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Thursday
Aug162012

Did You Know That Marshmallows on Ice Cream Is An American Tradition?

Neither did I!

Wednesday
Aug152012

What We Saw on the Subway

Well, on the tunnelbana, techinically. Stockholmers love their dogs, and every third person seems to have one. Unlike in the US, though, the vast majority of dogs you'll see here are purebred. While I've heard of cat shelters for unwanted kittens, there just doesn't seem to be the same kind of pound system for dogs that is so ordinary in other places. A large part of the reason, I'm told, is that dogs here are really expensive (well, aren't all purebreds from reputable breeders?), and maintaining one once you've got it isn't cheap either. The goal is that only those who really want dogs will make the effort to go out and get them. I can't argue with that--the less often a dog is a snap decision, well, the less often the equal and opposite snap decision might be made.

We see them everywhere. They are definitely around outside, walking, usually with their owners but sometimes in one of those amazingly well-behaved dog-walker packs. And lots of dogs get to ride the subway, too. We once saw several huskies of varying ages (Matt started getting really excited about the baby dog, and I was being all snarky and reminding him of the word "puppy"--that is, until I shifted in my seat and saw the baby dog being held by its owner and subsequently melted), and that was the most exciting thing until recently, when we saw one of these GIANT guys:

To give some sense of scale, male Leonbergers (and that's what we saw), can get to 170 pounds, although they average 140-150, according to Wikipedia. This one was sprawled on the train car floor, and although he was being very calm and demure, he took up all the room between the facing seats and part of the aisle.

Now when we have the what-kind-of-dog-should-we-get fantasy conversation, this guy definitely makes the list. Apparently as long as you walk them a couple times a day, they'll sleep at your feet, they love people, and they don't eat cats. Once I can get Matt to commit to taking charge of the poop scooping duties--hey, I do the litterbox--I'm all in. (With apologies to owners of long haired dashhunds, those dogs are not on the list...we can't be like EVERYONE else in Ostermalm. How would we ever tell ours apart at the dog park?)

Friday
Aug032012

John Dalton on the Neverending Novel

This is one of those essays that keeps me going on those days when I'm absolutely convinced that my manuscript will never come together in any publishable form. Dalton's Heaven Lake, the story of a Christian missionary to Taiwan who undergoes some pretty severe life shifts (and a dramatic journey to China's far west), is worth a read itself. I found it back in 2005 on a Barnes and Nobel featured table, and being only a year out from my own time as an American college grad in China, reading it was like coming home to that time when I was horribly displaced from home.

As a writer, Dalton's essay is a homecoming of a different sort. It's comforting, as I finish out year six of writing my own book over and over, to know that someone else has been in this situation, that there might actually be something beyond the limited view of the horizon that I have now. 

Particularly apt: 

"Acquaintances are often startled when I tell them it took eight years to write my first novel. Writers barely lift an eyebrow. Some beginning authors write two or three books before they’re able to publish. Others, like myself, write the same book over and over."

Read Dalton's essay for yourself--it's worth the time.

Friday
Aug032012

"Lacking Vital Elements"

I'm really enjoying watching the Chinese press react to the London Olympics. (Watching secondhand, it must be said: I'm functionally illiterate in that country.) While I can't claim to totally get either culture, being an English major who's lived in China does give me a bit more insight than each has about the other. And this New Yorker article captures a very Chinese sense of bafflement at, as Evan Osnos puts it, the fact that "...anyone is bothering to try hosting the Games again," much less, you know, putting hospital beds and sheep into their opening ceremony.

Check it out. 

Thursday
Aug022012

A Swedish Cheferizor?

One thing I've discovered since moving to Stockholm is that this guy actually mimics the funnier parts of the Swedish language pretty accurately! (Also, yes, everyone here is aware of him, and actually pretty proud.) I think I need to spend a little bit more time studying exactly how the Swedish Chef does it, because it's amazing to me how quickly I can get an accent stuck in my head these days. Two episodes of True Blood and I have to stop myself from slipping into the Louisiana rhythms that Anna Paquin does so well, at least to my Yankee ear. I can manage, most of the time, to keep it from my voice, but my thoughts for the next hour or so are as twanging as they come.

When I lived in China, I lost my ability to spell, something I can only attribute to the lack of letters. Mandarin, despite what the BBC may have said during the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony broadcast, does not have an alphabet of any sort, and the pictographs sucked the phonics right out of me. Here in Stockholm, I wonder if the reason I'm so susceptible to an American English accent that differs from my own in pronunciation, granted, but mostly in rhythm, has to do with Swedish itself. 

Kiruna is a place in the far north of the country. It's well-known here, if only because there are so few places up there with any significant amount of people. If you read this word out loud, however, and you are not Swedish (or Danish or Norwegian, but I digress), odds are a Swedish person would have no idea where you were talking about. The problem wouldn't be the way you said the consonants or vowels, however. No tricks like that in that word, unlike some others. The problem would be the emphasis. To an American, Ki-RU-na would be a perfectly reasonable rendition. Not so much in Swedish: say KI-RU-NA, hitting each syllable as hard as you can, and Swedish eyes will light up in recognition and relief, grateful that they don't have to deal with the embarrassment of talking to a idiot and appearing impolite. They're really not big on embarrassment here.

So, as is probably clear, I've been spending a lot of time listening to the rhythm of this language and keeping my mind and ears open to those nuances. It's not really surprising, then, that I'd accidentally pick up on a few others. It's something that is distinctly harder for me to manage than accurate Chinese tones. (I may be one of the few people in the world who is like this, I'm well aware.) Next experiment: start speaking the Swedish I do know while doing my best Sookie Stackhouse imitation. It might actually get me closer.