In the previous episode, we talked to William about his life in Sweden, and we're gonna continue with that topic today.

Do they have laws about household chores? Like who does the dishes and all that?

I would say it's quite equal I think. I think in a young family, both parents… they’re home at different times, like one might be working one might be home, so they both know how to cook, they both know how to clean, because they have to share the responsibility. But that doesn't seem to be any problem. I’ve never known of any problem with it.

I’ve got a young daughter and when her boyfriend they are living together and they share, and it seems to work.

And they can't usually rely on their parents like young couple they can't really rely on their parents for to take care of their baby, right?

That's correct. I mean, most of the young couples they are both working and probably their parents are also working, so the grandparents of the kids are working. So they rely a lot more on the service of day cares which is called dagv?rd in Swedish, and kindergarten and they go to kindergarten quite early, very early because both young couples need to work. This is an expensive place to live.

Yeah, how expensive we talking about constantly here, northern European countries are very, very expensive, exactly how expensive.

I would say very, very expensive.

You lived in Geneva. One of the more expensive places in the world. Is it more expensive than Geneva?

I would say people in Sweden they live for the most part from paycheck to paycheck. I would say most Swedes especially young to middle aged Swedes don't have a lot of money in savings. They live well, but they don't normally have a lot of money. It's an expensive place to live.

But is it also because they have very good social welfares? So there's always multiple safety nets so that they don't have to have a lot of savings.

There are excellent social welfare. The education system is free, Medicare, medical aids for Swedish citizens, Swedish residents is free. It's a very small amount, you have to pay upfront and then that same treatment continues for until they fix you. In that respect it’s quite cheap; but the day to day life, the cost of living…is very high. …is quite expensive.

Yeah, one of the things I noticed when I first went to Sweden is I noticed a lot of young people had exceptionally gorgeous apartments. I really couldn't figure this out. I thought maybe everybody's got rich parents. But then I found a new word and I think it's the origin of the word rent, as in paying the rent, because the word “r?nta” in Swedish means interest, like the interest on the loan. And they only when they buy an apartment or a house, they are only paying off the interest. They're not paying off the principal.

Oh, not the principal.

Not a capital. No, no.

But does that mean they still…well, from my perspective, then they still don't own it, though, because if they always have that principal that they have yet to pay, if they're only paying interest.

That's right. And the ideas you move up the property ladder, you buy a piece of property, you pay the interest on your loan, the property appreciates, and when you sell it, you sell it for a profit, and then you move the profit into the next place and so on.

I see. Seems to work.

I was actually gonna ask you about homeownership, so I guess that makes it easy for people to buy and own… to get their…

Homeownership is really easy, buying property in Scandinavia is very, very simple, it’s very straightforward, it is.

The other thing that I'm really curious to know is that so far we have been grouping Scandinavian countries together, but I'm sure for Swedish people, in general, they don't feel like they're the same as their neighbors like Norwegians or Danish.

No. It's like within the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, within Norway, Finland, and Iceland to a lesser extent. There's always rivalry. They always think they are… It's a nice rivalry. It's not any animosity. People get a little bit jealous.

The Swedes used to be jealous of the Norwegians with their income from North Sea oil, etc. That's changed now. In general there's always rivalry but they support each other. I think if you try to seriously go against one Scandinavian country, then they all band together. They've got serious sporting rivalries, which can be matter of life and death depending on which way you’re looking at it.

But for the most part they support each other. They respect each other, but it's always a little bit of… rivalry …little bit of banter, always. It has to be.

Like harmless rivalry. It's a bit like Australia and New Zealand in certain ways.

And I know for a lot of Chinese right now, being able to travel is something that we still are not able to do because of the pandemic, but hopefully we're gonna open very soon and then we can resume traveling. Before the pandemic I used to travel a lot and I definitely would like to see Scandinavian countries. Like in Sweden in particular, for first-time travelers, what kind of experience, like must-have experience, must-try experiences would you recommend?

You must come at the right time of the year. Unless you like to spend most of your day in darkness, you should not come in the wintertime, even though it's beautiful, it's stunning, it's beautiful. And the skiing in Sweden is wonderful. Forget Europe, skiing in Sweden is awesome.

