February 6, 2024 • 42 mins
Nordic society seems to be governed by a set of unspoken rules on how to behave around others. These rules or "laws" were first articulated by the Danish author, Aksel Sandemose in a novel that described life in a fictional town called Jante, ruled by a set of ten laws. The laws dictated that no one was to be boastful, to think they are more special than anyone else, not to imagine themselves as better than anyone else. They were known as Janteloven, or the Laws of Jante.
Sound familiar? Have any relatives that strictly mind their own business, don't gossip, and don't bother anyone else while passing on the street? If Nordic people all behave this way (and they don't), how does that affect society innovation and initiative, especially in business?
One person who has thought about Nordic society is Fiona McKinna, an immigrant from England who produces the podcast and blog, Living a Nordic Life. Join us as we talk about the ramifications of Janteloven, delve into Nordic sociology, and about the way people behave in Nordic countries today. Special thanks to her for sharing her perspectives.
LINKSA nice summary of Jante's Laws, including a list of all 10. From the Scandinavian Standard, Feb. 2023.
Fiona McKinna's Living a Nordic Life website contains a plethora of delights, from the podcast to recipes, blog, ecourses, with associated Facebook group (for which you need to sign up).
Paul Anderson, a Lutheran pastor ("Lutheran Renewal"), wrote an essay called Breaking the Stronghold of Jante that I found interesting. I'm not explicitly supporting nor disagreeing with his ideas, but I found his perspecitve from "inside" the Lutheran church interesting.
The Knitting Cruise from Kragerø among the islands of the SE Norwegian Coast (Telemark), mentioned by Fiona. They advertise that you can "enjoy the view of the beautiful archipelago, knit and have a good time".
M. Michael Brady wrote a short article, Rules that Restrain, in the November 2018 issue of the Norwegian American. If you are blocked from viewing the article, you may be encouraged to subscribe to the paper (both paper and digital versions) at very reasonable prices, in my opinion: $70/year for the print + digital subscription, or $30/year for digital/online only. The Norwegian American has articles about all of the Nordic countries (not just Norway) as well as Scandinavians abroad. Full disclosure: I am a contributing author for the Norwegian American.
If you're so inclined, a translation of Sandemose's A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks (Internet Archive, open source) can be read online. I've heard it described as bitter and unhappy. Oddly, there's a Forward ("A Note") by Sigrid Undset at the beginning which is rather sobering about how far reaching Jante's Laws are. She is an author I respect (e.g. Kristin Lavransdatter), and she was very keen on observing how society works.
A plaque of Aksel Sandemose and his 10 Janteloven (above), based on his book A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks (En flyktning krysser sitt spor), 1933. The plaque is displayed in the Danish town of Nykøbing Mors where Sandemose grew up, upon which he modeled his fictional town of Jante. Rather ominous to have these ten laws posted right there in the the town....unless
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Nå er det tid for nordisk på trykk.
Welcome to our podcast featuringinterviews, music, folktales, and lots
(00:24):
of hygge, all with a Nordic flavor.
I'm your host, Eric Stavney.
(00:44):
The host, blogger, producer.
Program manager of living a Nordic life.
It's, we'll start with awebsite, but it's got a lot to it.
It's got blog posts.
It's got articles.
It has eBooks, has courses, which Inow understand are video courses to
some extent, recipes and podcasts.
(01:07):
What I read was you aim to inspireand encourage people to live a
simple, cozy, cozy way of living.
And, and all that, thosekinds of good things.
And I noticed that you offer a lot of.
Tips on celebrating traditions, of course,food, times of year, how to garden, how to
(01:31):
celebrate, which is not exactly consistentwith the antelope, but that's okay.
I saw you wrote for, and I'm sure you havea bunch of other things that you wrote for
a woman's news and media called she knows.
I did.
Yes.
That was a long time ago though.
Yeah.
Another career.
That kind of got me started.
Yeah.
I saw you in the blogging.
(01:52):
And certainly writing, I've reallyenjoyed it, and I wrote a few
articles for them that reallyplanted the seed, I suppose, of this.
And then I discovered that I had anaudience of people who really wanted
to know about their Nordic heritage, orthey wanted to know a little bit more
about hygge, and they perhaps read thelittle book of hygge, and they wanted to
(02:14):
explore a little bit more, they wantedto go into it in more depth, and do
that wherever they were in the world.
And I always maintain that, thatthey don't have to be In the
Nordics or in Scandinavia, you canembrace this life wherever you are.
Just a little bit ofguidance and some enthusiasm.
Well, you've certainly got that.
In fact, looking at all thethings that you crank out every
(02:36):
month just makes me tired.
I don't know how you do it.
Anyway, I was attracted to yourpodcast, that one particular episode
on Janteloven, and we'll get to thatat the end, I'll give you a chance to
kind of describe your, your side again,and what you offer and how people
can get on and listen and see you.
(02:56):
But you told a little bit aboutyour origin story, the why of why
you do living a Nordic life, butanything about your, your past.
As an event planner, anything about yourfamily you want to share your health,
you want to share, anything like that?
Well, I met my partner Andre,who's Norwegian in 2007, and we
(03:22):
lived between Norway and England.
I'm from southwest England from Dorsett,which is very, very different to Southern
Norway, which is where we live now.
It's much warmer.
And very gentle, rolling hills, and wehave no snow at all, ever, maybe, you
know, half a centimetre every ten years.
(03:43):
And subtropical plants, and it'salmost the complete opposite.
But we lived between one place andanother, and then after having two
children, we decided that we reallywanted to give them a chance to learn
more about their Nordic heritage.
So, we moved here, we already hada house here in South Norway, and
(04:06):
we moved the whole family here,and decided that we would live here
for a bit and see how things went.
That was 2016.
And while we were doing that, I had afeeling that I wanted to embrace more
Nordic living, because we were tryingvery hard to combine these two cultures.
(04:27):
Which can be quite different.
Although you think really that,you know, probably an English
culture and the Scandinavianculture would be very similar.
They're really not.
And when you start delving a littlebit deeply, you realize that, you know,
there's quite a culture difference.
And I started my blog because I wanted towrite and share recipes initially because
I thought this is quite a lot of fun.
(04:49):
And it became quite popular and Idiscovered that I had A little bit
of a following, but also there werea lot of people who really wanted
to know about their Nordic heritageand learn about Nordic recipes.
And maybe they were perhaps second orthird generation Scandinavians living
in America mostly, I have to say.
(05:09):
Though I do have a lot ofGermans, Australians, English
people reading the blog.
But they'd lost touch withit a little bit, you know,
maybe their grandma had died.
And not passed everything on, andthey wanted to learn more about it.
And some of them also wanted toimprove their quality of life.
You know, we're living in a time,and we have been for the last few
years, that feels pressured, rushed,and maybe a little bit commercial,
(05:37):
and people really wanted to go backto kind of easy, cozy lifestyle.
where you can intentionally slow down.
And it was a nice thingto be able to share.
And so I was sharing recipes and thenI thought I'll show a few lifestyle
tips and it just expanded from there.
(06:01):
And I had the idea inMay to start a podcast.
Because I thought it wouldgive me a chance to talk to
people a little bit more.
The, the blog is great.
Um, I write from me andit's very authentic.
I don't ask anybody else towrite, I do everything myself.
And I really like to make itfeel like I'm talking to people.
But the podcast gives me a chanceto really chat a little bit more.
(06:23):
And be a little bit more personal and adda few of my own opinions, if you like.
I'm always giving my own opinion onthings and make it a little less formal.
So you started looking at Nordic Livingyourself, partly to fit in, partly to
celebrate and show your kids this duality.
(06:45):
And then you said you thought youhad something to offer people in the
rest of the world who were reallyinterested in that kind of thing.
Yeah, and wherever they are in the world,as well as something that I've always
maintained from the beginning, thatyou don't have to live in the Nordics,
you don't have to have Nordic heritage.
You don't even have to know anythingabout it, really, to be able to
embrace these lifestyle principles.
(07:05):
Right.
This idea of slowing down, being a littlemore sustainable, you know, respecting
those around us, all these things thatyou think of when you think of the
Nordics and the people who live here.
Yeah.
