How the Finnish Survive Without Small Talk (bbc.com) 283
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Finnish people often forgo the conversational niceties that are hard-baked into other cultures, and typically don't see the need to meet foreign colleagues, tourists and friends in the middle. As Tiina Latvala, a former English instructor in Sodankyla, Lapland, explained, part of her job was to introduce her young students to the concept of small talk. "We had a practice where you had to pretend to meet someone for the first time," Latvala said. "You had to pretend you were meeting at the cafe or on a bus and [that] you didn't know each other and do a bit of chit chat. We had written on the whiteboard all the safe topics so they didn't have to struggle with coming up with something to talk about. We brainstormed. They usually found it really difficult."
"[They're] about basic conversation," she explained. "The answers are already there. We are taught to answer 'I'm great, how about you?'; 'How is your mum?'. It was very clear how to be in a conversation, as if we didn't already know. It was very weird as if there were right answers to the questions." There are more hypotheses than answers for why Finnish culture has a veil of silence permanently stitched in place. Latvala believes their trademark directness has something to do with the complexity of the Finnish language and the fairly large distance between cities (Latvala's reasoning: If you've travelled any distance to see someone, why waste time?). [...] It isn't for lack of skill, for Finland has two national languages -- Finnish and Swedish -- and Finns begin English lessons when they're six or seven. But rather it's because when faced with expressing themselves in second (or third) language, many often choose to not say anything rather than risk not being fully understood. However, when among their own, silence functions as an extension of comfortable conversation. "'It's not about the structure or features of the language, but rather the ways in which people use the language to do things,' Dr Anna Vatanen, a researcher at the University of Oulu, explained via email. 'For instance, the 'how are you?' question that is most often placed in the very beginning of an encounter. In English-speaking countries, it is mostly used just as a greeting and no serious answer is expected to it. On the contrary, the Finnish counterpart (Mita kuuluu?) can expect a 'real' answer after it: quite often the person responding to the question starts to tell how his or her life really is at the moment, what's new, how they have been doing.'"
"[They're] about basic conversation," she explained. "The answers are already there. We are taught to answer 'I'm great, how about you?'; 'How is your mum?'. It was very clear how to be in a conversation, as if we didn't already know. It was very weird as if there were right answers to the questions." There are more hypotheses than answers for why Finnish culture has a veil of silence permanently stitched in place. Latvala believes their trademark directness has something to do with the complexity of the Finnish language and the fairly large distance between cities (Latvala's reasoning: If you've travelled any distance to see someone, why waste time?). [...] It isn't for lack of skill, for Finland has two national languages -- Finnish and Swedish -- and Finns begin English lessons when they're six or seven. But rather it's because when faced with expressing themselves in second (or third) language, many often choose to not say anything rather than risk not being fully understood. However, when among their own, silence functions as an extension of comfortable conversation. "'It's not about the structure or features of the language, but rather the ways in which people use the language to do things,' Dr Anna Vatanen, a researcher at the University of Oulu, explained via email. 'For instance, the 'how are you?' question that is most often placed in the very beginning of an encounter. In English-speaking countries, it is mostly used just as a greeting and no serious answer is expected to it. On the contrary, the Finnish counterpart (Mita kuuluu?) can expect a 'real' answer after it: quite often the person responding to the question starts to tell how his or her life really is at the moment, what's new, how they have been doing.'"
Typical conversation (Score:5, Funny)
"I'm Finished."
<conversation over>
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I'm Finnish and I'm like the guy in xkcd comic, except I can't do that last part of the dialogue. I'm not joking. I know that normal answer would be "I'm fine", but I can't say it, if I have any personal or work related problems (which I usually always have), because saying "I'm fine" in that situation would feel like a lie.
https://xkcd.com/222/
Re:Typical conversation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Typical conversation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Typical conversation (Score:4, Funny)
It's politeness designed to help you warm up your lies. Then you return with the same question, helping them warm up their lies. Once both parties are fully booted, you can commence having a conversation about more serious topics, during which you can both deceive each other more fluidly.
It's kind of like priming a pump before using it.
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The normal answer would then be "could be better". If the other person's interested they'll follow up or they might reply "sorry to hear that" and politely move on. Really, how hard is that?
