Swedes Don’t Want You to Know THIS About Sweden

i've been making videos right here on my youtube channel for almost an entire year now about my experiences of life in sweden and some tips and tricks to help you get by if you're planning to move here and if you've been watching for a while you probably think you've got a pretty good idea of the things that you need to know to be ready for your new life in sweden and i mean you're not wrong i've done a lot of videos on this channel on a whole host of different topics but there's one thing that i've not really got around to addressing until now because just like any other country sweden has an underbelly of things that you kind of only really get to grips with once you've lived here and once you learn them for yourself let me put it this way if you write to a swedish friend and say what are the things that i need to know before moving to sweden there's a whole list of things that they think of but then there's a whole other list of things that they just never even cross their mind it's the things that if you live here you just take for granted and you would never think to tell anybody else the secrets if you will to getting by with your new life in sweden and let me be clear here i'm not saying that they're leaving these things out on purpose they're just so ingrained into the way that people live and the things that happen here that nobody thinks to tell you you just have to kind of work them out for yourself and now that i've begun noticing a few of these things i thought would be fun to put five of them into a video together to share with you guys here today to make sure you're even more prepared for that big trip to sweden so why don't you stick with me for the next few minutes as i dive deep into the underbelly of swedish culture and some of the things they just don't tell you about sweden number one tipping is not mandatory here in sweden now depending on where you're from in the world your experience of tipping culture will be vastly different so if you're from the usa for example and specifically a city like new york it's almost enforced that you have to give a tip at the end of a meal and the reason for that is because it's widely known that the servers aren't really earning enough money to live on they're kind of earning not even the livable wage and so it's expected that you will tip them usually about 20 or 25 percent of the total bill in order to make sure that they get that money they need and are able to get on with their lives so you can understand that if you're that person that doesn't tip them they will come and confront you they want to know what they did wrong why they're not getting that money whereas here in europe it's a little bit different in the uk for example we will quite often give a tip usually if the service is particularly good but it's not mandatory by any means and you will not be confronted if you don't give somebody a tip and again you'll usually do that based on a percentage of the total bill usually between 5 and 15 but what they don't tell you is that when you move here to sweden if you start going around giving all of your servers 25 by way of tip i'm sure they'll be delighted but it's absolutely not expected yes that's right we've talked on this channel before about the taxation system here in sweden and specifically the state services if you're an employee and it has to be said that the minimum wage here in sweden is fairly high and it's quite normal that if you work in one of those hospitality jobs that your wage will actually include the kind of value that you would expect to get from ticks in a different country but that doesn't mean that i'm saying that you shouldn't do it by any stretch of the imagination no it's still reserved for that really special and exceptional experience so if you go out to your local italian restaurant and you think you know what tonight they've really outdone themselves that was fantastic why not give them a tip it's a really nice way to show your appreciation and respect for the experience that you've had but that said if you don't they're not going to be upset and i'd say it's a lot more common that lots of people here in sweden are just rounding up that bill so if the bill comes to 480 crms for example or maybe they'll top it up to 500 just to make it nice and round another cultural habit that you definitely won't be told about when you move to sweden and then you'll have to work out for yourself takes us to the supermarket yes let me ask you this if you've been to your local eco or hem shop have you noticed that the swede in front of you in the queue when you line up to pay is very neatly and intricately laying out all of the items on the conveyor belt one after one rotating the pepper turning around that bag of flour have you seen that and have you wondered what's going on well allow me to make you part of the in club by filling you in on this important detail in fact this is just the swedes doing a real common courtesy and human decency to that server or cashier that is working at the supermarket what they're trying to do is make sure that the process to get their groceries is as easy and smooth both for them and the cashier as possible so they're turning the item around to make sure that the barcode inside is facing the scanner and also facing them which therefore means that when the cashier picks it up they can just scan it and move it along the conveyor belt it helps keep everything running smoothly and if you don't believe me that this is actually a thing here in sweden keep a look out next time you're in your local villas or your local eco and you'll see exactly what i'm talking about not to mention can you name the last time that you saw a stack of items lined up on top of each other at a conveyor belt in a swedish supermarket because i highly doubt it so i guess you could say that even the groceries here in sweden like to keep a two meter distance the third secret of swedish culture is something that i've touched on a number of times in my videos but i've never really deep dived into and it's probably one of the most requested topics that i get all the time from you guys and it's the unspoken yante lagen or law of yanta if you translate it into english what this means is that people are discouraged from going around and bragging or showing off unnecessarily it's the kind of attitude that says that you should not be standing out or showing off or thinking you're more superior than anybody else they want everyone to blend in and everyone to be equal to one another you've probably even noticed it in the swedish workplace it's not common that someone will go around bragging about their achievements in fact they'll probably just keep them to themselves and be happy and pleased on the inside and to be honest the jury is out on this one because depending on who you ask here in sweden there are varied opinions on whether yang delagan is something that we should aspire towards or something we should ditch and i know what you're thinking on paper this sounds idyllic it's a