When he was invited to succeed Karlgren on his retirement in 1965, Malmqvist took his experience back to Sweden. It was not an easy decision for the couple to move country yet again, but Malmqvist went on to found the Chinese Department at Stockholm University and build it up to its present intake of thirty new students each year from around eight or nine hundred applications.
因此當一九六五年高本漢教授退休，斯大囑意馬悅然回到瑞京建立中文系時，馬教授夫婦很是猶豫了一陣子，「當時真捨不得離開，但寧祖認為孩子們生在瑞典、長在倫敦、北平，又在澳洲度過六年，都到了十來歲的青少年期，他們需要一個自己的國家。」