Sweden Vs Indonesia

Now that I have been over 6 months in Stockholm as a student, I see more and more differences. I can finally do comparison between this country I currently in, and my home country Indonesia. We will see who will win in the end and if I need to change my blogging topic to StudyInIndonesia instead. To complicate things, I will use 0 to 10 points each. The judgement is purely on what I felt and may different with other people’s view.

more

Weather

Sweden 8 vs 7 Indonesia. Four seasons does a great magic to people I guess. You will realize that sunshine is super awesome during cold winter but you still have to walk to class. The yellow and red leaf during autumn, combined with green grasses and blue sky, will make perfect scenery to watch while sitting on a hill in the forest. Indonesia does not have that luxury as it only have summer and rainy season. We Indonesian don’t see that sunshine is very good, but when we do, like after experiencing cold winter, it’s like 6 months of summer, which is great. In Sweden the good summer is only like, a month. Oh, and the rain is much lighter in Sweden. I never really stop my walk during rain in Stockholm, while in Jakarta we will be really wet under 15 seconds of rain.

Local Food

Sweden 5 vs 9 Indonesia. Sorry Sweden, you are losing big in this one. I don’t really find “strong” food in Stockholm and Sweden in general. There are not much of a traditional cuisine. Köttbullar is a good meatballs but we have better meatballs called Bakso, with salty soup. Way tastier. Semla cake is sweet and good but I am not sure I like the hard bread for it. However the fish soup is very delicious. While for Indonesian local food, I don’t even know where to begin. There are a lot of them and all of them are yummy! The only minus is that half of them are not healthy.

Transportation

Sweden 9 vs 5 Indonesia. Well, Indonesia still have a lot to work on transportation. Jakarta have about 11 million people in it yet our first subway are still about to come. While in Sweden bus punctually come on the scheduled time. The roads are big and bike lanes can be easily found. The good thing is that flight in Indonesia are cheaper than in Sweden. Both Indonesia and Sweden have cruise ship. Subway in Stockholm is great. My campus is 35km away from home, and the train took me only around 23 minutes to get there. Buses that goes between cities is a little bit similar.

People

Sweden 6 vs 8 Indonesia. I love talking about people and their behavior. Cool thing about the Swede is that most of them, oh wait, it is 96% of the Swede speak good –if not great- English. Even though they do not speak that much to stranger, they will if you ask them politely. Since education standard is good, I see most of my Swedish friend is smart. Indonesia meanwhile is quite different. It is normal to speak to stranger while sitting on public transportation. Small talk is always around. But one thing remains the same: The further we go from the city, people are friendlier. I probably should also mention that there are less people in Sweden than in Indonesia. About the physical appearance, at first I want to say that Swedish face are beautiful and handsome, but then I see myself in the mirror. Haha! I mean both are gorgeous in their own way, really.

Education

Sweden 8 vs 6 Indonesia. In Sweden, teacher pay attention to kids’ talent and treat them not based only on academic result. When in Indonesia we ranks the children based on the exam’s result, in Sweden there are no ranks. Educators have perception of all of the children are special. The system in University is also different. More Swedish university goes international, as they believe diversity will create good things. In my university KTH, there are students from more than 100 countries. Most of the master program are taught in English. Student can also choose course (elective course) taught from other university. I find it really cool because that way I can study other fields and in the same time, meet students from other university too. In Indonesia, we don’t have that flexibility.

Nature

Sweden 6 vs 9 Indonesia. This is one thing to be proud of from home. The nature is amazing in Indonesia. Beautiful beaches, hundreds of tall mountains, coral reefs, savannas, national parks, jungles, animals, I can keep going. Sweden have snow and Indonesia don’t. The forest turning white is something cool too. Management of national parks is good in Sweden. Norway have most of the mountain area but at least there are one long line of mountain in north of Sweden. It is super easy to find forest in Sweden, even If you live in a big city. My favorite national park (Tyresta national park) is 40 minutes away from where I live in Stockholm. I have been to one national park called Fulufjället, in Dalarna, where I meet this world oldest tree (9550 years old) and highest waterfall in Sweden. The highest waterfall is tiny compare to the one in Indonesia though. Anyway Sweden also have this magical northern light and reindeer and moose.

In conclusion

Actually in my philosophy, comparing stuff is not really cool. It is better to see bright side of anything and be happy with it. However I just thought that people coming to Sweden from Indonesia should know that we will have this but losing that. Sorry but I now decide to ignore the final score, and I think both countries rocks a lot!

PS: here is some of my shot from home