• an academic journey
• a cultural journey
• an intellectual journey
• and an emotional journey

Next to these categories you can of course still read every post from start to end. And also, read my report for the HKU (although it is in Dutch).

Thanks for being an audience. Although there weren’t that many reactions on the blogg itself, I got a lot ‘offline’. All supported me and learned me new stuff. Thanks for that :) Frida recently told that a friend of her was following both our blogs with a feeling of inspiration. That was really wonderful to hear. I hope it was interesting. For me it helped a lot to write things down. And it was an easy way to update the people ‘back home’ :)

For now I stop this blogg I think. I don’t have the need for it that much anymore. It is something I did when traveling. The posts from this blogg will go to an archived place on my website to which I will link from here. And one day I will have another blog of another travel; which for sure, will come :)

One thing to close, the tips I wrote in my report for HKU for other traveling students.

“The tourist sees what he came to see. The traveler sees what he sees.”

Go without too much preconceptions, look at the world like it is and remember, that how different people may be, the country is not in a crisis, so apparently, their way of working works fine too.*

Culture is so much more than just ‘fine-art’ culture. It’s how people act and think. Which structures are being made, what people think is normal, what things they completely overlook because they never do that kind of things and how close you are with people. If you’re starting to see that, you’ll ‘see’ a lot more. If you hold on to the glasses of conclusions and preconceptions you actually are holding on to your own culture which makes it a lot harder to learn from the other culture.

* Which says something interesting about countries being in a crisis right now :)

First I went with Frida to her parents place on the countryside. We were there for over two weeks and also visited a friend at Gotland, a small island in front of the Swedish coast. Relaxing, reflecting, finally seeing this beautiful Swedish lake with a sunset.. And looking forward; where do we want to be together, and how, and what do we want to do? On Gotland I finally saw some real sea again! The Swedish coasts are nothing compared to the Netherlands, just rocky. Interesting to look at but not that much enjoyable as the Dutch ones. But at Gotland I got to experience it more. Gotland was strange, Sweden in small it is called. Flat in the south, cold in the north. And a lot of rocks :)

Then my brother Tijl came by and we went backpacking into the forests. As we both never did such a thing before we started carefully, but already within 24 hours we came back and repacked our backpacks :) Then it went better, but I now know I’m more a cyclist.. Canoing on the Swedish lakes with Tijl was fantastic. We went for a full day and slept on one of the islands. We also went to Stockholm, which was a bit strange.. and a lot of fun.

When Tijl went back to the Netherlands, the last week for me and Frida physically together started.. That was a lot harder one. With al the plans in our heads, it still wasn’t easy to cope with. I tried with a party on the last day, which helped a lot in making it a happy after-halfyear-party. Nonetheless, saying goodbye was almost horrible.

Then I traveled to Berlin. A nice trip on a train and ferry where I met a Japanese guy with which I later spent a day in Berlin with. Berlin was really nice. A good atmosphere, lots of bio shops and not such a busy center as for example Amsterdam.

After two days of Berlin I went on to France. There was a nice park in Lyon where I ate my lunch. And then the wonderful week in Rancy, France. I was there with a group from Mens en Spirit (Human and spirit) at La Ripe Blance. Also a lot of ‘down to earth’ stuff, which is really necessary for a spiritual heavy week :) I could reflect a lot on the last half year and life in general. I started a new company which I wanted to do already for some time, Frida helped me knowing that, and the France week helped me starting it. When I left there I knew I would just start. More on that later via the website and maybe the blog as well.

And then at last, the travel back to the Netherlands. Seeing the Eiffel tower in the distance as the train came past Paris and via a beautiful station of Antwerp. Having traveled a lot, I could finally write destination Alkmaar in my interrail log..

I really have to get used to the new place, changing my habits. I already can’t count the times I’ve said “tack” (thanks in Swedish) and “hej”.. Here “guten Morgen” is more used by “the local people” :)

Apparently, the Germans don’t really trust the Swedes. The EuroNight from Malmö to Berlin goes, unexpected by me, on a ferry, and skips all Denmark’s islands. At the harbor, half an hour under Malmö, we stopped. Since our departure from Malmö our tickets were checked by a conductor from SJ (the Swedish railway company). During the stop, two conductors walked by the train, spoke a bit about which wagons they already checked and then the second conductor came in and started checking tickets.. Then I noticed his name tag, Deutsche Bahn.

