The land of ice and snow
Time for more pointless trivia. This time, I'll be talking about the country of Finland.
The patron saint of Finland is neither Finnish, nor a saint. His name is Henry, and he's English. His feast day is January 19, though not many Finns actually celebrate it.
The most important day of the year to Finns is Independence Day, or "Itsenäisyyspäivä" in Finnish. It's on December 6 and marks Finland's declaration of independence from Russia in 1917. Finnish flags are hung out of windows and everywhere around the towns and cities, shops decorate their windows in the flag's colours, candles are lit and displayed in windows, and the Presidential Independence Day reception is watched on TV in the evening. Since Finland only fairly recently became independent, having originated under Swedish rule until Sweden lost the country to Russia, they still take their independence very seriously and are very proud of it.
Despite the above, Finland is still a bilingual country, with Finnish and Swedish both being official languages, even though 90% of its population speak Finnish and only 5.4% speak Swedish. The remaining 0.03% speak one of the Sami languages, a group of languages spoken by the Sami people who live in various parts of northern Europe, including the northern part of Finland, more commonly known as Lappi or Lapland. For this reason, these languages are also known as Lappish or Lappic, though these terms are considered derogatory nowadays.
Finlandssvenskar, or Finland-Swedes, are people who were born in and grew up in Finland but speak Swedish as their first language (though with a different accent and dialect to actual Swedish people from Sweden).
The Finnish flag (a blue cross on a white background) represents nature, with the blue representing the sky and sea, and the white representing snow. It's known as the "siniristilippu", or "Blue Cross Flag". The cross is also said to represent Christianity.
Finland isn't as small as people think. The country is the size of Germany in terms of surface area, though over a third of it is marshland (most of the actual cities and populated areas are sort of squashed into the bottom, and the rest is just lakes, forests and peat, with the occasional small village or house here and there).
The annual Air Guitar Championships are held in the city of Oulu in Finland. They were originally coined as a joke, but have since become a major part of the city's culture and a huge tourist attraction. Contestants are judged on technical merit (how much the performance looks like the original playing), mimesmanship (how convincingly they can mime their performance), stage presence and "airness" (basically, how much the performance itself was a work of art, as opposed to just someone pretending to play guitar).
IRC was invented by a Finnish person. Jarkko Oikarinen, working in the Department of Information Processing Science at the University of Oulu in Finland, developed it as a replacement for a program called MUT (MultiUser Talk), to allow students at the university to be able to communicate with each other more easily.
Probably one of the most famous Finnish people is Kimi Räikkönen, the famous Formula One racer. Nicknamed "The Ice Man" because of his cool temperament under pressure and "icy" persona, Kimi is well known both in and out of his home country, notably for his typically-Finnish laconic attitude and snarky, sarcastic responses to interviewer questions. (Seriously, watch any interview with Kimi, you'll get a very accurate representation of what a typical Finnish person is like.)
Finns generally tend to be very taciturn and emotionally stunted - they could even be described as "autistic" at a stretch (and I use that word in its proper meaning, not the 4chan meaning). They keep to themselves and tend not to be very chatty, even with each other (and mostly dislike chatty people). Silence is considered a valid form of communication in Finland. That said, they are well aware of this stereotype (and others) and typically have a sense of humour about it - one popular joke in Finland goes that two old friends are meeting up in a bar for drinks after having not seen each other in years. One asks the typical pleasantry questions ("How's the job?" "How's the family?" etc.) while the other just grunts in reply. Finally, the second one exasperately yells "Perkele*! Did we come here to talk or drink!?" They can often come off as rude to non-Finns because they rarely say "please" or "thank you". There is no word for "please" in the Finnish language, requests are made polite by their phrasing (and again, what is "polite" for Finns can seem rude to others, especially Brits or Americans) and generally a smile will substitute for "thank you" (also note this is one of the only times you'll actually see a Finnish person smile).
*Finnish swear word. Equivalent to "God dammit!" in English. Originally the name of the thunder god in Finnish pagan mythology, nowadays is used as another name for the Devil.
That's not to say that the Finns don't know how to be polite. In fact, they have a reputation for showing almost legendary hospitality to their guests. Here's a quick rundown of what to expect if you ever get invited to a Finnish home.
