Culture and music blend seamlessly, immersing you in the aesthetics of Swedish life.

Text & Photos /Zhen Zi

When living in Lund, university life is remarkably vibrant. Thirteen Nations (student clubs) host parties every week, and the city center is packed with eateries. From Klostergatan to Kyrkogatan, you’ll find a mix of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Western cuisines. For a quieter time, you can freely access over twenty libraries on campus, spend your afternoon tea time at any cozy café, or head to the suburbs of Dalby for a hike, or to Lomma to enjoy the sun and beaches. For shopping, go to the nearby city of Malmö. Southern Swedish life is this convenient, and you don’t have to worry about language barriers—seven out of ten residents in the small city are students, most of them international, and you might end up speaking more English than Swedish.

Beyond eating, drinking, and having fun,Lund has a great spot worth recommending to music lovers. Mejeriet is a music venue that may be small, but operates much like Taiwan’s LiveHouses. Every week, both domestic and international independent musicians and bands perform, including tours by bands from the UK, US, and Canada. Occasionally, local bands like Den svenska björnstammen, Solander, and singer Jennie Abrahamson put on shows. Just like Hong Kong fans, Swedish fans queue up early outside since there are no assigned seats, all hoping to grab better spots.

Sometimes, international film screenings are held here. I’ve watched films like Ukraine is not a Brothel and Ai Weiwei’s The Fake Case here, with post-screening discussions allowing audiences to talk about the plots—don’t underestimate the global perspective of Swedes. On non-performance days, Mejeriet turns into a rehearsal space for young people to rent. Every Sunday, the concert hall transforms into a Western-style restaurant serving Sunday brunch with Nordic minimalist dishes. This small music hub is incredibly versatile.

Step out of Lund, take a roughly ten-minute train ride to Sweden’s third-largest city, Malmö, and visit Folk & å Rock, a record shop worth checking out. It’s a small store with a little café inside. The shelves are filled with the latest pop music albums from Europe and America. Head upstairs, and you’ll find plenty of vinyl records from the '70s and '80s—you might just uncover a treasure if you take your time browsing. Posters for concerts line the stairways, and the café turns into a performance stage in the evenings, where many Swedish musicians and indie bands often play. Audiences sip drinks while enjoying live music, engaging in intimate musical exchanges. Music is truly inseparable from Swedish life.
 

Author: Zhen Zi.A Hong Kong native, she left for the UK after turning twenty, once lived in the Nordic region, and studied in Sweden. Connecting these three places on the world map forms a triangle with a ruler. The author believes that even the best camera cannot accurately capture the people and events of society—only words can. While living in the UK, her surroundings were only trees, flowers, and a graveyard. With not much else to do, she picked up a pen and started writing freely, documenting life stroke by stroke.
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