way to make sure that nobody feels that they're more superior than anyone else no one tries to steal the spotlight from each other everyone gets that equality and respect that they deserve great right and it is i think the kind of ambition behind it is really good but the problem is there's this dark underbelly that's developed alongside yandere lagoon which actually has some more kind of sinister motives behind it yes that's right because there's a little bit more of a sinister undertone when you read some of the lines of this yante lagan tradition where it states things such as you should not think that you are good enough you should not think that you can teach others things and most importantly you shouldn't be fooled into thinking that others care about you now if you talk to lots of swedes they'll tell you that yandere lagging is a little bit outdated now and although the premises are good there's parts of it that need to be reworked for the future but there's also people that are on the other side of the fence and say you know what this doesn't work in society today we should be allowed to be proud of our achievements as long as we do that in a respectful way and don't make people feel bad as a consequence so as i say the jury is really out if you'll swedish yourself let us know down in the comments below what's your take on the anti-login and its applicability in society today the fourth thing that you will only ever find out by doing here in sweden takes us into the territory of vacation days so i hope you're listening up i have to say that when i first learned this one i was shocked but at the same time i think it's very very fair if the swedish state let me paint the scene for you guys when i first started working my very first job here in sweden i was responsible for working alongside a team of developers to drive them towards a goal and in that job i also had responsibility for making sure that i knew which resources i had available and which ones weren't around in town and for that reason when one of my developers said you know what i need to take some holiday in a month is that okay it was me that helped to make sure that i got approved or not and this happened on one particular occasion i approved someone's leave and then during that leave period he wrote in to say my child is sick today so i'm not going to be taking a vacation day today anymore and i was confused because where i'm from at least you've already booked a vacation day so i already know you're going to be off so just because you're sick or your kid's sick or some sort of circumstance has changed what does that mean you know you were already off so why are you telling me and that's the day that i learned that here in sweden you can actually change out some of those different days depending on the reason that you're off so if you'd plan to be off to go on holiday somewhere and then you got sick for a week you're not expected to still take those holiday days in fact you can trade them in for sick days which you register with the state instead and get compensated differently for but before you get any ideas about just taking weeks and weeks of vacation and then converting them into sick days afterwards you should know that that very first day that you are sick or that you register as having a bug or the flu or something you're not paid at all no in fact there is a special compensation here in sweden that says from the second day onwards you will get 80 of your salary but that first day you will not be compensated at all and whilst this is a bit of a side point i must admit i still don't really understand why you're not compensated for that first day because let's be honest if i'm off with a fever and i'm already feeling crap as it is and then i'm not earning anything for that day it's like what's the incentive to actually tell the truth and say that i can't work that day if i'm still gonna lose out anyway which leads me nicely on to the fifth and final thing that you will not be told until you get here to sweden the fifth thing that you have to experience for yourself and again this is another way that the state comes in and affects the way that law and orders are stored here in sweden yes because did you know that if you want to have a child here in sweden you actually have to register that child's name onto a government portal and they will let you know whether you're allowed to call your child that or not and i don't mean that this is some sick or twisted way to make sure there's not too many victus or too many maria's out in the society oh no it's just to make sure that you are not calling your child something stupid so here's a selection of some of the names that people have tried to call their kids which have been rejected the so-called banned list of names here in sweden ikea superman q elvis michael jackson and not to mention this one which i have no idea how i'm supposed to pronounce i don't think i want to and jokes aside i have to admit i think this is a really really logical and really sensible thing to do because these kids then have to walk around parading through town with these names for the rest of their lives and we don't want them to be laughed at and made fun of just because their parents had a weird and twisted sense of humor so props to sweden for doing this i think this is something lots more countries should be and perhaps even are now beginning to adopt but it's just something that you're not told until you're having a child here in sweden and with that said we reached the end of another one of my videos thank you so much for watching smash that like button if you haven't done so already and then you can subscribe turn on that bell so that you're one of the first people to be notified as soon as one of my new videos comes out because i am posting every week at the minute it would be awesome to have you guys along to enjoy all of those videos when they got put out if you're swedish yourself let me know down in the comment section below what did you think of these videos is there anything today that i mentioned that you think maybe isn't so secret or anything else that you think deserved a mention on this list of things that you only find out through being here and experiencing it and living it for yourself then all i want to say is thank you so much for watching have an awesome day whatever you're up to and i will see you guys next week for another one but until then bye-bye

Channel: Just a Brit Abroad

Views: 47,486

Keywords: life in sweden, move to sweden, is sweden safe, things they dont tell you about sweden, things to prepare for when moving to sweden, how to prepare for moving to sweden, move to stockholm, move to gothenburg, moving vlog, moving abroad vlog, moving to sweden vlog, things swedes do, things swedes say, my life in sweden, culture shocks sweden, this surprised me about sweden, american moves to sweden, american reacts to sweden, brit reacts to sweden, react to sweden, secrets

Id: CMkCvSHN50c

Length: 11min 15sec (675 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 02 2022