Back at work

Interview with a farmer that wants a wife. And his cows.

Fika

Fika is perhaps my favorite activity and definitely the one I miss the most in the American workplace. It is both a noun and a verb that refers to the act of sitting down with a cup of coffee or tea and something to eat - fruit, cake, cookies, what have you. This process is repeated several times during the day so the next fika break (“fikarast”) is never far away. When people get bored at work, they take a fika break. When you want to hang out with a friend and it is too early to drink, you go out for a fika. When you visit your grandmother, the first thing she is going to do is offer you fika. The public’s love affair with it in combination with strong unions has led to a law stating that all employees must get five minutes off for every hour that they work. Thus, there is enough time for at least two or three fika breaks during the workday.

Fadime

Unni Wikan, author of "In Honor of Fadime"

The murder of Fadime Sahindal introduced the Swedish public to the concept of “honor killings”. A Kurdish immigrant who moved to Sweden with her family at the age of seven, she wanted to pick her own husband and refused the man selected for her. She spoke to the parliament about her situation and politicians supported her cause.  Her family threatened to have her killed if she ever returned to her hometown of Uppsala, so for several years she stayed away. However, she decided to come back and say goodbye to her mother and sisters before leaving for Kenya, and her father shot her in the head right in front of them. This sparked a debate about immigration as well as the role of the feminist movement. She is still used as an example of what (in a worst-case scenario) an honor
-based belief system can lead to.  The book "In Honor of Fadime" explains the story in detail.

Twilight town (Forks)

Facket (The Swedish Unions)

Many of the rights that Swedish workers take for granted, such as a guaranteed five-week vacation and high minimum salaries, come from the work of union activists. They are still very powerful compared to other countries. One of the largest unions, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) owns over 50% of the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet and has close ties with the Social Democrats, a political party.

Any day that starts with a three hour trail ride..

Is a great day.

Expedition:Robinson (Survivor)

We are the proud producers of the very first season of Survivor in the entire world. Of course, we called it Expedition:Robinson and the concept was created by an Englishman, but we were the first people to ever film it and show it on the small screen. From the beginning, it was a highly controversial show. There had hardly been any reality shows before this one came out in 1997 and people were not used to seeing things like contestants being voted off.

After the first episode was aired, the protests were massive and both the viewers and the critics were calling it “fascist-TV”. It did not help that one of the contestants killed him self after returning to Sweden, supposedly because he was the first one to be voted off the island. Despite (because of?) the initial drama the show went on to become a huge success and has since then been sold to numerous countries all over the world, including the US.