Today is the 100th anniversary of Finnish Independence. Truth be told, if I hadn’t met my husband, I wouldn’t care much about it. But I did and as such, Finland has become my second adopted homeland.
What do I like about Finland? Let me count the ways:
- The kebab. Okay yes, it’s a bit silly to include something that isn’t strictly Finnish on this list, but the kebab in Finland is unique. Germany has it’s Döner kebab and Finland has its rullakebab:
My husband recently told me that the EU Food administration is trying to ban kebab in Europe because it has too much salt for it. If there ever were a reason to stand up for your national sovereignty, this would be it. SAVE THE KEBAB! - The bike lanes. Finns love to moan and bitch about their bike lanes, especially when I talk about how awesome they are. Maybe they just haven’t experienced the average American bike lane:
This is horrible. Sorry, but painting a bike in the middle of a car lane does not make it a “bike lane.” I’m sure no car will hit a bike every, at all. Finnish bike lanes, on the other hand:
Isn’t it lovely? Isn’t it SAFE? Maybe what Finns mean is that there simply isn’t enough of them and I would agree with that. But they are a million times better than American “bike lanes.”
3. Moomin. Everyone loves moomin. When Gamma started going to preschool, his Japanese teacher asked me where I was getting his moomin clothes because she remembered watching Moomin on TV every Monday night at 5pm. She was surprised to learn that Moomin was Finnish, although the animation was done in Japan. A little girl heard our discussion and told me that her Grandma gave her moomin stuff, too, from Poland where her grandma was from. Moomin: uniting the world around strange, vaguely hippo-like creatures.
4. Their traditional foods. Generally speaking, traditional Finnish food is pretty bad, which is what makes it so great. Finns love sharing it with unsuspecting foreigners, maybe so they can a) laugh at the foreigners b) pat themselves on their backs for their higher levels of sisu and c) cry silently to themselves over the fact Finland isn’t located in a warmer climate so they, too, could be renowned for their cuisine. When France’s president talked about how horrible Finnish food is, the Finns were rightfully offened and Koti Pizza released a pizza featuring three native Finnish ingredients: Reindeer meat, blue cheese and mushrooms. Where else can you get reindeer meet on pizza?
5. Their berries. Finnish berries are everywhere…in Finland. I’ve never had cloudberries outside of Finland, but they’re ubiquitous there. I always have to bring home some sort of Finnish berry jam or berry flavoring when I go there. My husband loves to talk about how he suffered through rounds of berry picking at their summer cottage as a child.
6. Mökki. Ah the aforementioned summer cottage…where urbanized Finns leave their cities to remember a simpler time, way back in the 1930s when they didn’t all live in cities, have running water and electricity. When a proper sauna was a smoke sauna with a lake not too far away to jump in. Where berries and mushrooms could (or had to be) foraged for food, accompanied by makkara and whatever’s planted in the garden.
7. Äitiyspakkaus. The box that every pregnant Finnish woman gets for her baby, containing (almost) everything the baby will need for its first year. I wanted one of these so bad, I really wanted to have at least one baby in Finland. The clothes are so darn stinking cute and serve as a kind of uniform by which you can tell what year someone’s kid was born (at least until they grow out of it.
8. The silence. Americans are loud and boisterous, and this can wear down the more introverted among us. The Finns, on the other hand, are “ein Volk, das in zwei Sprachen schweigt,” (a people who are silent in two languages) according to Bertholt Brecht. It’s almost like taking off an extroverted suit and getting to relax for a while when I go there. No need to be loud (though, comparatively, I probably still am), silences aren’t awkward, but enjoyed. It’s nice. Having said that, my kids are damned loud there.
9. The public transportation. Granted, it’s not nearly as great as what you find in Germany, but Finland is a country where you don’t necessarily need a car and it might actually be more inconvenient having one at times. Turku has an excellent bus system, as does Helsinki. Cities are connected both by long distant buses and trains (some trains even have dedicated family cars where there’s a play area for little kids!). Helsinki has a metro that I’ve only used once (and I figured out how to use it without the help of my husband, who has an odd form of public transport dyslexia), but it worked and was pleasant. Things are otherwise very walkable and or bikeable within towns of any respectable size.
10. The language. Finnish is, hands down, one of the most beautiful languages in the world. Is it any wonder that Tolkien based Quenya off of it? The vowels may look intimidating, but it’s a lulling language that moves along slowly. I’m ashamed I haven’t spent more time learning it, but I’m determined that one day I will be able to have a conversation in Finnish.
11. Their reputation. Finns are almost universally admired. Their passport ranks third internationally as far as visa-free travel is concerned (tied with the US, Denmark, Itally and Spain) and traveling as a Finn doesn’t cause the same dislike that traveling while American (due to our current unpleasant reputation) or German (due to their past war crimes) does. Having said that, Finns aren’t known to be a traveling country to the same extent as other European nationalities. Their schools are internationally admired and have caused a strange sort of “school tourism” for educators. For the most part, they’re content to stay there and enjoy their excellent reputation by reading about it in the news.
12. Gender equality. Women got the vote in 1906 –11 years before Finland got independence. There is only one word in Finland to refer to he or she (hän) and women can go naked just as much as men do without being arrested (not so in the US!). They have high employment rates, high education rates and their husbands are helping more around the house these days than in previous generations.
Alright, that’s enough. I could list more, but then I wouldn’t have any blog post topics for the future. Finland has some problems (structural economic ones, for sure), but it’s done pretty well for itself in the past 100 years. Let’s hope the next hundred are just as impressive!
German, Finnish and Chickens 