And as we've done it as well, we've,we've found ourselves slowing down
even more, and if we grow a lot ofour own fruits and vegetables, In
(07:27):
our garden, we have chickens as well.
We don't use any chemicals on the garden.
That's not intentional, actually.
That was a bit of a kind of happyaccident, I have to say, that
we've become kind of organic.
We compost everything.
We recycle everything.
That's a bit of a thing here in, inNorway anyway, most people recycle.
(07:48):
It's really encouraged.
I do a lot of foraging.
And again, that's something that isvery Nordic and it's very easy to
embrace here because everybody does it.
It's not something that'sconsidered slightly odd, you know,
you're picking dandelions to eat.
You know, everybody'sout there doing that.
So, yeah, all of these things that weembraced ourselves and embraced with even
(08:09):
more gusto, because I used to forage inEngland, but not quite as much as here.
And my life was fairly sustainable,but it's a lot more sustainable here.
It's nice to be able to share these thingsand how we've done them, and encourage
other people to do the same thing.
That's neat.
I like that.
That's the feeling I got whenI first discovered your site.
(08:30):
Yeah.
So let's, if I may, change gears a littlebit and talk about this one podcast.
So I came to this.
I know I have a couple of Norwegianfriends who, one of them's in a band.
And if you ask them, Oh,so you play the violin?
They might say, you know, lite grand.
I know a few songs.
(08:51):
We don't.
Show ourselves because of, you know,Janteloven, and I said, what's that?
I'd never heard of it, but I have seen it.
So in my family, father and, andhis parents, grandparents, it's
about third generation from Norway,a very stoic kind of attitude.
(09:13):
Downplaying things.
Accepting your lot in life.
Not boastful, of course.
In fact, if you do excel andboast, you are shamed in some way.
I've read and seen in Bergen andin Oslo, Norwegians don't go out
of their way to talk to strangers.
(09:34):
It's very true.
I found that very hard when I firstmoved here because coming from what
was a very friendly little seaside townwhere there were a lot of tourists.
If you went out and there weren't manypeople about, if it was locals mostly,
everybody would say hello to you.
In the street.
And then when I came here, I rememberwalking out in the village that
(09:54):
we live in on one occasion andsaying good morning to somebody.
Oh my goodness, they looked at melike I, you know, like I was a nutter.
Didn't reply.
And I was like, oh my goodness me,have I, have I said something wrong?
You know, what have I done?
But no, people don't.
There are quite.
Strict, unspoken laws about howyou make friends and whether you
(10:18):
talk to people in the street.
I see.
If you're hiking, then that's great.
Everybody talks to everybodyelse if you're hiking or
doing some kind of activity.
But if you just pass somebody in thestreet, you wouldn't normally say
good morning unless you know them.
Right.
And do you feel that's trying not todisturb someone else with your issues?
(10:40):
Okay.
Just giving them a little bit of space.
And again, that's something thatis rather nice, I think, in some
respects, especially if you'rea bit of an introvert, you kind
of want to be given your space.
And everybody certainly doesgive each other space here.
You see that on the bus, for example.
You know, if there's, if you'resitting on the bus and there's a
seat next to you and it's empty,nobody will come and sit there.
(11:03):
They're going to chooseanother seat somewhere else.
I've heard that Greta Thunberg hassaid that she is happy for this way
of life in Sweden because she goesout in public and she's left alone.
People don't go, Oh,you're Greta Thunberg.
She just is left alone.
She appreciates that.
So the upper Midwest, the UnitedStates, where there was a lot of
(11:24):
Norwegians and Swedes that settled.
Right.
Has what's been called Protestantwork ethic, but what goes with
it and with Lutheranism to someextent is a lot of these things.
We're going to talk about.
We'll talk about where the thing camefrom, but I think we'll agree that.
These kinds of unspoken things werein existence far before Sondheim.
(11:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know in folklore, if a farmeror whomever is doing very well and
becomes wealthy, the assumption ishe's made a deal with the devil.
He's going to get to havesuccess, but he sold his soul.
(12:08):
He is capitalizing on other people.
He is finding loopholes inthe rules, things like that.
It was interesting.
I know with a full Sagram under thewaterfall, you could play violin.
The statue in Bergen, he was obviouslyone of the best violinists in the world.
(12:28):
And where did he learn that?
From a non godly creaturelike the Fossegrim.
Finally, I guess something I'veseen, I have a degree in Norwegian.
It doesn't show, but Ihave a degree in Norwegian.
One of the things we talked aboutwas something called, and this
was the religious side, somethingcalled the unforgivable sin.
(12:49):
There are a lot of things you cando wrong, but the unforgivable
sin was the sin against theHoly Ghost, which means pride.
Being proud is not okay.
So maybe you can talk about where thismodern concept of Janteloven came from.
Well, it came from a Danish Norwegianauthor called Axel Sandmoza.
(13:16):
And he wrote a series of novels.
He had quite a hard life, actually.
He travelled about a bit, andhe experienced quite a lot of
violence and unpleasantness.
But he, once he settled down, he wrotea series of novels, and one of them is
called A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks.
And it's about a man in a towncalled Janta, which is a fictional
(13:41):
town, supposed to be in Denmark.
But it's said that he based iton his hometown, Sandermølle.
And he kills somebody, this character.
And he has to flee across the country.
And in the process of doing that, helearns that he's a little bit different.
But he's, has this pursuitof his goals and his dreams.
(14:03):
And it comes into conflict witheverything that he has learned growing
up in Janta, which is really aboutkeeping the population under control.
And there are 10 rules to Janta's law.
And then there's one kind of unspokenrule, which I think actually in
(14:24):
modern Norwegian life is probablythe one that is the most obvious.
But they are all about not thinkingthat you're better than anybody else,
not thinking that you're clevererthan anybody else, not laughing
at anybody, not thinking that youknow any more than anyone else.
It's really basically all about modestyand thinking that everybody is equal
(14:50):
and that you are no better or no morespecial than anyone else around you.
And there are 10 laws.
And the 11th one is.
Don't think that we don't know somethingabout you, which is probably the most
worrying one right idea that somebodysomewhere, you know, the authority knows
(15:12):
something about you that you don't knowthat they know about you, which gives
you that kind of feeling of unease allthe time, or it could give you that
feeling of unease and would certainly ifyou lived in Yanta would stop you from
doing anything that you shouldn't do.
Yes, because you'd be worried thatthey would know something about you.
These laws, although the book was writtenin 1933, I think that they must have been
(15:37):
something that for at least a couple ofhundred years before was ingrained into
Nordic culture and the Nordic way of life.
Because, you know, Sundar Musa didn'tjust come up with this out of thin air,
you know, he drew on the novels that hewrote, he drew on his life experiences.
So it would have been somethingthat he felt quite strongly about.
(15:58):
But Since then, it's become a partof Nordic culture and unwritten laws
that really governs society and theway people behave towards each other.
In some ways, very positive because it'sthe cornerstone really of Nordic equality,
(16:19):
which is so important here, you know,it's really valued, making sure that
everybody looks after everybody else.
If you're not doing well, then wewill look after you and if you are
doing well, then it's your duty tohelp other people so that everybody
is raised up, everybody's equal,but also it stops you from bragging
(16:43):
too much, like you were saying.
And I found that quite hard when we firstmoved here, actually, because I was used
to being able to talk about successes.
And things that you'd achieved andespecially working in, I worked in the
event industry and it was quite hardat times, you know, a lot of work.
(17:07):
And in order to get ahead andgain new clients, you wanted to
talk about what you've done and,you know, brag a little bit.
And you really don't do that here.
And the times when I did do that,not necessarily bragging, but, you
know, discussing what you've done,it was not necessarily put down.
But.
(17:27):
maybe not answered.
So it's this kind of silence,and then the subject changed.
So you just don't do it, really.
It's different when you're talking aboutother people, though, funnily enough,
you know, you can say, you know, mypartner's done this, or my kids have
done this, or my friend has done that.
And that's very different.
That's viewed in a verydifferent way, because you're
not bragging about yourself.
(17:47):
You're talking about somebody else.
Very subtle.
But yes, Yanta's Law is somethingthat has an awful lot of positives.
Because like I said, it, it governsequality and it doesn't matter who you
are or where you're from or what yourbackground is, you are equal to everybody
(18:08):
else and everybody has the same rights.
