Straight-up Scandinavia: Learning the language of IKEA

by Anna Brones on

I find that either you love IKEA or you hate it; you can probably ascertain my own leanings by the fact that I am writing this article. Coming from a Scandinavian family, we have friends who used to have stuff shipped from Sweden to the US before the store made its American debut — some people are just truly committed. But seriously, the company’s basic idea was pretty cutting edge back in the 50s when it started designing furniture. “Affordable solutions for comfortable living,” as the company’s motto goes, went along with flat pack and consumer assembled pieces. How intelligent to reduce costs by reducing the volume of a piece of furniture.

IKEA is a Scandinavian institution gone global, and despite whether you love it or hate it, you are bound to end up with one of its products at some point. I mean really, who can resist sleek Scandinavian design? And when you do find yourself with that Nordic sofa, bookcase, or lamp, you might be interested to know exactly what all of the funny names mean. Pyssla, Svala, Visdalen, Gök? Although it may seem like a jumble of Viking vowels, there is some method to the madness. IKEA’s founder Ingvar Kamprad was actually dyslexic, and he found that developing a system where products were named after places and things made it easier for him to remember them. Learning Swedish is great, but learning IKEA? Even better. A guide to deciphering the system that defines the IKEA language, thanks to a little help from the The Guardian:

Scandinavia unite:
Sofas, coffee tables, bookshelves, media storage and doorknobs — I agree, that last one is random — are named after places in Sweden; beds, wardrobes and hall furniture after places in Norway; and carpets after places in Denmark. And don’t think Finland gets left out; Finnish cities and places are the namesake for dining tables and chairs.
In the kitchen
Kitchens themselves — no, cooking in an all-Scandinavian setting does not require you to make meatballs — are normally named after Swedish grammatical terms. Going with the theme of cooking, kitchen utensils are named after spices, herbs, fish, fruit or berries. And just because Scandinavians are such believers in functional things, great words like Burken (meaning “the jar”) describe a line of spice jars.

Vad heter du? What’s your name?
Men’s names tend to go to chairs and desks while materials and curtains are women’s names. My mother has a nice set of place mats and chair pads named after her. I however, with a standard Scandinavian name like Anna, am far too common and get nothing.

Keeping the kids amused
IKEA’s great kids selection — I always get sucked in by the fun colors and random assortment of crazy stuffed animals — are named after mammals, birds and adjectives.

If you think you have all of that down, and have mastered the list of Scandinavian places and words, you can play the IKEA Game, where IKEA product names are picked at random out of a database and your job is to guess what the product is.

And if you are one of those IKEA-dreading individuals, you might want some help with IKEA survival during your next visit.

Straight-up Scandinavia: Danish film festival continues in Atlanta this weekend

by Anna Brones on

We all know about, and love, French film. And the musicals of Bollywood seem to be everywhere. But Danish cinema?

Cinephiles may already be well acquainted with the Danish film industry, but for the rest of you, all it takes is a little direction. You may in fact remember the movie Italian for Beginners. Don’t let the title fool you, it was a Danish directed film all about seven strangers coming together in Copenhagen to learn a bit of Italiano. Or what about Dancer in the Dark? Yup, it too was made by a Danish director, Lars von Trier.

This weekend in Atlanta, January 25-27, the quest for discovering Denmark’s film industry continues at the Danish Film Festival. The third annual festival actually started last weekend, but three more movies are scheduled to show this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Rich Theater located in the Woodruff Arts Center. One of the films, A Soap, was the winner of the Best Debut Film at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival. Even children can get involved, if they are up to reading subtitles, with The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar.

Tickets are $5 general admission and $4 for students, seniors and museum members, giving those of you in the Atlanta area no excuse not to get a little weekend taste of Denmark.

How to live like Matthew McConaughey

by Jamie Rhein on

Living like Matthew McConaughey may involve taking your shirt off, as Matt Damon says in his hilarious impression of the often shirtless star while Damon was a guest on David Letterman. (Here is the YouTube video. It explains why I chose the photo I did.)

Another way that is less dramatic, perhaps, is by living with a family overseas. McConaughey was an exchange student to Australia in 1988 and lived with a family who he still visits. (YouTube video)

When I was in college, I was an exchange student and lived with a family in Denmark who I am still in touch with and plan to visit again on my next trip to Europe. I have visited two times already. My Danish sisters have also visited me and my family in the U.S.

