We decided to work this project together to share our thoughts to all friends from all over the world. And of course, we would like to share all our observations to all our friends in Taiwan and South Korea. Therefore, we are going to post a Chinese and a Korean translation version in a few weeks! (Part 2 is also coming soon!) Please also check DoHee's bolg post here.
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Hello, Yu-Husan. Thanks for having a conversation with me to share our experiences in Sweden. Since I met you I have realized that our generation in Taiwan and South Korea have many common concerns. Can you share the reason why you came to Sweden for our blog readers?
Yu-Hsuan:
I was always wondering how other parts of world look like and how their culture and lifestyle could be since I started my bachelor degree, and this desire triggered me starting to think about exchange to other country. However, I followed the norms in Taiwan without going abroad to study and kept studying master degree in National Taiwan University because it is not common to study as an exchange student in natural science field in Taiwan when I was in bachelor level.
Yu-Hsuan with his professor and lab members when he was about to leave lab, 2016
However, there was a big paradigm shift of myself in 2014 giving up following norms my society forced me. It was “Sunflower student movement” which happened in Taiwan to block an economic agreement with China. That really badly harmed our “democratic values”, which was done by some of legislators passing law illegally and also the governors did not properly evaluate the influence of agreement as well as explain to the public.
This is sort of lucky for me that when the big “sunflower student movement” succeeded in a certain degree of progress in Taiwan, I was inspired by it and started to think that it is actually possible for us to do something to improve the defect in our country’s system.
At that moment, the younger generations in Taiwan suffered a lot from bad working environment and the almost-bankrupt welfare system. I started to feel interested in the social science, and wanted to figure what would be possible solutions to those problems. And because Sweden is thought of as the model of a good welfare state, combined with my awareness of not being a researcher in the future, I thought of applying for an exchange student to Sweden to know more about the social democratic society and see how good the education is here.
Further Reading:
Comment article: Was Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement Successful? - The Diplomat
Students who occupied the parliament were shouting their slogan, 2014.
So how about you, Dohee? What triggers you coming to Sweden for a master study?
Dohee:
The first interests about Nordic countries came to me when meeting some of friends from Nordic countries (Mostly Denmark and Sweden) at my university in Korea. We used to share our culture, dream and thoughts about many social issues. The most interesting thing for me was that they are very independent both financially and socially. I was so dependent on my parents for my university life but my friends said they were totally independent since their age of 18. I got to know that they had support from their government which made them really independent. This was the first time that triggered my interests about Nordic countries’ system.
In addition to the interests about the system, I got into their attitude in a class. Unlike most of Korean students, who feel too shy to share our arguments in the public, a friend of mine from Sweden felt really comfortable to do so. As a Korean student, I thought the reason why most of us don’t show opinions in the public was because we are not used to discuss in a class, and we believe my opinion will be judged by others. I have realized the importance of sharing our opinions to enrich societies so I was wondering how they became not afraid of sharing their opinions and participating in discussions. was quite envious of them and this experience triggered me to explore about Northern European countries deeper.
Dohee in Copenhagen to meet a Danish friend, 2013.
I often heard that people living in the Nordic European countries have high quality of life owing to good welfare system via media such as the internet, TV and news articles. Then, I got to know about their ideology, social democracy. As a person who believes everyone deserves humane life, to be respected regardless of our background, social democratic ideology seemed to be very idealistic for me. I knew there is no utopia, but nordic countries seemed to be not the worst but the best for people to live. Also, many different indexes showed these countries are more ahead in politics, innovation, the environment etc.
These general interests stayed with me until I graduated. I always wanted to go to one of the Nordic European countries to study or live but didn’t find valid reasons and chances. However, I found a good scholarship opportunity to study in Sweden in 2015. At that moment, I was realizing I wanted to continue studying while doing my internship at a company. Also, Sweden has been really interesting for me in that Sweden has similar economic and historical development (Rapid economic growth and dependent on big companies) to that of Korea, thus I thought Sweden is a good country to benchmark among other Nordic European countries.
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Till now, we are both in Sweden for almost 1 year. What is your most interesting experiences in Sweden?
Yu-Hsuan:
I remembered once I joined a Swedish friend’s birthday fika (You were there too!), I was so surprised that young swedes do not worry about their future life. They don’t need to worry about whether they will earn enough money or not because no matter what job they choose in Sweden they would be paid reasonably and have a good life quality.