So although I don't have Norwegiancitizenship, you know, I have the
same rights as everybody else.
And my partner and I are not married,we live together, but we have exactly
the same rights as a married couple.
And these things are really important.
And that's some of the positive aspectsof it, respecting one another as
(18:28):
well, that's another one, regardlessof who you are, you could be the
king, or you could be somebody who'semptying the bins, but everybody
deserves the same amount of respect.
And it's a very informal respect as well.
There's no burying and scraping thatyou might be used to if you're British,
for example, with the royal family.
(18:50):
Yes.
You know, we're very, there's a lot ofdeference, whereas here it's much more
informal and everybody has an equalfooting, which is a lovely thing to feel.
So it definitely has a positive side.
That's for sure.
It does have positives.
Yeah.
But it also has a few negatives, andthat is that you can't brag about things.
(19:12):
And I think the thingthat I noticed the most.
It is the unwritten eleventh law.
It could be something quite petty.
We can't mow the lawn oruse any mechanical things
at the weekend on Sunday.
Oh my gosh.
So yeah, no, no lawn mowing becauseit's church hours, which I'm sorry
(19:33):
to say, but people really don'tgo to church very often here.
No.
So no using a chainsaw oranything noisy at the weekend.
But if you do, people arequite happy to tell the police.
And you get a phone call.
It's a polite phone call, I have to say.
Oh my god.
But it's, yeah, it kindof falls into that.
Why do you think you're anything special?
(19:54):
If you're not, don't use your lawnmower.
You should use your lawnmower onthe same day as everybody else.
And you do know something about me.
I think, I can't remember if I wastelling you actually, a while ago, about
the laws governing our tax as well.
And the visibility of it.
(20:15):
And I feel again that I'm sure alot of students would agree with
me as well that that falls againinto Yanta's law, that you can't
keep anything too much to yourself.
So if you're showing that you have a lotof money or you're doing particularly
well, then people can easily go onlineand search your tax records because
everything like that is public.
(20:36):
So you are no more special than anybodyelse, you know, we can see what you're
doing and you can see what we're doing.
So that keeps everybodyon an equal footing.
And finding people's addressesand phone numbers and emails
that just right out there.
Yeah, absolutely.
Everybody, even, even children,which I don't agree with.
(20:58):
It's a little scary.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's maybe a little naive,but it's, again, falls into that,
you're not particularly special.
So I've been reading that to someextent these days there is a Backlash
against Janteloven in, in some sectors,there was a politician, supposedly this
(21:19):
person said, look, we're in a recession.
These laws are stiflingNorwegian initiative.
Just not, you know, andwe need that to pull out.
So apparently this person.
Yanked out a copy of the Jantelovenand read them and then tore it up.
Another person, Gro Harlem Brundtland,the Jibber minister of Norway during
(21:42):
the 1994 Olympics or afterwards,she's famous for saying, it's
typically Norwegian to be good.
And talk about what's good.
Accomplished, almost the best, whichis really different from Janteloven.
Right.
Absolutely.
And somehow that's okay for sportsfigures and things like that.
Sounds like that is a pushback.
(22:04):
I think to some extent, yeah, but Ithink when also there are generations
that are still alive who really docling to it and like us to be living
this A4 life, everything in Norway is.
You know, there's lots of thingshere that are, that are great,
but not everything is the best.
There's no need to look anyfurther or go any further, and
(22:26):
y often keeps you within that.
But I think the younger generation andcertainly my children's generation, you
know, they're teenagers, uh, definitelybucking against that and I'm not sure
they even really know that much about it.
Mm-Hmm.
, although we do see it a little bit,I'm gonna stick my neck out here.
We see it a little bitfrom some of the teachers.
(22:48):
There's an idea.
It's not all of them, I have to say,but because work for the children
is very much differentiated.
It's very much about the individual.
So if, within a class, if one is doingparticularly well at a subject and some
are not, they won't all get the same work.
They get different work, so someof them are challenged, and some of
(23:09):
them are helped, but there certainlyis a group that thinks that they
will all rise to the same level.
You know, everybody's equal.
They're no better than anybody else.
We don't need to do anything.
You know, they can all be taughtto the same level, and they
will all get to the same level.
And as we know, that's not true.
How do you explain peoplelike Einstein and Mary Curie?
You know, it simply isn't a fact.
(23:32):
But it's, yes, it's a certain generationwho have been brought up with it.
and their parents and theirgrandparents and I think
that's difficult to get rid of.
Those that are younger are steeringaway from it, and probably just a
natural steering away from it as well.
At some point it'll just become ever more.
(23:53):
Diffused and ever more diluted andparticularly when you have an influx
of immigrants like me, for example,you know, because I am an immigrant,
you know, bringing my culture andintegrating it into Norwegian culture
and being embraced and everybody's equal.
(24:13):
So everybody is allowed tohave their own culture and.
Use it as you want, and it'll dilute it.
And eventually, you know, in probablyseveral generations, people maybe have
even forgotten what Janta's law is.
It's a very multiculturalsociety, and very secular as well.
Although the Norwegian church has someinfluence, it has no political influence.
(24:40):
And there are so many differentcultures and different religions here.
So everybody is embraced.
I mean, I wouldn't say that we would seethe country particularly as Christian.
I mean, I guess you might do looking infrom the outside, but I mean, we're so
used to there being so many differentreligions and everybody being accepted.
(25:02):
I know my kindergarten teacherfriend in Oslo has talked about their
intentionally, they all celebrate Ramadan.
They all celebrate Christmas.
They all celebrate Whether Rosh Hashanahor Yom Kippur and, and it's, it's yeah,
very rich that way, which is wonderful.
I think it is.
(25:23):
Yeah, we really like it.
We don't want them to lose that.
I think most people would feel likethis as well, that we don't want them to
lose the celebrations that are part of.
that Norwegian history and culture,which would be some of the Christian
religions, but mixed in withan awful lot of pagan religion.
You'd be surprised how many Christianfestivals that are celebrated
(25:44):
here actually have pagan rootsand been combined at some point.
We wouldn't want them to lose that, butwe also want them to be able to celebrate.
The other children in the class too,if you do have children, I mean, my
daughter's kindergarten, I don't thinkthere's any that aren't either, you
know, non practicing Christians orChristians, I think they're pretty much
(26:05):
all are, but we want them to be ableto celebrate other religions as well.
And particularly if those childrenare there in the class, it's
nice for them to feel inclusive.
There's a surprising number ofChildren, um, certainly in our
area whose grandparents or parentsare either Sámi or part Sámi.
I know the Oslo Folk Museum hasvery intentionally set aside a
(26:28):
part of the museum for a Sámivillage and things of that nature.
Yes, they've got a kind of standard fixedexhibition of Sámi toys and Sámi costumes
and all kinds of wonderful things.
They also had stated that there'san agreement that all these things
(26:50):
that they are showing go back tothe North because of that history of
people taking all the drums and allthe other types of Sami things taken
away from them to assimilate them.
There was a sustainedeffort until about the 50s.
(27:10):
to make the Sami Norwegian, if you like,force them to learn to speak Norwegian and
actively remove their culture, which wasterrible, but it's very safely guarded now
and They even have their own parliament.
We see a lot of that during elections,actually, because we have Sámi
TV, obviously, and we see a lot oftheir, the Sámi elections, and it's
(27:33):
very interesting to see in here.
You're listening to the Nordicon Tap podcast, Nordic Society
and Janteloven, in which we lookat the effects of the unwritten
Janta's laws on people's behavior.
I'm Eric Stavny.
I want to thank you, my listeners,for ongoing support, especially
Lori Ann, Seth, Paul, Eric B., Tom,Ruthie, and my youngest fan, Matthias.
(28:00):
Thanks to those of you who wrote commentsin the leave a reply field on the website.
I encourage you all to do that.
It's at nordicontap.
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(28:23):
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(28:47):
And thank you for doing so.
Now, back to the podcast.
So, what is longum?
Lagom and also you've mentioned hygge.
Do you want to explain those two things?
Hygge is a Danish philosophy,actually, and it is absolutely huge.
(29:07):
In fact, we laugh a little bit thatit's maybe a little bit bigger outside
of Denmark than it is in Denmark.
It's really a kind ofvery natural part of life.