Re:Typical conversation (Score:5, Insightful)
(silence...)
(silence continues...)
To us Finns, silence is not a lack of conversation, it is an art form. (Yes, I am Finnish, too)
Re:Typical conversation (Score:5, Funny)
How can you tell if a Finn is an extrovert? They stare at your shoes instead of theirs.
Re:Typical conversation (Score:5, Funny)
Two Finns go out fishing. After about an hour, Pekka says "Nice day, isn't it". Markko grunts. A couple hours after, Pekka says "So relaxing, no?", and Markko again just grunts. A few hours later Pekka says, "I'm glad we did this." At this point Markko barks out "look, are you going to fish or just talk all day?"
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Re: Typical conversation (Score:2)
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This explains a bit.
American nerd:
"Mauro, did you see that funny xkcd cartoon? By the way, I have a bone to pick. "
Finnish nerd:
"Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
"It's a bug alright -- in the kernel. How long have you been a maintainer? And you *still* haven't learnt the first rule of kernel maintenance?
"Shut up, Mauro. And I don't _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. Seriously."
"Fix your fucking 'compliance tool,' because it is obviously broken. And fix your a
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Waiting for the bus like Swede [imgur.com].
I have only been to Sweden once. As an introverted Aspie, I felt like I had found my home. Nobody tried to talk to me unless they actually had something to say. I have never been to Finland, but maybe it is even better.
Report on the ground (Score:5, Informative)
They drink. A lot.
Re:Report on the ground (Score:5, Funny)
Two Finns go into a bar, and order beers. They drink the beers in silence, and when they finish them, they order two more beers. Still without saying a word, they finish the second set of beers, and proceed to order a third glass. Halfway the 3rd beer, one of them says: "good beer", to which the other replies: "did we come here to drink or to chitchat ?"
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But then you would miss out on the socializing bit.
Re:Report on the ground (Score:5, Insightful)
They drink. A lot.
One common joke about most any culture seems to be how much they drink alcohol. It doesn't necessarily have to be a nationality but that's a common delineation, it also works for distinctions along religious or cultural lines. Take your pick of some segment of the global population and you'll find a joke about how much they drink.
Here's one:
Why should you invite two Baptists when going on a fishing trip? Because if you invite only one then he'll drink all your beer.
The truth is that humans drink a lot of alcohol, all over the world.
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Have you ever been to Finland? It's a whole 'nuther level. It's dark for half a year and they can pack away booze like nobody I've ever seen. I thought Australians could drink, but i've never seen anything like the Finns. It was not uncommon for me to be with two or three Finnish friends and watch them work through a bottle of vodka in one sitting, while I'm nursing a beer.
Re:Report on the ground (Score:5, Informative)
The truth is that humans drink a lot of alcohol, all over the world.
No they don't. There are dramatic, hundredfold differences in alcohol consumption between countries.
Muslim countries tend to drink the least, and in some of them consumption is a crime. But even in non-muslim countries like Singapore and East Timor, consumption is very low. The highest level is in Belarus, followed closely by several other countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia.
Finns drink about as much as the French, and about a third more than Americans.
List of countries by alcohol consumption [wikipedia.org]
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Muslim countries tend to drink the least,
... when their relatives are watching. Muslim countries also lead the world in deaths from illegal moonshine.
Where alcohol is restricted or frowned upon, you can get a massive black market.
Indonesia or the Middle East now is like the US in the 1920s.
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
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Muslim countries tend to drink the least, and in some of them consumption is a crime.
ROFLMAO.
You answered why Muslim countries APPEAR to drink less than other countries: Because there are penalties. I can guarantee you that there is a LOT more drinking going on in Muslim countries than is generally reported. Take Kuwait or Saudi Arabia where alcohol is explicitly banned. They find drunk drivers all the time. But alcohol use there is zero? Sure it is. Sure it is. ;)
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And they dance the tango. No, really [wikipedia.org].
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The tango is huge in Finland. They're actually known for other strange dance crazes, too, including the Letkajenkka (or, "Letkiss"). It's done to this weird hybrid ska/polka. Imagine a cross between the pogo and a conga line.
