The Swedes

When it comes to sports, Norwegians are very competitive.  It’s pretty obvious when the Winter Olympics roll around.  Per capita, I’m sure they win more medals than any other country.  But what drives them isn’t necessarily the desire to win, it’s mostly the desire to just beat the Swedes.  If Norway comes in 4^th place in a competition, they are fine with that, as long as the Swedes come in 5^th.  

The rivalry between Norway and Sweden has been going on for centuries.  Ever since Norway went to war against Sweden for their independence in the early 1800s, and won, Norwegians have felt they are the superior race.

In today’s economy, Norway has many jobs they think are beneath them and it tickles them to no end that Swedish citizens come live in Norway and do their dirty work.  Sweden has twice the population of Norway.  In Oslo alone there are over 50,000 Swedes – that’s ten percent of that city’s population. 

I saw a news clip recently that highlighted Swedish workers in Norway.  It showed a bunch of Swedes sitting around peeling bananas.  The bananas were then sent into a squishing machine and I’m not sure what became of them afterwards, but the Norwegians we were with at the time, just howled in delight at the sight of the Swedes sitting there peeling bananas all day long.  It’s so beneath a Norwegian to do such a thing.

Norwegians like Sweden though because their prices are so much cheaper, so many head east to buy alcohol, cigarettes and groceries.  And Swedes are happy to work in Norway because the pay there is as much as three times higher than in Sweden, so it’s a kind of symbiotic relationship.

Norwegian TV includes many Swedish channels, but Swedish TV only has one Norwegian channel.  Norwegians take that as an insult. Norwegians are proud they can understand Swedish, but offended that the bulk of Swedes can’t understand Norwegian, even though the languages are almost identical.  This only feeds into the notion that Norwegians think Swedes are stupid.  And the fact that there certainly aren’t any Norwegians moving to Sweden to peel bananas all day, proves the point all the more.

One time my husband, Kory, and I were visiting an old fishing village and we walked past an outbuilding that looked to be hundreds of years old.  The big door was locked, but the old skeleton key was hanging on a nail right on the doorframe in plain sight.  I pointed to the key and asked Kory, “What's the point of that?”  He responded like a true born and bred Norwegian when he answered, “It’s to keep the Swedes out.”