Finland (Suomi) – Turku-Åbo town square, 3.01 pm Saturday afternoon, shops just closed…
That is one tough border to cross, that one from Russia to Finland. Basically you’re crossing from tea country to coffee country. Otherwise you’re going from ice to ice.
Finns are the world’s greatest coffee drinkers. They drink more coffee per capita than any other nation in the world. They also drink coffee because they won’t drink tea: Russians do. Coffee for me means conversation. I just haven’t cracked it here yet.
The problem is Finns don’t do conversation. Not in the same way Russians don’t, because Russians do singing, hugging, dancing and arguing instead.
I have tried. From many angles, and taken some measures to make contact. I read about a woman who stripped naked to meet an Amazonian tribe. If I did that in Finland I’m told they’d still walk on by, and anyway, I’m not a nice young woman and the Amazon is a long way from here.
But I did throw all off anyway, and sat in the sauna with some locals, ready to discuss the meaning of something, but no-one seemed impressed. I managed a haiku out of it, true, and duly posted, but no Finn I chatted to seemed to be interested in the fact that this was my first time naked with a group of Finns. I chatted. They replied. Until one woman politely informed me that a sauna was important for quiet reflection and thought. The only thought I had was how quiet it was, but I demurred and tried to appear reflective.
Basically, Finns don’t do small talk. They just do not do it. Its quite pleasant actually, but it also means that if Finns say ”hello” to you one day, they don’t do ”hellos” the next day. I know it blows people’s minds when they come here, to Finland, or to the northern part of Finland, Lappland, a land of lakes, forest, and, um, quiet. Bit like southern Finland, actually.
”We like our men to be from the North of Finland, they don’t speak,” said a teacher (woman) I met. That’s all she said. Yappity yap.
Meanwhile my Italian chef friend here is going insane: ”my Finnish girlfriend hasn’t spoken to me since October, he shouted, in an Italian way, all arms and expressions.
”Shshshshsh!” someone said, as they walked by.
You get used to it. Would be better without the staring sometimes. But I’ve got no excuse, after all, they invented Nokia. Someone here wants to have a chat, surely!
But that’s how it is. I didn’t believe the small talk thing either, when I read up on cross-cultural communication before planting myself and small business here. Nowadays when a visitor to my copper shop from another country remarks that it is quite a fine day today, I stare in shock at his pleasantries just like a local, before recovering and saying nothing back.
All Finnish jokes revolve around talking too much. (Of course, we read jokes here, we don’t actually tell them to each other.)
That and not drinking enough. The classic is Mika and Peppe, who haven’t seen each other for ages, so they decided to get together for “one” beer:
At the end of the first pint Peppe says: “How have you been?” Mika just grunts in reply. At the end of the second pint Peppe asks “So how’s your family?” Again, Mika just grunts in reply. After three pints Peppe asks “How’s work going?” Mika turns in fury and yells:“Perkele! Did we come here to talk or drink?!”
Finns don’t do love, either, in the conventional sense:
Q: How do you know a Finnish man is madly in love with his wife?
A: He almost tells her.
A Finnish nurse friend of mine was so surprised when her Cuban boyfriend bought her flowers she actually told us. That was a conversation stopper. Well, it would have been a conversation stopper, if there had been a…well, you know what I was going to say..so..
Silence.
It is when you are sufficiently acclimatised in Finland that you notice 3 things:
- You understand why the Finnish language has no future tense.
- You actually believe Swedes ”talk too much” and ”never shut up.”
- When a stranger smiles at you, you assume he is drunk, insane, or American.
And as they say, what is the difference between an empty stomach and a Finnish person who wants to ask something from a stranger?
You can actually hear the empty stomach.
So its going to be a little while before I break the ice, I’m afraid, in this pleasant country of beguiling beauty and respectful privacy.
Hi, i think this finnish nurse you mentioned is princess layla yes or no ???? A week ago started to read her blogs, than others and today Abdul blog sex and beyond ,,, I read comments of you at his blog ….. and i was curious and here i am. this circle is completed i guess…..greetings A
Fascinating… I’m tempted to ask if this is embellished? Seriously, conversation must happen… You made a nurse friend… How did that happen? Nods and grunts?
Now, I’m dying to visit that stunning landscape to see this silence for myself… I will prepare to be called a lunatic as not only will I smile, say hello and ask questions, I will also be doing the same to my laptop in public. :lol; Great post! 
Very good questions – my nurse friend was actually my penpal when I was living in Saudi Arabia, so it was nice to meet her later when I moved to the same town she is in. The silence is very real – you would definitely, and I mean definitely surprise people. They would turn away in shyness. It appears very rude, but they are not consciously being rude at all. Careful – some women drink a lot here, and they’ll assume you’ve had a few drinks chatting to your laptop – but no-one will bother you!
Amazing… Thanks for the heads up!
Well Chris was right, you are tons of fun to read, and it sounds to me like you are loving being there too, but isn’t it cold!?.. I live way out in the country with only animals to talk to 12 hours a day, though i will hazard a guess that they are noisier than your new compatriots.. have fun.. c
Thanks very much – yeah, I’ll be talking to trees soon! To be honest I’ve sot of forgotten what warm is! Nice to be out in nature though, whatever the temperature, even if its permanently falling!