I'm serious, you have to see this weirdness that the Finns are getting up to.
https://youtu.be/y2NvAn7ujjw [youtu.be]
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Tango, and Donald Duck. I dunno why, but they're nuts about Donald Duck the way the French are nuts about Jerry Lewis.
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O brave new world/That has such people in't.
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Weird, but wonderful. I could totally get into the Letkiss as long as there were two pretty Finnish girls surrounding me in the line :)
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Finnish girls are crazy good-looking, too.
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Finnish without Small Talk is like Ruby.
And ya, if there were no alcohol Finland would have no birthrate at all.
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Kind of opposite. There's nothing to do during winter but drink and fuck. And while you can do both at once, it's generally not very productive at least on the male side with all the erection issues.
I find it funny that I have to remind even my native friends that we actually got Christianized very late, and many of the puritan traditions, like shame of sex never really took hold around here when in company of utterly weirded out exchange students.
Re:Report on the ground (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but sex in Finland occupies maybe five, six minutes, which still leaves 22 hours of darkness for drinking.
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Wrong Direction (Score:2)
That sounds fantastic. I wish I could go through the day without much of the banal conversation that makes up the first hour or two of every workday. Why are they attempting to train them out of it? Train the rest of us not to do it. I don't need to know how the weather was by your house. We work at the same place, I live 5 minutes away from you. It was mild.
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No. it's up to the speaker to justify why it's important to tell me redundant or irrelevant information.
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They're not all that way. A few, a small minority, are much more gregarious. They will say hello and goodbye. A few though will be just as chatty as non-Finns, even if they haven't been drinking.
So while it's a stereotype, it's more of a trend than a universal trait. You might not even notice this at all if you're just there as a tourist and aren't having casual conversations, and maybe you don't notice it right away even if working there for a week since they're polite and will talk to the visiting work
They like Java or C++ better? (Score:5, Funny)
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Bug or feature (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to teach Finnish people to partake in this idiocy is like actively teaching a dog to crap on your carpet.
Re:Bug or feature (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see the problem with any of this. Small talk is time wasting bullshit to try to keep up pleasantries. Instead of asking pointless questions you already know the answer to, why not just find someone you can have a worthwhile conversation with instead of having both people engage in an activity that neither find particularly enjoyable or stimulating?
Good small talk is supposed to find the leads to those interesting conversations. Bad small talk is just filler to avoid the awkward silence. Through life you're going to end up in many social situations where you're simply in the same class or group or club or have mutual friends but don't know each other. How are you going to discover you have something to talk about, telepathy? The better you know the person, the less small talk is necessary because you already know topics to talk about.
Small talk is just generic topics to fill the void, I've gotten better with experience but as a teen I really could have used some small talk coaching. I'd kill off conversations without really meaning to because I was acting almost like I was being quizzed, I'd answer questions but I was terrible at expanding on answers and taking opportunities to respond in kind or lead the conversation to a new topic when it's running dry. I mean right down to the simple things like if somebody asks you how your vacation has been, ask them how theirs was.
I mean it's probably not because you really care about where they went on vacation. But that's not the point, the point is just to create the space for them to tell a bit about themselves like some kind of hobby or interest or some other reason for going. Like whether they went to see an art gallery or a wild beach party. But when I was younger I didn't really see that far, if I didn't have an immediate interest in the answer I wouldn't bother asking the questions. Small talk is a fishing expedition, you might end up empty handed but if you don't throw out a line you're definitely not catching anything.
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What is "awkward silence"? And why is that particular silence awkward?
Re:Bug or feature (Score:4, Interesting)
Small talk performs a function, one that is not needed in every context.
Americans are the most notoriously friendly people on Earth. "Notorious", because most people from other countries find Americans' tendency to strike up conversations with strangers off-putting.
I think this is a legacy of immigration. I think it grew out of interactions between people penned in close quarters with others they didn't understand very well, who had different cultures, religions and languages. I believe those people developed a norm of effusively over-the-top superficial friendliness to compensate for the fact that subtleties were lost on each other, subtleties which told you whether someone was safe or not.
When a stranger asks "How are you?" he's not asking for personal information; he's just signalling that he's friendly and therefore safe. You signal back with an equally conventional "Fine, and how are you?" regardless of what your actual condition is. That's all small talk is, it's establishing a safe space between strangers.