There.
And here as well.
It's enjoying all the little things,the simple things, the everyday things,
(29:28):
and really making the most of them.
Something that I've builtmy philosophy on as well.
But making the most of things likeyour favourite cup of coffee in the
morning, or a beautiful view, or acandle, or just that moment of silence
in the car on the way to work, orgetting outside for some fresh air.
(29:48):
It's a cosiness.
an everyday coziness.
Lagom is a Swedish philosophyand it's All about just enough.
So I guess it kind of falls intothe same bracket as we've got.
It's enough of everything, nottoo much and not too little.
(30:10):
So just the right amount, whichI guess we're all trying to
embrace a little bit, aren't we?
Yes.
Not too much of anything, reallynot too much stress, but maybe
not too much excess as well.
So you just have that perfect balance.
Rampant consumerism.
I have to cut back on my Amazon account.
Oh, have you?
We're barely on it, I have to say.
(30:31):
You can't really get thingsdelivered here on Amazon.
Oh, it's crazy.
I bought a lot of tax.
I have to go out of my way to find otherEither vendors online or like, you know,
get in the car, go down the street tothat little hobby shop and, and buy
the yarn, you know, or buy the fabric.
(30:52):
First of all, you get to touch it, right?
But you have a social interactionwith somebody too, right?
You get to support somebody locally.
Maybe they're making crafts as well.
Keep that alive.
And that's somethingthat you see here a lot.
People really cherish those handmade.
Items where people are keepinga craft alive on your program.
(31:16):
I know you have a thing on foldingheart shaped things for the
Christmas tree and weaving them.
We tried those actually.
Yes, we tried making those this year.
I've never made them because it'snot part of my culture, but I said
to Andrea, my partner, wouldn'tthat be fun to actually do that?
Should we give it a go?
And he said, Oh, I'm sure I could do that.
I haven't done it since I was aboutsix at school, but I'll have a go.
(31:38):
But Oh my goodness, I was all thumbs.
So, we, yeah, we've given that, we'vegiven that a bit of a miss, but I don't
knit, my daughter knits, but knitting issomething that you just can't avoid here.
We have this little ferry that goesfrom a town called Craggara, which is
just a bit south of us, halfway betweenus and Christie and Sandra, really.
And it goes between all theselittle islands, but in the wind,
(32:02):
on one particular day, I think theymight do it a couple of days, but
they have a knitting cruise, andyou just book your normal trip.
And you take your knitting and sit intheir cafe with all the other knitters
and knit while it sails around.
And is there any instructionor sharing of patterns?
I guess they must do.
Yeah.
I think probably when they startsitting and chatting, it's probably
(32:24):
looking at what everybody else isdoing and making new friends as well.
In that organized activitythat's so popular here.
It's a popular way to make friends isyou go and do an organized activity
and then you make friends within that.
And those friends stay within thatactivity, you wouldn't necessarily invite
your knitting friends, your cabin friends.
(32:47):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
The question here is, is what doesit mean to belong to something?
And is that an essential humandesire or it's part of being human?
And, and a lot of people assert thatit is, and I believe that it is.
So membership in churches, I justwas working with the Lutheran church
this last year that had to close.
(33:08):
The point is.
Supposedly young people say, youknow, I don't want to go to church.
I don't want to join the church.
They say this is what you should do,but that, that isn't what I believe.
They have these beliefs about LBTQpeople that I don't agree with, things
of that nature, fraternal orders.
So sons of Norway, to which I belong,there's a number of orders and clubs,
(33:34):
depending on what you're interested in.
Those have seen a huge drop.
In membership and a lot of them are reallystruggling and so I've asked my kids.
How do you belong to anything if peopledon't go to church, which in the past
has been people's entire lives sometimes.
And I said, well, we have meetups.
(33:55):
Occasionally we do a lot of gaming online,but dad, we, we just don't need it.
Are you serious?
No, it's, it's fine.
I don't know what to do with that, but.
But I had an interesting conversationalong those lines, actually, with
my son's teacher a few weeks ago.
(34:16):
She said that our generation reallyhas to re look at friendships.
Because, you know, a lot of thekids seem to be spending an awful
lot of time online, but that'sbecause their friendships are there.
And their friendship groupsand the people that they, you
know, their tribe, if you like.
And friendships don't all have tobe face to face and interaction
(34:38):
doesn't all have to be face to face.
Maybe that's my, that's my problemis online or what we're doing
right now to me is part of work.
And when I'm done with work, I don'twant to come home and turn on the
computer and do a bunch of typing.
Um, because that's, that'slike, that's not, but it is,
(35:00):
you know, for a lot of folks.
It is.
I mean, I feel like maids.
A lot of friends since starting myblog, actually, a lot of friends
online, who I probably won'tever see face to face in person.
Sure.
But those friendships are noless important to me than,
than the face to face ones.
(35:21):
You know, they're just as important.
And they're people who I talk toalmost every day, sometimes every day.
And we need to look at things maybeslightly differently, you know, not the
way that we've always looked at them.
I think there's space for,for both types of friendships.
(35:41):
Very good.
Well, I'm going to have to bookseveral more shows with you so much.
Actually, I'll be a bitmore relaxed next time.
Yeah, so, you know, and thereason, of course, folks, that I've
asked to talk to you is I thinkthat we, our audiences overlap.
I think that.
And a lot of my listeners are veryinterested in Nordic type living.
(36:04):
And so I'll go ahead and let you do acommercial if you like, so people can
know how to read your stuff, where to hearyour podcasts, also Vidra and so forth.
Yeah, that's great.
Thank you.
Well, you can find meat livinganordiclife.
(36:25):
com, where my blog lives, and alsoyou can navigate there to my podcast.
And my podcast is called Living aNordic Life with Fiona McKenna, but
you'll find that on Spotify, Google,Apple, all the major podcast platforms.
Right.
And if you want to join mycommunity, which I would love.
(36:48):
Then you can also find my Facebook group.
Which is living a Nordic life wherever youare, and I would be delighted if you want
to come over and join us there and joinin the discussion about all things Nordic
and simple, cozy, intentional living.
(37:09):
I like that.
So you don't necessarily have tosign up for the VIP status to get it.
Certainly do not.
I have an awful lot of blog postsactually that are within my Free
section, if you like, 150 or so at least.
And I post a blog post ora podcast every Friday.
(37:29):
So there's always something to read.
But if anybody wants to delve justa little bit deeper, or it's not
enough to read and you want somethinglike an online magazine, then I'm
adding to the blog every week.
So there are, I think I'mdoing 11 articles a month.
(37:51):
But I have so much tosay and so much to share.
I was going to say, well,aren't you running out of ideas?
I mean, but obviously not.
I've always got a long list.
And also I listen to what peopleare saying and if they say they
want to learn about something, thenI share what I know about that.
(38:11):
So I'm trying to, you know, keep my fingeron the puzzle a little bit, which is where
the Facebook group is great because peopledo like to chat and it's a really nice.
Fun, safe, engagingplace for people to go.
There's never any nastiness.
We've got nearly 11, 000 people in there.
And there has, we've hadmaybe a couple of incidents.
(38:33):
It's been going for three years.
We've had maybe a couple of timeswhen people have been a little
unpleasant, but they get booted out.
Because we don't tolerate any of that.
You know, that's not,that's not the attitude.
We want everybody to feel welcomed.
Um, free to say whatever theylike, you know, no trolls,
(38:54):
it's always engaging and always fun.
I do love it.
Well, thank you so much.
Talking about Jantelovenand everything else.
Thank you.
Don't forget to check out theshow notes for more information
and extras from this episode.
Depending on what app you're usingto listen to the podcast, you should
be able to find the show notesby looking for a button or a link
(39:17):
labeled show notes or episode notes.
And if you're using Apple podcastsor Google podcasts, you can simply
scroll down while listening to anepisode and the show notes should be
there for other apps like Spotify,overcasts, pocket casts, pot bean.
You may need to tap a buttonor a link to access the notes.
(39:39):
And if you're having troublefinding the show notes.
Don't hesitate to reach out via ourwebsite or, or write to me at nordicontap.
com or leave a message on our Facebookpage and we'll be happy to help you out.
And if you appreciate and want tosupport the show, click that buy
me a coffee button to help us out.
