It became a global topic as the experience of ‘In Sweden, children do not feed their friends over at home’ was shared on social media. An outdoor cafe in Stockholm. ⓒEPA At first, I wondered why this was a topic of discussion. An article that reads, ‘In Sweden, they don’t serve their guests even when it’s time to eat’ has been heating up the internet all over the world across borders for the second week in a row. Non-Swedish surprise, Swedes’ acknowledgment and excuses, and even the curious reaction of those who took a step back from both sides of the question, “Why is that a problem?” General media such as newspapers and TV are also stepping up to this trend and presenting various analyzes. On Korean social media, it was known that ‘Sweden doesn’t give food to customers’, but to be precise, ‘In Sweden, they say they don’t feed their children’s friends who come to their house’ is the current problem. Let’s take a look at the full story of this phenomenon called ‘Swedengate’. It started with a comment on Reddit, an American information sharing social community. This question was posted on Reddit on May 26th. “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever had to do in someone else’s home because of cultural or religious differences?” One of the approximately 16,500 comments posted here read: “I remember going to a Swedish friend’s house. She’s hanging out in her friend’s room, and her mom calls her dinner is ready. Then her friend told me to ‘wait’ in her room while her family ate (single quotes capitalized by commenter).” Reddit is a large community, but compared to other social media, it is more closed to members. This comment, which almost ended up creating a whirlpool in a teacup, became the eyes of a storm when a Reddit user captured it and moved it to Twitter. This user (Twitter ID @SamQari) shared a screenshot of the comment and wrote: “I don’t mean to start a foundation, but I don’t understand. How can you eat your own food when you don’t even give your friends food?” The tweet, posted on May 26, was retweeted more than 24,000 times, tweeted citing more than 30,000 times, and received more than 140,000 likes in less than two weeks (see photo on page 48). In the process, numerous experiences were shared, starting with ‘I know because I went to a Swedish friend’s house’. Many of the Swedes who are the parties also admitted that ‘it’s not wrong’. Sara Larsson, a famous singer from Sweden, also joined. Larsson tweeted, “I went to a friend’s house to play and it wasn’t uncommon to leave it in a friend’s room (at mealtime) or say, ‘I live two minutes away, so go and eat at your house’. Strange, but true,” she wrote. Swedish writer Linda Johansson had a slightly different reaction. Her article, which he wrote for the British media The Independent, is titled “I’m Swedish – it’s true that we don’t serve food to our guests. What is the problem?” Listen to Johansson, who has been living in England for 16 years, comparing Swedish and British culture. “Swedes think that a kid (or his family) may have dinner plans and don’t want to ruin the house routine. It’s not that I don’t want to feed my child’s friends or worry about the cost. Rather, he does it according to tradition and because he wants to have dinner with his family. Sweden is a more liberal society than Britain. Children can run around freely, knock on their friend’s door, and enter and play. I didn’t plan, so I don’t know how many other children there will be at dinner time (from The Independent article).” This means that even if you knew in advance, you couldn’t even feed the children who came home without a plan to play. ‘Sweden Gate’, which was summoned up to the 8th century Vikings The Washington Post, an American daily newspaper, summons experts to find out the truth about the Swedish Gate. Until the 1990s, it was not uncommon for children to skip meals at friends’ houses, according to food historian Richard Telström, a professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, in an interview with the Washington Post. “Meals were made at home. Feeding someone else’s children could be seen as interfering with the family’s life. ‘If you can’t feed your child properly, I will feed you’ is an action with a hidden meaning.” In other words, it is not because the Swedes are rude or cold, but because they respect other family members when they don’t feed their friends when they come to play. Berneseitung, a local daily newspaper in Bern, Switzerland, covered the Swedish Gate, dating back to the 8th century. Vikings, the ancestors of the Swedes, had a custom to consider inviting others to eat a meal as an act of debt and later repay it, which may still have an impact. Euronews, an online media that covers all of Europe’s issues, points out that there are other causes behind this phenomenon. The article said, “The Swedish Gate certainly eroded Sweden’s reputation for being clean. It opens a Pandora’s box by sparking widespread debate.” What’s in Pandora’s Box is the key, and the article mentions Sweden’s discrimination against people of color and immigrants, colonialism in the past, and Sweden’s laissez-faire response that was controversial around the world at the time of COVID-19. The fact that Swedes don’t feed anyone outside of their families means that it can actually have something to do with Sweden’s culture of exclusiveness and disregard for the elderly (vulnerable to communicable diseases). Some of the comments on the SwedishGate article were like this, and the article said, “Sweden’s descendants of people of color and immigrants use the SwedishGate hashtag to share their experiences of being unwelcome and discriminated against in Sweden.” Customer service culture is similar everywhere in Northern Europe, so if you ask why Sweden is a particularly focused issue, this might be the answer. The tweet that triggered the so-called ‘Sweden Gate’. These are just a few of the numerous media reports that have been published since Swedengate. If you include the analysis of individuals shared on social media, it is likely that there are more than a hundred reasons why Swedes do not feed their children’s friends over to their houses. On the other hand, there are also a few opposing experiences, such as ‘I went to a Swedish house to play and ate well, what do you mean?’ What I’m really curious about amidst the flood of opinions is not whether Swedes feed their guests or not. How easily we generalize or conversely expand interpretation when dealing with phenomena from other cultures, and how it affects our worldview. One sentence necessary for a multicultural society, ‘There are exceptions’ I personally experienced this. Switzerland is a country where a quarter of the population is foreigners, so it is easy to get in touch with European cultures. So far, there has been only one case of going to another house during mealtime and returning without eating together, and it was a French family. While playing at the playground with the children, my French father thought that dinner time was approaching, so he wanted to go to his house and have a beer. He was drinking beer in the living room of the house, and suddenly he went out to the balcony and grilled meat, and only he and his daughter started eating. My husband and I, who were pouring beer on an empty stomach, finally figured out the situation and returned home with the child. The opposite is the case. One Sunday, my Swedish family and I were playing by the river, and it was lunch time. It wasn’t originally planned to eat until lunch, but the family’s house was nearby. The Swedish couple insisted we go to their house first, even though we refused. Then he sat us down and went to a distant mart that is also open on Sundays to buy sausages and prepare lunch. On the basis of these things, may I say that the French starve their guests and the Swedes treat them with sincerity? Fortunately or unfortunately, I have other experiences as well. Experiences that can be said to be exceptional in the behavior of these French and Swedes. I’m not trying to talk about ‘everyone is different’ or ‘case by case’. Rather the opposite. As the amount of experience increases, a faint trend is visible. With the Swedish Gate as an opportunity, people from all over the world are telling stories about the culture of hospitality, that is, the claim that Northern Europeans are stingy and Southern Europeans, South Americans, and Southeast Asians treat customers generously is quite true. It is possible to have different experiences in a special situation, but it is difficult to ignore the flow because of one experience. Extreme relativism, such that every individual is different, is just as lazy as a simple generalization. People are influenced by family and friends, education and experiences, history and environment. After ignoring the context, what remains is not an impartial worldview, but fragments of scattered information. Then what do you say? No hasty generalization or relativism. As a member of a multicultural society, I live with a simple sentence in my heart. ‘There are exceptions.’ The diverse people you meet here usually reflect to some extent the characteristics of the group they belong to. However, there is always the possibility that the individual may deviate from the trend of the group. I know a Swiss who doesn’t eat cheese at all. This does not deny the love of cheese of many Swiss. It’s true that I’ve never been treated to dinner by a French, but if I see all French as cold and ruthless people, it’s like imprisoning myself in the narrow world I’ve built up. Exceptions that exist as possibilities are sometimes hopeful and sometimes disappointing. I think that keeping in mind the number of both cases is the attitude necessary to live in a multicultural society. Just the day before I wrote this, I met a Korean-Swedish couple. When I asked Swedish man D what he thought of the Swedish Gate, he burst out laughing. “It is unlikely that our generation (he is 31 years old) will not give food to a child who comes to the house, and it is probably a custom that has survived to the next generation. And what, even if you give them food, isn’t it possible to say that you don’t like children who come to play?” It was an answer that he didn’t really care about. he asked him again. After marrying a Korean wife, what do you feel is a cultural difference? said D. “Obviously there were cultural differences in the beginning. But now that we tried to match each other, there is no difference. It’s because I forgot what the cultural difference I felt at first.” His answer was a step higher than ‘there are exceptions’. Trying to match each other, isn’t that the only way to cut the possibility of disappointment?
ssn-general
In Sweden, do you really don’t serve guests at dinner?
