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Comment by arkitaip | Hacker News Reader

You know how poorly programming is represented in movies and tv series makes you realize how wrong they probably are about every other topic? Well, as a Swede I can tell you that this article is trying too hard about selling the idea that friluftsliv is something unique to the Nordic countries. just like when media tries to sell hygge (coziness) and fika (taking a break) as concepts that are unique, almost impossible to understand by reading alone, to the Nordic countries when in fact they are universal human concepts.

An appreciation of and desire to be in nature is part of almost every society on the planet. The difference is if we can afford to be in nature and if we have access to it. The part about allemansrätten, which is the right go access nature and lands which don't belong to you, is correct though and I don't think many countries grant their citizens those rights.

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The article is specifically targeting people in the Pacific Northwest (presumably of the US, though parts of PNW include parts of Canada). The US is prone to thinking 'You go outside in nice weather" and this article is aimed at rebutting that notion and explicitly saying "You can enjoy the great outdoors in any kind of weather."

I live in a small town in Washington. Not long after I moved here, I saw a video that listed this town as one of the ten worst cities to live in for Washington state. It listed high unemployment, high drug use and the big zinger was fewest sunny days.

I hear all kinds of trash talk about the weather out here which both amuses and aggravates me because I moved here for the very temperate weather. I live without a car and it rarely gets below freezing here and it rarely gets all that hot. It rains a lot and I wish there were more awnings in the downtown area, but the rain tends to be light, so I don't care that much. I grew up in Georgia which has terrible, terrible storms on a regular basis.

The article also explicitly states that Seattle has "deep Scandinavian roots." So it is trying to appeal to locals in a way that they should be able to readily identify with and embrace.

This is not a generic article. It is very much a localized article with a particular audience and time and place in mind. And for that reason, the references make a lot of sense.

Indeed. As someone who lives in Seattle I believe that being able to be out walking and biking year round is one of the best reasons for being here. The weather west of the Cascades is quite temperate - so with some basic gear from Costco or Goodwill (or REI or Patagonia if you want, but it's not necessary) you can go to town pretty much any day (or night) of the year except for rare snow storms and the like. And during Covid, that getting out and about has really helped maintain a positive outlook in this crazy time. Highly recommend it to other NWesterners.

Ya, I moved to Sammamish, WA from the SF Bay Area, and people make too big of a deal about Washington rain. Ya it rains, but its a normal 4 season type of thing. Rain most of winter with some snow for like 2 weeks. Light showers mixed with sun in the spring. Pretty warm and sunny during the summer but not hot, then light rains and winds in the fall. People made it out and warned me about "Washington Rain" like it was going to be raining 360 days out of the year at torrential levels, with grey/dark skys and the apocalypse. Most of the time the rain is super light and gentle with no wind, and the sky is white if not broken up with blue sky

shh, don’t tell people the secret! :-)

There is a saying in Norwegian for this:

Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlige klær

It translates to "There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing" :)

The article dives into exactly that quite a bit.

And it's not some mantra or "special thing" really - just get dressed so that you're not wet or cold and you can enjoy the environment no matter what the weather is.

Warm gloves, waterproof boots/shoes, warm upper body clothes primarily. That's it. I find it nicer to focus on layers on the upper body since it's easier to add/remove according to activity etc, than lower body, and it'll affect the lower body temps more than warming the lower body will affect the upper body.

That's certainly true. Although some people who are either from or have gotten used to places where the weather is mostly sunny and temperate year round (like a lot of California) really can't imagine having to live somewhere with a lot of clouds and rain (even light) much less heavy snowfalls in the winter.

Alternatively "There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad kleather"

https://youtu.be/ua1FAlHt_Ys?t=232

And the same in Danish and AFAIK Swedish. I wonder where it originated or if it's one of those separate, but parallel occurences.

Yep, same in Sweden.

> this article is trying too hard about selling the idea that friluftsliv is something unique to the Nordic countries

Is there a name for this? Can we call it "Wellness clickbait"?

It's definitely a thing: "What we could learn from the [country that's somewhat 'exotic'] art of [a word in their native language, maybe translated]"

Here's a good one: "Hever Castle is encouraging visitors to try the Japanese art of forest bathing". What is forest bathing, you ask? "Forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku is simply spending time outdoors under the canopy of trees to improve health and wellbeing".

But "Follow the Japanese art of forest bathing" is a much better headline than "try going for a walk in the forest".

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/whats-on/news/follow-the-japane...

As a Swede living in Japan, I get this a lot from both directions! It goes further than "wellness" too.

My pet peeve is getting asked "I [heard/read] that people put chips in their arms there?!" (presumably for payments..?) - both by Swedes about Japan and Japanese about Sweden.

One difference I absolutely do see is what it means to "go camping". Growing up it usually meant bring your gear, hike out, picking some spot in the wilderness. In Japan that's something that is quite rare, "camping" almost always involves campsites.