In addition, young Swedes don’t think they need to save money from young ages for their pension either. In Taiwan, young generation cannot ensure that our national labor pension insurance can last long enough to the time we retire. Thus, many of us think that we should save money.
Credit: Ann-Sofi Rosenkvist/imagebank.sweden.se
Furthermore, they also don’t worry about whether they can afford to raise a kid or not. It is partly because Swedes can get rather higher wage than Taiwanese who work in Taiwan, and partly because they have very generous paid parental leave. The Swedish parents get more pay, have longer parental leave and more flexibility to manage parental leave than Taiwanese parents.
One thing I think it is better in Taiwan is that we have a very good medical service system, probably top 3 in the world. Once we pay the insurance fee (the amount is like nothing), we don’t need to pay much for going to a doctor or having a vaccine, and we can very easily access to a doctor, either in a clinic or a hospital. However, many people exploit the system, and the medical personnel also have a long working hour. Nurses are probably the worst among them because they are not only over-worked, but also paid less than they should be paid. On the other hand, people in Sweden have a maximum amount they need to pay for medical services (1000 SEK) and the government would cover the part over the maximum, which is better way to help the poor but may not good to apply in a country that people exploit the system (e.g. Taiwan). However, it takes so much time to see a doctor in Sweden unless you are in real emergency.
DoHee:
I agree with Yu-Hsuan. Young generation in Sweden are not concerned about their marriage, raising a kid and retirement as much as we are in Korea and Taiwan. According to current policies, education in Sweden is totally free from the age of six free till master program, and every household gets small subsidy for their children care once they have a child. Also, they believe their pension will be safe and enough for their retirement. Thus, Swedes are rarely worried about their future and willing to pay high taxes. Actually, there are some people who just rely on government subsidy without working or being educated, I think it is another topic to discuss. Basically, Sweden society has been stable based on high social trust.
Definitely, Sweden does not have perfect system but at least it seemed to offer high quality of life for the people in general. It was interesting to see that a system strongly influences one’s life course/plan and see how we have different concerns in our lives.
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Since we both think young Swedes are free from worrying future, how about the situations that young generation faces in South Korea and Taiwan?
Dohee:
My generation in Korea feels insecure about our future since we don’t have enough backup from our government. Especially, due to high costs for housing, marriage and raising a kid in the competitive society, there has been a rapid increase of the number of my generation who prefer to live as a single. Unfortunately, we are considered as one of countries with the lowest birth rate in the world. Also, people get a lot of stress from long working hours and high hierarchy in companies, which leads to higher unsatisfaction of their lives.
My generation in Korea feels insecure about our future since we don’t have enough backup from our government. Especially, due to high costs for housing, marriage and raising a kid in the competitive society, there has been a rapid increase of the number of my generation who prefer to live as a single. Unfortunately, we are considered as one of countries with the lowest birth rate in the world. Also, people get a lot of stress from long working hours and high hierarchy in companies, which leads to higher unsatisfaction of their lives.
Yu-Hsuan:
It’s so interesting that we also say we have the lowest birth rate in the world, probably because we are not in any official international organization like OECD or UN so it’s hard to compare with other countries. But according to statistics from Taiwanese government, our total fertility rate in 2016 is as low as 1.175.
I would say we share similar concerns in our home countries. In Taiwan, the most discussed topics recently are about the how many days off in a week and how many hours should labors work in a day, which refer to the problem of long working hours or work-life imbalance. Meanwhile, people in Taiwan suffer a lot from low wages, and thus makes the people feel insecure about future, especially young generation.
The problems of low wages and long working hour discourage young people to own their own house (so we need to move every year or every other years), and keep young people from raising a kid due to the bad support from welfare system (then cause low birth rate).
To sum up, Taiwanese young people are also stressful and unsatisfied on the working environment. I think both countries have unfriendly situations toward young people. It is hard to say which one is worse, but I believe both of our young generations would like to have a system more like Nordic countries, which is definitely most of the young Taiwanese craving for (“so are Koreans!” said Dohee).
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Upcoming post: Part 2
- What is the young generation's concerns in Sweden?
- What is the governmental system in these 3 countries?
- And what is our reflection after this year studying in Sweden?
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