I'm not sad or bored. I'm Finnish.

Anteeksi ukit ja mummit ja muut englantiin kykenemättömät, mutta tämä postaus on osoitettu kavereille ja muille täällä jotka eivät suomea ymmärrä. Jatkossa sitten taas suomeksi!

I wanted to write something in English because I kinda feel bad that my friends here won't be able to read my blog since most of them are not from Finland. I want to write in Finnish though because some of my family members back home don't speak English and they are the ones I mostly write to but I also dislike those bilingual blogs so this will probably be the only English post I'm going to write. Sorry guys! I've never written a blog post in English before so let's see how it goes.

I got an inspiration to this topic from my younger host kid. She's always asking me questions like "Anna, why are you so quiet?", "Anna, are you tired?", "Anna, why aren't you saying anything?". Basically the only answer I've came up with is "I'm Finnish". Here I've realized how stereotypical Finn I actually am! All that small talk and fake smiles are just too much to handle so I thought I could tell you something about what it actually is being a Finn and why I am like I am (please note that these mostly just stereotypes and exaggerated images). All these pictures are from an awesome Facebook page called Finnish Nightmares. Go check it out and maybe you'll find out a little Finn in you too!

Let's start from meeting a Finn. To me it was a real shock when all those Germans and others greeted me by hugging even when we first met. No! That's not how you do it in Finland. You don't just go and hug a random person you've never met before (unless you're drunk or Finland just won on ice hockey or something). In Finland it is already awkward enough to shake hands but we still do it because it's polite. Sometimes just saying hello is enough. I had just got used to this new hugging thing when I met my French friend first time and she kissed me on the cheek! Three times!! Holy Jesus that's a Finnish nightmare with capital letters.

Please note that I'm talking about strangers and new acquaintances. It is perfectly fine to greet your friends and family by hugging but with strangers it is only awkward. Finns just like to have their personal space and avoid contact with strangers. I really don't know why.

I'm sure some of you have seen those pictures about Finnish people waiting for the bus at least two meters away from each other. Well I can say that it is true. It is about the personal space again. According to this page buses are actually full of possible nightmares!

I think one of the reasons why we try to avoid contact with people is that we suck at small talk. We really do. The basic unwritten rule is that you speak when you have something to say and if don't, you keep quiet (thing my host kid just can't understand). Pretty simple. And also that "hi how are you" thing is really confusing to us. Why would you ask someone how they are doing if you don't even care? And the only right way to answer is "fine" or something like that. What if I'm not fine for god's sake? Do I need to lie? They also say that we don't have "awkward silence" in Finland, we just have silence. I'm not completely underlining this but I agree that we can have silence without it being awkward, which in America seems to be impossible and that's how you start that stupid small talk nonsense again. There's two ways how trying to small talk with a Finn can turn out:

Avoiding a conversation might lead into serious actions:

Finns being shy was one of the stereotypes mentioned in the very first picture. Ok I wouldn't say that all the Finnish people are shy but most of us just don't want to draw too much attention to ourselves. And I'm not only talking about those small everyday situations but life in general. We have a saying that basically says if you are happy, you should hide the happiness. So we don't boast with what we have. But still mostly you can see this in many situations in everyday life.

We are also mentally really weird. Stereotypical Finn never smiles nor shows any other feelings at all. But hey, try to live in a country where you can't see the sun in 4 months and the summer is only few weeks long if we're lucky. I bet you wouldn't smile either! That leads to that showing one's feelings is just considered weird (being drunk and winning in hockey are exceptions in this too).

But after all I'm pretty proud to be Finnish. Even though we are little weird and odd there's still so many good things in us. We stand behind our words, we are stubborn, honest but still mostly friendly. Except when it comes to neighbors. A Finn is the only person who would pay 50€ so that neighbor won't get 100€. In hockey the most important thing is not the victory but that Sweden loses. We won't give up. We won't leave a friend behind. We might be hard to get to know but once you succeed you'll get yourself a really good friend seriously. I know I'm a little bit shy myself in the beginning but when you get to know me (getting me drunk makes it faster) I believe I'm kind of ok.