Might have to do with Scandinavia's vastly different population density and right to camp wherever you want in the Fjell (made possible by said population density).

I really don't think so - outside of the metro and city areas, Japan has no shortage of really rural areas. If anything I wonder if it can have to do with topology and vegetation (Sweden being flat in comparison and most of the fjäll are still quite campable due to sparse vegetation).

It's also a bit of chicken-and-egg thing with normalization in the culture - wherever you go in Japan you can generally find affordable accommodation not too far, whereas in Sweden it's more of a luxury.

I also live in Japan, and IMO topology (mountain slopes are not ideal to camp, most of the flat areas being owned, you'll get the police called on you), fauna (bears, poisonous snakes, big wasps/bees, monkeys), overgrown vegetation(in the really wild areas), the possibility of natural disasters (floods, mud/land slides, ...) explain why the the risk-wary Japanese people prefer campsites.

Campsites are also great because you can rent all the equipment you'll only need once a year, for the summer camp few days with your family as the Japanese working force does not have a lot of holidays.

Also the equipment can get expensive fast if you want to camp comfortably, and would require storing space the Japanese people do not have at home and thus would need to rent ...

Nevetheless, I think camping is getting popular and more and more people are buying equipment.

Yeah, that's along what I think as well - apart from that I think the "getting police called on you" factor is neither a real risk nor something that really stops people from doing it.

And it has indeed been a growing trend in the last couple of years, specifically with heavy imagery and inspiration from Scandinavia.

Also camping in campsites, hiking on trails, etc is much more sustainable now that there are 9 billion of us. Perhaps a greater sense of conservation?

"Orientalism"? Exoticism?

The wellness industry is particularly prone to it, but in general there's a weird social proof thing that humans are prone to doing where ideas and practices aren't evaluated on their own merits but by who's doing them. So people end up roleplaying or cosplaying their imagined version of some other country.

> But "Follow the Japanese art of forest bathing" is a much better headline than "try going for a walk in the forest".

Though poorly-worded, it can challenge us to look at mundane things with a fresh point of view.

Yes it's still a simple walk in the forest. No, there's no magical Avatar-style glow of light envelopping us and varying with each step we take in the forest.

But in a world where everything is edulcorated by marketing and by superlatives (think Instagram "perfectness"), it can be easy to loose sight of how wonderful a simple walk in a humble forest can be.

The same trail in the same woods will never look the same twice. Same trees that don't move, yet things change in subtle ways with both fauna and flora which evolve within this life-sustaining playground.

I have never heard this described as "the Japanese art of forest bathing", yet that describes a walk in the woods rather well.

Of course, like any new novelty that comes our way, it's always possible to just cargo-cult it because it sounds cool and not realize what it's trying to get at. And you are right, this is further encouraged by the wellness clickbait. But I'd like to suggest it's possible to look beyond that.

Couldn't agree more about how annoying it is that Nordic countries are always described as super exceptional.

Even allemansrätten is almost always described in very inaccurate and exaggerated terms, as if you could pitch a tent on some monopoly hat wearing rich person's lawn and there's nothing they can do about it. Just no, that's not how it works.

Take it from someone who grew up in Sweden but left as soon as I could - I hate to burst your bubble, but Nordic countries aren't heaven on earth now and never have been. I also have many, many non-Nordic friends who realized their dreams of moving there, only to leave after a year or two because reality didn't align with their nonsensical, wildly inaccurate ideas about what life there should be like.

Samfundssind is another recent one:

https://nypost.com/2020/10/24/danish-word-samfundssind-may-b...

> “putting the concern of society higher than one’s own interests.”

I don't think there's any worry of that taking off in the US.

Heh, it probably works both ways though, especially considering Nordic medias' manic obsession with eveything from the US. But hey, at least it got me to stop watching TV and go outside more.

It looks like your sampling has a bias error.

If you don't live in Sweden any more, how do you make friends with the non-Nordics who moved to one of the Nordic countries and decided to stay there?

Certainly you likely go to Sweden to visit, but how many non-Nordic friends, who have been there for more than a year or two, are you making during that time?

> looks like your sampling has a bias error. >If you don't live in Sweden any more, how do you make friends with the non-Nordics who moved to one of the Nordic countries and decided to stay there?

I live in Sweden and I upvoted bedobi‘s post. I came here with idealistic notions of what Sweden was supposedly like (also encouraged by the myths perpetuated by many expat Swedes that I met), and became disillusioned with the reality pretty quickly.

Now I hate living here but it’s too difficult to leave with a Swedish wife and kids.

I’d say three-quarters of the people that I’ve known through the years who moved here like me, have left by now.

Also I wish people wouldn't constantly be lumping together all the 'Nordic' countries as though they were an interchangeable entity. They have similarities and share similar languages, but the cultural differences are much greater than outsiders appear to think.

