Gökotta
(Swedish)
An early-morning excursion to enjoy the start of a new day
It has to be one of the best things in the world. It’s early morning and for most people the day hasn’t even started. A new sun is rising and you can feel the air getting warmer by the minute, perhaps there’s dew on the grass, and all around you is the sound of birdsong. Not just the birds but the whole world is waking up.
In Sweden, they call that trip out into the early morning gökotta (yer-KOHT-ta). The word means literally ‘early-morning cuckoo’, and it strictly refers to such a trip taken specifically on Ascension Day, some six weeks after Easter. Traditionally, it’s a time for early-morning picnics in a clearing in the forest, in the hope of hearing the cuckoo, which usually arrives back in Sweden from its winter migration sometime during May. The direction from which you hear its call and the number of times that you hear it are supposed to mean good or back luck.
But the Swedes love the countryside in all its manifestations, whether it’s the wilderness, the crashing rivers and the mountain peaks of the north, the rolling countryside and endless beaches of the south, or the forests that cover two-thirds of the country. It’s no surprise that a tradition like this, which celebrates the accessibility and friendliness of nature, should have spread to cover any early-morning excursion, at any time of the year.
In English, we might extend the meaning of the word even further, to cover any trip out which involves getting up early and going outside to enjoy the start of the day and the sounds that it brings. The cuckoo has always been special in England just as in Sweden, because of its shyness, its distinctive call and the regularity with which it arrives and departs with the spring and early summer. Two hundred years ago, William Wordsworth wrote about it:
Oh blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
Oh cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?[17]
Our love of this seasonal visitor goes back for centuries. But perhaps you don’t need the cuckoo for a gökotta, though if you’re lucky enough to hear one, it’s a real bonus. Out in the countryside, there are still plenty of songbirds to reward you with the different sounds of their various calls, and there is still the unmistakable sense of a new day starting and the world coming to life.
We could go still further in redefining gökotta: not many countries, after all, are as rural as Sweden, and many people in the English-speaking world would find it impossible to reach a secluded forest glen early in the morning. So why not enjoy a gökotta in a town or city, just to celebrate a spring morning? The distinctive birdsong and sounds of nature won’t be there – although some of the parks in London or other big cities might provide something close – but there are other sounds and experiences that are peculiar to early morning in an urban environment.
A new day starting and the world coming to life.
The rattle of shutters going up as shops start opening for business, the scrape and thud of boxes being moved inside off the pavement, the shuffle of half-asleep feet and the thunder of an early-morning bus aren’t quite the traditional sounds of a Swedish gökotta, but there would still be the warmth of the sun and the sense of the world starting up afresh. Spring is the spring, sunshine is sunshine, and early morning is early morning wherever you are. What’s not to like?
Cultural Connotations
Nemawashi
(Japanese)
Behind-the-scenes networking to get everyone onside, particularly ahead of a business meeting
For centuries, the Japanese have created gardens – stylized, formal and traditional oases of calm – to encourage contemplation, provide refuge from a busy life, or simply as places where they could stroll and enjoy the peaceful sounds of running water and the breeze in the trees. They have, along the way, perfected the art of bonsai, the delicate cultivation of miniature trees that goes back for at least fifteen hundred years.
Both these skills demand patience, forethought, careful planning and, crucially, the development of specific techniques to achieve the result the designer wishes. Such a technique is nemawashi.
Nemawashi (neh-MAOU-a-shi) means, literally, ‘going around the roots’ and refers to the painstaking process by which a tree is prepared to be transplanted into the place that has been assigned to it in the overall design. The roots will be exposed one by one and carefully prepared for the trauma of being dug up and moved, so that the whole tree remains healthy and vigorous in its new location.
In its modern sense, nemawashi describes the equally delicate and important process of getting ready for a meeting. Using the same image we could say, rather more prosaically, that it’s the process of ‘preparing the ground’. But the Japanese go about it in a much more determined and systematic way.
There will be one-to-one talks with people who are to be present, so that their support can be guaranteed and their ideas incorporated into the proposal. Senior members of the management team will expect to be informed and consulted in advance, and small groups from the whole decision-making team may be set up to hold preparatory discussions. The key to all these activities is their informality, before the all-important full meeting. It’s all about sharing information, reaching a consensus and at all costs avoiding argument and public loss of face.
It’s a search for new insights, new ways of refining and improving the proposal.
It also widens the pool of people whose opinions and contributions are sought. In the Toyota Production System, devised by the car-making giant as a consistent and efficient process to be followed in all their factories, nemawashi is seen as the first step in reaching any important decision. It often involves consulting all the employees about a new plan, from shop floor to boardroom, and aiming, in theory at least, at a company-wide consensus.
The expectation is that before anyone brings a proposal to a formal meeting, they will have carried out nemawashi to get a wide range of views about it and understand the problem from as many viewpoints as possible. But it is more than just a one-off event, a preparation for a specific meeting. It’s built into the whole way of working, from top to bottom, of a Japanese company.
For example, a detailed study of the way a production line in a factory works may reveal a small change that could be made to improve efficiency, but before the team who carried out the research make their formal proposal, they will take the idea to the shop-floor workers who run the line, to the fork-lift drivers who move products from place to place, and to the supervisors who have day-to-day control of the whole process. Management will still make the ultimate decision but in the knowledge that everyone involved will have had a chance to fine-tune the idea.
17
William Wordsworth, ‘To the Cuckoo’,
in