It’s not every day you see a blond, blue-eyed Swede, dressed up as an Easter witch (’Påskkärring’), sitting on NTU campus teaching visitors to draw Easter cards. Most likely it would not have happened if it weren’t for Sweden Day!

The main purpose of Sweden Day is to strengthen the exchange between Sweden and Singapore – on all levels. To really achieve this goal, it isn’t enough to just give out materials from Swedish universities, or verbally explain what it’s like to live in Sweden. It takes more than that to attract the busy Singaporean students! Offering a bit of food and sweets never seems to hurt, especially when it’s meatballs, potatoes, lingonberry jam and brown sauce from the Swedish halaal restaurant in Kampong Glam! We also offer cookies, hard bread (‘knäckebröd’) and candy from Sweden.

This year we took it one step further and wanted to really activate our visitors. The event took place the Monday before the Easter holiday and so it seemed natural to have an Easter theme, with activities like the card drawing. And who could have guessed at the incredible reserve of talent hiding amidst these engineering and business students? It turned into an incredible collection of beautiful and unusual Easter cards, some with a thought-provoking cultural mix of styles! Each artist got a bag of Swedish candy as a thank you.

There were also other activities. At the egg painting table the most artistic or creative eggs won prizes from IKEA. There were some amazing creations there as well!

We also had our popular Lucky Draw with prizes from our sponsors. To participate you had to answer some questions about how Swedes celebrate Easter.

The event venue was decorated with Easter twigs (‘Påskris’) with colorful feathers, little chickens and Easter eggs. Together we created a very cozy atmosphere with visitors sitting down and drawing cards or painting eggs with Swedish music in the background, or talking to the volunteers in blue shirts. Everyone who took part in making this event possible should be very proud of the results! And we hope that all our visitors were happy with the experience. Let’s see what next semester will bring!

Another Sweden Day has passed, and with it another successful Lucky Draw! This year the Lucky Draw was a bit more of a challenge. The contestants had to answer questions about how Swedes celebrate Easter; a good excuse to go around and read the information posters or ask the volonteers. Everyone did very well! Perhaps we made it too easy? :)

We are extremely grateful for the wonderful prizes given by our sponsors: the food and drink from Café Fika, the beautiful calenders from Prints, the gift certificates from Style:Nordic, the notebooks, travel locks, etc. from SAS and the various gifts from the Karolinska Institute.

We thank them for their contribution and for helping make Sweden Day an extraordinary event. Tack så mycket!

The next Sweden Day event is drawing near! See the poster below.

As usual we will present information and brochures from around 20 Swedish universities, and both Swedish exchange students and Singaporeans who have studied in Sweden will be present to answer questions about Sweden and how it is to study there. Everyone is welcome, whether they’re just curious about Sweden or if they already have a planned exchange.

The event will take place on April 18 at the School of Biological Sciences Lobby at NTU. This is just before Easter, hence the theme of the event. We will have several Easter-related activities, like painting Easter eggs and going on an egg hunt (with prizes!). You can also do what all Swedish children do on Good Friday, which is to dress up as a ‘påskkärring’, an ‘Easter witch’, and get your hands on some yummy (and exotic) Swedish candy after painting us an Easter card!

Besides this we will also have a Lucky Draw, with prizes from Prints, SAS, Style:Nordic and Fika! But to participate you need to answer our questions on the quirky ways in which Swedes celebrate Easter. And, how could it be Sweden Day without some good food? Of course we will let you sample meatballs and ‘saft’, cookies and cake!