STOCKHOLM — A sign of an inhospitable people or a view into an
alien mindset: a viral tale of
Swedish families not offering their children’s
friends a place at the dinner table has captured the world’s attention.
اضافة اعلان
The
#Swedengate debate originated on a discussion
forum on social media site Reddit, where a question about people’s weirdest
experiences of a different culture yielded the following reply:
“I remember going to my Swedish friend’s house. And
while we were playing in his room, his mom yelled that dinner was ready. And
check this. He told me to WAIT in his room while they ate.”
Many echoed similar experiences — and the discussion
went viral, moving to other social media sites, and raising questions such as
does Sweden have a bizarre culture of inhospitality, and are Swedes simply
cheap?
Many
Swedes weighed in to say that it was not an
unusual experience. Others said it was rare, while some commented they had
never even heard of the practice.
“Growing up as a child, it would be really common to
go and play at your friend’s house, and then they will be like, oh, I’m just
going to go and have dinner. I’ll be back in 30. And they would just leave you
in their room,” Swedish pop singer Zara Larsson, 24, said in a video posted to
TikTok.
Sweden has traditionally won praise for championing
human rights, egalitarian policies, and minimalistic design.
But in recent years, it has increasingly been
portrayed in a negative light, making headlines for its controversial
COVID-19 strategy, and problems with gang shootings and bombings.
For Richard Tellstrom, an associate professor at the
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, what makes the #Swedengate debate
so fascinating is that it reveals “so much about ourselves and who we are.”
‘Relationship between families’
Tellstrom explained that
while it may seem strange to foreigners, the custom is not a sign that Swedes
are stingy.
“This is about the relationship between families and
not ending up in debt to each other,” the food historian told AFP.
He was quick to point out that the practice has
never been universal and is much rarer nowadays than in the 1980s and 1990s.
But he also explained that in the Swedish mindset,
there could be several reasons for not inviting your children’s playdates to dinner.
One could be that the family of the visiting child
might be planning a dinner of their own and you would “ruin the opportunity for
them to be together as a family” for that evening, Tellstrom said.
In the early to mid-20th century when Sweden was much
poorer and people had more children, parents struggling to make ends meet would
send their children to eat at their friends’ houses.
As a result, merely offering to feed someone else’s
child could be construed as an insult.
“If you offer, you’re admitting that the other
family has fallen on hard times,” Tellstrom said, adding that according to the
country’s traditionally Lutheran mindset, implying that another family was
short on food also implied they were not right with God.
Avoiding debt
Debt — and Swedes’
relationship to it — is another overarching theme, Tellstrom said.
“If your children eat at my place a lot then you
will be in debt to me, and that should be avoided because it is bad for our
relationship as adults,” he explained.
That culture can still be observed among Swedes
going to bars, he noted, as they often avoid buying rounds, with everyone
insisting instead on paying for their own drinks.
As a food culture scientist, Tellstrom welcomed the
issue having presented an opportunity to explain a Swedish, and Nordic,
cultural quirk.
At times, he also said, the confusion about the
oddity can have unintended consequences.
“I have been contacted by immigrants who have told
me that they thought that they were left in their friends’ room for ethnic reasons,
that they weren’t good enough to sit at the dinner table,” Tellstrom said.
“Which is terribly sad because it has nothing to do with
ethnicity but it has to do with feeling in debt,” he added.
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