Differences:
Today, we met the mayor of Lulea and learned some interesting things about Lulea. The cross-cultural differences are totally different from U.S. Each year, during July to August, everyone has a summer vacation and all industries are shut down for 1 month due to the best weather of the year, the summer time. In July, the daytime is longer than average, so they want to enjoy these wonderful days. In this situation, it is unwise for people to do their business in Sweden in summer.
Another interesting thing is that the working parents get more benefits in Sweden than U.S. In other words, if a woman is pregnant, both of she and her husband would get totally 15 months long vacation for taking care of the upcoming newborn baby. I shocked by this policy because in China only the women in pregnant would have the right to get a vacation. Lastly, having coffee breaks are essential to Swedish. Both of employers and employees would spend their coffee breaks together and have a chat with each other. Also, the talking topic is not necessarily related to working. Even though Lulea is a small city, it still develops rapidly and has increasing innovation in everywhere.
Concert hall:
Yesterday, we went to the science park of Pitea. To keep the sustainability, the company develop their product by using existing resources, which is an energy-saving industry. And then we visited Acusticum, which is an amazing concert hall. I shocked by the melody that played by the organ and all the facilities are made by woods, which is exceptional.
Food:
In terms of the foods, at the very beginning, I thought the foods of North Europe are similar to the foods of America. However, we tried a Swedish traditional cuisine, reindeer, which cannot be served in U.S. and it is very delicious.
Another traditional Swedish food is called Beef meatballs with cranberries as the sides. It’s really tasty.
Weather:
About the weather, it is really hot in Stockholm in the first two days after we arrived. By contrast, the weather is so cold in Lulea and Pitea. These two cities are close to the Arctic circle so that the sun never set in the summer time. It is a unique experience that there still have sunlight after midnight. I guess this is one of the reasons that Sweden has the prosperous solar electric system.