When you live with a family there is an impression about a country you can get that’s much richer from traveling there. Although Abha found Copenhagen not worth traveling back to, which I can see if I didn’t know it better, I found the Danish culture a fascinating place to hang out for awhile. When you live with a family, you get to know more about the values and psychology of a place.

I also learned how to make a deep connection with someone who didn’t share my language and I didn’t share his. My Danish father didn’t know any English and I didn’t really learn any more Danish than to say “Thank you for the meal,” “Are you cold?” and “peacock.” I also know how to make a Danish lunch.

For anyone visiting the U.S., living with an American family is a way to understand more about the complexities of American life. We’ve had Japanese exchange teachers live with us on a couple of occasions. Both times it was only for a couple of weeks, but we took them to visit my husband’s parents and each were here for Halloween.

As an adult, there are still ways you can live with a family if your exchange student days are over, although many masters’ degree programs also have programs in other countries that involve staying with families. One of my close friends studied in Taiwan and lived with a family for the summer as part of his program through the University of Southern California. The first time I went to Taiwan, I visited him. Since he was studying urban planning seeing Taipei through his lens was a bonus.

Another way is to search out home stay options. There are organizations that link visitors to families, even for short visits. Here’s one for Nepal that I found, for example.

You can also possibly hook up with an impromptu stay. When we lived in Singapore, we had a few travelers stay with us who we met while we were traveling somewhere else. When they were passing through Singapore, we invited them to stay with us. Be friendly, open, and charming as hell, and you might get lucky.

When I was in the Peace Corps some travelers wandered into my village and guess who the villagers thought they should stay with because they might be more comfortable? Here’s an account of someone who finagled a stay with a nomad family in Mongolia. This stay involved learning a bit about sheep shearing. My Peace Corps visitors ended up going with me to a naming ceremony that involved drumming and dancing. By the way, they were Italian. One of them didn’t know English.

When picking a place for your next vacation, consider staying with a family in order to learn the language better. For that purpose, here’s one in Ecuador through the Cristóbal Colón Spanish school.

Here is a link to the Danish International Student program (DIS) that gives tips on staying with a family. They are worth a look at no matter which family you may stay with, even if it’s for a night or two.

Christmas Eve in Denmark: Bask in the glow

by Jamie Rhein on

In elementary school in the U.S., and I’m sure in elementary schools pretty much everwhere, there are the chapters of social studies books that present a sampling of holiday traditions in other countries. One of my favorite things about traveling is finding out which things hold true outside the pages of a book–and which are sometimes true, but not always the way that is pictured.

My Christmas spent in Denmark was my first Christmas away from home–it could have not been more perfect. It was social studies book perfection. One thing I found out is that Danes really do hold hands while they sing carols and dance around a live Christmas tree that has real candles lit all aglow. The candles are only lit on Christmas Eve.

My Danish family (I still call them that years later) had a pitcher of water close to the tree in case it caught on fire. Besides dancing around the tree, we also wound our way through the house. It was wonderful. I remember feeling safe and loved. This YouTube video is not of my family, but of a family who lives in Svendborg. Still, the look and feel is the same. Notice the garland of the Danish flags. My family’s tree had these as well as paper hearts like the one in the picture. Click on it and it will take you to the Web site with instructions. This video is less than a minute long, but you’ll get the idea.

“Catastrophe tourism” on the rise in Greenland

by Iva Skoch on

Greenland says it doesn’t like to be seen as the global warming poster child, according to an article in Sunday’s NY Times entitled “As Ice Recedes, Interest Surges.” They have witnessed a spike in “catastrophe tourism,” or “Come see if before it’s too late” kind of tourism, lately. Apparently it is human nature to enjoy watching things–Greenland, in this case–die.

If morbid curiosity is what does it for you, you can now take a direct flight from Baltimore to Greenland on Air Greenland for about $1300. You can sit on the Ilulissat ice fjord, watching the glacier melt in 3D. Or you can visit the 25-foot ice wall Kangerlussuag, which–if it melts–is supposed to be responsible for raising the world’s ocean level by 24 feet.

Of course, by increasing the air traffic in Greenland, you might actually be helping global warming…