In the case of 'friluftsliv' the Norwegian concept is way more generally about hiking in the wilds. (Affluent) Swedes do often spend their summers in a cottage out in the country, but in my experience this involves a pretty static existence in rural surroundings, and physical activity is mostly restricted to going to whatever beach is nearby (either on the coast or an inland lake). I love walking or cycling in the countryside and I'll rarely meet anyone doing the same unless they're walking their dog close to their house.

When I was in Norway it seemed like way more people were interested in putting on a knapsack and heading deep into the forest.

> Now I hate living here but it’s too difficult to leave with a Swedish wife and kids.

Native Swede here. I felt the same way living in the US (minus the kids). Now having moved back, I realize that the problem was not entirely the US, most of it was my own attitude. I won't claim that every country is equal, but there are often good and bad things about most countries, and I haven't seen a perfect one yet. Being an expat in a country though you will notice every little flaw, or anything that's different from what you're used to. Things that annoyed me disproportionatly included paying rent with paper checks and the look and density of US cities. There were a million things like that, along with more serious issues like politics and healthcare. Meanwhile you are partially (sometimes completely) blind to the problems of your home country.

Try to be cognizant of this and try not to be bitter, it's not worth it.

>Native Swede here. I felt the same way living in the US (minus the kids). Now having moved back, I realize that the problem was not entirely the US, most of it was my own attitude. I won't claim that every country is equal, but there are often good and bad things about most countries, and I haven't seen a perfect one yet. Being an expat in a country though you will notice every little flaw, or anything that's different from what you're used to. Things that annoyed me disproportionatly included paying rent with paper checks and the look and density of US cities. There were a million things like that, along with more serious issues like politics and healthcare. Meanwhile you are partially (sometimes completely) blind to the problems of your home country. Try to be cognizant of this and try not to be bitter, it's not worth it.

This is a sideline, but I want to be very clear: I don't hangout with expats (I'd say 90% of my friends are Swedes), and I have no illusions whatsoever about the faults of my original country (the UK), which I would never move back to. As a person who grew up in England with parents from Spain who were Basques, I'm actually very critical of 'patriotic' sentiments, and extremely aware of the personal biases that they involve.

I'm definitely not bitter - but I'd say it's typical of you as a Swede to characterize my hatred of Sweden in that negative way.

> I'm definitely not bitter - but I'd say it's typical of you as a Swede to characterize my hatred of Sweden in that negative way.

I just shared my own experience, which I would call bitterness. Basically, I couldn't appreciate the good parts because I was blinded by the bad parts. Maybe there's a better word than bitter, I don't know. I won't assume our situations were identical, so feel free to disregard what I said if it doesn't apply to you...

Then I'm curious, what country would be ideal for you to live in? And have you lived there as an adult? In my experience, you only get a true sense of a country if you live there as a working adult, even better if you have kids. As a student, or short term visitor, there's no way of knowing what it's like. That's why my image of Sweden was so rosy (and also because I didn't know anything else), I hadn't actually lived there as a working adult by the time I moved back. Likewise, my view of the US took a sharp turn for the worse once I entered work life there.

Could you give us a list of some things that are so terrible in Sweden? I have a gut feeling that it might also be different depending on where you originally come from. As a German I am pondering moving to the Nordics, because there are many small things that would be different and appear better, but in general I expect it to be much more agreeable to me than say the USA.

Based on the years I spent there, I'd say it's more about expectations rather than anything else. Foreign media (as well as the Swedish media and politicians) has a tendency to point out Sweden as the perfect example of everything (until the pandemic, that is), but in reality it's just another European country with a majority culture derived from Germanic bronze/iron age tribes.

There are small differences, of course, but the main differences between living in Sweden, Denmark, or Finland is basically down to language differences (especially here in Finland) and different ways of managing various administrative tasks. Norway is a bit of an outlier, but it's not really _that_ different either.

I've never actually lived in Germany so I can't tell how different it would be for you, but it's not like there's any radical change in peoples' manners and culture if you walk from Flensburg to Padborg and the way I see it, it's more of a cultural continuum stretching northwards, rather than a bunch of separate cultures.

If you want to live in the Nordics then go for it. We like to bitch and whine about it, but there are few other places that are so delightfully average.

Native Swede here. I don't exactly hate it but I don't love it.

The thing is though, you are basically Swedish now. You stay for exactly the same reason most of us natives stay. It's bad enough to loathe but good enough to never leave. (Until retiring in Spain or Thailand.)

I'm curious why you hate it. (I have spent time in Scandinavia, so I have some idea what it's like.)

I and my spouse are US citizens living in Sweden. We enjoy it very much. I could think of moving to Norway; similar enough culture, and I miss mountains. My spouse could think of moving to Denmark, because of the better tasting food. Neither of us want to move back to the US.