Further everything went nice. I met a nice guy from Japan, doing a roundtrip through Europe. It was a good way to talk about (and verify) the things I learned about Japanese culture in the last half year. It is strange to hear that it is really true that they have about 5 vacation days a year. Officially more in the better companies, but nobody dares to take them because they get looked upon by their co-workers. Co-workers, or indeed their group members. Because he said it was true that they were more group oriented than individualistic. But how this was in reality was hard to tell.. I guess you have to experience that for yourself. And he said that these restaurants “you have here” is something unseen in Japan. In Japan, restaurants are standing restaurants. You eat diner in 5 minutes. I told that it may be because when we go out for food (which is more expensive) we want to make sure that it was worth the money, so we stay longer and enjoy the good time there. But in Japan eating out was not that much more expensive he said. Still, even at home, I take some 20 to 30 minutes for a casual day diner. He is going to stay in Berlin for some days as well, so we decided to meet tomorrow morning at the Hauptbahnhof, so go in the city together.

I can now go back to the central station to pick up my reservation for the CityNightLine towards Basel (on my way to France). I picked up the original reservation this morning already, but then the date was wrong. Luckily they could provide me with a new reservation right away.

So, off from the computer, into the city, now that I have my new ticket :)

Why is Berlin so far from Eskilstuna? I want to be closer to you Frida.

One research was investigating the (Hofstede’s) culture dimensions (like individualism – collectivism, femininity – masculinity, long-term – short-term orientation) and how they applied to exchange students. Otherwise said, is it so that people from the ‘travellers country’ have another scale on the culture dimensions? :) And, although the research has some limitations, it showed that for example people from this travellers country were more individualistic – not surprisingly of course.

A lot of the other research also showed a difficulty in research and culture and language. When research about stress and burnout for example, might it be the case that American people experience something else than Swedes. And thus that when it turns out that American people are more stressed and have more burnouts than Swedes (according to this research), that that is because they see more situations as stressing and/or have a different understanding of the ‘same’ word.

In the train back to Eskilstuna a guy was offering his newspaper back to some elder couple opposite to him; he probably borrowed it earlier. After they said that that wasn’t neseccary he said “tack så mycket” (“thanks you very much”, in Dutch you would probably say “heel erg bedankt” or “dank u zeer”). To me, that sounded a bit too much for just getting a newspaper in general, but it might be influenced by the fact that the people were older, more ‘respect’ for elder people? Or a different understanding of the same language? Maybe in Swedish it is more common to speak like that..

Two weekends ago I went to Stockholm, there was a Russian film festival where I went together with Maaike (‘nr 2′, the one who stays in Stockholm) and Niklas (a Swede/Belgium guy she knew). We went to Closed Spaces, a bit weird film, expected though because I chose to see this movie because it was a bit weird :) And also pretty funny, and nice arty because it left us with the feeling not fully understanding it yet.. Now I read the website and the director’s comment it gets even better (read: try to see this, with subtitles :)):

The idea is that all origins of our psychological problems, our victories and defeats, all happiness and unhappiness are in our past, in the family. The key of all “doors” of adult life is in the childhood. It seems to be obvious, but on the verbal level this thesis does not make people act. Every psychological book contains the story that children repeat their parent’s mistakes. The model of their behaviour turns children into hostages. And it repeats from generation to generation. How is it possible to stop this repetition? Emotional influence that exists in films is in need. “Closed spaces” is about that. The film shows what key we have to choose and what door could be opened with it.

And last weekend I went for another hike along the Mälardalen lake. It was planned by the hiking club, but I went alone in the end. First I was somewhat later because I had another train and couldn’t reach them to ask to wait for me. But, as I found out yesterday, they went to another place anyway :) So I went with my map of the Eskilstuna commun (the county here) at which the part I was walking stretched for about 10cm.. I guess I didn’t really follow the normal path, but that didn’t made it any worse, I think it was way better actually. Mostly I just took some path. Paths here by the way are only paths because people or animals have walked there before, no path is made with wood, stones or seals, no marks along the path eighter.

The forests change pretty quick, at one point you only see long bare trees and then suddenly you’re in the middle of a green coniferous forest. It looks more beautiful than forests in the Netherlands, you can notice that the places here are visited by less people, nature still is a bit nature. Just listening to the birds and the water.

See some more photos in the hiking album.

