From Skiing in Norway, All the Way to Hip Hop's Akon in STL

Our brief visit to Oslo, along with a week at a Norwegian ski resort, did not necessarily give us deep insight into local culture.  Nonetheless, there are always little bits to glean, and we were immediately struck by the number of Swedes working in Norway.  Many of our ski instructors were Swedish, as were the hotel staff and restaurant and shop workers.

At first glance, I suppose this doesn't seem too unusual; Norway and Sweden are neighboring countries and part of the same historical and cultural-linguistic region of Scandinavia.  It's not far-fetched to assume that there's a back-and-forth movement of people within the region.

However, we soon learned that the migration of workers is pretty much one-way:  Sweden to Norway.  It is estimated that there are close to 100,000 Swedes working Norway, and the Swedes make up over 10% of the population in Oslo.

The combined effects of a Norwegian oil boom (oil was discovered off the coast of Norway in the 1960s), and the entrance of Sweden into the European Union (Norway is not part of the EU) has reversed an extremely long-term relationship between the two countries in which Sweden has typically been considered superior.

Norway is now one the world's wealthiest countries, but its population is only five million, which means workers are lacking.  Sweden, on the other hand, is facing pressure on its core industries, like steel, and is heavily reliant on exports to a shaky EU.  It is therefore increasingly hard to absorb those seeking jobs.

With unemployment in Sweden at an all-time high, young people are encouraged to go work in Norway, where they can make double the salary, mostly in the service industry but also in the industrial sector.  The majority of Swedes return to their home country within five years, all the more better-off.

Meanwhile, the Swedish government has opened up its doors wide to Syrian refugees, often to the frustration of the Swedish population which doesn't understand how the economy can support the influx or how the refugees can be successfully integrated culturally.  To date, Sweden has accepted more than 15,000 refugees (of the 2.1 million total refugees); the most of any EU nation other than Turkey which borders Syria.

I heard a lot about all of this from my Swedish cross-country ski instructor who lambasted the Norwegians for having so much money and being too cheap to spend any of it to salt the snow and ice-covered roads (we hiked on these roads for thirty minutes each way to my lesson), but also criticized his own country for doing too much and also too little for its own people and for the Syrian refugees.

The Syrian War just hit the 3-year mark, and renewed calls to action can be heard around the globe, particularly for Europe to open its doors to take in refugees who are crushing the borders of Syria's neighboring states.

One of the more poignant PSAs to come out in recent weeks is the video above, which follows a year in the life of a young girl whose world is destroyed by war and violence, much like so many of the Syrian child refugees.

From this vantage point, one can only admire Sweden's efforts.  The renewed focus and imagery of the humanitarian crisis is a sad reminder that WE need to do SOMETHING.

On a lighter note, my ski instructor was also quite interested in my background, and we had plenty of time to swap stories skiing around cross country fields.

When he learned I was from Saint Louis, he actually knew it was a city in Missouri.  He also knew the city sat on the Mississippi River and was therefore in the middle of America. 

I know a lot of east-coasters who don't even know this much about US geography, and so I was quite impressed that my Swedish twenty-something ski instructor knew so much about a small, Midwestern town.

He also knew that hip hop artist Akon is from Saint Louis, which of course could explain how he knew anything at all about Saint Louis.  But still . . . .

I played it cool, but I didn't even know that Akon was from STL.  I can at least say that I was familiar with Akon.  And in my own defense, while Akon was born in Saint Louis, he spent most of his life in West Africa country of Senegal (yep, looked that up when I got home).  Even Akon says he's Senegalese.  Seriously, who really knows Akon hails from STL?  Just sayin'.