Of course, Nordic on Tap will continue tobe and will always be free to listen to.
(40:08):
For some good Nordic music tobrighten your day, I recommend getting
online with the ScandinavianHour.
org.
6 a.
m.
Saturdays and Sundays, and again at 9 a.
m.
on Saturdays, streamingto you on Pacific Time.
And as you may know, streaming programsare delivered to you live, as it
(40:30):
were, so you don't want to miss it.
As soon as the show's over, youcan't go back and hear it again.
My friend, Seth Tufteland, at theScandinavian Hour, spins a huge variety
of songs, mostly in some Nordic language,occasionally English or other, from jazz
to pop to dance songs, fiddle tunes,choral numbers, marching band music.
(40:52):
It's all there.
Our intro music is InglisWaltz, played by composer Morten
Alfred Heurup at MortenAlfred.
com and Ruthie Dornfeld.
They both have websites, as doesthe composer and performer of our
outgoing music, Daryl Jackson.
He's at DarylJacksonMusic,all one word, dot com.
(41:15):
I'm Eric Stavney, and I'll seeyou next time on Nordic Untapped.
Bye!
Nå er det tid for nordisk på trykk.
Welcome to our podcast featuringinterviews, music, folktales, and lots
(00:24):
of hygge, all with a Nordic flavor.
I'm your host, Eric Stavney.
(00:44):
The host, blogger, producer.
Program manager of living a Nordic life.
It's, we'll start with awebsite, but it's got a lot to it.
It's got blog posts.
It's got articles.
It has eBooks, has courses, which Inow understand are video courses to
some extent, recipes and podcasts.
(01:07):
What I read was you aim to inspireand encourage people to live a
simple, cozy, cozy way of living.
And, and all that, thosekinds of good things.
And I noticed that you offer a lot of.
Tips on celebrating traditions, of course,food, times of year, how to garden, how to
(01:31):
celebrate, which is not exactly consistentwith the antelope, but that's okay.
I saw you wrote for, and I'm sure you havea bunch of other things that you wrote for
a woman's news and media called she knows.
I did.
Yes.
That was a long time ago though.
Yeah.
Another career.
That kind of got me started.
Yeah.
I saw you in the blogging.
(01:52):
And certainly writing, I've reallyenjoyed it, and I wrote a few
articles for them that reallyplanted the seed, I suppose, of this.
And then I discovered that I had anaudience of people who really wanted
to know about their Nordic heritage, orthey wanted to know a little bit more
about hygge, and they perhaps read thelittle book of hygge, and they wanted to
(02:14):
explore a little bit more, they wantedto go into it in more depth, and do
that wherever they were in the world.
And I always maintain that, thatthey don't have to be In the
Nordics or in Scandinavia, you canembrace this life wherever you are.
Just a little bit ofguidance and some enthusiasm.
Well, you've certainly got that.
In fact, looking at all thethings that you crank out every
(02:36):
month just makes me tired.
I don't know how you do it.
Anyway, I was attracted to yourpodcast, that one particular episode
on Janteloven, and we'll get to thatat the end, I'll give you a chance to
kind of describe your, your side again,and what you offer and how people
can get on and listen and see you.
(02:56):
But you told a little bit aboutyour origin story, the why of why
you do living a Nordic life, butanything about your, your past.
As an event planner, anything about yourfamily you want to share your health,
you want to share, anything like that?
Well, I met my partner Andre,who's Norwegian in 2007, and we
(03:22):
lived between Norway and England.
I'm from southwest England from Dorsett,which is very, very different to Southern
Norway, which is where we live now.
It's much warmer.
And very gentle, rolling hills, and wehave no snow at all, ever, maybe, you
know, half a centimetre every ten years.
(03:43):
And subtropical plants, and it'salmost the complete opposite.
But we lived between one place andanother, and then after having two
children, we decided that we reallywanted to give them a chance to learn
more about their Nordic heritage.
So, we moved here, we already hada house here in South Norway, and
(04:06):
we moved the whole family here,and decided that we would live here
for a bit and see how things went.
That was 2016.
And while we were doing that, I had afeeling that I wanted to embrace more
Nordic living, because we were tryingvery hard to combine these two cultures.
(04:27):
Which can be quite different.
Although you think really that,you know, probably an English
culture and the Scandinavianculture would be very similar.
They're really not.
And when you start delving a littlebit deeply, you realize that, you know,
there's quite a culture difference.
And I started my blog because I wanted towrite and share recipes initially because
I thought this is quite a lot of fun.
(04:49):
And it became quite popular and Idiscovered that I had A little bit
of a following, but also there werea lot of people who really wanted
to know about their Nordic heritageand learn about Nordic recipes.
And maybe they were perhaps second orthird generation Scandinavians living
in America mostly, I have to say.
(05:09):
Though I do have a lot ofGermans, Australians, English
people reading the blog.
But they'd lost touch withit a little bit, you know,
maybe their grandma had died.
And not passed everything on, andthey wanted to learn more about it.
And some of them also wanted toimprove their quality of life.
You know, we're living in a time,and we have been for the last few
years, that feels pressured, rushed,and maybe a little bit commercial,
(05:37):
and people really wanted to go backto kind of easy, cozy lifestyle.
where you can intentionally slow down.
And it was a nice thingto be able to share.
And so I was sharing recipes and thenI thought I'll show a few lifestyle
tips and it just expanded from there.
(06:01):
And I had the idea inMay to start a podcast.
Because I thought it wouldgive me a chance to talk to
people a little bit more.
The, the blog is great.
Um, I write from me andit's very authentic.
I don't ask anybody else towrite, I do everything myself.
And I really like to make itfeel like I'm talking to people.
But the podcast gives me a chanceto really chat a little bit more.
(06:23):
And be a little bit more personal and adda few of my own opinions, if you like.
I'm always giving my own opinion onthings and make it a little less formal.
So you started looking at Nordic Livingyourself, partly to fit in, partly to
celebrate and show your kids this duality.
(06:45):
And then you said you thought youhad something to offer people in the
rest of the world who were reallyinterested in that kind of thing.
Yeah, and wherever they are in the world,as well as something that I've always
maintained from the beginning, thatyou don't have to live in the Nordics,
you don't have to have Nordic heritage.
You don't even have to know anythingabout it, really, to be able to
embrace these lifestyle principles.
(07:05):
Right.
This idea of slowing down, being a littlemore sustainable, you know, respecting
those around us, all these things thatyou think of when you think of the
Nordics and the people who live here.
Yeah.
And as we've done it as well, we've,we've found ourselves slowing down
even more, and if we grow a lot ofour own fruits and vegetables, In
(07:27):
our garden, we have chickens as well.
We don't use any chemicals on the garden.
That's not intentional, actually.
That was a bit of a kind of happyaccident, I have to say, that
we've become kind of organic.
We compost everything.
We recycle everything.
That's a bit of a thing here in, inNorway anyway, most people recycle.
(07:48):
It's really encouraged.
I do a lot of foraging.
And again, that's something that isvery Nordic and it's very easy to
embrace here because everybody does it.
It's not something that'sconsidered slightly odd, you know,
you're picking dandelions to eat.
You know, everybody'sout there doing that.
So, yeah, all of these things that weembraced ourselves and embraced with even
(08:09):
more gusto, because I used to forage inEngland, but not quite as much as here.
And my life was fairly sustainable,but it's a lot more sustainable here.
It's nice to be able to share these thingsand how we've done them, and encourage
other people to do the same thing.
That's neat.
I like that.
That's the feeling I got whenI first discovered your site.
(08:30):
Yeah.
So let's, if I may, change gears a littlebit and talk about this one podcast.
So I came to this.
I know I have a couple of Norwegianfriends who, one of them's in a band.
And if you ask them, Oh,so you play the violin?
They might say, you know, lite grand.
I know a few songs.
(08:51):
We don't.
Show ourselves because of, you know,Janteloven, and I said, what's that?
I'd never heard of it, but I have seen it.
So in my family, father and, andhis parents, grandparents, it's
about third generation from Norway,a very stoic kind of attitude.
(09:13):
Downplaying things.
Accepting your lot in life.
Not boastful, of course.
In fact, if you do excel andboast, you are shamed in some way.
