Agnes in St Andrews: Column 5

Once in a while, as I run to class, wait for my coffee or battle with the self-checkout at Tesco, I see one. For a native, they are impossible to miss: the locks in a middle-part with a half-zipped sweater and leather laptop-bag, next to the blow-out curtain-banged blonde in a grey wool-sweater, Månesten-necklaces, and Uggs. Scandinavians. 

Sometimes I offer a polite nod, other times I shyly look away – by this point we have offered the line “Nehei, er det enda en?!” (No way, another one?!) enough times. In my first month, I tried to avoid them to ‘work on my English skills’, afraid a single Norwegian conversation would undo all my progress. But hear them I did, the Scandi-whispers flying through town like ghosts, accent-heavy and overtly melodic. 

Finally, I gave in and acquired a Norwegian friend. Through her I discovered that a Scandinavian is like a zit, if you pop one to one, five more have a tendency to appear. The familiarness of these fellow-scandies was double-edged: I prospered in the familiar language and humour, but the homogenous nature also sent me right back to my family’s snow-covered mountain cabin, blinded by extreme whiteness.  

One Norwegian girl asked me: “So… Where in Oslo are you from?”. Because apparently, in St Andrews, Norway is synonymous with its capital with about 10 percent of the population. The question wasn’t completely unfounded, almost all Norwegians I met here were from Oslo, and most of them knew each other when boarding the plane to Scotland. You see, an uncle knew an uncle, their parents moved in the same circles, granddad is someone's business partner — he can probably get you a job. Also, there was apparently some secret club eating shellfish or something? But don’t worry, this ‘secret society’ provided some diversity: it was filled with cool non-Scandinavians, because status and Scandinavianness is the most important synonym of all. 

I wasn’t particularly surprised — if you’ve lived in Oslo, Stockholm or particularly Copenhagen, you will have learnt that the most prolific Scandinavian specialty isn’t fjords, minimalistic interior-design, or even ‘natural’ blondeness, it is the masterful balance of separate togetherness and humble exclusivity: creating private clubs in a social democracy, ‘accidentally’ flexing richness, and giving aid while never accepting refugees. It is only natural that Scandinavians in St Andrews create their own (not-so) secret clubs to revel in expensive networking – it's our national tradition. 

Of course I haven’t met all the St Andrean-scandies to give you a fair assessment, there is probably a wide range of uniqueness from the economics-students to the diplomacy-nepos. Someone told me that there is even one reoccuring Scandinavian stereotype: arriving for one semester to poke arrogant fun at established traditions, dressing up in thrifted clothes to seem chill and authentic, criticising the Scandinavians lack of cultural diversity even though they’re from the same area as the rest of the bunch. Sounds annoying.