I wrote this four months ago. I was having a bad day when I wrote this. I held it back and did not post it for fear I sounded psycho. Oh well...it is interesting to read. Fairly therapeutic in fact.
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Observations
In a few months I will have lived in Norway two years. Yes, two. It has been rocky. I have been plagued with homesickness which while it did last 24/7 it now only lasts a few hours a day. It always seems to be triggered by my superior attitude about the United States of America being the greatest place in the world. I try not to reduce the things I do not understand or cultural differences as “stupid”, but sadly even when I don’t blurt it out I frequently think, “...okay you morons, move over let me do it.” I guess it comes with being a lifelong busy body know it all and wow have I really suffered here in a land where everything is so laid back and people are not very orally communicative.
My struggle with Norway’s unwritten tribal knowledge is that I spend so much time stumbling around trying to figure out the rules. In America there are rules for EVERYTHING! Okay, in fact I think there are too many rules. But in Norway it is pretty much a free for all at many levels. Even the police are scarce. There was a fight (an assault) at our local shopping center which is across a narrow street from the police station, and no police went to resolve it, because there weren’t any police around. Norway is like the wild west of yester-year in regards to self resilience. You pretty much need to take care of things yourself, and you are sadly out of luck if you need help. Communication pretty much stinks and it is hard to find out how to tap into infrastructure. There are not a lot of signs, businesses and governmental offices are open just very limited hours each day (governmental offices close at 3 or 3:30 and are not open on weekends). Websites are dismal and weblinks are often broken. The news reads like a social flier or a sports round-up. I get a lot of blank stares when I ask questions, like I am nuts for wanting more structure and infrastructure. I mean after all this is a socialist country. But there just aren’t a lot of rules.
Standing in line. This concept completely escapes logic in Norway. Most Norwegians can’t do it. Yesterday at the supermarket checkout I had two people squeeze in front of me in line. Yes...two. A man with a few items and a lady who came at me at a 90 degree angle and wedged her cart in front of me. This kind of thing happens all the time. It is cultural, and for me it is a REAL exercise in tolerance. And when things like this happen, nobody makes a peep and nobody makes eye contact. It is all very passive aggressive.
A contrasting story to when my metro (subway) pass didn’t work leaving the Washington DC Metro and about 10 Americans behind me started yelling at me to get the heck out of the way and then two of them marched me over to the booth and told me to how to report the trouble...of course after they told me I was a pain (they didn’t use such nice words). In Norway people would surge around you and squeeze their way through the turnstile and no one would say a word.
Bathrooms. Wow, I don’t know why I am going to get started on this topic. The public bathrooms here are disgusting. Just skip it. Faced with a rest area or the weeds, I pick the weeds EVERY time. Norwegians in general (again...not everyone) are not good about picking up and cleaning up after themselves. Public restrooms even in places like schools and malls and some restaurants are nasty. Let’s just say I drink less depending on where I am going. And I carry my own supplies in my purse and in our car. Hand-wipes, Kleenex, hand sanitizer. This is such a lovely country and when we travel I see people on the road side crawling down in the weeds...and some days it is me crawling into the weeds. I see entire tour buses full of tourists stop at road side toilets with one toilet which I am sure has no paper, maybe no water, and hasn’t been cleaned in heaven knows how long. To get a decent bathroom some places you must pay. So prepare yourselves if you visit...and those of you who have know what I am talking about.
School. Oh boy. Another hot topic. NK’s school is dirty. There it is. I am not even going to pretend. Earhart Elementary in Wichita was always so clean and well attended to. NK’s school here is dirty (again also the bathrooms!), the floors are dirty the walls have stuff smeared on them and they are scuffed-up, and there is usually stuff laying around, like torn paper, a random shoe in the middle of the hallway that people kick. There are broken things like door handles and lights and broken things lying on the floor along the walls (totally not ADA compliant). True to Scandinavian design they are so plain. There are few pictures or adornments. The classrooms hardly have anything except tables, chairs and white boards. The teachers have done little or no creative design. JH and I were at the school one day and as soon as class was out (they get out early frequently...what’s with that?), the teachers were gone. The kids were still there talking and getting bundled-up, but no teachers. From the time they are 6 or 7 kids get themselves off to school and home again and entertain themselves until their parents arrive home from work. Kids are expected to do it. Can you imagine in a US school to have the teachers just head-off?
The schools in Norway have the worst academic records of the Nordic countries, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and of course Norway. Norwegians have never invested as much financially into their schools as they should (my opinion) in order for the school to deliver the high quality academic programming to be as competitive as the others. Schools are feeders for the workforce. Here, there is very low unemployment and even intro-level jobs pay well (even with the high taxes). So, my theory is that Norway doesn’t fund their schools properly because they are not concerned with being competitive. They (we???) have the highest standard (questionable in my opinion) and safest quality of living in the world. Everyone who wants a job has one. Healthcare is universal. So why stress about the education system?
Norwegians don’t stress about roads either. The roads stink. They aren’t properly funded – just like the schools. Even the “major” transportation systems – the roads which should be top quality, sadly they are not. They are still narrow, crumbling, and without proper ingress and egress. The speed limits are slow due in large part to the quality (or lack thereof) of the roads. Of course there are some exceptions which would nearly rival Sweden which is known for high quality roads and civil engineering fetes.
Of course this is all cultural. Scandinavians like simple, plain design (in general) – they are known in the world of fashion and design for that clean, plan design. And, of course since Norway has historically had a very low crime rate, there are few police. People are supposed to self police (as in any society), and the trade off between lots of rules and laws, and large police departments, the society is satisfied with people policing themselves. It isn’t pretty or perfect, but it creates low stress (to them!) and it doesn’t clog-up the judicial systems and people are satisfied for the most part.
They love nature, so they don’t need lots of roads and concrete ruining it. This society is all about slow living (a movement I support), about low stress, and a lot about the individual and individual accountability. This sounds great, but in practice, I am having a hard time adapting. It is my darn, Midwestern standards and ethics kicking-in. Sure self accountability is good, but it is measured on the cultural standard whether or not there is a legal standard (law, regulation). My standards while may sounding superior are in part inferior. Maybe people in a hurry and with few items should expect others to understand when they cut in line at the super market. But, maybe it is because they spent too much time unsupervised in their developmental years, and nobody said, “Cutting in line is rude. Wait your turn.” Maybe not having high expectations for quality schools is based in wanting people from the time they are young to spend time in nature, spending time running and playing and climbing trees rather than studying the effects of oil droplets in water and the square root of a zillion.
I don’t have any answers. I can say that I am coping, and I am STILL trying to adapt...which is an improvement...a vast improvement from one or two years ago. A few years ago I would have dismembered anyone cutting in front of me in line at the supermarket much less two people in 2 minutes. Maybe I am a kinder, gentler Lonnie...satisfied with a nice home, a good job, low stress, universal healthcare and reruns of Ponderosa on TV.