How is it in Japan?

Eldflugor och Odågor (picture from eldflugor.se)

There was a concert last Sunday were I went with Frida. It was from 6 girls, Google Translate said they called themselves Firefox and Waster (Eldflugor och Odågor), singing songs, mostly a cappella, some with addition of drums.

Most of the songs were in Swedish so I didn’t understand the words, but I could understand the feeling sometimes. A bit like Evelyn Glennie showed on TED.

It also was a great place there, good atmosphere. I think it was a living and working community (is that a correct term in English?). And there was a ecological shop in this building, finally with really good goods. Too bad it is in Uppsala which costs about €30,- to travel to..

It was great to travel this whole day. Although not as far as Nikki is traveling, I finally see some other places then only Eskilstuna and Västerås. And also that the good day is more than the goal your going to (the concert), it is also the travel, the things you see, the talks you have, what you think about..

On the way back there was this flyer on the streets of Uppsala. Some flyer from the International Womans Day. On the front it had a quote:

“Det är tur att vi finns, men det är en skam att vi behövs!”

I, apparently with my cultural background, read something like ‘man are scum and we behave’. Ohoh, don’t read that! Too late :) Not, it was more something like ‘it is good that we exist, but a shame that we are needed!’, about the womans organization behind this flyer.

(…) Al hoewel het niet mijn bedoeling is een toeristisch reisverslag te schrijven maar mij te concentreren op (…) onderzoek (…) kan ik het toch niet nalaten dit park aan te raden!

In Dutch he says that he is going to blog about research done on Antarctica and not a writing a tourist blog, although he cannot fail to recommend this Torres del Paine park.

What is interesting is that the rest of the blog is a pleasure to read I think. It is of course about this goal they had, getting to know the research done there. But more than just ‘in between the lines’ he tells about Antarctica and what they experience there. And I’ve never been into the Dutch royal family that much, but I really liked reading it, sad it only lasted for four days / posts.

What I also noticed is that he didn’t had any pictures in the blog which I hardly could understand. But after some looking around they were in a seperate photo gallery. What was more interesting is that this seems to be maintained by other people as the captions read, i.e. ‘De Prins van Oranje kijkt door een microscoop’ (‘The Prince of Orange looks through a microscoop’) whereas the posts are signed by ‘Willem-Alexander’. I thought about the security-card system here at Mälardalen högskola, we’re not allowed in all parts of the university, only in the departments were our courses are, not in the staff corridors, etc. Which really conflicts with the general atmosphere, and in particulary the relationship between students and teachers, which is very informal.

Systems not really adapted to the people inside.

This Saturday I went walking (or ‘hiking’) on Björnö, an island near Västerås. I joined a hiking club with people from the university. I think about 20% was Swedish, so this is like a new kind of hiking, intercultural hiking :)

We had nice views on the forests, walked on the Mälardalen lake, saw a number of deers and – as the guy from the outdoor shop in Eskilstuna said – a lot of good talks about life :)

One girl from Iran, who was here already for a longer time, told that the ‘multicultural improvisation’ course was in the second part of this semester. This is really nice because I might be able to follow it then! It is a course in which a group from the different cultures of the international students gather and prepare a play about cultures.

At Friday I was looking around at Wikipedia to see what this ‘hiking’ was about. I learned about the ‘Ten Essentials’; a list of items you should always bring with you when hiking. Most of it I didn’t have but that wouldn’t be so much of a problem. The path we would be walking was 10km long. Still it kind of got me and when packing I took more than I would really need. Typically me again, worrying a bit too much :) So I got rid of must of the stuff and got rid of more stuff.. (lagom anyone?) And still I got more food than I really needed. But that came in handy when another vegetarian didn’t brought that much food for the barbecue and when the train back to Eskilstuna had a delay of “en timme och åtta minuter”, lasting a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes.

This first course I’m following is about the anatomy of intercultural interactions.. Yes, this first lecture was an introduction to the course title :) The course is about laying the basics for the course and giving a theoretical overview of intercultural communication. We’ve been talking about the meaning of ‘inter’, ‘culture’, ‘interaction’ and we talked about things like managing, communication, meaning, context, interpretation and generalization.

I learned a lot about context in the IDSS project in Istanbul. Here Jonas (the teacher) talked about high- and low-context cultures. When someone says something, a part of what is meant lies in the language (being it spoken, unspoken, or body language for example) and another part lies in the context of the culture (and other context too of course). In so called ‘high context cultures’ more meaning lies in the context than in the language itself.

