Finland's special magic seeps in slowly, silently: give yourself time
Written: Dec 24 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Quiet, serious people; isolation of culture; honest, healthy food; emptiness and solitude; natural beauty
Cons: High prices, especially gas; introversion can irk; few restaurants
The Bottom Line: Finland - a shy people, a cold climate, a modern economy and a wonderfully warm and blissful treat. Don't judge by first sight!
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| frwhiskey's Full Review: Finland |
FINLAND AN ANOMALOUS NATION - HARD TO LOVE AT FIRST
A quick trip to Finland may enchant but will never plunge you into the true depths of this tough, hearty, stubborn and well-educated people. For me, Finland was mainly about its people in all their introversion and longings for belonging to a larger Europe, their honesty and forthrightness if you could get them talking, and sense of melancholy and detachment. Let's not forget the backdrop of the whole scenario: the wonderland of lakes and forests in cool mists, forming the people's character and their pride. I would absolutely insist that two weeks would be a bare minimum to get to know Finland. The nation doesn't reveal itself so quickly as Ireland, with all its song and dance and blarney; or Germany, with its gigantic industrial and shopping strength; or Austria, with its almost kitschy charm of sweet little mountain villages and cozy cafes.
FINLAND IS RAW, COLD, WET AND EMPTY - BUT BEAUTIFUL
Finland is not about warmth and sweetness, cheap and fun vacations. It's a barebones rawness even in its modern post-war socialistic architecture, full of rabbit-hutch style cement-block apartments. Finland's cities are beautiful because of their planned layout and integration into the tree-filled environment, but they are not full of "gemutlichkeit", the German-style hospitality and friendliness. They're stark, sparsely placed, with few corners to duck in for a respite. Especially in winter cold and dark, you can feel that you've been sentenced to some kind of Soviet existence with a nominal walking-around freedom, as you skirt along the cement walls, trying not to slip on ice. Do I exaggerate? Maybe, but remember where I came from: Sunny, bustling, packed-to-the-gills San Francisco, where a real winter is just some rain following by blue skies. To grope along the dark, frozen, empty, and gloomy streets of Helsinki in late November almost gave me agoraphobia (except that a market was hard to find).
SANTA CLAUS LAND, YES; BUT A REAL PEOPLE, TOO, NOT ELVES:
Well, that is to give you the bad stuff first, so you have no illusions that a Winterwonderland, a Santa Claus land, doesn't have the downside of all Northern Countries: cold and dark, icy and wet, grim and gloomy outdoors in winter. For you stalwart types, spend Christmas up in Santa Claus Village outside Rovaniemi in Lapland. You'll freeze to death but meet the real fellow and his elves. It will cost you a fortune to bring the kiddies, but you might start to believe in him, and in loving kindness, too! Overall, I'd say start in summer or fall. Winter is for hard nutcrackers and hardy hunter-types, skiers and warmongers (cf. Winter War in WWII).
RUSKA TIME IN LAPLAND: HITCHING IN SPLENDIFEROUS LEAFPILES
My experience harkens back to August 1983, stretching into December. I arrived in what the Finns call "Ruska" time, meaning "brown", i.e. the leaves are turning in August. Once you leave the cement-glass-steel modern jungle of Helsinki, you come to endlessly-stretching forests in gorgeous bursts of orange, yellow and red. I felt an euphoria just to walk through such an environment, alone and with no threat of molestation, perhaps heightened by the week in cold and dark city life. Out in the nature, the cold does not depart, it does penetrate, but it is a wonderful feeling if you're dressed for it. You feel the grandness of the planet, that you are a small part of it, crunching along in snow or leaves, that you can freely move about to fish, swim, hike, hunt or gather berries. The air is clean, fresh, seems to sparkle in one's nose. There's little smog, if any, but there's paper mills and cows!
The Finns have the Swedish custom of "Allemansrecht", meaning "Every man's right", i.e. the right to cross any piece of land, private or public, if one does not camp. You can cross fields, forests, hike around lakes and through rivers, without fear of sudden fences or shotguns. The berries are considered everyone's, if you have the energy to bring buckets and pronged scoops, to spend hours bending and crouching in the stillness of the autumn forest. The women chat, but also glory in the quiet, together, as monks and nuns do in cloistered abbeys.