As a difference, I didn't come here "with idealistic notions of what Sweden was supposedly like" because I visited the country for about 12 months in total, scattered over 7 years, before I decided to move. And I did long-term visits (up to 3 months at a time) in a few other places too, before deciding on moving here. Nor was my move because I fell in love with a Swede. (Though my spouse moved here after we got married.

The worst time for me was the lack of housing in Gothenburg, which made it impossible for us to find a place after we got married. (I had been renting a small room in someone else's apartment.) We moved to a small city without the nightlife or activities of the big city. I found it quite isolating. But for us, having kids connected us to a different part of the city.

Your situation sounds tough. I have no words of wisdom or insight. Kämpa på?

https://satwcomic.com/wiki/norway agrees with your views of Norway and nature.

> Your situation sounds tough. I have no words of wisdom or insight...

I wish I hadn't said I 'hated' living here - that was an unconsidered comment that really doesn't properly reflect how I feel. Let's say 'dislike'.

There are other places I've lived that I'd prefer to move to, but I'm happy in my job and content with my home, and have a lot of good (mostly Swedish) friends, and to stay relevant to the thread, I love outdoor life (though to balance that, as others have mentioned, allemansrätt isn't as easy or all-encompassing as one is led to believe).

I think the disillusion is a large part of my problem. And the fact I haven't seen sunshine for over 2,5 weeks...

I'm 100% in the "dislike" camp, right there with you. And the sun. And the never-ending rain and mud this time of year. (7-8 months.) Almost never snow. sigh

> Couldn't agree more about how annoying it is that Nordic countries are always described as super exceptional.

Same here, it creates unrealistic expectations.

A lot of the things they say about Nordic societies are a bit more two-sided than they are made out in the Anglo media. For instance you don't have very strong job protections in Denmark, and some of the government handouts are dependent on you not having significant savings.

I remember I had an American teacher in school who decided to go back there just because he couldn't fit in socially. Something about the society means that people are hard to get a hold of. They kinda already have the friends they're gonna have. Not everyone is the same of course, but you often find with Scandies their friend slots are full.

The weather is great during the summer. In fact, it's perfect. Not hot enough to be oppressive, sun stays up late. But the rest of the time it's not great. Like today, it's cloudy in Copenhagen, threatening to rain. There's a lot of those days, and the nights get longer. You'll find a lot of the time it's dark when you want to do stuff.

Eh, it just strikes you are super exceptional because you know the country well. People living in Japan are equally annoyed by "wacky Japan!" stories about people renting family members, buying used panties from vending machines and going to giant penis festivals.

>An appreciation of and desire to be in nature is part of almost every society on the planet.

There are definitely differences between cultures when it comes to this, in particular when it includes raising children. Being German I actually got a lot of confused looks when we had American friends over and they noticed that young kids over here just go grab their bike, drive off and play in the nearby forest all day. They seemed totally shocked that ten year olds just run off and play in nature.

Did that change after the case (quite some years ago) a girl was abducted on her way home and the abductor wanted to ransom her but the underground room he built to hold her hostage was poorly ventilated and she died of CO poisoning and at least for a time some people became somewhat more concerned about their kids roaming freely?

Sometimes freak events have an oversized effect on people. In the US people used to park their baby strollers outside stores while they went shopping. One day, I think in the mid 50s, on Long Island, I believe, a family’s sleeping toddler in a stroller/pram was abducted and scared everyone from leaving their kids unattended in a stroller.

I think the US is an outlier there though, being a relatively low-trust society and somehow really fixated on threats, real or imaginary, especislly when it comes to children. But I guess helicopter parenting is a rather recent phenomenon even there; historically children above ten years or do were widely regarded as ”small adults” and expected to take care of themselves, help in all sorts of chores, and often to go to work as well.

60 years ago maybe, even in the 90s I ran the streets like a tiny hooligan without a care as long as I was back at home by the time dark came we were all good as long as I maintained my grades and chores. I know lots of parent like that around here, I'm sure the media would like you to think all parents are helicoptering in the USA but they really aren't.

Yeah, but that "10 years old go to work" workplaces were highly abusive. It was considered social problem and people who could afford otherwise did not had their 10 years old employed.

We used to do that in America when I was a kid. Then parents got scared and now “free range parenting” is a fringe idea.

I’m a millennial and free range parenting wasn’t a term when I was growing up in American suburbs. I’m not sure what the norms are now. Seems to be a complete 180 degree shift that I don't think came from an even lower trust society than before.

I grew up in the 90s in a low-density suburb in Michigan and was allowed to bicycle around the neighborhood and hang out with other kids (although, I was also pretty introverted and usually not interested in that). I rode a school bus to school along with most of my classmates. That said, access to things like nature, shops and restaurants, and the library all required a car - not being able to access those independently made me feel somewhat restricted compared to how my parents described their childhoods (dad in a walkable college town, mom in a rural area where kids played in the woods) and compared to kids I read about in books.

