Young Chinese Love Everything About Sweden. Except Living There.

May 7, 2023 8:32 AM

After years working in China’s finance industry, Helen Wang was feeling on the edge of burnout. She was fed up with working grueling hours, then being expected to be on call during her precious time off. The 28-year-old wanted to find a new path: one where she could “lie flat” for a while.Then, a friend gave her a left-field suggestion: move to Sweden. On Chinese social media, Scandinavia is often portrayed as a socialist utopia — a place where women’s rights are respected, parents of young children receive lavish support, and the working culture is relatively relaxed. What better place to start over?

Wang began following a few Chinese influencers living in Sweden, and she was captivated by what she saw. Last year, the Jiangsu province native took the plunge: She quit her job, moved her life to Stockholm, and began studying for a second master’s degree in the city.

Things haven’t gone to plan. To Wang’s surprise, her Swedish academic program is the toughest she’s ever done. Over Christmas, her school work completely took over. She couldn’t enjoy her winter holiday, and she still hasn’t had the chance to travel anywhere. “Sweden isn’t as chill as I expected,” said Wang, who spoke with Sixth Tone under a pseudonym to protect her privacy. “I’m not enjoying my life here.”

posted by Bella Donna (42 comments total)

I love reading about people from workaholic cultures going to school in Europe. The assumption seems almost universal that of course European university will be SO, SO easy compared to school back home. Like, if you don't come from a culture that valorizes performative overwork how could your education system have any rigor whatsoever? And it's always such a shock to be wrong.
posted by potrzebie at 9:27 AM on May 7, 2023 [52 favorites]

I liked the point about food; I've considered trying my luck overseas, but my palate isn't all that flexible. I visited Japan last year and found I only liked about half of what I tried.
posted by Merus at 9:35 AM on May 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

Hmm. The Sixth Tone is a Chinese government funded publication.

The truth is, its difficult to remain in places like Sweden post-grad.

Is the Chinese government saying ... something??? Like, kids, its better to be in China?
posted by Didnt_do_enough at 9:42 AM on May 7, 2023 [64 favorites]

Thank you so much for telling me about the source of this article. I was completely unaware of it. I’m not sure what China is trying to tell us. I have a hard time living here in Sweden, so I guess I empathized when I should’ve been more discerning about the source.
posted by Bella Donna at 10:21 AM on May 7, 2023 [16 favorites]

IME from living/working in Japan in the 1990s simple language friction adds 10-20% of mental strain to a typical day spent dealing with the system, until the routine stuff gets ingrained with exposure. I remember how freeing it was when arriving back in the US on the occasional return trips I took.

Doing a graduate program in a foreign language (or two?) has to require tons more mental expenditure than what I experienced on easy mode in Tokyo.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 10:43 AM on May 7, 2023 [20 favorites]

Doing a graduate program in a foreign language (or two?) has to require tons more mental expenditure than what I experienced

When I was in college I spent six weeks at Heidelberg just working on my German and...whew...yes.
posted by praemunire at 10:51 AM on May 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Sixth Tone is a fairly liberal Chinese periodical- you can readily find Tweets characterizing and criticizing it as such- so it being state-funded doesn’t mean it necessarily is pushing a specific line, just that it falls between certain boundaries of criticism. They regularly put out articles about disaffected, disillusioned Chinese youth, and the OP is but one example of it.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:15 AM on May 7, 2023 [15 favorites]

The assumption seems almost universal

No it isn't, I studied at two workaholic American universities and there were lots of professors and graduate students from European backgrounds, all highly competent. As well as grad students and academics from Chinese universities. Everyone was highly competent and gave (at least to me) no evidence of performativeness or laziness or lead one to conclude that the programs in Europe or China were any less rigorous.
posted by polymodus at 11:49 AM on May 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

Today I learned the acronym IME. You cannot -- well, no, you can easily -- imagine how flummoxed my friends are when I drop YMMV or even TTYL into the conversation when I text them. People of a certain age with no children under 30 can be so clueless sometimes and when they reach retirement age, they should be assigned a 12 year old to handle their wireless communications and needs for constant humiliation for them.
posted by y2karl at 11:57 AM on May 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

The Sixth Tone is a Chinese government funded publication.

