh yes, that third verb group. This is the group that brings tears of definitely not joy to the eyes of Swedish learners. Why? Several reasons.

While most (almost all other) verbs have infinitive forms that end in –a, those short little guys end in whatever they like. At least it looks like that to an untrained eye. And those guys are really short. Like one syllable short. That’s the good news. The other good news is that there aren’t all that many of them. The bad news is that they’re all irregular, and sadly, you have no other choice but to memorize them all, especially since quite a few of them are very common. Like this one, for example:

  • ge = to give

“ge” is the infinitive form, and in the present tense this verb tries to masquerade as an “er” verb, clever little sod:

  • Jag ger dig pengar. = I give you money (I’m giving you money)

See what I mean? “Ge” becomes “ger” in the present tense.
Other verbs that behave as “ge” are:

  • le/ler = (to) smile
  • be/ber = (to) beg, request
  • se/ser = (to) see

Here are some other short verbs that are neither “ar” nor “er”:

  • stå = to stand
    Hon står och väntar. = She’s standing and waiting.
  • dö = to die
    Gräset dör i torkan. = The grass dies during drought.
  • bo = to live (somewhere)
    Jag bor i Sverige. = I live in Sweden.
  • få = to get, to receive
    Hon får pengar idag. = She gets money today.
  • tro = to believe, to think
    Ja, jag tror det. = Yes, I think so (reckon).
  • gå = to go
    Hur går det för dig? = How’s it going for you?
  • må = to feel (of health)
    Jag mår inte riktig bra. = I’m not feeling quite well.

Can you spot a pattern? While these are neither “ar” nor “er” verbs, turning them into their present tense forms is quite easy – just stick an “r” onto their short, little bodies. That’s the easy part. Unfortunately, that’s also the end of easy, because when it comes to their past and perfect forms, those irregular suckers you will need to memorize one by one. Let me know if you need any help!

 
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Stick It To The System(et)

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Sep
21
2008

So, I’m half way through this Bill Bryson book “Neither Here Nor There” about his travels in Europe, and it is really interesting to read his observations about Sweden. With some of them I disagree (he thinks that driving even during sunny days with the headlights on is stupid) and with some I totally agree (like what’s up with all this public drunkenness in this country?). Yeah, what’s up with that?

Yes, there are plenty of drunks in public places all over the world, I know that. However, in most countries you also can get alcohol stronger than 3.5% in supermarkets and you don’t have to mortgage your house to buy a bottle of vodka, so you kind of sort of expect people to wander around totally sloshed at odd hours of the day. But not so in Sweden. Here, for anything stronger than 3.5% you have to go to a special government store called “Systembolaget”, alcohol is expensive, yet you can stumble over totally drunk people at 10 in the morning. And Systemet doesn’t even open until 10!

So, what is this Systembolaget anyway? Simply put, it’s a government-controlled monopoly on the importation and sale of alcoholic beverages. And while 2.8% or 3.5% percent beer and cider can be purchased at a local supermarket, anything stronger than that can only be found at Systemet. Say, if you’re making risotto and the recipe calls for half a cup of white wine (as mine does), you can’t just saunter over to a nearby supermarket and pick up a bottle. Oh, no. You need to go to Systemet. Which closes at 6PM. So if doing any gourmet cooking in Sweden, it’s best to be prepared. Consider yourself warned.

And how did it all start? Well, in 1850 alcohol began to be regulated by the state. Apparently, earlier in history Swedes had become famous for their drinking prowess, and things started to get a little out of hand. Back in the olden days, almost every household made their own booze, too. And the state realized that wow, not only people are walking around drunk, but we’re missing a superb revenue source. So let’s take over alcohol making and selling and tell people where and when to buy it and drink it. The scheme was so successful that by 1870 there was a chain of stores selling booze and all profits went to the government. And it’s been going on like that until now.

Sometime in the mid 1950s, it was also decided that alcoholic beverages should be taxed according to their alcohol content, which makes beer and wine (relatively) cheap.

Systemet looks like a normal supermarket inside, except that all it sells is alcohol. You get a basket, or a cart, and walk around picking up whatever you want. No brand can be favored over another, so everything is lined up on the shelves, or in crates on the floor, and bottles are not refrigerated (because according to the rule, you have to either refrigerate all of them, or none.) And oh yeah, you need to be over 20 to buy stuff there.

And remember what I said about drinks with less than 3.5% being sold in normal stores. Here’s something that may confuse English speakers. Such beer is known here as “lätt” which translates as “light”, but not in the American sense. It has all the calories of a normal beer, and the adjective “lätt” refers only to its alcohol content. And to buy “light” beer you need to be over 18.

Systemet even has an English language webpage, and this is one of the gems I found on there:

Systembolaget, the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly, exists for one reason only: To minimize alcohol-related problems by selling alcohol in a responsible way, without profit motive.

Oh yeah? If that is so, then they’re not doing a very good job of it, judging by all the drunks in the streets.
You can read more about Systemet on their website.

 
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