One very noticeable recent-ish norm shift seems to be parents dropping off and picking up elementary and middle-school age kids at school. I don't know exactly when the trend started, but it seemed to hit critical mass after 9/11, and over the course of the following decade seemed to become the norm to the extent that suburban schools started remodeling their grounds and parking lots to accommodate a waiting line of parents in cars - something I've seen now in multiple states.

I grew up going freely by myself most of the time, since I was 6/7 - even going to school (in ex-communist Bulgaria). Then in 1999 came to the US (Los Angeles), and start seeing the difference. But my first boss, who introduced me well to the society told me it wasn't so. He was growing up in the Valley (San Fernando) and going biking to school every day for miles. Also if you check the 80s movies - E.T., Goonies, and even now Stranger Things showing how it used to be - kids really used to roam the streets with bikes (same was in Bulgaria too - most of our kids movies were about parents going to the beach in the Summer, and kids in groups strolling around). Or my favourite kids' show - Verano Azul (spanish, and very popular in Bulgaria back in the days) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verano_azul - same thing - something changed much much later...

Have things really changed so quickly? 15 years ago, basically all the boys in the neighborhood would hang out in the woods and catch frogs and whatnot. That said, I grew up in a safe neighborhood, so maybe it depends on the area.

I'm Canadian and when I was a child in the '80s, we absolutely just hopped on our bikes and wandered around without parental supervision.

I don't know how accurate it is, but there's this idea that child abductions and various other dangers (falling in an old well) in the late '80s, early '90s made parents more wary of letting their kids roam.

There was there Stranger Danger panic which of course was not based on anything substantial, but left lasting scars on society.

I strongly recommend the episode of the same name on the You're Wrong About podcast.

I was born in the early nineties in Quebec and we did just the same.

Then I got into computers and didn't see the light for a few years.

Sounds like you talked to one type of American. It’s not like there aren’t American kids who do that as well.

I feel like this lack of trust is a relatively new thing, in the last 25 years or so. I grew up in the US (suburban NJ, and later semi-rural MD) in the 80s and 90s, and it was completely normal for me to just yell "Mom, I'm going to Mike's!", hop on my bike, and ride down the street. When we lived in NJ I would walk to and from the school bus stop (maybe a half mile away) by myself every morning and afternoon.

Things took a turn for the weird by the time I was in college; one summer I wanted to take the bus up to NYC to visit a friend, and my mom (who, remember, had no problem with me just taking off on my bike when I was 8) was absolutely terrified that I'd be killed. She gave me her cell phone for the trip and insisted that I call her any time I were to leave or arrive somewhere. (This was all before 9/11.)

I don't remember any sharp change in her attitude toward this at any point, so I can only assume it was a gradual thing.

The war on terror had a huge price tag and there is no sensible opposition. Formerly mainly driven by conservatives, liberals now seem to be afraid of 14-year-olds on the internet with predictable results.

I hope saner and calmer voices prevail in the future.

In fairness, Koch/Dinkins-era NYC (the 80/90s) was pretty gnarly, with far higher crime rates than today, so I'm not surprised your mom was worried. I also had free reign of my suburban NY neighborhood, but no way my parents would have let me go explore the city solo.

I did live in Manhattan for one summer in the mid-eighties when I was in grad school--quite a bit post-college. On the one hand, I (probably rationally) didn't worry about walking down Fifth Avenue or around the West Village late at night. On the other hand, there were definitely areas of the city where--if the kinda fear that if I screwed up with the metro express stops I'd be stepping out of the subway into a hail of bullets was not actually the case--I was probably also much safer to avoid certain areas. And something like 42nd Street late at night was pretty awful.

Yeah, Americans seem to believe that everyone under 15 is practically a toddler, anyone under 21 is like elementary school kid and everyone up to 26 is basically a child.

Unless you commit a crime or don't work/college past high school. Don't be a foster child and age out: You might just find yourself homeless.

Yeah, I find the dichotomy between "it is so much shame if you did not moved away past 19" for those with high school diploma only and "college students are basically kids" for supposed elite fascinating.

I'm a Swede with two siblings living in Oslo, Norway, and from our chats and their shared photos on our family chat I can tell that either way the Norwegians are clearly more nature inclined than Swedes even. For them, "gå på tur" ("going in a hike tour") is apparently something that can be done more or less any day of the week, while in Sweden you probably plan that for the weekends mostly.

Mentioning that as the article was in fact primarily using Norway as an example.

But then, also in Sweden I think we might have a somewhat higher inclination to be outside than in many other places. Like, even in the freezing winter, the number of bicyclists commuting to work in Stockholm is quite large.

I echo this. As a finn with norwegian friends it's the norwegians who are the most nature-loving and it is no suprise since their landscape makes it hard to ignore the elements, and easy to enjoy the views.

