Kalm digs chicks from Montreal

Peter Kalm’s memoirs continue to entertain.  In between talking about lead and silver ore deposits and lime kilns, he has a two page diversion describing Canadian women.  Apparently, living up to all the negative stereotypes about the French, they take a great deal of pleasure laughing at everyone who doesn’t speak the language fluently.  But then he gets to some good stuff:

One of the first questions they [Canadian women] put to a stranger is whether he is married; the next, how he likes the ladies in the country, and whether he things them handsomer than those of his own country; and the third, whether he will take one home with him.

Wow.  Sounds like Canada was a happenin’ place.  But, hold on there cowboy.  Don’t go picking up the first girl who bats her eyes and sends an ‘Oh, la la‘ your way.  According to Kalm:

There are some differences between the ladies of Quebec and those of Montreal; those of the latter place seemed to be generally handsomer than those of the former…The ladies of Quebec, especially the unmarried ones, are not very industrious.  A girl of eighteen is reckoned very poorly off if she cannot enumerate at least twenty lovers.

So, if anyone ever perfects a time machine, buy a ticket and set it for Montreal circa 1749.

A little Swedish lesson

My knowledge of the Swedish language is pretty pitiful to say the least but I am able to pass along a bit of useful knowledge that you won’t find from Berlitz or Rosetta Stone.  While I don’t speak much Swedish I have been able to endear myself to my two nephews there with my use of one word:

Bajs (pronounced ‘bice’ rhymes with ‘dice’).

Bajs roughly translates as ’shit’ but is used almost exclusively by kids.  It’s more graphic than our ‘doo-doo’ or ‘poop’ but doesn’t seem to have the adult connotations that ’shit’ has in english.

Kids (or perhaps just boys, my sample size is rather small) in the 3-6 age group seem to find nothing funnier than the word and never (and boy, do I mean never) get tired of saying it.

I suspect that the highpoint of my recent visit (at least for them) was not the cool presents I brought them or the chance for them to see their way cool aunt and uncle but rather the moment I said ‘bajs’.  You would have thought I announced the end of war in Europe.  There was screaming, celebration and a buoyant mood which one does not encounter often once you’re out of the single digit age range.

And if you want to be a real hit you can add the term ‘korv’ on the end of it (Bajs korv) which translates into ’shit sausage’.

The Swedish Psyche – part 2

The second in a continuing series in which I make broad, unsubtantiated generalizations about the Swedish people based on my own superficial observations.

If you want to really know people in a different country, go to where they buy food.  Whether it’s an open air market with flies swarming around a freshly slaughtered goat or massive, climate controlled mega-mart, what’s offered for sale, what people buy and how they buy it can tell you a lot about people that you won’t find in a tourist guide.

That and watch the TV.  But that’s for another post.

So, while on my most recent trip to Sweden I found myself in several markets, looking for goodies I could bring back that would allow me to cook some good vegitarian (for me), lactose free (for Mrs. Iago) dishes.  Some of the things you’ll notice right away:

• even though everything is in a different language supermarkets are all set up  similarly and so navigating them is fairly easy.
• there’s much, MUCH less variety of processed food on the shelves.  You like your Fruit Loops with tiny, chocolate covered marshmallows and honey coated nut shavings?  Too bad.  That whole isle of processed high fructose corn syrup breakfast candy is cut down to a half or a third of what you’ll see in a typical American  supermarket.  Don’t get me wrong, you can still eat plenty of crap there, you just have less crap to choose from.
• The Swedes have an entirely different idea of what sorts of things make food attractive than we do.  To back up this statement I’ll present two pieces of evidence:

First:  Kalles is a type of kaviar but you really don’t need to know that to get my point.  What American food producer and/or marketer would ever consider advertising (with an exclamation point!) that the product they were selling was ‘Xtra Mild’?  And what red-blooded American would ever eat anything advertised as such?  I actually had to do a double take when I saw this.  Such excitement and font sized should only be used when saying things like:  ‘New, BOLD flavor!’, ‘Intense cherry taste!’, ‘Xtreme Cheesiness!’.

But ‘Xtra Mild’?  What’s next?

‘Now with even LESS flavor!!’

This is like a mayonnaise commercial I saw recently (but, annoyingly can’t find on the internet) showing a bunch of young people dancing, hip hopping, and being generally cool all because of the fabulous mayonnaise they were eating.  Quite possibly the lamest commercial ever.

In fact, you can buy Cheese Puff things at the stores there that are corn based and (I kid you not) are devoid of any flavor whatsoever.  It’s got all the crunch of a Cheese Puff but really, no flavor at all.  It’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten (uh, well, maybe not but let’s not get into that here).