It's customary to bring a small gift to show your appreciation (a bottle of wine, some cinnamon buns, or something). When you come in, leave your shoes in the entryway. You'll be shown into the living room. No drink will be offered at this stage - Finns believe that time in the living room is for talking, time at the table is for drinking. Once food is ready, everyone will go to the dining room, where there'll usually be a table creaking under the weight of all kinds of food. It's important to take your time when selecting food - rushing makes you seem greedy and like you're only there for the food. Wait until everyone is seated before you start eating. It's also tradition and good manners to try a little bit of everything, even if there's something there that you don't like (though exceptions might be made if you're allergic). Once you're finished, you will be offered a second helping. It is considered extremely rude to refuse this, even if you've eaten so much that you feel ready to pop (and you probably have). Leaving food is also considered rude in Finland (it's seen as a sign that the food wasn't good enough), so be prepared to test your stomach's limits. Once you've eaten so much that you need a crane just to get out of your chair (if it hasn't already collapsed under your weight), you'll go back to the living room, where you will be offered coffee/tea and cinnamon buns. Again, refusing these offers is considered very impolite, despite the fact that at this point you're likely double the weight you were when you first walked in. When you finally leave, expect to be invited back again the following week, or even the following day. And yes, if you want to be polite, you can't refuse this invitation.
Note to coffee haters: Coffee is a very important part of Finnish culture. Finns LOVE coffee - they drink 9-10 cups of it per day, on average, and always very strong black coffee. You will most likely be offered coffee when you go to a Finn's house, and yes, it is considered very rude to refuse the offer, even if you say that you don't like coffee. You will have to drink at least a small cup if you don't want to seem impolite, so be prepared for that. (You can say you don't like coffee, you just can't actually refuse the offer. Finns do appreciate honesty above all else, so they likely won't mind if you say you don't like it, as long as you still try some.)
I'm sure you're wondering what kind of food you'll be served when you go to one of these fattening-up rituals. Well, the answer to that is "whatever's in season". Finns are firm believers in obtaining their own food - they'll go fishing, pick wild mushrooms or berries in the forest, grow their own vegetables, and even go hunting in extreme cases. Berry-picking in particular is a traditional Finnish pastime - "Gone Berry-Picking" is the Finnish equivalent of "Gone Fishing" in America. They also make their own cakes and buns, particularly korvapullat (literally "ear buns", so named because they resemble the shape of the semi-circular canal in the ear), a type of cinnamon bun, and voileipäkakku ("sandwich cake"), a savoury cake usually containing meat, fish and vegetables with liver pâté and rye bread.
The landline phone is a dying breed in Finland - most houses don't even have one anymore, since everyone has a mobile phone. This is partly out of patriotic appreciation for Nokia, which is based in Finland, and partly because Finland is a very modern country in general.
Finland (and probably other northern European countries too) has a phenomenon called "takatalvi", literally "back-winter", which is when the temperature will suddenly drop and snow will cover the land for a few days during the middle of spring. There are jokes in Finland that there are only two seasons, winter and summer, and summer only lasts a month. (Actually, Finnish winter isn't as bad as people say it is - the average temperature is around -5 to -10 degrees C in the south, which is the more populated area. It only gets to the -20s in the more northern parts, like Lapland, where fewer people live anyway. And even with the cold, Finnish public buildings and public transport are required by law to have central heating, so there's a saying in Finland: "You're only cold when you're waiting for a bus.") In summer, expect the opposite problem - summers in Finland are HOT, with highs of 35-40 degrees C in Helsinki.
The movie "The Snowman" is hugely popular in Finland, considered a cult classic and usually aired traditionally around Christmas time.
With regard to television, dubbing is usually reserved only for shows aimed at young children. Many animated shows with older target audiences, such as The Simpsons (Simpsonit) and South Park (which keeps its English title), are aired in English with Finnish subtitles, rather than dubbed. Same with live-action shows - they are almost always subtitled rather than dubbed, unless they are aimed at very young children. Movies are shown subtitled even in the cinema (unless the movie was actually made in Finnish to begin with, of course), with subtitles being in both Finnish and Swedish (in the cinema, that is - on TV the subtitles will just be in Finnish). A couple of good Finnish TV shows are Pasila (an animated series set in the Helsinki suburb of the same name, centered around a police force - has been described as the Finnish version of South Park, and now has an English dub under the title "Jefferson Anderson (Pasila)") and Duudsonit (The Dudesons, four dudes from the Arctic Circle who usually go through painful and humiliating challenges, often described as the Finnish version of Jackass (and the two shows have actually crossed over a few times) - originally in Finnish, but after they became popular outside their home country they switched to doing their show in English).