Now America isn't culturally uniform; if you go to places that don't trace their culture back to the late 19th C earth 20th C immigration boom, the norm for approachability varies dramatically. In the rural South it's even more over-the-top than average, but in rural New England and out West people can appear suspicious or hostile to strangers. Again, it's superficial; if you're actually in need people there will give you the shirt of their backs; they're just not broadcasting "I'm not threatening" all the time.
People don't do that consciously, it's what we're trained to do because it worked for our grandparents and great-grandparents.
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Re:Bug or feature (Score:5, Informative)
We don't do that, and we do talk to each others, dipshit. We just don't do the fake-ass small talk but instead try to find something that interests the both parties to talk about.
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What counts as social skill depends on the society.
I can't blame them. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think I figured out till my early '20s that most people don't actually expect an answer when they open with "How are you doing?", much less an honest one, and I grew up here. Nobody tells you these things.
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I like, "I'm present, how are you?"
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I like, "I'm present, how are you?"
I'll give it a try and see what happens. Should be fun.
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In some languages*, the sterotyped exchange literally is: Where are you (=how are you)? I am here (=I am alive =well).
(* = e.g. Sepedi: Wena o kae? Ke hona.)
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The next time somebody asks how you are, reply, "Just terrible, thank you." in a cheerful voice. The odds are whoever asked will respond to your tone of voice, not your words.
I'm going to try that on someone who looks distracted sometime. I'll bet it will work.
Douglas Adams Quote (Score:5, Informative)
“It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as in "It's a nice day," or "You're very tall," or "So this is it, we're going to die."
After a few months of observation he had come up with a second theory, which was this--"If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.”
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
The "How are you?" trap works the same in German (Score:5, Informative)
If you ask Germans "how are you?" (or the German "Wie geht's dir?") you can expect either getting a full rundown of their health, work, financial, family and marriage situation or just a "fuck off" look (which basically means "None of your business, stranger!"). It's just one of the language and culture differences you have to adapt to: Words don't mean the same even if you can perfectly understand them.
Small talk isn't something that the Finnish are lacking, it's rather something that the Americans are very good at. Very similar with smiling by the way: Americans do that all the time, Europeans not so much.
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No, this is not about the language being different than English or that there's a different way of doing small talk. The Finns are very much different from their neighbors this way. When I worked a few weeks in Germany I kept quiet while everyone else at lunch was chatting away. When I worked in Finland I was doing most of the talking at lunch.
I don't know why you even mention "Americans", you could substitute "Norwegians" there and it will would be true in comparison.
Re: The "How are you?" trap works the same in Germ (Score:2)
Very similar with smiling by the way: Americans do that all the time, Europeans not so much.
Yea, but they do it by showing their teeth, which is scary to most other cultures, even animals!
we smile a lot (Score:2)
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Wow... never expected to see a reference to that (by the way, wonderful) anime :)
In the Netherlands we do know small talk but usually not to 'the random stranger waiting at the bus stop', unless the weather is truly atrocious. And in business relations only as a brief introduction of one or two sentences before the actual contents of the meeting. I'm not entirely sure about small talk in personal relations... in that regard I associate that primarily with elderly at their monthly bingo meeting. In other wor
How the Finnish Survive Without Small Talk? (Score:2)
I've survived quite nicely. Thanks for asking.
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Just look at Kimi [wikipedia.org] to see the proof of this article.
He's famous for his lack of small talk, especially with reporters.
British (Scottish) small-talk from a Scot. (Score:5, Funny)
Most of our small-talk boils down to one of these common scenarios: ...and it all kicks off from there.
"Hey how's it going, shite weather today isn't it?"
"Hey there auld (old) yin (one), ye got yer wife pumped yet?"
"Did you see that awful game last night? Fuck was that about?"
"When's tea and crumpets?"
"Fucking Tories, what are they all about? Get that old fart kicked out"
What started as a casual encounter in the street at the daily shop visit ends up down the pub, half drunk, at 1pm. Sometimes there is even a fight.
Britain, what a marvelous place.
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Finns would think that Scotsman talks a wee too much. All that chatting lets in too much cold air.
Not that small talk, the other smalltalk... (Score:2)
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Gosh, Chris, you're so funny and relevant.