I've read and seen in Bergen andin Oslo, Norwegians don't go out
of their way to talk to strangers.
(09:34):
It's very true.
I found that very hard when I firstmoved here because coming from what
was a very friendly little seaside townwhere there were a lot of tourists.
If you went out and there weren't manypeople about, if it was locals mostly,
everybody would say hello to you.
In the street.
And then when I came here, I rememberwalking out in the village that
(09:54):
we live in on one occasion andsaying good morning to somebody.
Oh my goodness, they looked at melike I, you know, like I was a nutter.
Didn't reply.
And I was like, oh my goodness me,have I, have I said something wrong?
You know, what have I done?
But no, people don't.
There are quite.
Strict, unspoken laws about howyou make friends and whether you
(10:18):
talk to people in the street.
I see.
If you're hiking, then that's great.
Everybody talks to everybodyelse if you're hiking or
doing some kind of activity.
But if you just pass somebody in thestreet, you wouldn't normally say
good morning unless you know them.
Right.
And do you feel that's trying not todisturb someone else with your issues?
(10:40):
Okay.
Just giving them a little bit of space.
And again, that's something thatis rather nice, I think, in some
respects, especially if you'rea bit of an introvert, you kind
of want to be given your space.
And everybody certainly doesgive each other space here.
You see that on the bus, for example.
You know, if there's, if you'resitting on the bus and there's a
seat next to you and it's empty,nobody will come and sit there.
(11:03):
They're going to chooseanother seat somewhere else.
I've heard that Greta Thunberg hassaid that she is happy for this way
of life in Sweden because she goesout in public and she's left alone.
People don't go, Oh,you're Greta Thunberg.
She just is left alone.
She appreciates that.
So the upper Midwest, the UnitedStates, where there was a lot of
(11:24):
Norwegians and Swedes that settled.
Right.
Has what's been called Protestantwork ethic, but what goes with
it and with Lutheranism to someextent is a lot of these things.
We're going to talk about.
We'll talk about where the thing camefrom, but I think we'll agree that.
These kinds of unspoken things werein existence far before Sondheim.
(11:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know in folklore, if a farmeror whomever is doing very well and
becomes wealthy, the assumption ishe's made a deal with the devil.
He's going to get to havesuccess, but he sold his soul.
(12:08):
He is capitalizing on other people.
He is finding loopholes inthe rules, things like that.
It was interesting.
I know with a full Sagram under thewaterfall, you could play violin.
The statue in Bergen, he was obviouslyone of the best violinists in the world.
(12:28):
And where did he learn that?
From a non godly creaturelike the Fossegrim.
Finally, I guess something I'veseen, I have a degree in Norwegian.
It doesn't show, but Ihave a degree in Norwegian.
One of the things we talked aboutwas something called, and this
was the religious side, somethingcalled the unforgivable sin.
(12:49):
There are a lot of things you cando wrong, but the unforgivable
sin was the sin against theHoly Ghost, which means pride.
Being proud is not okay.
So maybe you can talk about where thismodern concept of Janteloven came from.
Well, it came from a Danish Norwegianauthor called Axel Sandmoza.
(13:16):
And he wrote a series of novels.
He had quite a hard life, actually.
He travelled about a bit, andhe experienced quite a lot of
violence and unpleasantness.
But he, once he settled down, he wrotea series of novels, and one of them is
called A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks.
And it's about a man in a towncalled Janta, which is a fictional
(13:41):
town, supposed to be in Denmark.
But it's said that he based iton his hometown, Sandermølle.
And he kills somebody, this character.
And he has to flee across the country.
And in the process of doing that, helearns that he's a little bit different.
But he's, has this pursuitof his goals and his dreams.
(14:03):
And it comes into conflict witheverything that he has learned growing
up in Janta, which is really aboutkeeping the population under control.
And there are 10 rules to Janta's law.
And then there's one kind of unspokenrule, which I think actually in
(14:24):
modern Norwegian life is probablythe one that is the most obvious.
But they are all about not thinkingthat you're better than anybody else,
not thinking that you're clevererthan anybody else, not laughing
at anybody, not thinking that youknow any more than anyone else.
It's really basically all about modestyand thinking that everybody is equal
(14:50):
and that you are no better or no morespecial than anyone else around you.
And there are 10 laws.
And the 11th one is.
Don't think that we don't know somethingabout you, which is probably the most
worrying one right idea that somebodysomewhere, you know, the authority knows
(15:12):
something about you that you don't knowthat they know about you, which gives
you that kind of feeling of unease allthe time, or it could give you that
feeling of unease and would certainly ifyou lived in Yanta would stop you from
doing anything that you shouldn't do.
Yes, because you'd be worried thatthey would know something about you.
These laws, although the book was writtenin 1933, I think that they must have been
(15:37):
something that for at least a couple ofhundred years before was ingrained into
Nordic culture and the Nordic way of life.
Because, you know, Sundar Musa didn'tjust come up with this out of thin air,
you know, he drew on the novels that hewrote, he drew on his life experiences.
So it would have been somethingthat he felt quite strongly about.
(15:58):
But Since then, it's become a partof Nordic culture and unwritten laws
that really governs society and theway people behave towards each other.
In some ways, very positive because it'sthe cornerstone really of Nordic equality,
(16:19):
which is so important here, you know,it's really valued, making sure that
everybody looks after everybody else.
If you're not doing well, then wewill look after you and if you are
doing well, then it's your duty tohelp other people so that everybody
is raised up, everybody's equal,but also it stops you from bragging
(16:43):
too much, like you were saying.
And I found that quite hard when we firstmoved here, actually, because I was used
to being able to talk about successes.
And things that you'd achieved andespecially working in, I worked in the
event industry and it was quite hardat times, you know, a lot of work.
(17:07):
And in order to get ahead andgain new clients, you wanted to
talk about what you've done and,you know, brag a little bit.
And you really don't do that here.
And the times when I did do that,not necessarily bragging, but, you
know, discussing what you've done,it was not necessarily put down.
But.
(17:27):
maybe not answered.
So it's this kind of silence,and then the subject changed.
So you just don't do it, really.
It's different when you're talking aboutother people, though, funnily enough,
you know, you can say, you know, mypartner's done this, or my kids have
done this, or my friend has done that.
And that's very different.
That's viewed in a verydifferent way, because you're
not bragging about yourself.
(17:47):
You're talking about somebody else.
Very subtle.
But yes, Yanta's Law is somethingthat has an awful lot of positives.
Because like I said, it, it governsequality and it doesn't matter who you
are or where you're from or what yourbackground is, you are equal to everybody
(18:08):
else and everybody has the same rights.
So although I don't have Norwegiancitizenship, you know, I have the
same rights as everybody else.
And my partner and I are not married,we live together, but we have exactly
the same rights as a married couple.
And these things are really important.
And that's some of the positive aspectsof it, respecting one another as
(18:28):
well, that's another one, regardlessof who you are, you could be the
king, or you could be somebody who'semptying the bins, but everybody
deserves the same amount of respect.
And it's a very informal respect as well.
There's no burying and scraping thatyou might be used to if you're British,
for example, with the royal family.
(18:50):
Yes.
You know, we're very, there's a lot ofdeference, whereas here it's much more
informal and everybody has an equalfooting, which is a lovely thing to feel.
So it definitely has a positive side.
That's for sure.
It does have positives.
Yeah.
But it also has a few negatives, andthat is that you can't brag about things.
(19:12):
And I think the thingthat I noticed the most.
It is the unwritten eleventh law.
It could be something quite petty.
We can't mow the lawn oruse any mechanical things
at the weekend on Sunday.
Oh my gosh.
So yeah, no, no lawn mowing becauseit's church hours, which I'm sorry
(19:33):
to say, but people really don'tgo to church very often here.
No.
So no using a chainsaw oranything noisy at the weekend.
But if you do, people arequite happy to tell the police.
And you get a phone call.
It's a polite phone call, I have to say.
Oh my god.
But it's, yeah, it kindof falls into that.
Why do you think you're anything special?
(19:54):
If you're not, don't use your lawnmower.
You should use your lawnmower onthe same day as everybody else.
And you do know something about me.
I think, I can't remember if I wastelling you actually, a while ago, about
the laws governing our tax as well.
And the visibility of it.
