Opinion
For Scandinavians, God is in Nature Recently, my husband, baby-son and I went on a weekend-trip to the Malaysian island of Tioman. Only 45 minutes by air from Changi airport, it’s an easy getaway from Singapore. So far, the island has been relatively spared of large resorts, the water there is emerald green and the nature is wild.
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We arrived at the small hotel and settled in our bungalow. Behind us were massive rocks, lush greenery and in front of us, there was the clear wide emerald sea. During the day, my husband was snorkelling in the water in the cove, while I watched the turtles with my baby. Evenings, we watched the staff feed the fish from the pier. At night, we could hear the sounds of the jungle and monkeys scratching our balcony door. One day, I was sitting on the sundeck watching some kids playing in the water. There was a girl who caught my attention. She swam like a fish, she was as gutsy as the boys and seemed very free. The girl wasn’t afraid of anything. It turned out that the girl was local, the daughter of the British owner of the hotel who had lived on the island for nearly twenty years. He told us he practically threw his daughter in the water when she was a baby, much to the locals’ initial shock and fear. What a childhood, I thought. What freedom. To grow up on a tropical island, surrounded by monkeys, rainforest and the sea. Then I realised that this need and emphasis on nature, the recognition of it as something sacred, is a very Northern idea. Perhaps the most important thing for a Scandinavian parent is for their children to be able to roam freely in the countryside. Nature is the first and the most fundamental teacher for life. Whether it’s the dramatic Norwegian fjords, the sandy dunes of Denmark, the Finnish lakes and forests or the islands of the Swedish archipelago, for the Northerner, God is in nature. It’s what we carry in our souls from home and it’s what we miss the most when we live abroad, particularly in Asian cities. Being a people of nature, this is also the reason why Scandinavians want to save the earth. We might not be as entrepreneurial as the Asians yet, in this regard. But if we work towards fusing the Asian drive with the Nordic passion for the environment, the green solutions for a sustainable future could indeed come from Singapore.
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Andrea Hessmo is a Swedish freelance journalist and writer, currently based in Singapore. She has been a regular journalist for ScandAsia Singapore since September 2011. She holds a Master’s degree in English.