Ok…Item #2

Now, why would I get my goulash from Poland?  Isn’t that Hungarian?  And if I was so inclined to eat goulash from a can, I’m not entirely sure that ‘Army Style’ would tickle the pleasure seeking areas of my brain enough to get me to buy this can.  As someone who’s eaten army food for many years, allow me to pass on a bit of advice.  Never, NEVER, willingly eat food whose primary selling point is that’s it’s ‘Army Style’.  For the life of me I can’t figure out who the target demographic is for this product.

And just as a bonus…

That’s right kids.  If you’re going to eat Polish goulash, make sure you eat it ‘chileed’.

The Swedish psyche

America is so big both physically and culturally that it can be easy to forget that other countries, even those with which we seem to share much in terms of values or history, can be very different culturally and interact with the world in ways far different than we would.  Of course, I’m talking very generally and painting people with a broad brush but it can be a useful (and fun) way to look at things provided you don’t try to take it too far.

So take, for example, this story about a 19  Swedish girl who wanted to get a tattoo of the Swedish greater coat of arms.  So, she did what anyone would do:  She wrote to the chief heraldist at the National Archives to ask for permission.

The 19-year-old explained in a letter to the public agency that she was “not a racist” and had no intention of abusing any national symbols. She was just a proud Sweden who wished to mark her patriotism with a tattoo on her wrist of the Greater National Coat of Arms or, failing that, the Swedish flag.

I can’t imagine any American I know who would even think to ask for permission before getting a tattoo of a national or copywrited symbol.

And proving that it’s always better to ask for forgiveness than permission, the poor girl was told that no, getting a tattoo of the coat of was not ok.

But in a written response to the woman, chief heraldist Henrik Klackenberg explained that the Greater National Coat of Arms was the head of state’s personal crest. Only in exceptional cases could be used by anybody other than the King, the Riksdag, the government, government ministries, foreign service representatives or the Armed Forces.

If you actually could find an American who asked for permission to get a tattoo and they were told no, I imagine just about everyone’s first response would be ‘Hey, they can’t tell me what to do.  I’ll get it anyway.  In fact, I’ll get it bigger.  And paint my house with that symbol.  And name my children after it.  FREEDOM!!’

No word on if the girl will settle for a butterfly tattoo instead…

Peter Kalm’s insight

As I wrote earlier I’m reading a translated version of Peter Kalm’s trip to America in 1747.  Having grown up and lived much of my life in areas that he’s traveled through it’s facinating to read his descriptions of places that I’ve known to see how they’ve changed.

In addition, this guy provides a great insight to pre-revolutionary America.  For example:

I have been told by Englishmen, and not only by such as were born in America but also by those who came from Europe, that the English colonies in North America, in the space of thirty or fifty years, would be able to form a state by themselves entirely indepdendent of Old England.

And that 29 years before the Declaration of Independance was signed.  Not too shabby analysis.

One thing I didn’t know about colonial America is that while the King of England appointed govenors of the various colonies, it was up to the colonists to pay them.

Therefore a man entrusted with this position has greater or lesser revenues, according to his ability of gaining the confidence of the inhabitants.  There are examples of governors in this [New York] and other provinces of North America, who by their dissensions with the inhabitants of their respective provinces have lost their whole salary, his Majesty having no power to make them pay it.

Kalm does go on to say that govenors did have some alternate revunue streams available to them but the idea that the populus could reduce an official’s salary if they didn’t think him acting in their wishes is an interesting one.

America according to Peter Kalm

I just started reading Peter Kalm’s Travels in North America.  In 1747, Kalm was sent by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to find and bring back plants from the new world which could be cultivated in the cold Swedish climate.  He took advantage of his opportunity to observe and document almost every aspect of his travels throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Canada.  As a result, his book reads a lot like an 18th century blog with a wonderful hodge podge of descriptions and facts about colonial America.  Since there’s no central narrative Kalm is free to talk about Indian burial rites in one passage and then switch to the price of firewood in Philadelphia and the reader, if they so choose, may open the book and read at random.

Perhaps because he wasn’t on a specific government mission like Lewis and Clark (and wasn’t crazy as a bedbug like Lewis) I am finding Kalm’s work more interesting.  He seemed to approach his travels as an opportunity to describe America to a readership back in Europe that still knew virtually nothing about the land or the people (including, perhaps, many former countrymen) and so needed descriptions about virtually everything.

It also provides a glimpse about European (or at least Scandinavian) perceptions about life in the mid-18th century.  For example:

[Americans] do not attain to such an age as the Europeans, and it is an almost unheard of thing that a person born in this country lives to be eighty or ninety years of age.