(20:15):
And I feel again that I'm sure alot of students would agree with
me as well that that falls againinto Yanta's law, that you can't
keep anything too much to yourself.
So if you're showing that you have a lotof money or you're doing particularly
well, then people can easily go onlineand search your tax records because
everything like that is public.
(20:36):
So you are no more special than anybodyelse, you know, we can see what you're
doing and you can see what we're doing.
So that keeps everybodyon an equal footing.
And finding people's addressesand phone numbers and emails
that just right out there.
Yeah, absolutely.
Everybody, even, even children,which I don't agree with.
(20:58):
It's a little scary.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's maybe a little naive,but it's, again, falls into that,
you're not particularly special.
So I've been reading that to someextent these days there is a Backlash
against Janteloven in, in some sectors,there was a politician, supposedly this
(21:19):
person said, look, we're in a recession.
These laws are stiflingNorwegian initiative.
Just not, you know, andwe need that to pull out.
So apparently this person.
Yanked out a copy of the Jantelovenand read them and then tore it up.
Another person, Gro Harlem Brundtland,the Jibber minister of Norway during
(21:42):
the 1994 Olympics or afterwards,she's famous for saying, it's
typically Norwegian to be good.
And talk about what's good.
Accomplished, almost the best, whichis really different from Janteloven.
Right.
Absolutely.
And somehow that's okay for sportsfigures and things like that.
Sounds like that is a pushback.
(22:04):
I think to some extent, yeah, but Ithink when also there are generations
that are still alive who really docling to it and like us to be living
this A4 life, everything in Norway is.
You know, there's lots of thingshere that are, that are great,
but not everything is the best.
There's no need to look anyfurther or go any further, and
(22:26):
y often keeps you within that.
But I think the younger generation andcertainly my children's generation, you
know, they're teenagers, uh, definitelybucking against that and I'm not sure
they even really know that much about it.
Mm-Hmm.
, although we do see it a little bit,I'm gonna stick my neck out here.
We see it a little bitfrom some of the teachers.
(22:48):
There's an idea.
It's not all of them, I have to say,but because work for the children
is very much differentiated.
It's very much about the individual.
So if, within a class, if one is doingparticularly well at a subject and some
are not, they won't all get the same work.
They get different work, so someof them are challenged, and some of
(23:09):
them are helped, but there certainlyis a group that thinks that they
will all rise to the same level.
You know, everybody's equal.
They're no better than anybody else.
We don't need to do anything.
You know, they can all be taughtto the same level, and they
will all get to the same level.
And as we know, that's not true.
How do you explain peoplelike Einstein and Mary Curie?
You know, it simply isn't a fact.
(23:32):
But it's, yes, it's a certain generationwho have been brought up with it.
and their parents and theirgrandparents and I think
that's difficult to get rid of.
Those that are younger are steeringaway from it, and probably just a
natural steering away from it as well.
At some point it'll just become ever more.
(23:53):
Diffused and ever more diluted andparticularly when you have an influx
of immigrants like me, for example,you know, because I am an immigrant,
you know, bringing my culture andintegrating it into Norwegian culture
and being embraced and everybody's equal.
(24:13):
So everybody is allowed tohave their own culture and.
Use it as you want, and it'll dilute it.
And eventually, you know, in probablyseveral generations, people maybe have
even forgotten what Janta's law is.
It's a very multiculturalsociety, and very secular as well.
Although the Norwegian church has someinfluence, it has no political influence.
(24:40):
And there are so many differentcultures and different religions here.
So everybody is embraced.
I mean, I wouldn't say that we would seethe country particularly as Christian.
I mean, I guess you might do looking infrom the outside, but I mean, we're so
used to there being so many differentreligions and everybody being accepted.
(25:02):
I know my kindergarten teacherfriend in Oslo has talked about their
intentionally, they all celebrate Ramadan.
They all celebrate Christmas.
They all celebrate Whether Rosh Hashanahor Yom Kippur and, and it's, it's yeah,
very rich that way, which is wonderful.
I think it is.
(25:23):
Yeah, we really like it.
We don't want them to lose that.
I think most people would feel likethis as well, that we don't want them to
lose the celebrations that are part of.
that Norwegian history and culture,which would be some of the Christian
religions, but mixed in withan awful lot of pagan religion.
You'd be surprised how many Christianfestivals that are celebrated
(25:44):
here actually have pagan rootsand been combined at some point.
We wouldn't want them to lose that, butwe also want them to be able to celebrate.
The other children in the class too,if you do have children, I mean, my
daughter's kindergarten, I don't thinkthere's any that aren't either, you
know, non practicing Christians orChristians, I think they're pretty much
(26:05):
all are, but we want them to be ableto celebrate other religions as well.
And particularly if those childrenare there in the class, it's
nice for them to feel inclusive.
There's a surprising number ofChildren, um, certainly in our
area whose grandparents or parentsare either Sámi or part Sámi.
I know the Oslo Folk Museum hasvery intentionally set aside a
(26:28):
part of the museum for a Sámivillage and things of that nature.
Yes, they've got a kind of standard fixedexhibition of Sámi toys and Sámi costumes
and all kinds of wonderful things.
They also had stated that there'san agreement that all these things
(26:50):
that they are showing go back tothe North because of that history of
people taking all the drums and allthe other types of Sami things taken
away from them to assimilate them.
There was a sustainedeffort until about the 50s.
(27:10):
to make the Sami Norwegian, if you like,force them to learn to speak Norwegian and
actively remove their culture, which wasterrible, but it's very safely guarded now
and They even have their own parliament.
We see a lot of that during elections,actually, because we have Sámi
TV, obviously, and we see a lot oftheir, the Sámi elections, and it's
(27:33):
very interesting to see in here.
You're listening to the Nordicon Tap podcast, Nordic Society
and Janteloven, in which we lookat the effects of the unwritten
Janta's laws on people's behavior.
I'm Eric Stavny.
I want to thank you, my listeners,for ongoing support, especially
Lori Ann, Seth, Paul, Eric B., Tom,Ruthie, and my youngest fan, Matthias.
(28:00):
Thanks to those of you who wrote commentsin the leave a reply field on the website.
I encourage you all to do that.
It's at nordicontap.
com.
Recently, for the Rosemalingin Church podcast, I heard
from Jan, Kari, and Cheryl.
Previously, I've heard fromJanet, Marge, Heidi, Emily, Toby,
Corey, Mike, Carl, and Linnea.
(28:23):
Thank you.
Special thank you to those ofyou who bought me a coffee.
Donate it to the show.
Kevin McLaughlin of the excellentmusic podcast At the Jazz Band Ball.
I highly recommend it.
And also Paula M and Michael G.
You can donate to the podcast yourselfby clicking the Buy Me a Coffee button.
(28:47):
And thank you for doing so.
Now, back to the podcast.
So, what is longum?
Lagom and also you've mentioned hygge.
Do you want to explain those two things?
Hygge is a Danish philosophy,actually, and it is absolutely huge.
(29:07):
In fact, we laugh a little bit thatit's maybe a little bit bigger outside
of Denmark than it is in Denmark.
It's really a kind ofvery natural part of life.
There.
And here as well.
It's enjoying all the little things,the simple things, the everyday things,
(29:28):
and really making the most of them.
Something that I've builtmy philosophy on as well.
But making the most of things likeyour favourite cup of coffee in the
morning, or a beautiful view, or acandle, or just that moment of silence
in the car on the way to work, orgetting outside for some fresh air.
(29:48):
It's a cosiness.
an everyday coziness.
Lagom is a Swedish philosophyand it's All about just enough.
So I guess it kind of falls intothe same bracket as we've got.
It's enough of everything, nottoo much and not too little.
(30:10):
So just the right amount, whichI guess we're all trying to
embrace a little bit, aren't we?
Yes.
Not too much of anything, reallynot too much stress, but maybe
not too much excess as well.
So you just have that perfect balance.
Rampant consumerism.
I have to cut back on my Amazon account.
Oh, have you?
We're barely on it, I have to say.
(30:31):
You can't really get thingsdelivered here on Amazon.
Oh, it's crazy.
I bought a lot of tax.
I have to go out of my way to find otherEither vendors online or like, you know,
get in the car, go down the street tothat little hobby shop and, and buy
the yarn, you know, or buy the fabric.