The finns probably share the extreme relaxation part of nature with swedes. Going to your cabin in the woods with family or friends and leaving your phone on the table to socialize or relax with those around you. A norwegian might like to "relax" by facing the elements and summiting a local mountain :)

Yes, that seems like a pretty apt description :)

While I agree with your point of the concept being a universal one, and the title being clickbaity, there is an important point: here the drive to be in the nature seems stronger.

It is not about being able to afford it, it is about preferences.

I am a foreigner living in Finland and this drive to be in the nature has impressed me, specially taken together with a society that is not very consumerist. In my original country, as well as here, you can use public transportation to go an be in the nature. Here is done much more often than there. Also, the cities are built in a way that respect and keep the nature, it's not about overriding it.

My experience outside the Nordics says somewhat different.

> An appreciation of and desire to be in nature is part of almost every society on the planet

I would rephrase that as "An appreciation of and desire to be outside in great weather with friends is part of almost every society on the planet." I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions, but I've met few people who are willing to, for no purpose other than to be outside, go outside in hard wind or light rain. The idea of "go get some fresh air, you'll feel better" doesn't seem to resonate well.

> fika

What makes the fika culture unique (we have it in Finland too) is not that you decide to go grab a coffee during the work day. For me, it's that _everyone_ takes a break at the same time to have coffee. I only did an internship in tech back home, but even there we would all take a break at 9:30 to sit down, have a coffee, and talk about whatever we came up with.

When I hear non-Nordics talk about Nordic culture I get the feeling that they're very focused on what individuals do, whereas the whole point is what people collectively do.

For me, it's that _everyone_ takes a break at the same time to have coffee.

I've spent four years in Italy and around 12:00-12:30 the whole country essentially stops and goes for a lunch break - small businesses close etc.

The vast majority of restaurants are open during certain hours when there's a chance that people will visit.

I read somewhere that before WW2 it was like that in other countries, but died out over the years because of competition.

Perhaps what you're describing is a remnant of these times?

I wasn't thinking about lunch, but that makes sense. It's not as strict or drastic here in Berlin. For a 9-6 office job, I'd say people leave for lunch between 12-13.

What I'm thinking of in the Nordics, or Finland especially since I haven't worked in the other ones, are the two coffee breaks that are part of the work day. I've worked in construction and the aforementioned tech internship, and this is roughly how the day looks (offices tend to start one hour later):

- 06:50: arrive early, banter, coffee - 07:00: day beings - 09:15: first 15min coffee break - 11:30: lunch break - 14:15: second 15min coffee break - 15:30: day is over

I may be off by 15 minutes for the coffee breaks, it's been over a decade since I worked outside of the tech startup bubble.

Not sure how things are in Finnish startups, probably slightly different? I miss these "natural" breaks though. On the other hand, I do enjoy having my coffee while working as well. :')

I think it is a universal human concept, but it is not available to every human. We have a very limited right to roam in England and Wales, and much less forest.

I see on TV people in Nordic countries camping by a lake and fishing for their dinner in complete solitude. I don't know where I could do that in the UK, except as some kind of paid bushcraft experience...or tresspassing!

Scotland has Scandinavian style "Right to Roam" and wild camping is very popular - you can camp pretty much anywhere you want as long as you follow some sensible rules (some extremely popular areas near to Glasgow have local by-laws controlling camping - but that's a very small part of the country).

Here's something to give you a taste of what is possible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opAWJnD0Jro&t=40s

https://www.visitscotland.com/accommodation/caravan-camping/...

Also if you don't fancy staying in a tent there is a network of bothies where you can stay for free (at least during normal times):

https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/

Scotland is basically Scandinavia light, what with your bairn fishing in the beck and so on.

As a Norwegian living in England, moving here felt like being walled in. Granted I live in London, but it's more than just the lack of land, it also extends to a different culture around things like parks.

E.g. opening hours and fences around parks - what the hell is that about? I was just totally confused the first time I got to a park in the evening and it was closed.

Part of it of course has to do with density, but to me that just makes it all the more important to protect and ensure as much access as possible. Instead people are herded into as little land as possible, and opening hours imposed on a good chunk of it.

Scotland does have similar rights to Scandinavia.

Not all London parks are fenced.

Hampstead Heath for example isn't.

Quite a lot aren't, but enough are that it just was a really strange experience. 20 years in I'm still not used to it.

In the rural Northeast U.S. where I live you are allowed to walk on and explore private land that you don't own unless it's "posted". To post your land you must display an official sign (available in hardware stores) every 120 meters and at every corner of your land. You also need to date every sign every year and register your land as posted with your town or city. Posted land may still be accessed with the permission of the land owner. We enjoy skiing and bird watching often on our neighbors lands in this way.

Granted, I'm from the US and live in Norway - so I might be wrong - but I'm not sure if that would be all that legal in Norway. Yes, you may own the expanse of wood, but if you aren't actively using it for things, folks can walk there and camp there. I don't have to get permission.