Not.
WOOOOOSH!
(Hint: I'm not Chris.)
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Belcerabons (Score:2)
We should sentence the Finnish to telepathy.
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Maybe they already have it, that's why they don't talk so much.
Seems like they're wrong on a few parts... (Score:4, Interesting)
In English-speaking countries, it is mostly used just as a greeting and no serious answer is expected to it.
Though that may be true today, I believe in the past, it was simply a way to elicit from people whether or not they were sick...so you'd know to stay away from them.
There's a reason "we" have Welcome mats. It meant, only come in if you're well (not sick.)
There's a reason we say and do the things we do...generally we have to look to the past to understand them, as their reason for being useful then, may not serve a function today.
The Finns are completely different... (Score:5, Informative)
...from Scandinavians in general.
How do I know? Because I spent most of my life in 3 scandinavian countries, and I can pretty much sum up the major differences, and what they have in common.
Norwegians: Very straightforward people, you sort of have to agree if something is funny, and you'll have to let them in on the joke, if you want to kid around. They're very much independent of E.U. for a reason, and that is because they have their own way of doing things. A word is a word, and there's never anything hidden behind it, they can also be a bit stale and boring when it comes to sarcasm and longer lasting jokes. They're fairly authoritarian but without the totalitarian style in them, they can loosen up quite a bit - generally likes to travel to Denmark to get wasted beyond recognition and make complete asses of themselves, and have an easy time understanding Swedish and Danish.
Danes: People with possibly the best sense of humor of all the Scandinavian countries (I'm Norwegian originally btw. so I might be biased here), but they generally never take themselves too seriously. One of the biggest trait Danes have is that if they really like you, they will take the jokes on you so far you'll go crying home wondering where you went wrong (I did for the longest time when new to Denmark), but 6 months later I realized they're really just masters of sarcasm and funny. Even their TV ads reflect this, if anyone can joke about themselves and anything, it's them. But when it comes down to brass tax (like money) the generic Dane changes in nature immediately, they take their personal economics seriously (My grandmother warned me about this before I moved to Denmark for 10+ years), and she was right, more than I'd ever care to admit. Danes in general will gladly be friendly with any strangers, but it'll take 3-6 years before you get "invited" into their private circle of friends and family. They might seem very open and free, but they're like...that on the surface, if you want to go deeper, you gotta fight and work for it. But then again, you probably have a very good friend. Their housing prices are through the roof, and overvalued in every single way, new players hardly have a chance of getting a foot in - without bringing the previous owners high evaluation and lifestyle with them, and paying for it later. Norwegians have this in common with them as well.
Swedes: These are supposed to be the neutral counterpart of the two, anyone who know just a little bit about history, know what happened to Norway during the second world war, but the Swedes are a bit ashamed of that, because they're a very open to everyone kind of people, and they are almost TOO open about that today, which is why there's trouble in paradise right now (clearly reflected by the rising Right wing over there), but the Swedes are like the Danes when it comes to long-term friendship...it generally takes a few years, but then you'll have a friend for life. However, Swedes are not that easy to impress - unlike the Danes they have this "thinking" way of everything, they literally overthink everything, this is why it's so hard to get a job in Sweden - but once you GOT a job, they will try everything else before letting you go - Danes, not so much, for the Dane it's all about how you blend in, for the Swede - it's all about what you bring to the table, and once you're in - you're gonna have a job for a VERY long time, as they tend to question themselves first, before questioning you. I'd say that the Swedes are the most Authoritarian of all the Scandinavians.
FInnish people: Oh boy, they're basically nothing like the Swedes, Danes or Norwegians. They are very direct (as the article suggest), don't like to small-talk too much, and they are VERY straightforward about basically everything. They're workhorses like NO ONE you've ever met. I've got some Finnish colleagues, known quite a lot of Finns, and you'll be pleasantly surprised that they're just as different from each other as the rest of the population, but they DO share this "seriousness
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Finns do get much more chatty after having alcohol. Alcohol keeps the birthrate from being zero. I once came back from a restaurant in Helsinki with a Finn and one other, and we'd all had way too much to drink. The Finn was a very serious guy, even for Finns. So despite all that drink he still was not swaying, his back was perfectly straight, he walked a straight line, got us back to the hotel, etc. Only his head was tilted...
