By Xuefei Chen Axelsson

After living in Sweden for 17 years, I feel that Swedish are the most patriotic people. When I said this to my Swedish husband, he didn’t deny it but he smiled broadly and said yes, with a lot of world No.1.

Think of it, when in China many people think something which is imported from western countries must be good and popular. People even show off about their foreign product. And usually the price is more expansive than things produced in China.

But in Sweden I found the opposite. For example, when I buy strawberries in the summer, the Swedish strawberries usually are more expensive, but my Swedish husband still loves to buy the Swedish strawberries. If you buy meat, it is also the Swedish produced that are more expensive and people love to buy them.

Many people love Volvo or Sabb cars. Most people buy IKEA.

And when I went to the second hand shop or loppis, I found people throw away or sell the things they bought from China or Japan or other countries first.

Therefore, I feel Swedish people are actually very patriotic, even though they do not say it. While the Chinese talk about loving our country a lot, but at the end of the day, they still rather use things produced abroad. Even if it is produced in China, they rather use foreign brand or name to make a fake brand name.

This means many Chinese still are not very confident, neither confident enough to use Chinese goods. For example, people still love BMW or Benz.

Of course for many they have to use the Chinese because they could not afford to buy the expansive one. It is remarkable that all the Chinese have got rid of poverty, but there is still a long way to go to become really rich both materially and spiritually or both in body and mind.