BERRY-PICKING ONE OF MY FONDEST MEMORIES IN FINLAND:
Berry-picking is a woman's job, or rather, delight. Men abhor this stooplabor, associating it with tea-pickers in China or cotton-pickers in Alabama (or so one said). I was surprised to learn this AFTER I had spent days either alone or with others gathering berries in many forests in middle Finland, including harvesting gooseberries and Johannisberries in a big farmer's garden. Across Scandanavia, women take paid time off their jobs to spend all day together in the woods, then bring carloads of berries back to be sold in streetmarkets for high prices. They also freeze them for the coming winter as a source of vitamins, eating them with their morning oatmeal. They're delicious small, hard blue and red berries growing freely, until you come to the far north and find the Salmonberries, the orange-colored raspberries. To eat these latter with fresh-baked salmon is a mouthwatering treat. The Finns have traditionally had a very limited diet up there, but their food is fresh, natural, healthy and delicious. It lacks spice except butter, salt, pepper and dill, but this goes well with vegetables, salads, fish and moose- or reindeer-meat. Finnish food reminded me very much of old-fashioned Irish. Their ice cream and cheeses are topnotch, even world famous. Visit VALIO in Aanekoski, a big cheese factory. They export to all nations for very good prices.
FINNISH FOOD LACKS SPICE BUT DELIGHTS IN SIMPLICITY
Never fear, the Finns have plenty of small supermarkets for their five million people. Most shopping is done in small increments by women on bicycles or public transit, not in huge SUV's for two weeks at a time. You won't find the plethora of junk food as in an American supermarket, but you'll quickly forget that as you delve into the normal, home-style food they eat, or have served at restaurants. Since the joining to the EC, there's more ethnic restaurants around, such as Somalian (yes, imagine, 5,000 Somalis live in Helsinki!) and Russian, Chinese in all its permutations, and pizza joints everywhere. There's a few MacDonalds with the usual teenagers. Prices will surprise you: food wastage is a lot less than in USA, since prices are almost double to ours. Prices to eat out are astoundingly high for Californians, because labor is so expensive in Finland. One has to fall back on brownbagging it, as the Finns do. My favorite filler was rye bread and "villi", a kind of sour stringy yoghurt. I felt superhealthy living in Finland, since the only real abuse to my body was drinking too much.
ALCOHOL: THE FINNS MAY BEAT THE IRISH!
I may be Irish-American, but we never drank as much as they do there! Alcohol is sold through ALKO, the state-controlled monopoly. Prices are high and wine selection is paltry compared to California. The whole country is still under "blue laws". This doesn't stop anyone, especially the men, young and old, from getting smashing drunk on Saturday nights, staggering about waiting for buses, and dying of the cold. They also fight with their traditional knives and throw the bodies in the rivers and lakes, to be uncovered in the spring. One fellow told me that, percapita, the murder rate in Finland was greater than in USA! I don't believe that. It's true that they don't have so many handguns, but they do have a lot of hunting guns handy in their barns, cellars or bedrooms... we saw them mounted proudly on living room walls in the countryside. Nevermind, let's talk about coffee now.
COFFEE IN FINLAND OUTSTRIPS ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
Coffee in Finland is rich and smooth, hot and wonderful in that damp climate. The Finns top the planet in per-capita consumption. It's a rebellious health-freak of a Finn who won't drink it, who switches to herbal tea. I met a few and they were odd folks, indeed. Finns love to drink coffee with cake or cookies in the afternoon, like the old German or Swedish tradition. So the Finns do have a sweet tooth, along with the alcohol-tongue. In spite of this, there's not much extreme overweight, just the usual middle-aged bulging. They love sports - running, cross-country skiing, fishing, swimming. Finns are known for their health, or at least, for their STRIVING for health. The airwaves and magazines are filled with articles on vitamins, diet, etc. etc. A mania that leads to...what?
