Welcome to my presentation of Åke Daun’s text on similarities between Swedes and Japanese, The Japanese of the North - The Swedes of Asia. Read it by clicking the first part of the text that seems interesting to you. The ”Introduction” and ”Making Generalizations about National Cultures” parts may be skipped (unless you have a craving for academic mumbo jumbo - I sometimes do). If you want to dig into the similarities right away, start with the ”Social Reserve” part. If you only want to know what he based his study on, go to ”References”.

• Introduction
• Making Generalizations about National Cultures
• Social Reserve
• Alcohol as a Means for Breaking Down Social Reserve
• Conflict Avoidance
• Practical-Mindedness
• Shyness
• "Swedishness versus Japaneseness"
• References

I would love to hear from people who are Japanese and have been in Sweden, and from Swedes who have been in Japan. Send me thoughts about how you experienced Sweden and Japan respectively. If you’ll let me, I would like to put your thoughts on my pages - in time creating a library on the two countries from your experiences.