This week in class we had to choose a cultural topic of our target language, research it, and then present it to the class. I chose the concept of Jante's law. It is basically this old Scandinavian unspoken set of rules. There are 10 of them and the go:
•You're not to think you are anything special.
•You're not to think you are as good as us.
•You're not to think you are smarter than us.
•You're not to convince yourself that you are better than us.
•You're not to think you know more than us.
•You're not to think you are more important than us.
•You're not to think you are good at anything.
•You're not to laugh at us.
•You're not to think anyone cares about you.
•You're not to think you can teach us anything.
It is supposed to teach people to be humble and to not get too pompous or arrogant. The translation in English sounds rather negative but the concept is a good one. It can be seen in many Scandinavian cultures from business to day to day interaction. I think this is also where the informality with Swedish people can come into play. You wouldn't address someone as mr. or mrs. because ideally they should not think they are more special than you and so on.
*We didn't 't have class last week, hence why there is a skip from 4 to 6.
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