HEALTH-MANIA LEADS TO TOP-CLASS MEDICAL RESEARCH
The Finns lead the world also in per-capita health research, using their singularly small genepool to test ideas about cholesterol and liver disease and so on. They have some of the best hospitals and medical personnel in the world, with top equipment. They spend this money from their paychecks voluntarily. Unemployed and immigrants also receive healthcare free of charge. Everything is ultra clean, and housewives are obsessed with dirt-elimination. People may not wear shoes in the homes for these two reasons - health and cleanliness. Pets do not wander about and lay their mites and ticks at will, as they tend to do in laid-back California. Wall-to-wall carpeting is almost unknown there, although it was a craze in the 1970's. By the 1990's, most Finns had ripped it out in favor of hardwood floors. They're easier to clean, and they reverted to the traditional throwrugs which can keep an apartment floor warm enough for stocking feet. The apartments are very well-heated, compared to my hometown of San Francisco. Finnish women obsess on these issues much more than the men,but that is consistent with world-wide gender patterns. Even though many female doctors lead research there, they focus on the Finnish men as the model of health, as American male doctors do in their research. The Finnish men seem to be beating the odds on cancer and heart disease by consuming so much fiber. That's from the fresh vegetables, tons of rye bread and oatmeal. You, too, will find yourself in fine fettle in the anticonstipation wars. Beans and tortillas don't work anywhere near so well as hard rye bread and yellow potatoes. Finnish men don't last so long, however, due to drinking, fighting, depression and early retirement. The women, as usual, last forever and become the battle axes of the family, uttering terse words of command from frowning faces of their rocking chairs, while mending old sweaters and socks, drinking coffee and watching American sitcoms with disgust.
WHO GIVES A FRICK ABOUT FINLAND? IT'S SO WAY UP THERE!
Finland for me at first was a mystery. I was dutifully following a fellow hitchhiker, a girlfriend of eight months' Europe-roaming friendship. She'd taken a year off university and had to get back home to Finland. We'd discussed her home country a thousand times on German autobahns, all its faults and its few good points. We compared its landmass and culture to Germany, to America, to Ireland, and to Russia. There was little good about it, according to her then (she's since changed her mind - we've stayed in touch). So it was with no great excitement that I headed north with her through Denmark, Sweden and over to Helsinki. The boat ride afforded an outstanding buffet!
FIRST STOP HELSINKI: LANGUAGE AND CULTURE SHOCK
Helsinki is not a glittering fairytale town. Its predominant architecture is no longer the old neoclassical or Russian and Swedish traditional buildings. It is modern, super-cement-glass-steel modern. I don't like modern buildings anywhere and was shocked at the "ugliness", seeing no beauty in the rain-streaked buildings. I was blitzed by the blue/white street signs in Finnish. Not one word could I even begin to grasp. In all other European countries, so many words look oddly familiar, if not pronouncable, at least legible and guessable. In Finland, the language sets you immediately into a mental state of otherness, confusion and anxiety. You are the stranger from abroad, and they are the Finns, and this is Finland, and that's that. Sure, they're open to other cultures, but so insular and proud that the visitor at first can feel very lonely and neglected. Where is the joy and warmth that one expects on a vacation, such as our dreams of Italy, spaghetti and wine? Here are grim-faced men and women selling fish at the streetmarket; business types striding in black clothes down the streets of the old town, blank stares from cars and buses and tramwindows. Helsinki is a cold city at first in every way, and the language intensifies this. One could not guess in the first days that one could come to love this country at all. I wanted to leave at first, which I had never admitted to my dear girlfriend. She insisted that I must not be afraid, get going, start hitching north, go see Lapland in the "ruska" time, get to know people. Of course, she also needed her space, so she was highly encouraging indeed. I was shocked that I had to grope about this strange place on my own, in spite of the fact that we'd done countries like Yugoslavia, Crete, and the notoriously xenophobic France. Also, I missed her. Suddenly to be alone again after eight months was a double shock! She showed me on a map how to take a bus from her apartment to the beginning of the "freeway" (you Californians would laugh,but it IS a freeway). They have good roads but car usage is so low compared to here, because gas is the highest in Europe: $5 or more/gallon. A
FINLAND IS A LAND OF HIGH LIVING AND HIGH PRICES
Sticker-shock had already penetrated in thinking about trains, for the dollar wasn't so strong as it is now. I couldn't believe forking out $50 to go a 2.5-hour stretch. The hitching felt both exhilarating and frightening: the roads are so empty, that standing on them alone, with silent rocks and trees, makes a person question his life altogether. A driver came along, dead quiet, yet friendly in his way. We left the cement of Helsinki. We started to see huge granite boulders, red-painted barns and farm houses, and rainy, empty roads all around us. Fields of harvested wheat lay flat around the middle of the country. We stopped for coffee and drank it in the usual Finnish silence, but I could see I had found a nice older fellow, Jouni. He took me all the way - a good seven hours' drive - to the capitol of Lapland, Rovaniemi. One night I spent in the youth hostel, but Jouni reappeared at my bunk in the morning to whisk me away into the one and only hunting adventure of my life. To know what happened to this Jouni, and me, read my other Finnish report: "GEtting around in Finland" - Hitchhike!