It's not simply government-funded. Sixth Tone is published by Shanghai United Media Group, which is the publication arm of the Chinese Communist Party. Sixth Tone's sister publications Jiefang Daily and Xinmin Evening News were designated as foreign propaganda outlets by the US State Department in 2020. It's intended to influence foreign audiences - Sixth Tone can not be accessed by readers in mainland China.

People who say it's not bad because it publishes some fairly liberal stuff are overlooking how nation state propaganda publications build a foreign reader base before switching tone of content to influence foreign opinion. See, for example, what Russia Today published in its early years, especially social video content.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 12:13 PM on May 7, 2023 [57 favorites]

Is the Chinese government saying ... something??? Like, kids, its better to be in China?

The article said the Chinese people they interviewed found that on the negative side, winters in Sweden were super dark, the food sucks and is super expensive, and some racism and sexism still exist, especially among older people. On the positive side, it was way less sexist and racist than China and a great place for LGBT people, parental leave was amazing, having kids was more affordable, work culture was better, you could indeed have a work-life balance, and "Life is just as peaceful and comfortable as people say it is", though potentially too comfortable for some. Some people chose to stay in Sweden; the person they interviewed who chose to leave still had nothing but good things to say about it.

Overall, the article painted racism, sexism, anti-LGBT behavior, and excessive work culture as undesirable and as understandable things to leave China over, and pointed to parental leave as a specific policy that Sweden's government got right and China's government has not.

Interestingly, Wikipedia says the Sixth Tone is blocked in Mainland China, citing this site.
posted by trig at 12:13 PM on May 7, 2023 [11 favorites]

imagine how flummoxed my friends are when I drop YMMY

Your Mileage May...Yummy?
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:46 PM on May 7, 2023 [19 favorites]

OK, off to the Contact Form. Note to Self: schedule cataract surgery Monday.
posted by y2karl at 1:04 PM on May 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

The 28-year-old wanted to find a new path: one where she could “lie flat” for a while.

This being Sweden, all I can see are images of IKEA flat packs for people
posted by Mchelly at 1:27 PM on May 7, 2023 [14 favorites]

Flatpack capsule hotels, where you get on one of those long low IKEA shopping trolleys in the lobby and access your sleeping cell via forklift. Swedish efficiency!
posted by flabdablet at 2:12 PM on May 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

#vanlife. Oh wait, this is a different hashtag. In any case using a hashtag to plan your life is probably not the best method of doing things. Also, I think for many people satisfaction in life always seems to be just “one simple trick” away.
I do get wanderlust though. I moved from the US to Europe back in the 80’s. There was definitely some culture shock and back then there wasn’t internet and long distance calls were several dollars a minute so it was pretty isolating but I wouldn’t trade my decade there for anything.
posted by misterpatrick at 2:19 PM on May 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wang began following a few Chinese influencers living in Sweden, and she was captivated by what she saw

Once again, following social media influencers ends badly.
posted by doctornemo at 4:17 PM on May 7, 2023 [12 favorites]

y2karl, for those of us "of a certain age with no children under 30", IME prolly means Independent Medical Examination, hahahaha
posted by lapolla at 4:53 PM on May 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

given articles like this on Sixth Tone, I kind of get the impression that, at most, they are "government-funded" in the NPR sense
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:27 PM on May 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

...for those of us "of a certain age with no children under 30", IME prolly means Independent Medical Examination, hahahaha

*Upon review, damn you, Dr. Fedora, damn you!*

*...and double damn you for your user name!*

Not in my experience
posted by y2karl at 5:37 PM on May 7, 2023

> I kind of get the impression that, at most, they are "government-funded" in the NPR sense

And that is the impression they are working very hard to cultivate in foreign audiences to build credibility.