Just had to reblog to share such wit and talent. your writing reminds me of Zoe Sharp..no waste just skillful articulation straight to the heart of the matter. Like the rest of my collected crew you are a new addition to my blog addiction. Oooo I can hardly wait for them to meet you!
Oh I missed your wonderful words! What a lovely thing to read this morning….now I’ll take a dip into warmer waters and head your way!
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Great post
thanks for the heads up lol … I would die of insanity visiting Finland ,. I talk a lot and like to listen .. Hmmm but perhaps it would be a beautiful experience 
Its an experience! It does take a while to adapt, I must say, but yes, has nice sides of course..
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This post pretty much blew my mind, because I’m a Finn, and I’m actually trying to do the weekly writing challenge, and even commenting other blogs makes me a bit nervous. Maybe I’m not as chatty as I thought I was after all… Blame it on the culture, right!
This post made me smile very wide with my mouth-parts. 
Please don’t blame the culture – really nothing to blame! I need to highlight that I really like beautiful Finland I think – but its fun to make a lighthearted post. I need to do one about Scotland I think!
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You are right, Finnish people are not generally big talkers. This is particularly true about men. I remember having to show my new step-mother’s brother (my age) around Brussels. Me and my sister, having been abroad for many years, are chatterboxes, but even with the two of us making our best effort the conversation was awkward. The only time he opened up was when talking about a Finland-Sweden cruise during which he got very drunk…
That said, there are people who talk in Finland, and the reason me and my sister speak so much is not only being abroad, we inherited this from my mother’s side of the family. My mother used to talk to everybody, telling the cashier at the supermarket all about the embarrassing things we did as kids. The same goes for my two aunts and my 7 female cousins. Family get-togethers tend to be very noisy. My boyfriend’s theory is that all men in Finland are silent because the women talk too much, but he is only familiar with my family. I have the feeling that there is something about the region of Savo, from which they originate, which makes them more talkative than other Finns. But then, the people I know from Savo mainly belong to my family, so perhaps we are just an anomaly in an otherwise silent country.
Thank you so much for such a wonderful comment – and very interesting too. I didn’t know about Savo, but will find out more. I think you are right, by the way, that men more than women are quiet, and anyway, I hope I never gave the impression it bothers me, because once again I had someone today from another European country complaining about the weather, and I thought to myself, ”now there is something I never have to worry about with Finnish people…” That is a lovely story about your mother. Just the other day a Finnish woman came up and chatted and chatted- was wearing a hat from Kazakhstan and she had been there…lovely hug to, at the end. She was from Lappland, which I hink is a mysterious place…thanks again..and best regards…!
I always suspected Heaven must be full of pine forests, fjords and silence. Now I know it is!
Ah…you read between my lines!
I shared this post on Facebook and a friend of mine replied: “I have had the pleasure of working with many lovely Finnish people through Nokia. They tell this joke on themselves: ‘How can you spot a Finnish extrovert? … He’s the one looking at YOUR shoes.’”
Now that made me chuckle! I’ll have to try it out and see if its true! Thank you so much for sharing like that. One thing that is true is that the language skills of Finnish people are generally very good – even if they won’t admit it or are too shy to do so most speak English very well and are happy to
OMG! Being someone who loves conversation, that would be my idea of hell–that, and an absence of tea. I don’t do coffee, as it makes me almost start running up the walls and across the ceiling.
I do know a Finnish woman who’s married to an Englishman. They’re very happy and she is very talkative. They met when she came over to the UK to learn our language. We often discuss literature and she does talk of Finnish writers, so obviously they ‘think’ plenty of words. I love the Nordic authors, but have not read anything Finnish. Any recommendations?
It must be difficult to learn the local language, if you don’t get any practice speaking it.
No wonder you love blogging and chatting to all your followers on line, otherwise you’d end up like that man you wrote about who’d lived on his own too long, with only himself to talk to.
That’s a wonderful post–so entertainingly written. I’ve just sent my son a link to it, as he’s hoping to teach English as a foreign language in a Scandinavian country (most likely Sweden), which I think is a better idea than Finland under the circumstances.
Oh Finland is nice! Your son would enjoy it here – but yes, you do have to understand the culture..many don’t… Now..let me tell you who complains the most about Finns being reserved and quiet…yes…you guessed it…Finns who have returned from overseas! And they are so charming and talkative, its lovely!
And quite amusing how thy are! It was a light piece for the humour – and was written because this morning a Finnish woman who has been living abroad for years was telling me in a shocked voice how her neighbours ”never talk to her at all” it just amused me. Had she forgotten? Anyway, just fun…and goodness, don’t read too much into my writing!! I HOPE there’s no connection!
Fascinating…. so you pour your speaking into blogging?
Certainly looks like it, dr! I do think you stumbled on something there…!
very insightful..and very surprising actually..must be their culture…
Yes, it is, very much. I hope it doesn’t come across as too disrespectful, as Finnish people are kind – just very, very quiet..!