The patron saint of Finland is neither Finnish, nor a saint. His name is Henry, and he's English. His feast day is January 19, though not many Finns actually celebrate it.
The most important day of the year to Finns is Independence Day, or "Itsenäisyyspäivä" in Finnish. It's on December 6 and marks Finland's declaration of independence from Russia in 1917. Finnish flags are hung out of windows and everywhere around the towns and cities, shops decorate their windows in the flag's colours, candles are lit and displayed in windows, and the Presidential Independence Day reception is watched on TV in the evening. Since Finland only fairly recently became independent, having originated under Swedish rule until Sweden lost the country to Russia, they still take their independence very seriously and are very proud of it.
Despite the above, Finland is still a bilingual country, with Finnish and Swedish both being official languages, even though 90% of its population speak Finnish and only 5.4% speak Swedish. The remaining 0.03% speak one of the Sami languages, a group of languages spoken by the Sami people who live in various parts of northern Europe, including the northern part of Finland, more commonly known as Lappi or Lapland. For this reason, these languages are also known as Lappish or Lappic, though these terms are considered derogatory nowadays.
Finlandssvenskar, or Finland-Swedes, are people who were born in and grew up in Finland but speak Swedish as their first language (though with a different accent and dialect to actual Swedish people from Sweden).
The Finnish flag (a blue cross on a white background) represents nature, with the blue representing the sky and sea, and the white representing snow. It's known as the "siniristilippu", or "Blue Cross Flag". The cross is also said to represent Christianity.
Finland isn't as small as people think. The country is the size of Germany in terms of surface area, though over a third of it is marshland (most of the actual cities and populated areas are sort of squashed into the bottom, and the rest is just lakes, forests and peat, with the occasional small village or house here and there).
The annual Air Guitar Championships are held in the city of Oulu in Finland. They were originally coined as a joke, but have since become a major part of the city's culture and a huge tourist attraction. Contestants are judged on technical merit (how much the performance looks like the original playing), mimesmanship (how convincingly they can mime their performance), stage presence and "airness" (basically, how much the performance itself was a work of art, as opposed to just someone pretending to play guitar).
IRC was invented by a Finnish person. Jarkko Oikarinen, working in the Department of Information Processing Science at the University of Oulu in Finland, developed it as a replacement for a program called MUT (MultiUser Talk), to allow students at the university to be able to communicate with each other more easily.
Probably one of the most famous Finnish people is Kimi Räikkönen, the famous Formula One racer. Nicknamed "The Ice Man" because of his cool temperament under pressure and "icy" persona, Kimi is well known both in and out of his home country, notably for his typically-Finnish laconic attitude and snarky, sarcastic responses to interviewer questions. (Seriously, watch any interview with Kimi, you'll get a very accurate representation of what a typical Finnish person is like.)
Finns generally tend to be very taciturn and emotionally stunted - they could even be described as "autistic" at a stretch (and I use that word in its proper meaning, not the 4chan meaning). They keep to themselves and tend not to be very chatty, even with each other (and mostly dislike chatty people). Silence is considered a valid form of communication in Finland. That said, they are well aware of this stereotype (and others) and typically have a sense of humour about it - one popular joke in Finland goes that two old friends are meeting up in a bar for drinks after having not seen each other in years. One asks the typical pleasantry questions ("How's the job?" "How's the family?" etc.) while the other just grunts in reply. Finally, the second one exasperately yells "Perkele*! Did we come here to talk or drink!?" They can often come off as rude to non-Finns because they rarely say "please" or "thank you". There is no word for "please" in the Finnish language, requests are made polite by their phrasing (and again, what is "polite" for Finns can seem rude to others, especially Brits or Americans) and generally a smile will substitute for "thank you" (also note this is one of the only times you'll actually see a Finnish person smile).
*Finnish swear word. Equivalent to "God dammit!" in English. Originally the name of the thunder god in Finnish pagan mythology, nowadays is used as another name for the Devil.
That's not to say that the Finns don't know how to be polite. In fact, they have a reputation for showing almost legendary hospitality to their guests. Here's a quick rundown of what to expect if you ever get invited to a Finnish home.