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FInnish people: Oh boy, they're basically nothing like the Swedes, Danes or Norwegians. They are very direct (as the article suggest), don't like to small-talk too much, and they are VERY straightforward about basically everything. They're workhorses like NO ONE you've ever met. I've got some Finnish colleagues, known quite a lot of Finns, and you'll be pleasantly surprised that they're just as different from each other as the rest of the population, but they DO share this "seriousness" about them, and in the workplace - this is especially prevalent. Most Finns I've met. are dead serious about their jobs. They don't mind working overtime, they don't mind going above and beyond for what they do - and they aren't impressed by people sluggish or slacking off at work, but they won't say it - not in so many words, but you'll notice that by the people they hang out with, they're usually people who can handle endurance, stamina - and who just do the job without complaining. Finnish SISU is a real thing. Protip: Do not joke with their language, don't mimic their accent, because Finnish is a very hard language to learn, and they're proud of it (with good reason), imagine you trying to learn it, not easy! And they try so hard learning your language. I've had some honest - deep conversations with Finns, and they'll tell you this, if you care to listen - and they like you. If not, you're just making yourself look foolish to them, and will most likely be ignored. Don't go thinking that Finns are boring stiffs, I've known enough Finns to know they have an absolutely AWESOME sense of humor, but it's much more well thought through, and this reflects their seriousness.
Hmm. Does this description seem to fit a certain developer of the worlds second most popular OS pretty well? Only from what I have heard about him.
I might also mention that Finns and their culture descends from Asian migrants and their language is quite distinct from other Scandinavian and Germanic (and, for that matter European) languages.
Re:The Finns are completely different... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup, the only relative languages being spoken really are Estonian and Hungarian, and only Estonian is close enough that it's (relatively) easy to learn for us Finns. I've spent some time in Estonia, and although I still can't really speak it well, I can understand basic sentences if they slow down the rate of speech a bit.
Some history about the language and its importance to the whole nation for those who may be interested:
The language is also what's kept the culture different from the other nordic countries and enabled the rise of Finnish nationalism. We're a part of Sweden for a long time and you really had to be able to speak Swedish during that time to be anything other than common folk. So Swedish was the language of the ruling class and the state for the longest time. Finnish didn't even have a system of grammar and hence could not be written at all prior to 1500s. Curiously enough, we've largely the Russians to thank for changing that: after we moved to be a part of the Russian empire in 1809 the Russians realized that actions had to be taken so as to try and solidify the status of Finland as part of the empire and lower sympathies towards Sweden that were still really strong. So they did a lot of things, including letting us have a high amount of political autonomy (we had our own parliament making laws long before we became independent), moving the capital from the western coast to Helsinki to move it away from Stockholm and closer to st. Petersburg, we even had our own money and a customs border with Russia. Finnish was used alongside Russian, even in matters of state, and schools operated in Finnish. and we had our army separate from the Russian army that operated in Finnish. They allowed the rise of Finnish nationalism because they wanted us to not pine after the days of Swedish rule. And for a long while this worked well. This started to change when the very pro-Finnish emperor Alexander the 2nd was murdered, and the ideology of panslavism started to gain a foothold. Starting from the end of the 1800s they started to roll back of the privileges and try make us more Russian, and again the language played a critical part: they tried phasing out Finnish as the official language of governance and make us into Russian speakers. This was met with widespread resistance, culminating to the assassination of the general-governor of Finland (the highest Russian official in the land) Nikolai Bobrikov in 1904, when he was shot on the stairs of the Senate by a Finnish nationalist. The seed of distrust against the Russian rule had been planted.
When the revolution hit Russia, we saw out chance and declared independence, figuring the Lenin would not risk having a war in Finland with everything else going on. Lenin looked at what's going on in Finland, saw the high amount of tension between the working class and the better educated and figured we're about to enter a civil war soon anyway, so he actually let us go. And he was correct, in 1918 the rift between the Reds and the Whites exploded and we had our civil war within a year of becoming independent. Where he was wrong though was the winning side. Lenin figured the communists would win and Finland would seek to re-join the then still-forming soviet Union, but they did not win, and we remained independent.
