I think Norway kind of overloaded as we won the Eurovision songcontest on the very night before our national day. Everyone were running around in the streets screaming, singing "Fairytale". On my way (running) late for work today, I heard it thump out of a taxi window. And on May 17th everyone we're just so excited that they almost talked to strangers. Which is extremely rare up here, we pretty much stick to our own.
The only exception is on May 17th, because nothing is such a grand display of unity and of loving thy neighbour as the disgusting behaviour of Norwegians on May 17th. It's almost unappetizing. But being a reflected young woman, being influenced by other cultures and lifestyles through the wonders of globalization I manage to realize that perhaps the warm and hearty approach we have to strangers on this exceptional day - should be how we always behave towards each other. We could obviously skip a couple of the overly gooey gestures, but keep the concept at least, of being pleasant to things we're unfamiliar with.
We can't exactly hide the fact that our "civilized" population ia absolutely packed with prejudices. Particularly racism. I don't think it shines through very clearly a lot of the time because the topic is so extremely taboo, and everyone are being so meticulous about disguising it as being racist is considered medieval and primitive - which is true, obviously.
It's just that some types of racism is difficult to cloak, Norwegians hate strangers, we really do. I wont say we are abnormally paranoid or hostile, it's just that we're so evasive. We avoid confrontations, just like we're avoiding the problem at hand. We wont trust anyone with anything, but if we do as an exception, we wont hesitate to say "I told you so" if it goes wrong. We get along with our neighbours just because we have to. And we're also positively the first to break out a prejudicive remark or crack a joke on the topic. It comes extremely natural to us, perhaps a little bit too much.
I'm not saying we're all like that, an extraordinary lot of us are enjoying the variety of people, food, music, work, art or whatnot that is brought to us from other cultures and adopted by our own. I wonder how often a Norwegian haves taco, or stir fry, or chicken tikka masala or even just kebab without actually considering how lucky we are to be able to enjoy this delighful variety of foods - and why. Well hello you, I tell you something - your grandpa sure as hell didn't dig the chicken tikka out of the ground at his classical Norwegian farm. This topic is actually quite hard to write about, because it's so moronically unlogical.
But anyway, a japanese couple came into the shop and bought a lot of cutlery from me, they were so joyous that they gave me a piece of chocolate before they left! Thank you!
Took this by the river. Norway is pretty in the spring. No?
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