Considering Sixth Tone is not available in mainland China, their handlers don't have concerns about running those sorts of articles to build cred.
posted by barc0001 at 5:55 PM on May 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

This reminds me of the Mediacorp show "Sense Of Home" which aired in Singapore in 2008, where the overarching theme was "I should never have left Singapore!" It consisted of vignettes of Singaporeans who went abroad for one reason or another and, shockingly, found themselves homesick.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:57 PM on May 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

It's likely that I will never read another article from Sixth Tone again, so I'm not too concerned about the propaganda hooks they might someday sink into my brain. I enjoyed reading the article and hearing at least one side of an experience I hadn't thought about much before. Thanks for posting it.

Anyway, down with the running dogs of capitalism.
posted by clawsoon at 7:22 PM on May 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

I mean, entanglement between the state and private enterprise is notorious in both China and the US so its a bit rich to hear people whining about it. The only difference between the two countries is who's in the driver's seat.

Anyway, if this piece was funded by any state actor, it's probably Sweden. Anyone who's lived in the north or experienced the wonders of Nordic cuisine was probably unintentionally nodding all the way through.
posted by klanawa at 8:45 PM on May 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

For the last decade or a bit more, I've had lots of Chinese students, and I can recognize almost everything in this article.

In general, there is a rising number of Chinese migrants and students in Europe, maybe more in more southern countries, I don't know but it feels that way. Most of the students come from the upper middle class, and I think part of the culture shock is that they are not automatically seen as part of that demographic in Europe. I rarely see them together with local students. In my former position, I would have a dinner for the students every semester, and that loosened things up a bit, but now I can only do it once in the entire program because of a different educational structure. But that makes learning the language even harder.

I discovered that high scores in their English tests meant absolutely nothing. Some students who came with top scores didn't speak a word. Others who were on the edge of failing were quite eloquent. (They were allowed in because of their perfect marks in subjects relevant to my program).

I agree with those above who wrote about how exhausting it is to be constantly speaking a foreign language. I tried it in Germany and Italy, and I felt I needed two hours of extra sleep both places. I have had a couple of students who ended up being depressed, and I blamed the stress of understanding the language.

Some told me openly that they were used to some level of corruption in the educational system, and were confused it wasn't an option here. This wasn't typical, though, and I think it was because in the beginning, we couldn't really understand the format of the applications, and fell for some obvious fakery.

We have had some absolutely brilliant Chinese students, and I feel fortunate to have met them, since they could have chosen more famous universities. I learnt from them, and was actually planning to go visit some of them in 2020. But I could see how they would still have problems in our local job market. China is an authoritarian country, but Chinese people are in my experience not very impressed by authorities. Scandinavia is in some ways exactly opposite. The countries are very open and informal, but one reason it works is that most people, obviously not all, are quite happy to follow all the rules and unwritten norms. And those two worldviews often clash. (As a side note, it seems that Japanese students have a similar attitude to the Scandinavian one, and several of my Japanese students have found work here, either permanently, or for a couple of years after graduation).

The food is an issue in two ways. First, most Swedish food is objectively horrible. And second, the Chinese students are often from cities where cooking at home is rare, specially for their demographic. Once, I invited to a dinner where the students had to cook the food from their culture. All the Asians brought frozen dumplings because they hadn't learnt to cook anything, and all the Scandinavians make some form of pancake/waffle/crêpe, because they couldn't think of any nice traditional savory food. Pizza and lasagne are not yet officially Nordic food, though they should be.
posted by mumimor at 1:56 AM on May 8, 2023 [31 favorites]

China is an authoritarian country, but Chinese people are in my experience not very impressed by authorities.

I'd be inclined to replace "but" with "therefore" in that thought. Authoritarian bosses in general are deeply unimpressive people.
posted by flabdablet at 2:07 AM on May 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

The food is an issue in two ways.