But if a person was to come to Sweden, I would say springtime, summertime, autumn, it's stunningly beautiful. You should definitely not miss the Stockholm that is quite a vibrant city. It's beautiful. And the old town in particular, it's absolutely lovely.

And you should definitely not miss a trip to the Archipelago, which is about, at the moment, last count I think is about 25,000 islands, and I lived on one of those islands; and it's really gorgeous. The weather is stunning in summertime, it’s beautiful.

Certainly sounds like something to look forward to.

And also one thing you should definitely involve yourself in a little bit of the Swedish food culture. The reason I was on that island to that I live on now was I was visiting a restaurant there, and that restaurant now has become very famous, but they are not on the island anymore. They had to move off the island in order to get Michelin stars, and now they have two Michelin stars. They're very good friends of mine. So the food in Scandinavia is incredible.

And what kind of food are we talking about?

This is kind of crossover food. It's a little bit maybe not everybody's taste. It's a little bit of tasting menu experimentation. But the general traditional Swedish food, they're Swedish, they have traditional Swedish food for different occasions, especially Christmas. Whether we have a lot of preserve food, because in the old days, to have the food available in the wintertime, they had to make it in the summertime before everything got frozen, and keep it for the winter.

And it's not to everybody's taste, but it’s okay. And then during the year they also have some special festivals where they'll eat specific things and drink specific things, one of which is called a “Kr?ftskiva” (Swedish crayfish party).

kr?fta is this small freshwater crayfish. And they like to have big parties and eat these things and drink a lot of schnapps, and get absolutely loaded. It's quite funny.

But the one thing, I would say one of the main foods in Sweden, which is very well known for… it is a thing called Surstromming, which is basically fermented herring. And it's horrific. You have to try it at least once, and you probably will if you come, they'll trick you.

I’ve heard that you’ve got to open it underwater so that it doesn't stink out the entire place.

It’s horrific. When I was in Switzerland, I made a big mistake. I didn't know anything about this thing. I'd finished playing rugby and I was in my girlfriend's apartment and I was looking for….she was in the shower and I was looking for something to eat, and in her fridge was a can, and I opened this can which was bulging a bit. I thought something not right here, and as soon as I opened the can, it was dreadful.

It just rendered the room uninhabitable.

She was not very happy. Cause she was saving it for a special occasion, and she made me eat a piece; and it was horrific. And I made the big mistake, instead of just swallow it, I made a mistake of chewing it. You should never do that. It’s horrible. But it's a delicacy. It's a delicacy.

I’ve heard about that before. Ok, very interesting experiences.

All right. One last question. As a world traveler, you've been all over and how do you think these experiences in other cultures have impacted your life and your way of thinking?

I think I'll become, as I get all of them, much much more open-minded and much much more tolerant of different people and different situations, especially, and I think that's a good thing, especially as we go forward, the life gets a bit more hectic as I'm trying to slow my life down, besides it gets more and more hectic and more and more busy. And I think the traveling around has certainly made me a better listener to people and understanding people’s situations, because even though it's a small world, we are all different, we're all very different. We have different ways of doing things. We have different ways of expressing ourselves. Sometimes it's not so nice or whatever, but I'm pretty tolerant and pretty open to most things.

And having said that, what do you think of the concept of roots, like in Chinese culture, which I'm sure you've noticed, is that people they talk about roots, their original culture, even their native town. Many people say when they get older, they want to move back. No matter how much they traveled in the world, they want to move back and search for their roots or just go back to their roots. Does that mean anything to you, roots?

I am absolutely no different from most people because my roots are in Scotland and even though I’ve lived in beautiful places, especially between I also lived sometime in Australia. It's a beautiful country and Sweden's a beautiful country, but my root is in Scotland; and I will definitely spend my end of days in Scotland.

I have a big family there and we are a very very small country, but I love it and I take it everywhere with me wherever I go.

That's nice. Thank you William, for sharing with us your interesting experiences and perspectives. You certainly have given us a lot of food for thought. Thank you William, for coming to the studio.

You're very welcome.

All right. That's a wrap.

Thank you, Lulu. Bye.

Bye.