I realize as I type this post that I won’t be painting myself in the best light, but what is a blog for if to be honest?
Today I took my kids to the swimming pool. The baby had fought sleep the whole day and finally sank into an exhausted stupor in her stroller. I had planned to swim with her, but since she was asleep I wheeled my stroller out to the indoor pool to keep an eye on my boys while they swam. As I went around the corner a very indignant woman came out to tell me that I wasn’t allowed to have my stroller around the pool area. I lost my temper then. I had been out all day with my kids alone and had promised them they could swim. I wasn’t going to wake up my baby. We had a discussion which ended me of accusing the Swedes about not caring because they didn’t have lifeguards at their pools which made me have to wake up my sleeping baby to watch my boys. It was a bit irrational, but touched on something that bothers me a great deal. There are no lifeguards at public pools. The lady countered with the fact that you can sue in America. Why wasn’t I allowed to bring my stroller in? Because it had dirt on it and that was like walking with your street shoes where people walk barefooted. Eventually, the woman got some plastic shoe protectors to put on the stroller wheels (after I told my boys we were leaving) and I apologized for yelling and we parted ways.
The whole incident left me shaking my head. I’m sure I reinforced all the American stereotypes: rude, boorish, demanding, ignores rules, etc. In my defense I would like to say that there were no rules posted against strollers in the pool area.
I realized I had chosen to take my stroller in the pool area based on a couple of cultural assumptions I have made about Swedes: 1) Swedish parents take their SUV-sized strollers EVERYWHERE. (the size thing is a bit ironic when you consider Swedes like mini-size cars and consider SUV’s obscene. Funny that Americans prefer mini strollers and SUVs). 2) It is not socially acceptable to wake a sleeping infant. The nap is sacred.
But I made a miscalculation when I forgot the following important cultural rule: You never wear your shoes (or take your strollers) where people go barefoot.
I’m still left scratching my head to see why it is more dangerous to push a stroller in a pool area than not to have lifeguards at a pool. Perhaps foot fungi is more lethal than drowning?
I digress. The incident highlights clearly to me that while I have lived in Sweden for 5 years, borne children here, eaten the food, studied and learned the language, etc, I’m still not Swedish. Understanding and living by the Swedish cultural code will probably be always beyond me.
Many foreigners accuse Americans as being ignorant and intolerant. But I have to say that after living abroad for 5 years Americans are no more ignorant and intolerant than your average European. Sure Europeans may be far better at geography, but when it comes to their cultural codes and norms, they are as intolerant as the stupidest stereotypical American. Cultural codes that govern social interactions, unspoken rules at swimming pools and the like are ingrained in children until they become second nature. But I have grown up with my own cultural code and so the Swedish cultural code isn’t innate and doesn’t always make sense to me.
And now I wonder about my own cultural code. In my interactions with an acquaintance I have found myself offended time and time again, because she broke my cultural code. I need to cut her some slack.
The moral of the story? Don’t go into the public swimming pool with your stroller in Sweden. And living in a foreign country is more complex than just learning the language.
LOVE this post. Excellent points–on both counts.
I have a theory. Here it is (take it or leave it): the more we become citizens of the world, the less people “of like mind” we will find. I hope it’s not a bad thing, however it definitely leads to instances of cultural dissonance. I hate the individual instances where those differences clash..
Next (and final point): The church is not the same everywhere one goes. Everyone told me this would be the case. It’s not. And for very good reasons. There are language and cultural differences and there are indeed so many ways to be a righteous Latter-Day Saint. How could every ward be the same? It’s a fallacy that is perpetuated with harmful consequences. Ok, I’m through with this threadjack. I loved this post…
I think you are spot on with your theory, Maralise. And I definitely agree with you that the church is not the same everywhere you go. And I don’t think it should be. What’s the same is that you can partake of the sacrament or follow the same Sunday school schedule. I find it refreshing to attend a ward that doesn’t look or feel like a cliche from some badly done LDS comedy film.
Sorry one more response, Maralise. It’s in the cultural clashes that we learn things about ourselves and the culture we are encountering. Sometimes we foreigners are so timid about actually experiencing a new culture that we never make mistakes and thus never learn more in-depth about a new culture.
Sometimes we conduct ourselves well when we are confronted with differences and other times we get mad and yell at swimming pool attendants.
I’ll never forget attending a formal academic dinner party and being placed in a very different situation. At my table were seated two perfect examples of how native should and should not treat foreigners. One person at the table, who claimed to be very liberal, spent a great deal of the evening bashing immigrants and their table manners (at a table with many immigrants) while my dinner partner spent the evening explaining to me the intricacies of the toasting and the social rules of the evening. My dinner partner was a superb example of how to confront cultural conflict with education. The other was a classic example of someone who couldn’t see that Sweden’s cultural code who created further cultural conflict.
I’ve only just barely stepped foot outside the US into Canada, but I must say that I have run into such cultural clashes . . . in my own neighborhood and ward . . . and family. I think that, as you alluded, kind consideration and etiquette are the remedies.
Dear Tiffany,
I learn so much reading your blogg! I just say about your experience at the pool that the lady was rude. I recently returned from a two week trip through China and talk about rude! They shout and honk and push and grab you! I asked our guide why she would drop me at a shopping mall for two hours where young girls grab me from all sides and don’t let go thinking I will buy their wares if they keep it up. I told the guide I was a grandma and was used to being treated with respect by teenagers! I had a lovely trip and learned a lot but I would not recommend that country to anyone who wears hearing aids!