It's customary to bring a small gift to show your appreciation (a bottle of wine, some cinnamon buns, or something). When you come in, leave your shoes in the entryway. You'll be shown into the living room. No drink will be offered at this stage - Finns believe that time in the living room is for talking, time at the table is for drinking. Once food is ready, everyone will go to the dining room, where there'll usually be a table creaking under the weight of all kinds of food. It's important to take your time when selecting food - rushing makes you seem greedy and like you're only there for the food. Wait until everyone is seated before you start eating. It's also tradition and good manners to try a little bit of everything, even if there's something there that you don't like (though exceptions might be made if you're allergic). Once you're finished, you will be offered a second helping. It is considered extremely rude to refuse this, even if you've eaten so much that you feel ready to pop (and you probably have). Leaving food is also considered rude in Finland (it's seen as a sign that the food wasn't good enough), so be prepared to test your stomach's limits. Once you've eaten so much that you need a crane just to get out of your chair (if it hasn't already collapsed under your weight), you'll go back to the living room, where you will be offered coffee/tea and cinnamon buns. Again, refusing these offers is considered very impolite, despite the fact that at this point you're likely double the weight you were when you first walked in. When you finally leave, expect to be invited back again the following week, or even the following day. And yes, if you want to be polite, you can't refuse this invitation.
Note to coffee haters: Coffee is a very important part of Finnish culture. Finns LOVE coffee - they drink 9-10 cups of it per day, on average, and always very strong black coffee. You will most likely be offered coffee when you go to a Finn's house, and yes, it is considered very rude to refuse the offer, even if you say that you don't like coffee. You will have to drink at least a small cup if you don't want to seem impolite, so be prepared for that. (You can say you don't like coffee, you just can't actually refuse the offer. Finns do appreciate honesty above all else, so they likely won't mind if you say you don't like it, as long as you still try some.)
I'm sure you're wondering what kind of food you'll be served when you go to one of these fattening-up rituals. Well, the answer to that is "whatever's in season". Finns are firm believers in obtaining their own food - they'll go fishing, pick wild mushrooms or berries in the forest, grow their own vegetables, and even go hunting in extreme cases. Berry-picking in particular is a traditional Finnish pastime - "Gone Berry-Picking" is the Finnish equivalent of "Gone Fishing" in America. They also make their own cakes and buns, particularly korvapullat (literally "ear buns", so named because they resemble the shape of the semi-circular canal in the ear), a type of cinnamon bun, and voileipäkakku ("sandwich cake"), a savoury cake usually containing meat, fish and vegetables with liver pâté and rye bread.
The landline phone is a dying breed in Finland - most houses don't even have one anymore, since everyone has a mobile phone. This is partly out of patriotic appreciation for Nokia, which is based in Finland, and partly because Finland is a very modern country in general.
Finland (and probably other northern European countries too) has a phenomenon called "takatalvi", literally "back-winter", which is when the temperature will suddenly drop and snow will cover the land for a few days during the middle of spring. There are jokes in Finland that there are only two seasons, winter and summer, and summer only lasts a month. (Actually, Finnish winter isn't as bad as people say it is - the average temperature is around -5 to -10 degrees C in the south, which is the more populated area. It only gets to the -20s in the more northern parts, like Lapland, where fewer people live anyway. And even with the cold, Finnish public buildings and public transport are required by law to have central heating, so there's a saying in Finland: "You're only cold when you're waiting for a bus.") In summer, expect the opposite problem - summers in Finland are HOT, with highs of 35-40 degrees C in Helsinki.
The movie "The Snowman" is hugely popular in Finland, considered a cult classic and usually aired traditionally around Christmas time.
With regard to television, dubbing is usually reserved only for shows aimed at young children. Many animated shows with older target audiences, such as The Simpsons (Simpsonit) and South Park (which keeps its English title), are aired in English with Finnish subtitles, rather than dubbed. Same with live-action shows - they are almost always subtitled rather than dubbed, unless they are aimed at very young children. Movies are shown subtitled even in the cinema (unless the movie was actually made in Finnish to begin with, of course), with subtitles being in both Finnish and Swedish (in the cinema, that is - on TV the subtitles will just be in Finnish). A couple of good Finnish TV shows are Pasila (an animated series set in the Helsinki suburb of the same name, centered around a police force - has been described as the Finnish version of South Park, and now has an English dub under the title "Jefferson Anderson (Pasila)") and Duudsonit (The Dudesons, four dudes from the Arctic Circle who usually go through painful and humiliating challenges, often described as the Finnish version of Jackass (and the two shows have actually crossed over a few times) - originally in Finnish, but after they became popular outside their home country they switched to doing their show in English).
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