In the US, I'd be trespassing and could expect police to say something. For a long time, it felt like I was doing something wrong or illegal.

Not sure about other states but unless it's posted you can use other people's land. This is true for my state and several of the surrounding ones in the Northeast U.S. You only have to get permission if it's posted.

regardless of posting status, written permission is required for certain activities such as driving and camping on private land.

The only thing I see in a search is mainly speaking about beaches [1]: Can they not call about you trespassing? Or do many people simply not actually care? Can you just park by the side of the road and go walking in the woods?

Because ultimately, that's what I have here. I can just park off of the side of the road so long as it isn't blocking anyone and go off into the woods. I can do that and camp. Or sleep in the car, even. Without being worried about any trouble whatsoever. I can do this hours away from home without needing to know who owns the land.

Indiana doesn't need signs: If a local cop sees your out-of-town plates parked by the road or sees you in someone else's woods, they are going to ask about it. Lots of folks don't care all that much, however, especially if you aren't camping or hunting, so if they see you, they might say hi but that's about it. (Parents had some acres of woods, and didn't care with the exception of hunters - they wanted to know when hunters were about so they didn't let kids or dogs in the woods without proper safety colors).

Many landowners don't care or at least don't care enough to post their land. Yes you can park by the side of the road and walk in the woods. We do this to forage for wild plants like fiddlehead ferns, morels and garlic scapes.

You can't camp without permission although as children we certainly did this on our neighbors land.

Provided that the landowner does not charge a fee, a landowner is not liable for property damage or personal injury for the recreational use of their property.

Also in the Northeast and take advantage of this occasionally. I took a hunter safety course recently and they hammer it in that this model is changing as more and more land is bought by people moving to these areas from places that don't have this custom or land gets passed to generations that don't share this ideal or don't want to bother with people on their land (many times for good reasons).

I personally love it and would probably never post my land, but I feel like it is one of those nice things that can be described as "just the way we did things back then" that won't last much longer.

People also post land because, while they may be fine with people walking, they may not be fine with people hunting and ripping up paths with ATVs and dirt bikes. (The latter group regularly rips down my neighbor's posted signs.)

You can post against specific uses "No Hunting" but not "No Trespassing"

A quote from my states website

    The landowner may maintain signs that:

    Prohibit hunting, fishing or trapping;
    Prohibit any combination of the three; or
    State all or any combination of the three are allowed 
    by Permission Only.

    Once registered, Permission Only signs and standard Posted signs are essentially 
    identical in meaning and enforcement.   However, if you've decided to post, consider 
    Permission Only signs when:

    Your primary goal is to know who is using your property;
    You welcome hunters, but have had issues with other users;
    You've made the decision to post, but want to show you support hunting and use 
    hunting as a tool on your property; and
    You want to continue to allow other public access without written permission, such 
    as hiking and cross country skiing.

Yes. Around where I live (New England), it's fairly common to post land without a blanket "No Trespassing" with the intent to prohibit motorized vehicles, hunting, and trapping but not people simply walking on your property.

It still happens though that as rural towns become more like exurbs though that new landowners post their properties to prohibit "traditional" uses that long-time residents had been doing all their lives.

This reminds me of this British perspective on the custom of opening a window in Germany, which is indistinguishable from parody for a German:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/30/germans-embrac...

> The custom is something of a national obsession, with many Germans habitually opening windows twice a day, even in winter.

> Impact ventilation, or Stosslüften, which needs explanation for most people unfamiliar with Germany except for experts in air hygiene, involves widely opening a window in the morning and evening for at least five minutes to allow the air to circulate. Even more efficient is Querlüften, or cross ventilation, whereby all the windows in a house or apartment are opened letting stale air flow out and fresh air come in.

> In Germany, windows are designed with sophisticated hinge technology that allows them to be opened in various directions to enable varying degrees of Lüften.

That's funny, a swedish journalist did a nice report on the same topic, probably for exactly the same reason, or two reasons, really - it's a foreign correspondent, so they always need to have a new topic to report home about and, Merkel had mentioned ventilation/Lüften recently, so it was on topic.

Even if it looks like a parody to a German, it is valuable to get an outside look at your own culture to bring a new perspective - I like that too. The article I read included the fact that many renting contracts have conditions about how often it should be ventilated.

I agree, and as the audience for this article, Americans are not miles off having that outdoor appreciation sorted. Underdone for holidays and accessing through private land sure, but they get a lot else right and (as an Australian) I'm quite envious of how broad the outdoor appreciation is across all age categories, especially at college age.

The national parks are epic. State parks and national forests have great access opportunities given the NPs are often busy. In the west especially, there is a lot of BLM land to use and get away from everyone. There are RVers, families and college kids camping.

In Australia we have grey nomads, 4WD convoys, families camping and travel couples touring around, but no real equivalent to the college kids camping in Yosemite or similar.

