I am trying to improve my Swedish speaking/learning skills these days. All of them spoke fluent Svensk. That didnt make me feel out of place at all as I told them to not bother with my lack of language. I am trying to grasp words and make sense out of the context, after all, most of our communication is body language. The most interesting was this conversation that followed in english. One of the attendees asked me if I believed in aliens. I do. We started talking about the dimension they were in- "fourth dimension". I told them that there have been sightings of them in 3D, thanks to the documentaries that I have been watching. I went on to show them some videos of UFOs on a smart phone.
UFOs in the video run on a technology that enables them to travel at the speed much greater than anything we know, yet. Then, one asked me why dont they make contact with us. SETI has been trying to contact aliens for ages, now. To that I came up with an analogy that most agreed and happily agreed. I told them that the aliens were like Swedes. Not in physical form- blue eyed blondes, but with their temperament. They just want to give us our own space, or, dont want to invade our space. This is not in the sense that they wont invade our air space, which the UFOs do, but our day to day livelihood. They d prefer to stand at a safe distance and observe. Have a look at the picture below.
This picture will give you an idea of how non invasive the Swedes are, by default. The other reason why they dont land could be because of Chuck Norris, one added. Could be.
Swedes are a bit distant, not by choice, its their nature. They most of them are blessed with a great sense of humour as that joke went down well and no one thought I was crossing the line with that analogy.
The bbq went great, the weather was a bit damp but everyone had a great Satuday evening.
"They most of them are blessed with a great sense of humour as that joke went down well and no one thought I was crossing the line with that analogy."
ReplyDeleteYour story is a good reminder how Swedes are overtly tolerant to racism from people like you. They are just too polite and this undermines them in their encounters with bigots like yourself.
No, they are people with a high tolerance for your racism.
I wonder if you would have reacted with as much of a muted reaciton if I made a few jokes about Indian men and how you treat women in your country, or the messyness of Indian culture, the dysfunctionalism and the corruption.
And then linked that joke to "national character", i.e. something that every Indian has within him from birth.
You should be grateful that there are people in this world who are very understanding of your idiocy and stereotyping. Especially when you come from such a dysfunctional and broken culture yourself, far more so than the Swedish culture.