(30:52):
First of all, you get to touch it, right?
But you have a social interactionwith somebody too, right?
You get to support somebody locally.
Maybe they're making crafts as well.
Keep that alive.
And that's somethingthat you see here a lot.
People really cherish those handmade.
Items where people are keepinga craft alive on your program.
(31:16):
I know you have a thing on foldingheart shaped things for the
Christmas tree and weaving them.
We tried those actually.
Yes, we tried making those this year.
I've never made them because it'snot part of my culture, but I said
to Andrea, my partner, wouldn'tthat be fun to actually do that?
Should we give it a go?
And he said, Oh, I'm sure I could do that.
I haven't done it since I was aboutsix at school, but I'll have a go.
(31:38):
But Oh my goodness, I was all thumbs.
So, we, yeah, we've given that, we'vegiven that a bit of a miss, but I don't
knit, my daughter knits, but knitting issomething that you just can't avoid here.
We have this little ferry that goesfrom a town called Craggara, which is
just a bit south of us, halfway betweenus and Christie and Sandra, really.
And it goes between all theselittle islands, but in the wind,
(32:02):
on one particular day, I think theymight do it a couple of days, but
they have a knitting cruise, andyou just book your normal trip.
And you take your knitting and sit intheir cafe with all the other knitters
and knit while it sails around.
And is there any instructionor sharing of patterns?
I guess they must do.
Yeah.
I think probably when they startsitting and chatting, it's probably
(32:24):
looking at what everybody else isdoing and making new friends as well.
In that organized activitythat's so popular here.
It's a popular way to make friends isyou go and do an organized activity
and then you make friends within that.
And those friends stay within thatactivity, you wouldn't necessarily invite
your knitting friends, your cabin friends.
(32:47):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
The question here is, is what doesit mean to belong to something?
And is that an essential humandesire or it's part of being human?
And, and a lot of people assert thatit is, and I believe that it is.
So membership in churches, I justwas working with the Lutheran church
this last year that had to close.
(33:08):
The point is.
Supposedly young people say, youknow, I don't want to go to church.
I don't want to join the church.
They say this is what you should do,but that, that isn't what I believe.
They have these beliefs about LBTQpeople that I don't agree with, things
of that nature, fraternal orders.
So sons of Norway, to which I belong,there's a number of orders and clubs,
(33:34):
depending on what you're interested in.
Those have seen a huge drop.
In membership and a lot of them are reallystruggling and so I've asked my kids.
How do you belong to anything if peopledon't go to church, which in the past
has been people's entire lives sometimes.
And I said, well, we have meetups.
(33:55):
Occasionally we do a lot of gaming online,but dad, we, we just don't need it.
Are you serious?
No, it's, it's fine.
I don't know what to do with that, but.
But I had an interesting conversationalong those lines, actually, with
my son's teacher a few weeks ago.
(34:16):
She said that our generation reallyhas to re look at friendships.
Because, you know, a lot of thekids seem to be spending an awful
lot of time online, but that'sbecause their friendships are there.
And their friendship groupsand the people that they, you
know, their tribe, if you like.
And friendships don't all have tobe face to face and interaction
(34:38):
doesn't all have to be face to face.
Maybe that's my, that's my problemis online or what we're doing
right now to me is part of work.
And when I'm done with work, I don'twant to come home and turn on the
computer and do a bunch of typing.
Um, because that's, that'slike, that's not, but it is,
(35:00):
you know, for a lot of folks.
It is.
I mean, I feel like maids.
A lot of friends since starting myblog, actually, a lot of friends
online, who I probably won'tever see face to face in person.
Sure.
But those friendships are noless important to me than,
than the face to face ones.
(35:21):
You know, they're just as important.
And they're people who I talk toalmost every day, sometimes every day.
And we need to look at things maybeslightly differently, you know, not the
way that we've always looked at them.
I think there's space for,for both types of friendships.
(35:41):
Very good.
Well, I'm going to have to bookseveral more shows with you so much.
Actually, I'll be a bitmore relaxed next time.
Yeah, so, you know, and thereason, of course, folks, that I've
asked to talk to you is I thinkthat we, our audiences overlap.
I think that.
And a lot of my listeners are veryinterested in Nordic type living.
(36:04):
And so I'll go ahead and let you do acommercial if you like, so people can
know how to read your stuff, where to hearyour podcasts, also Vidra and so forth.
Yeah, that's great.
Thank you.
Well, you can find meat livinganordiclife.
(36:25):
com, where my blog lives, and alsoyou can navigate there to my podcast.
And my podcast is called Living aNordic Life with Fiona McKenna, but
you'll find that on Spotify, Google,Apple, all the major podcast platforms.
Right.
And if you want to join mycommunity, which I would love.
(36:48):
Then you can also find my Facebook group.
Which is living a Nordic life wherever youare, and I would be delighted if you want
to come over and join us there and joinin the discussion about all things Nordic
and simple, cozy, intentional living.
(37:09):
I like that.
So you don't necessarily have tosign up for the VIP status to get it.
Certainly do not.
I have an awful lot of blog postsactually that are within my Free
section, if you like, 150 or so at least.
And I post a blog post ora podcast every Friday.
(37:29):
So there's always something to read.
But if anybody wants to delve justa little bit deeper, or it's not
enough to read and you want somethinglike an online magazine, then I'm
adding to the blog every week.
So there are, I think I'mdoing 11 articles a month.
(37:51):
But I have so much tosay and so much to share.
I was going to say, well,aren't you running out of ideas?
I mean, but obviously not.
I've always got a long list.
And also I listen to what peopleare saying and if they say they
want to learn about something, thenI share what I know about that.
(38:11):
So I'm trying to, you know, keep my fingeron the puzzle a little bit, which is where
the Facebook group is great because peopledo like to chat and it's a really nice.
Fun, safe, engagingplace for people to go.
There's never any nastiness.
We've got nearly 11, 000 people in there.
And there has, we've hadmaybe a couple of incidents.
(38:33):
It's been going for three years.
We've had maybe a couple of timeswhen people have been a little
unpleasant, but they get booted out.
Because we don't tolerate any of that.
You know, that's not,that's not the attitude.
We want everybody to feel welcomed.
Um, free to say whatever theylike, you know, no trolls,
(38:54):
it's always engaging and always fun.
I do love it.
Well, thank you so much.
Talking about Jantelovenand everything else.
Thank you.
Don't forget to check out theshow notes for more information
and extras from this episode.
Depending on what app you're usingto listen to the podcast, you should
be able to find the show notesby looking for a button or a link
(39:17):
labeled show notes or episode notes.
And if you're using Apple podcastsor Google podcasts, you can simply
scroll down while listening to anepisode and the show notes should be
there for other apps like Spotify,overcasts, pocket casts, pot bean.
You may need to tap a buttonor a link to access the notes.
(39:39):
And if you're having troublefinding the show notes.
Don't hesitate to reach out via ourwebsite or, or write to me at nordicontap.
com or leave a message on our Facebookpage and we'll be happy to help you out.
And if you appreciate and want tosupport the show, click that buy
me a coffee button to help us out.
Of course, Nordic on Tap will continue tobe and will always be free to listen to.
(40:08):
For some good Nordic music tobrighten your day, I recommend getting
online with the ScandinavianHour.
org.
6 a.
m.
Saturdays and Sundays, and again at 9 a.
m.
on Saturdays, streamingto you on Pacific Time.
And as you may know, streaming programsare delivered to you live, as it
(40:30):
were, so you don't want to miss it.
As soon as the show's over, youcan't go back and hear it again.
My friend, Seth Tufteland, at theScandinavian Hour, spins a huge variety
of songs, mostly in some Nordic language,occasionally English or other, from jazz
to pop to dance songs, fiddle tunes,choral numbers, marching band music.
(40:52):
It's all there.
Our intro music is InglisWaltz, played by composer Morten
Alfred Heurup at MortenAlfred.
com and Ruthie Dornfeld.
They both have websites, as doesthe composer and performer of our
outgoing music, Daryl Jackson.
He's at DarylJacksonMusic,all one word, dot com.
(41:15):
I'm Eric Stavney, and I'll seeyou next time on Nordic Untapped.
Bye!
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