The US has enough national forests and BLM land (at least in the west) that I don't think the right of way is especially missed?

You don't need to go as far as the USA to find that kind of appreciation, just look over to our friendly Kiwi neighbours.

>at least in the west

Yes. Much more in the western US than elsewhere given vast swaths of land are owned by the federal government and (especially outside of national parks) offer largely unregulated ability to hike and camp.

It's different and considerably more remote from, say, taking a long distance walk in England in ways that are both better (for some) and worse (for some).

I think it's excellent. A few simple rules (max stays, don't dump rubbish, etc) and then more or less freedom for the people that like that. We have "crown land" here in Australia but it's not promoted or branded with a neat brand/concept that encapsulates it as well. Often the "bush camping" is tolerated or at the mercy of individual councils (counties, I guess).

Roadtripped and camped across the US twice last year, and the jump in camping opportunities once you get to Colorado heading west is awesome.

I'm waiting for the article about the Nordic ritual of toalettet and how it is a deeper, more meaningful experience for communing with one's own waste products.

I think in general you are right. But appreciation for being outdoors comes in different flavours. In Sweden I think many children have been imprinted to appreciate friluftsliv through Skogsmulle, a kind of fairy tale cartoon character, usually an adult dressed up and taking small hikes with children in a nearby forest. While there, teaching kids to not throw trash in nature, about Allemansrätten and its freedoms and responsibilities.

Another could be the emphasis to learn many types of flower and tree species in biology in school. When I went to school I found that boring and useless but have later realized it being part of building a closer familiarity with the outdoors. Like ancestry in some ways. Perhaps the HN crowd could enlighten on this. I have heard that there is not as much emphasis on this abroad.

A third example, the focus on Orienteering as a sport in school. When I went to school, it was certainly the most emphasised of all the types of sports we learned and practised in gym class. The only one that got it's own day regularily. I think it was once a semester, reliable as clockwork.

I feel like I did some analog of all of those in my USA school. We even went to week long camps in the mountains and snow ("in nature"). We have/had popular TV programs for kids that emphasize "the environment" and "nature".

> You know how poorly programming is represented in movies and tv series makes you realize how wrong they probably are about every other topic?

Michael Crichton put a label on something related this:

> Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

* https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann#Quotes_about_...

The talk in which Crichton mentions this was discussed:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20803989

This is the same tourist propaganda that comes from Japan too. There's some kind of knowledge or wisdom that the culture only knows and outside people can catch a glimpse of it if they try.

Fika sounds exactly like having a smoko (smoke break) in Australia

Sounds about right.

I also suspect "allemansrätten" is more a result of low population density than some unique nordic sharing culture.

If I would research this, I would look at historical evidence of how free the peasantry class have been in relation to landowners, and how the society was set up under feudalism, the extent of serfdom, and see how strong that correlation is with current right-to-roam regulations.

I think Scandinavian peasants were alone in Europe to never have been serfs. Which probably has cultural effects even today.

One explanation I've seen is that if the nobility got to aggressive, Swedish peasants could always go hide in the forest for a while.

...which is something you can do in a low population density land, and we're full circle :)

Danish peasants were serfs for a period:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavnsb%C3%A5nd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vornedskab

Sounds more like what China is doing, you need a pass to move to the city.

The Black Death also helped a lot. It reset a lot of property relationships by leaving a lot of free land after farmers and their whole families died out - in Norway it took about 200 years before most of the farms were back in operation, and when the population was expanding again there were tax breaks for restarting farms. We can see the extent of it today in the prevalence of last names like Ødegård, Ødegaard and similar (literally "deserted farm"), and similar place names.

Forests in Europe are not exactly unique to Scandinavia.

Thing is much of the peninsula due to the climate can support only marginal agriculture and hence only a very limited peasant population. Not enough pop density to establish any sustainable lifestyle for nobility.

In Sweden at least, "allemansrätten" as a law, comes from a change made in the 40s, to resolve conflicts between city dwellers need for "friluftsliv" and landowners, in-favor of the former.

Since 1994 "allemansrätten" is part of the constitutional law, securing the right for everyone to go anywhere under certain circumstances (cant stay longer than a couple of nights in the same place, cant stay within eyesight of a permanent resident etc etc)

> cant stay within eyesight of a permanent resident

The fact that this is practical is a consequence of low population density. In places like the Netherlands there practically are no localities where one is outside eyesight of a permanent resident, besides national parks.

No, that isn't it. Have you been to say the US or Australia (both very low density)? "Private property NO TRESPASSING" signs everywhere. Very few official trails. If you want to walk from A to B you better have one of those trails or you find yourself walking next to a road (without sidewalk).

Compared to here (high population density, Germany) or say the Alps, where you can use any road used for forestry or farming. The only thing you can't access is small gardens in relatively high density villages.

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