no kids allowed

I got this email from the Swedish Trade Mission in Taipei (the people who would be the Swedish Embassy if there were official diplomatic relations between Sweden and Taiwan):

We’d like to invite you to the reception for the Swedish National Day on June 6th. Please send us your reply to taiwan@swedishtrade.se before June 02. Please note that children age under 14 will not be admitted to this formal event. Best regards, Swedish Trade Council in Taipei

Now this is insulting and discriminatory. How can Sweden’s official representatives invite Swedes to the celebration of the Swedish National Day and exclude citizens under 14?  Imagine a similar invitation that excluded people over 65?  How are Swedish traditions to be maintained in the expat community if parents aren’t allowed to bring their children to such events?  Besides, what are these activities in which children under 14 can’t participate?  Group sex probably (see above).

Of course I’d never go to this kind of an event anyway, and I’d never actually bring my kids to it.  Nationalist celebrations make me sick.  I could never understand why we should wave flags, drink toasts and congratulate ourselves for not being born Norwegian, Russian or Japanese.

When I was a kid we didn’t have a National Day on June 6th, only a “Swedish flag day.”  It was nice to belong to a country that didn’t have an official day of chest-beating and self-glorification.  About 15 years ago they instituted this change.  Talk about invented traditions!  This year I’m going to salute the flag of the Republic of China instead and force my childern to eat fried dumplings!

Here, btw, is a clip of a Swedish diplomatic representative in action (yes, they really do speak like this …):