There's a famous phrase from the time of Russian rule, supposedly coined by the Finnish (writer, journalist and a politician, Adolf Ivar Arwidsson: 'We are not Swedes, and we do not want to become Russians. Let us then be Finns.' The Russians and later on the Soviets had some trouble accepting this and tried to change it later on during the second world war but as the time of the Russian rule was still very much in the national memory at that time we said no and fought back.
Though we're on the losing side (we eventually had to align ourselves with the Nazis in the beginning of the
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I lived in Finland for more than 5 years, and have a real soft spot for Finns & Finnish culture even now. There's just very little superficial BS involved, & I found that extremely refreshing.
I also agree about the Finnish sense of humo(u)r: Finns can be drily hilarious like no other people on Earth.
And yup: the language is tough. It's really cool, though: it can sound very mellifluous, but someone swearing well in it could frighten a Klingon. It was a big influence on Tolkien's Elvish language, Que
Smalltalk is relegated to eccentrics now (Score:2)
Not only Finnish... (Score:2)
Re: Summary does not live up to promise (Score:3)
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Re:Summary does not live up to promise (Score:5, Funny)
Two married Finns are sitting a table for their wedding anniversary, not talking.
The wife eventually reaches over and slaps her husband.
He sits there for a bit then asks, "why did you slap me?"
She says, "That was for 30 years of bad sex."
He then sits there for awhile, then eventually reaches over and slaps her back.
She says "What was that for?"
He says, "That's for knowing the difference!"
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Yeah, I was 35 before I learned that the correct answer to "How are you?" is "I'm ok thanks, how are you?"
Incidentally the correct answer to "How do you do" is "How do you do". No, I don't know why.
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Montreal to Toronto is roughly the same distance as Helsinki to Oulu... which is already like half the maximum possible distance to drive in Finland. I don't think they can use the excuse of "distance between cities" in such a small country.
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Re: This is already famous (Score:2, Interesting)
Being Dutch I hate this fake "how are you" crap (you don't care and you don't need to know that anyway), my friends/colleages mostly feel the same. I understand there is a few seconds of "handshake" in communication, eg you answer the phone with some filler before saying your name (good $daypart, your speaking with $name), but don't ask questions without expecting an answer.
Re:This is already famous (Score:5, Funny)
"The Scandanavian Cold shoulder is already famous. "
I had a Scandinavian girlfriend once.
Not sure which Nation, but during sex she always yelled:
'I'm not Finish!'
Re:This is already famous (Score:5, Informative)
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The topic kind of complex though. Strictly speaking, Scandinavia is the "three crowns" - Denmark, Norway and Sweden - all of which speak northern Germanic languages. Finland isn't one of the three crowns, and speaks a Uralic language, putting it closer to Latvia and Estonia. However, Finland was a Swedish territory before the Russian empire "liberated" it. So historically, Finland was part of Scandinavia. Should Finland get grandfathered in and still be counted as part of Scandinavia, or has it fully e
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Finland is a Nordic country, not usually considered Scandinavian.
That's being a bit pedantic. Yes, Scandinavian is properly speaking a linguistic term, and Finnish is unrelated.
But the word is commonly used in a cultural sense. Also, Swedish *is* an official language in Finland (making it much easier for foreigners to read road signs), and "Finland" itself is a Scandinavian word.
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1) It's spelled Asperger's.
2) There's no capital letter for autism. It's not a proper noun.
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Re: So they're Aspies? Move along, nothing to see. (Score:2)
Autists are not nearly the only ones who avoid smalltalk and tend to be literal. The same goes for both the schizoid and schizotypal personality disorder and even for introverts with a healthy personality.
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There is a spectrum in Finland, from those who will chat with strangers to those who don't like to talk much with their closest friends.
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The issue is not just small talk. Finns in general just don't talk a lot. They are very different from their neighbors. While some talk a lot and manage small talk, most are more taciturn, and some are just extremely reluctant to talk.
This is indeed a problem, as I've asked Finns direct questions and been unable to get any answer. This wasn't small talk, it was "when do you think your worker will have his task finished?" This may have been an extreme case, but it is not uncommon to have similar interact
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Pouring with slush? Sounds like Summer is nearly there!
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