God tur!

In the past week, I’ve had a little more experience with the Oslo indie scene (as I am loathe, but I guess forced, to refer to it). I guess I’d rather say I’ve a little more experience with people who like the same music I do. And what has astonished me the most is how easy it has been to interact with people, even in another language, when there is a pool of common interests from which to draw.

Most of my encounters with Norwegians this year, I hate to say, have been a little disappointing. Part of that is my fault; I have a serious deer-in-the-headlights complex when it comes to conversing with native speakers. I can get rather tongue-tied, and then I feel like I come across as even less proficient than what little proficiency I actually have. I also feel this compulsion to inform people that, due to my shyness and generally long warming-up-to-someone period, I actually don’t talk that much to new people in English either, so they really shouldn’t feel too bad.

The other problem, though, seems to be a lack of common interests. Telling most people, for example, that you’re in Norway to study Old Norse poetry often brings the conversation to a screeching halt. Also, due to the general dorkiness of the University I attended, I’m used to my fellow students being enthusiastic to talk about their subject area, even outside of class. The fellow students in my program don’t seem to have this impulse. With the Norwegians I live with, I get the impression that if I had a little more interest in sports, black metal, or Socialism, I’d have a much easier time, not just practicing the language with them, but much more importantly, getting to know them.

I love human diversity. It’s why my study of Anthropology very nearly had the fervor of religion. And I get rather annoyed when Americans seem to think that, for some reason, since the Scandinavian countries are small and “everybody speaks English,” they don’t really have a character of their own that you’d have to put some effort into understanding. Well, they’re wrong, and they do. And I’m definitely not of the opinion that the Scandinavian languages are going to die out any time soon, as many people I’ve met, Scandinavian and otherwise, seem so ready to suggest.

But, while there are many things I’d like to discover and understand, I’ve found also that it’s very hard to get past the surface level of generalizations and stereotypes without some common ground from which to begin. What I’ve found is that people with a personal interest in some topic that crosses cultural boundaries are far more open to understanding other cultures.

And, personally, I don’t think it makes much difference if that common interest is long distance running, sustainable development, human rights, or independent music.

Yes, I realize that the general indie milieu shuts out a lot of people. It can definitely be classist, sexist and even racist at times (Although, I personally think it’s much more fertile ground for interracial collaboration than mainstream and particularly for counteracting the negative stereotypes of mainstream hip-hop. And, although it has a long way to go, it’s worlds better as a place for women). But western approaches to peace-keeping and environmental protection are limited to their place and time also, and would definitely benefit from a closer comparative analysis of other cultures’ ideas about nature and the value of human life.

Taking the example of Scandinavia, I think increasingly the picture has changed from one where ideas flow in one direction from the US to the scene over here, to one where indie kids in the US are anxious to see what Scandinavians are doing. Maybe that interest starts with a naïve view of Scandinavia’s exotic appeal, but I think as more Americans venture over here or have the opportunity to work with Scandinavians who’ve wandered over to the US, they’ll realize it’s not a magical indie land, it’s just a group of people not all that different from themselves—but who nevertheless have a different approach to the music and definitely a different angle on what it is to, for lack of a better word, grow up.

The amount of security young Norwegians have, I think, gives them an incredible amount of freedom, and I think that, at the very least, the exchange has helped me see what is so bad about our country’s failure to guarantee its citizens the basics of survival—i.e., a job with a decent wage, universal healthcare, education. And it’s also helped me to, for lack of a better phrase, chill out. There’s something to be said for taking a little more time to find your way in the world and to put a little less pressure on yourself to be somebody in a highly competitive society – I think sometimes I get so wrapped up in the American value of making something of yourself that I forget that I don’t even agree with how the American dream defines success.

I’m not saying that indie can save the world. But what I am saying is that a person who has a deep interest in something that involves cross-cultural exchange of ideas, whether political, ideological, or musical, has a much better chance of finding a point of entry into a way of seeing the world which might otherwise have remained unknown to them.