FINNISH MEN: QUIET, DEEP, SECRETLY REBELLIOUS, INTELLIGENT
Finnish men and I clicked, needless to say. I in all my gregariousness and Irish blarney, dirty limericks and dumb jokes, was the hit of every party or dinner I landed in. I couldn't believe my own luck. Here was a nation of people starving for the hot air that my people spewed out in great excess, just as Americans chew gum, they crack jokes mindlessly and tell personal stories without inhibitions. Finns cannot do this without embarassment, especially the men - not without copious amounts of alcohol. Therefore, to meet a woman like me was to help them release their ties and binds. I, in reciprocation, greatly appreciate the depth their souls and minds had reached through this lack of blah-blah-blah. They were a serious bunch and my heart went out to them. That they excel internationally in all academics, in science and technology especially (e.g. Nokia), is no surprise. Their entire environment and culture pushes them inward to great mental achievements and spirituality, musical and literary works. Sometimes it pushes them all the way to alcoholism, depression and suicide, but to my Irish soul, it was relief to get away from the rah-rah pep rally-type life of the average Californian. That we must be so ever-cheerful wears me out. In Finland, you can be as dull and melancholy, glum-faced and annoyed as you want. You do NOT have to friendly and open. If you don't like the foreigners around you - as Finns do not, especially dark ones - they can show it and disguise their disgust at their government's policies of immigration by just being their natural selves: closed and cold to outsiders. Thus the new immigrants might slowly get the hint and leave - well, hardly, the welfare flows freely. But to get back to my point: many visitors may think that the Finns are distinctly cold, even nasty. On the contrary, they simply do not hold their faces in perpetual puppy-like childish joy as Americans do. They are like many of the Asians and East Europeans, especially Russians. It's not very cultured to look so peppy there.
ARE THE FINNS GOOD-LOOKING?
This is a hard question. If you like your blondes with sallow skin and thin hair, then these women are for you. If you like the men with thin blonde hair and sallow skin - I mean, not ruddy and healthy, but all-over pale - then these men are for you. They lack body hair and have other Asiatic features, such as around the eyes and nosebridge, with the extra fold of fat. They're on average taller than Americans, bigger and stronger in muscle and bone. They're usually more physically fit as well. My attraction to the men came from a soul connection. I could not honestly say I found them my physical type, I'm much more attracted to the dark-haired, ruddy, hairy Irish and Norwegians. But I have to include this paragraph for the stocks-and-blondes types reading this. Yes, the women look Nordic! But also rather Asiatic, as if you could imagine large Chinese people with pale features, blue eyes and thin blonde hair.
HOUSING IS PRIVATELY-OWNED APARTMENTS, COZY AND WARM INSIDE
Yes, once you start to get into people's flats, into their real lives, you feel you are entering a wonderful cocoon of intimate relations (not sexual). It is a special feeling, not casual, to be invited to a Finnish home. Their shyness makes your presence something special. You monitor your behavior and show respect, something almost a lost art in the Bay Area except at business meetings. You wear clean and pressed clothes, you follow rules spoken or unspoken, and you come on time, gift in hand, and eat what is presented. It is not a help-yourself, feel-at-home type of visit. The host will be in the kitchen cooking and serving. You are not supposed to wander in, open the fridge and get yourself a beer and chips. You have to ask politely for one, or better yet, don't ask, wait until they see your glass empty. That is old-fashioned, yet delightful. It gives a feeling of order and harmony, not chaos. You show proper appreciation for their food (remember, it's expensive, and they made it themselves), and for all the possessions in their home that they show you. The children will also be reticent and polite, not to mention darling and cute in their well-behaved blondeness.
