The cashless society

I spent most of the last week in Stockholm at an anthropology conference. It was the first time I have ever been to a foreign country and not bothered to take out any of the local currency in cash. A few days before leaving for Sweden I had read that paying digitally was becoming such a part of life that people in Sweden have even begun paying with their digits themselves, though implants in their hands https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/sj-rail-train-tickets-hand-implant-microchip-biometric-sweden-a7793641.html.

I bought a ticket on the bus from the airport with my credit card, the same with good in the supermarket, and drinks at a restaurant. Not that different from the UK perhaps, though I doubt that I could have paid directly on the bus with a credit card in the UK. It was on the bus that I found the lack of acceptance of cash became slightly problematic, myself and two friends had to take a ten to fifteen minute walk to the nearest metro station from the university to be buy a bus ticket to be able to board a bus, since tickets could not be bought on or anywhere near the bus in any form (cash or otherwise). 

When I spoke to Swedes about the cashless economy they expressed a mixture of irritation at the difficulty of disposing of cash and suspicion of the reasons for why cash was being phased out. A Swedish friend told me that after friends of hers visiting Sweden had left Swedish Krona with her she had had great difficulty finding anywhere to spend them because even bars and restaurants that she went to now accepted only electronic payment. After buying some sweets from a stall on the street, and paying with my credit card (which would be slightly unusual in the UK) I asked the stall owner how long it had been that Sweden had been almost cashless. She said that this had come in in the last couple of years, and was suspicious of the reasons why. "It's the state. The government wants to control everybody, to know what everybody is doing and where they are going", she told me. "They know where you park your car, if you go to the cinema, if I go to visit my boyfriend, they know everything about you."

After this I had a brief walk of the Old Town, during which I stood for ten minutes listening to an excellent jazz trio busking. Though they received a few coins from passers by (not nearly as much as their performance warranted), I wondered whether they ought to invest in a card reader for the convenience of modern Swedes. (They could take a leaf out of the book of this London beggar http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2911249/Beggar-rakes-cash-outside-swanky-Mayfair-restaurant-using-chip-pin-machine-spends-holidays-iPad-whinges-Cowell-gave-20.html.)

On the way back to my hostel to pick up my suitcase before taking my flight back to the UK in one of the main streets in the centre of Stockholm I passed a middle-aged man listening to something on earphones and stood holding a sign which read "The state is torturing me for 5 1/2 years with remote controlled equipment in my body".  I asked the man what his story was. He told me that he had been in a dispute with some businessmen, who had then paid doctors to insert microchips into his wrists and ears and that these doctors were screaming at him, directly into his ears.
This reminded me of the story a friend had told me about how he had once got an ant stuck in his head after it had crawled in while he had been asleep on the grass. He could hear footsteps inside his head and he was sure that this was how people went mad. He eventually got it out by tipping his head to one side and banging the other ear until the ant had had enough and walked out the other side.
Back to the man in the street with the sign, he had a paper cup by his feet, presumably in the hope that passers-by would give him money (it wasn't clear to me from my conversation with him how this would have helped him cope with the problem of the screaming in his ears), but Sweden being a cashless society I didn't have any to give him. I wished him well, and was on my way.

A tremendous presence of evil

The other day, feeling like going for a walk, I walked up the hill
behind my house. On the edge of the small wood I got talking to an
old gentleman who was coming down quickly through the wood.
We got talking for about 15 minutes, during which he I said that I
liked to come up here every now and then, and he asked me if I had
ever come up here at dusk in the summer. I told him that I may have
done, but I wasn’t sure.
He told me that he had been up there once at dusk in the summer
and felt a tremendous presence of evil, and had to run out of there
quickly. He later remarked on this to a man who lives in a cottage
down the hill, who said it was funny that he should say that because
he himself had been up the hill at night with his dog, and though he
hadn’t actually felt anything himself, all of the hairs on the dog’s head
had stood on end.  We talked some more, during which the man told
me that he had lived in various places in St Andrews over his lifetime
always on the edge of town, because the edge of St Andrews kept
getting further away. He told me that when he was a boy anyone on
the wrong side of the Kinnesburn was not considered to live in
St Andrews. He also told me that in 1959 his grandmother paid a rent
of 50p and found even that a difficult amount to manage. He said
people should be grateful with the welfare system that exists today.

As he was about to leave I asked what had happened in the past up
here. He said he didn’t know, he had just felt a tremendous presence
of evil. I had had my back to the wood all the time we were talking.
When he went down the hill, I turned around and walked into the
wood. I hadn’t taken more than 10 steps in when I turned around and
ran straight out again! I then had to slow down and stop running to
make sure he didn't see my about turn.

Bless you and a problematic eternity

I'm in Warsaw for a conference.

Walking down one of the main streets in the city I was accosted by a blond woman carrying a book. I had tried to walk around her but there hadn't been enough space and once she said hello to me I knew I was done for, she had reeled me in. Being the friendly sort, I just had to say hello back, and get into the inevitable conversation. She hadn't actually said hello in English, but in Polish. This was within my limited Polish so I replied within the same. When I told her (in Polish) that I didn't understand (this was one of the few phrases I have learned), she asked me if I spoke English. After asking me where I am from, and telling me that she was from the US (which I had already guessed), she asked me what I knew about the Mormons. I was about to reply not much, but thought for a second and replied with what I did know.

"What I know about the Mormons is that they believe that when someone dies they are reunited with all their family members throughout their life..." I paused, and looked at her. She gave me a look that seemed to indicate that she was happy that I had understood a fundamental Mormon belief already.

"...but then I wonder, what happens when a man has had more than one wife and the wives wouldn't get on, say he has divorced one wife, or the first one died... or he just had a bad relationship with his wife and was forced to spend the rest of eternity with her... it seems a bit problematic to me."

She was smiling broadly as she had done since our conversation began. I had stumped her. "Well, I don't have a specific answer to that question," she told me, disappointingly. 

After I had asked her how long she had been in Poland for and why she was here (she's a missionary and they just sent her here... and she seemed pretty happy with the whole situation), I suddenly realised that she hadn't actually told me what Mormonism is about. So I thought I had better ask her.

However, as soon as she started telling me about this guy Joseph Smith, who had had a conversation with God in New York, I sneezed. I sneezed just the once, but found something odd in her reaction. Or lack of it. She just kept on talking. While she was telling me about this Joseph Smith chap, all I could think about what why she hadn't stopped to say "bless you". Is this something that the Mormons don't do, I wondered? Why do they believe that one person should not bless another person? Is it because only God can bless? 

However, to avoid getting myself into a theological quagmire I simply asked her why J.Smith had built the temple out in Salt Lake City, Utah if the vision had occurred on the East Coast. I forget the reply, I was still thinking about why she hadn't blessed me.