On translating “friluftsliv”
One of the many challenges of understanding another culture
It is so tempting to think that a foreign word can be adopted and used based on an overly simplified one-line dictionary description of it.
Kaizen: A term meaning change for the better or continuous improvement, it is a Japanese business philosophy that concerns the processes that continuously improve operations and involve all employees in a way that is gradual and methodical.
Savasana: A meditative posture in which one lies on one's back that is typically considered the final resting pose in yoga, Savasana is a pose of total relaxation—making it one of the most challenging.
Hygge: A quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.
The brandification of the word "hygge" in particular has rubbed me in a strange way. I understand that its popularization has been both promoted (video) by native speakers with various motives, as well as hyped up (video) by excited foreigners who love to peddle the hot new exotic thing. But for all the online articles on it and the books on hygge that I flipped through in the bookstore, it all feels much too sanitized and decontextualized to be able to convey the real authentic thing. I am no expert on hygge and I don't think any Scandinavian person would claim to be that either. Because here's the thing: when a culture embeds a manner of being so deeply that it becomes inseparable from its land, food, customs, language... how do you properly explain this word without simultaneously asking the explainee to embark on a journey to become Scandinavian (learn the culture, language, way of life, and to live within its borders) in order to fully experience and understand the real thing? It's not about how one person practicing hygge, it's about how a nation practices it together.
After 18 years of absence, my most recent trip to Norway prompted me to reconsider the hype of another Norwegian word: friluftsliv. For all the non-Norwegian readers, I cannot proceed without attempting the near-impossible task of explaining what it means, so please understand that this is my personal amateur translation, from me to you: Friluftsliv literally fuses together the words "free-air-life", and in my opinion translates most appropriately in spirit to "life, outdoors". Friluftsliv is more than just an activity that asks individuals to enjoy themselves outdoors: it is a national aspiration that is rooted in Norway's unique geographic and culturo-historic legacy, which in turn influences Norwegian public policy, housing design, food branding, place making, family values, product development etc. etc.
You may have encountered the word friluftsliv when it got peddled around (article) during the depts of pandemic lockdown winter as a cure for our lack of activity and restlessness.
Hans Gelter wrote a paper on friluftsliv and makes a good attempt at outlining the easily-misunderstood differences between the perception of friluftsliv, and the genuine practice of friluftsliv:
A growing group of visitors to nature are the new outdoor-activity people using nature as a playground. They consume nature as a big coulisse and arena for their recreation and sport activities, to compete in with themselves, or others. Most of them claim they pursue friluftsliv but this is more like a superficial form of friluftsliv with goals other than genuine friluftsliv. Here knowledge of nature, and the place beyond how to master it for the sake of the activity, is usually secondary. The preoccupation with the activity and the equipment distract them from the genuine experience of friluftsliv. Although genuine friluftsliv may involve mastering skills like how to travel and survive even harsh and dangerous environments with different equipment, genuine friluftsliv is not about conquering or fighting nature. Similar new types of outdoor people claiming they pursue friluftsliv are motorized. With snowmobiles, ski-dos, water-dos, motor boats, 4x4s, and cross-country motorcycles, they use nature as a playground for their motorized recreation. Driving a motorized vehicle, be it a car or snowmobile, can never be regarded as friluftsliv as you disconnect yourself from nature by using the vehicle. Friluftsliv is about harmonizing with nature, not disturbing or destroying it. Friluftsliv is not about consuming experiences, places, or resources, although just by being in a place will change it and resources consumed. Friluftsliv is not to actively seek adventures, although adventures and adrenaline kicks may be a natural part of friluftsliv. In friluftsliv you don’t change nature to gain experience or take control of it, you don’t build artificial racetracks, or boulder cliffs. In friluftsliv you may use nature for food and shelter or for your survival, but not modify nature to suit the outdoor activity. Friluftsliv is not an activity or activity program with a narrow goal; it is a lifestyle and a philosophy.
Friluftsliv is often translated to the simple prompt to "spend more time outdoors because it's good for you". I mean: Yes, the word is definitely related to the fact that many Norwegians (and Swedes, who also know this word) spend tons of time outdoors in nature and enjoy the heck out of it. But to boil its lessons down to one single actionable prompt is too simplistic, especially when that prompt is easily followed by Norwegians in Norway, yet nearly impossible to follow for others in different contexts.