Arguably a third way as well - note the student saying they don't socialise much because nobody will go out to eat with them, due to the cost. In many of the larger cities in China, going out (to eat, but also to the mall, to bars, to the park if climate allows) is the main mode of socialising, because housing is generally small and not set up for that kind of entertaining, while going out is cheap, thanks in part to low wages. (You see a milder version of the same dynamic in the UK, for the same reasons.) Scandinavia is the opposite, and visiting each other at home is the primary mode of socialising.
posted by Dysk at 2:18 AM on May 8, 2023 [9 favorites]

For a USian, I appreciate the background info on the publisher. The US media’s not entangled with the US government in the way of the US government directly funding the media. It’s that US media owners/managers and government elites are a revolving door. While I might agree with Jen Psaki’s overall political bent, it’s problematic she’s gone from press Secretary to political analyst at MSNBC. But because I’m a local I know that and factor it in. Knowing the source for this article allows me to do the same here.

I enjoyed the article, thanks Bella Donna. I’m always hungry for a glimpse into other slices of the world, it’s part of what makes metafilter a serendipitously enjoyable wonderland.

One thing that did come across as a bit naive for me was the weather and daylight. Instagrams a visual platform, so you didn’t notice that in December and January all the Stockholm pictures were during the nighttime and think, “hey that’s strange”?
posted by herda05 at 2:26 AM on May 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

I imagine that the occasions of winter sun are dramatically overrepresented on places like IG, because it can be gorgeous.
posted by Dysk at 2:52 AM on May 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

Studying for my first Masters degree was how I got comfortable with Swedish, as it really forced me to learn to comprehend and use the language in a high academic context. But that option isn't open any more since all university education at that level and above is now done in English.
most Swedish food is objectively horrible seconded
posted by St. Oops at 3:21 AM on May 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

(OK ironically I made that comment while waiting for my lunch here in Germany where I am visiting, and the day's special was "sausage goulash" which sounded all right until it turned out to be slices of hot dogs in tomato sauce on spaghetti with bagged shredded cheese on top. A new culinary low propogated not, for once, by Sweden!)
posted by St. Oops at 3:42 AM on May 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

Pizza and lasagne are not yet officially Nordic food, though they should be.

Wait, banana curry pizzas aren't available in every eatery in Sweden? I can't believe the internet lied to me.

One thing that did come across as a bit naive for me was the weather and daylight. Instagrams a visual platform, so you didn’t notice that in December and January all the Stockholm pictures were during the nighttime and think, “hey that’s strange”?

You don't have to be anywhere near as far north as Stockholm for practically all your photos to be taken at night just because daylight hours align with work hours. I'm only at 50 degrees and sometimes it seems that way. And of course many photos are in areas with artificial light. Tough to get a feel for outdoor light levels from a restaurant or living room.

This is the sort of "where the photographer was standing" bias that is subtle enough to allow defacto lying with images while capturing the scene 99% as it was in real life. Also one of the major differences between visiting a place via pictures verses in person.
posted by Mitheral at 5:40 AM on May 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wait, banana curry pizzas aren't available in every eatery in Sweden? I can't believe the internet lied to me.

No, the internet didn't lie: Sweden is the home of completely insane pizzas. I think the inspiration comes from old Swedish heritage recipes like smörgåstårta. My point was more that most people tend to think pizza is an Italian or Italian-American food, where we should acknowledge its unique Swedish form.

You know, people nowadays think Nordic cuisine is something refined, based on local produce, maybe dried reindeer and lingonberry compote. Or crawfish drowned in incredible amounts of schnapps. And those things do exist. But your average international students isn't going to see a lot of them.
posted by mumimor at 7:56 AM on May 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'd posit that there is a conceptual difference between "[demonym] food" and "food commonly eaten in [country]".

Obviously, the boundaries are blurry - at some point, noodles stopped being exclusively East Asian and became recognised as Italian as well. At ske point Turkish meatballs become Danish frikadeller and Swedish köttbullar.

But we still mantain that distinction in our heads and colloquial speech, even if it is an inconsistent nonsense. Hence why pizza is still Italian, even if the, uh, innovation of putting bananas on them is Swedish.
posted by Dysk at 11:15 AM on May 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Obviously, the boundaries are blurry - at some point, noodles stopped being exclusively East Asian and became recognised as Italian as well. At ske point Turkish meatballs become Danish frikadeller and Swedish köttbullar.