How long were Europeans living in 1750s?  I was always under the impression that life expectancy was rather short.  Apparently all those old geezers were getting busy as well…

[American] women cease bearing children sooner than in Europe.  They seldom or never have children after they are forty or forty-five years old and some leave off in their thirties.

Wow…apparently the biological clock was ticking much slower back then.

Understatement of the Day Award

Goes to Karl-Göran Välivaara of the Swedish Christian Democrat Party who, while talking about economic policy remarked that Hitler had a knack for successfully addressing economic problems.

He isn’t some insensitive, ignorant clod however.  While remarking on Hitler’s ability to build high quality infrastructure projects he did acknowledge that after he came to power “ things got worse for some people”.

Hitler:  Good for the economy…might be slightly inconvenient for some.

Crazy Swede…

“It seems alert because when you poke it becomes very unruly.”

That quote is why I love Swedish news.  It’s cool that they found a fish they thought was extinct a century ago but delivering a line like that is just priceless.

What exactly does an unruly sturgeon look like?

Suspicious Swedes

You have to love the Swedish press.  Every once in awhile you’ll see a headline like:

“Swede detained by US forces in Iraq”

And you’ll think “Wow, that’s pretty unusual.” and then be compelled to read the story.  What kind of activity could a Swede get involved in that would get him detained in Iraq?  What the heck is a Swede doing in Iraq?

Then, when you delve a bit deeper in the story you find out that the Swede in question is named Ahmad Hamad.

I kind of feel cheated when I get to that part of the story.  I was really expecting a 6′ blonde haired, blue eyed Swede with a name like Lars Larsson and instead I get some dude who moved to Sweden (from Iraq).

This is apparently quite common in the Swedish press and if you just read the headlines there you might get the impression that Swedes, fed up with their centuries of neutrality had begun shuffling off to trouble spots around the world to spread mayhem.  But, that’s rarely the case and instead it’s always someone who has most definitely a non-traditional Swedish name who gets mixed up in some sort of trouble.

Still, there are always additional details to the story that make it interesting…

His wife, Susin Hamad, told newspaper Norrköpings Tidningar that her husband had struggled to find work in Sweden and had moved to Ramadi, around 100 kilometres west of Baghdad, on May 2nd with the intention of setting up a construction company.

Now, I understand times are tough but c’mon!  Is it realistic to assume that a guy who’s having trouble getting work (in a nation known for providing pretty decent social welfare) feels his best (or only) option is to leave his family and haul off to Iraq?  I’m pretty sure they build things in Sweden, too.  In fact, there’s a whole black market revolving around people who hire workers to do home improvements for pay ‘off the books’.

Hmmm…maybe we can expect to see the thousands of American unemployed streaming to Iraq to find their fame and fortune.

Susin Hamad said she did not know why her husband was being held captive as she did not believe he was politically active.

Whew…thank goodness for her the Newlywed game isn’t still running, they probably wouldn’t do so well.

Robert Kaplan, anti-Swedite

From yesterday’s Washington Post:

“…we may no longer be at Charles Krauthammer’s “Unipolar Moment,” but neither have we become Sweden.”

Now, I have taken it upon myself to document these unprovoked and scurrilous attacks upon Swedes since my wife, in traditional Swedish fashion, would regard making too much of a fuss as being terribly un-Swedish.  Well, I’m such a fan of Swedish moderation, tolerance, lagom and jantelagen that I’m considering myself the first ever ‘Logom-Jihadist’.   That involves me rabidly finding, attacking and belittling those who go out of their way to make uncomplimentary statements about Sweden (that’s the jihad part), but I’ll only do it here when I have nothing else to write about and I’ll always try to offer alternate nationalities to use instead of Sweden (that’s the Logom part).

So, Mr. Kaplan…you’re on notice.  Offer an immediate apology* or suffer yet another withering attack from me.

And now…Good day to you, Sir!

I said, Good Day!

Ah…wait.  I just realized I haven’t really attacked Mr. Kaplan yet which is a bit problematic.  So…here goes…

1)  Oh, yeah!  Well, you’re a jerk-face.
2)  In the future, please feel free to use any of the following countries in place of ‘Sweden’ when trying to make the point that the U.S. isn’t weak and puny:  Lithuania, Togo, Andorra, or the Republic of Kiribati.  All of these would have made your point much better since none of them are ruled by the iron fist of a mad king, bent on crushing the world under his heel.

*If Mr. Kaplan refrains from making any further public statements about Sweden for 24 hours I will consider that a sign of his abject terror and that he is conceding to my demands like a wolf puppy rolling over on its back in a pathetic attempt to avert attack by the alpha male (who would be me in this analogy).