For example, if you work 8 hour days, spend 2 hours commuting daily, only have two weeks of vacation and few sick days, and if nature is a half day's drive away from you, it is very possible that you'll be incapable of properly practicing the Norwegian sense of friluftsliv, by no fault of your own. Your whole environment—physical, political, social—works against the practice of friluftsliv. In fact, pursuing friluftsliv alongside your existing life could result in net new stress, without reaping any benefits.
I currently live a version of this. Due to personal values, I am committed to living in places where I'm not reliant on driving a car on a daily basis, so I've chosen to live in the downtown of Toronto. But one thing I miss so dearly here is access to vast "lose-yourself-in-it" nature. An endless ocean horizon. A deep forest. A steep mountain. A place where the urban soundscape doesn't penetrate. It's not that these things can't exist here in Toronto, but it's not a stretch to say that the public policy du jour has not been to preserve large swaths of nature and wilderness, so only tiny broken fragments of original nature remain.
My personal experience makes me detest all the clickbaity articles that sell the idea of friluftsliv as "this is what you should do to cure your lockdown woes! Just look at how Norwegians are getting out and about even during winter lockdown", leaving readers in difficult life situations to feel like failures for not being able to follow this easy lifestyle trick. The typical Norwegian never lives more than an hour away from vast nature, and this is without needing access to a car. People living in Oslo, the largest city in Norway, can literally take the subway to the edges of nature. How do you compete with that?
Then there's another way to look at this: Norwegian geography is very inhospitable for urban development to begin with. Few places are suitable for building urban, serviced habitation, and so much of the land is therefore left alone by default. Did Norwegians control this? No. And aren't the easiest decisions the ones you don't have to make?
When people praise Norway for all the progressive policies they have implemented, I can't help but question where this seemingly innate goodness comes from. Was it magically conjured up through pure will of the people, or is there something in the air that influences a people to be especially aligned on this front? Hans Gelter provides another interesting tidbit that may shed some light on this:
Genuine friluftsliv might be a way to let people discover the pleasure of fulfilling these basic human needs when body and mind harmonises with the natural world, and thus creating a foundation for a cultural change away from an anthropocentric philosophy. It is therefore important to clearly make a distinction between the philosophy of genuine friluftsliv and the anthropocentric, superficial kind of friluftsliv where competition, consumption, egoism, and commercialization are its philosophy.
Can simply living in a place that practices genuine friluftsliv make a person less selfish and individualistic in their political views? Could it be that Norwegian oil politics is not due to an innately altruistic Norwegian culture (plus a source of nationalism), but rather that Norwegian culture is directly influenced by the rugged and unforgiving natural environment that Norwegians are surrounded by every day?
Finally, Hans Gelter takes a stab at trying to describe what it means to live and embody the philosophy of friluftsliv:
Although friluftsliv may be viewed as a form of environmental education, it is an education without a curriculum. Friluftsliv is not outdoor education. Outdoor education has specific goals described as a place (natural environment), a subject (ecological processes) and a reason (resource stewardship) for learning (Priest, 1990). Friluftsliv is more like a game (Isberg, 1995). To become absorbed by a game one needs imagination and fantasy, which shift you to another level of consciousness. To see that every rock, tree or leaf has its own form and identity, has its own history to tell and its own right to exist, requires a higher level of consciousness and fantasy. Friluftsliv it is not about teaching and lecturing or being on excursions. But it involves a sort of education, learning the ways of yourself and the place in the more-than-human world and learning the ways of every creature and phenomenon you meet on your journey through life.
I love the comparison of friluftsliv to a game. And not just any game: It is the infinite game of living by feeling your way through life and your environment in a thoughtful, conscientious, and embedded manner. And this type of intuition is only developed in what Gelter calls "complex patchy environments", or simply put: nature. The beyond-human level of connectedness that friluftsliv imbues on its so-called practitioners is not an object to be had, but a realization to be earned. A realization that cannot emerge through sheer will, but maybe, just maybe, through immersion.
By trying to superficially explain words without understanding the context it was born from, how much can non-native speakers realistically gain from it? We can often end up twisting ourselves into a weird posture because the idea of an foreign idea seems appealing and beneficial, even easy to implement. While there definitely can be things we can earn from other cultures, there is often more work to be done beyond just reading the dictionary definition and translation of it.
Moving forward, I want to understand how can we better share cultural ideas without losing too much in translation so we can share the message, beauty and utility of untranslatable words while simultaneously keeping in mind local suitability. Do you have a word or concept in your culture that is hard to translate and easily misunderstood? I would love to hear your stories in the comments or replies.
Until next week,
Fei
Love your sense of observation and deep insight. Thank you for sharing.
Great post!!