In the end we talked a bit about the ‘similarities / differences’ topic going around cultural discussions. Jonas supposed to talk more about ‘variations’ instead. This can cover both and also implies that they are both there. And it leaves the door open for group variations and individual variations.

Yesterday, the first -whole group- lecture ended with a quote which I forgot to post. I really like this point of view.

“The tourist sees what he has come to see.
The traveler sees what he sees.”
G. K. Chesterton

He told a story about a Japanese exchange student at Mälardalen who went on the bus. The bus was empty except for the driver and one other person. She went to sit next to the other person and later at school described how the person next to her was rather scared of her. Just as in the Netherlands – and many other countries I guess – the Swedes will pick the chair most far away from the other people. And here it might be more a case of ‘lagom’.

A new word he learned us was ‘lagom’. Swedish don’t take too much of it, but also not to less. Just about enough. Lagom means that you don’t take the space of someone else, don’t take up too much space for yourself, don’t eat to much at a party, just enough.

Yesterday afternoon we also got our first – well, mine at least – fika. Swedish coffee with a bisquit. I gave the coffee a fair try (I never drink it actually), but quickly switched back to tea again. But the fika itself is nice as it is more than only coffee (/ tea). It is a source for new ideas one said. I compare it a bit with the ‘retreat’ I do as an (interaction) designer; when you start doing something else – take the train, walk at the beach – thén, the ideas get born. And the fika is then also about meeting people, which get your mind thinking about things you normally didn’t thought of.

The first day at the university was nice. Although the presentations were not that interesting when you had read some documents of the universities web site before. The air is rather expensive here and they have a very nice interactive story of images on the wall here, which always ends with death though.

The academic system is really like the Montessori and the system of the HKU I know; a lot of responsibility is laid at the student with max. 10 contact hours per week, the rest is self study. By the way, I saw a Montessori (high)school here yesterday!

The Swedes are on time. Actually it is really funny to notice that this is the first time ever that at a school or conference we haven’t got a delay in the schedule. Instead, we’re ahead of the schedule!

The train trip from Eskilstuna (apartment) to Västerås (university) is very nice. I’m very happy with my choise of staying in Eskilstuna while studying in Västerås. Especially as I have much extra time after the train arrives and before the course starts.

I said goodbye to the cats and my mother. Then my two little brothers went with me to Amsterdam. We ate something, my father joined and we drank the favorite station beverage, chocolate with whipped cream. My father told about how his parents influenced his choice to work or study when he finished high school. As both his parents tried but couldn’t go to study they both encouraged him to study, so he did.

The day before I had a drink with two colleagues at Mediamatic about this topic. One of them was told by her parents to go work at the farm. Then I realised I didn’t know how my parents were influenced by their parents.

Two friends from HKU joined and all waved me out as I left with the night train to Copenhagen. It was funny to notice the large ammounts of snow as we went more to the east. The last week there had been some snow in Alkmaar but in Amsterdam for example you didn’t see any snow. I thought of these people living and working in Amsterdam didn’t know that there was snow in the rest of the country. And I heared that it was minus 19 degrees in Maastricht. Together with the snow we saw when we past Arnhem I realized I didn’t know that the rest of the country had that much snow :)

At Emmerich we got the first customs check. Later at the border of Denmark (at 6.45 a.m….) we got the second. And somewhere half in Denmark we got a third, narcotics this time.

I talked with my roommates and neighbours, we played with the chopstick mikado. Very interesting to play mikado on a train.

One girl was going to study in Sweden as well, now for one week and later for three months. Another guy – Emil, yes as Emil from Astrid Lindgren ;) – from Sweden just came back from a tour through Europe. He planned on traveling to 50 countries before he turned 50. He was at 37 (countries) now, Belgium being the latest addition, Latin America probably being the next.

A guy from Århus, Denmark, joined in Düsseldorf. He was working at energy labels for almost every electrical machine, work for which he traveled to Brussels every month. In Denmark we had a lot of fun with two little girls from Thailand. One was busy with asking us “what are you doing?”, “why are you there?” all the time. With Emil I told them the story of the Rumpnissar in Ronja Rövardotter, saying “Voffor gör di på detta viset?” until it drives you crazy.

And then came Sweden..