That's exactly what I'm curious about -- when does a specific dish change into a national dish?

Obviously most American food originated in other places, but it was all changed and sometimes became unrecognizable. No one would think a deep pan pizza was an Italian invention, but now you can get them everywhere.
Köttbullar and Swedish pizza are both international phenomena in their own right now, kötbullar because of IKEA, I imagine, and Swedish pizza because it evokes emotions that transcend borders. Both had their origins in other places.

This has meandered a bit away from the experiences of Chinese students, so to get back on track, I'm going to point out some aspects of Swedish food that may be confounding for Asian immigrants.
First of all, it is nearly all very sweet, even what claims to be savory. I am personally a great fan of sweet and savory food, and I think many Chinese can enjoy it too. But Swedish food seems to forget the savory part of sweet and savory. Even if a smörgåstårta in theory could be nice, it will have sweet bread as the foundation which will make it weird.
Second, there is a very strong preference for soft textures, with no contrast. My grandmother was not Swedish, but lived there for a while (and loved Swedish food), and she had a theory that most people had terrible teeth because of all the sugar and couldn't eat crunchy stuff. She rarely ate a raw vegetable if she could avoid it.
Third, because of the climate, vegetables are not at the center of the table, to put it mildly.
posted by mumimor at 11:50 AM on May 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think that with pizza, it takes a bigger change than just a minor twist on the already very variable toppings to make it something new or different enough to claim it as an original culinary invention, and thus claim that kind of ownership.
posted by Dysk at 12:31 PM on May 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

a friend of mine married a Swedish woman, and once told me that her family eats spaghetti with a fork and knife, and this is considered extremely normal in Sweden

like the same way you might use a fork and knife to eat pancakes or maybe a steak

anyway death is too good for Sweden is my main point I'm trying to make
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:35 PM on May 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I love Swedish food!

...but it's not fast nor something you can buy at a restaurant. I'm probably biased because it reminds me of food my grandparents would make where I grew up just across the Baltic Sea.

In the summer, collect wild forest blueberries to make Blåbärssoppa. Pancakes taste much better with wild berries of any kind. It's a lot of work collecting the tiny forest berries but you'll be rewarded with something tasty.

Collect raspberries, wild strawberries and blueberries to make jam for the winter.

Enjoy your right to camp pretty much anywhere and make a fire by a lake by grilling a freshly caught freshwater fish along with fresh boletus or chanterelle mushrooms.

Many of these things you can do in other parts of Europe, but not as easily and usually not even legally. But Sweden makes it happen.
posted by UN at 12:18 AM on May 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

Yeah I too would like to stick up for Swedish food. A lot of the things I love about Danish food are either shared with Sweden, or straight up Swedish traditions that have been appropriated. Lots of incredible baking, especially at Christmas, and simple stuff like crayfish boiled with dill, or the kind of simple, fresh food you can gather and cook when you have access to forests and fjords.
posted by Dysk at 12:43 AM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

So in Sixth Tone news, their editor-in-chief Bibek Bhandari has quit after being criticized for being “very critical” of the government’s zero COVID policy back in 2022, and increased censorship (e.g. no coverage of the Shanghai lockdown, less coverage of gender and LGBT stories).
posted by Apocryphon at 6:22 AM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Swedish pizza parlors are totally -- well, apart from in Sweden, that is -- a dream Only in America restaurant chain concept. Pray tell us, O Katullus, what do Iceland or Finland have in the way of similarly hidden culinary treasures to offer?
posted by y2karl at 10:14 AM on May 10, 2023

Much as a culinary abomination as Pizza Afrika is, the Swedes did also give the world kebab pizza which redeems them somewhat.

(I'm partial to the Danish variant, which is covered in lettuce and garlic dressing after it comes out the oven. It sounds weird and sinful because it is, but it's good sin.)
posted by Dysk at 1:23 PM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]