The apartment itself will usually be kept in very good order, without clutter, with modern furniture. The wife/girlfriend/mother is expected to keep things tiptop, regardless of the fact that most now work fulltime. There are rarely servants in Finland, not even aupairs or babysitters. Normally it's another female relative that would help if a woman finds herself overwhelmed with work and children, especially a young or single or unemployed older female. Cooking is taken seriously, done properly following rules, not thrown together haphazardly. There are recipes and certain tastes must be honored. People do not eat at all hours, but sit down to normal mealtimes with proper courses. There's always plenty of rye bread with every meal. Finns drink plenty of milk, coffee and beer, also just water, and these days more wine, with meals. Fruit juices and soft drinks did not seem so common as here. Don't ask for them; wait to see what is served.
The houses are kept warm, very warm indeed, with central heating. Since they are almost all apartment blocks, it's the most efficient way to keep a cold nation from freezing. Finns buy these apartments for a lifetime and do not dream of owning a house. They can pass them on to children, in fact, they buy them for their children, usually in their early 20's. The kids pay back as they start working, but then they don't have to rent a room or apartment. Because of this, there are few apartments for rent anyway. Finnish laws prevent wealth-accumulation through property-buying. One can buy houses or apartments, but ONLY for one's self, family or children. A lot of hankypanky has to happen to extract rent profits legallly from a non-relative, such as having a cooperative and dishonest friend pretend to be a relative and pay rent.
FINNISH PEOPLE HAVE A HEART AND A WARM HOSPITALITY
Beyond the facade of the cold cement socialistically-planned cities, there are sincere and warm-hearted people everywhere. One need only ask them a question in cracked Finnish or blundering-tourist American, and lo and behold! Many a chance encounter leads to a whole network of invitations criss-crossing the nation. They get on their phones and send you to the next town, to the next couch or bed and happy meal. I stayed in cities, small towns, farmhouses, hunting lodges, youth hostels, cabins, and dachas on the lakes. I was treated always with great courtesy, respect and curiosity, never asked to pay. I tried often to help pay for the gas, or food, knowing the expense. Finally I gave up and starting buying presents, usually food or drink, to repay all these generous Finns.
FINNISH SHOPPING IS NO CALIFORNIA DREAM
Finnish clothes and shoes, household items and food are all high quality and admirable. But they're EXPENSIVE! If you're a shopaholic, a stay in Finland will cut out your addiction fast. You can't afford to buy the stuff! Since I like poking around, I did find a few Salvation Army's and fleamarkets, which have good bargains. But none of the items are really worth hauling around the planet, or on my back in a rucksack. I just carried the clothes and shoes I needed, along with heavy sweater and jacket and gloves and hat and...well, hotwater bottle?
Finnish sweaters, as you can imagine, are works of art. Some have the Norwegian-style designs, and some are very modernistic lyrical creations in wool and alpaca and cotton. They believe absolutely in natural fabrics, abhorring synthetics and the cheaper imports. The Finns are renowned for their designs, a pleasure to behold in the glistening modern shops. But because of prices, I could not consider buying anything, and lost interest. Some homemade sweaters turn up in the fleamarkets, very handsome, and a few handmade carpets, too! Their everyday clothing is plain, warm and functional. They don't wear all black as over in Sweden. It's not terribly fancy or bright, but there's some variety. They wear them until they're done with them. THey don't have closets bulging with excess; they weed them out and don't buy so much. Since the EC membership, they have more cheap imports from China and India, but nothing as in USA. In general, Finns seem to simply have more self-control! I relished that!
FINLAND REMAINS IN MY HEART TO THIS DAY
I write this rambling epinion on the great occasion of a visit from my old friend, Marianne, the Helsinki student of my travelling days. She's here in San Francisco for a short visit, and just her presence brought so many memories, tastes, smells and feelings intensely back. So I sat to write down what I could remember from my four trips total - naturally I went back after that first glorious one! Marianne brought some rye bread, pickled herring and berries from the forest for me! Ach, that taste!
IN SUM, FINLAND IS LIKE A FINE WINE: EXPENSIVE & RARE
Visit Finland, but don't make snap judgments. Inhale deeply, release the esters. Give it a time to swirl around in your mouth and mind and soul. It's got great body, a smooth finish, and it lingers pleasantly for years to come. It's worth the money you'll spend, and its exquisite pleasures will enhance all your appreciation of life.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Singles
Best Time to Travel Here: Jun - Aug
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Epinions.com ID:
frwhiskey
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Location: San Francisco,CA
Reviews written: 167
Trusted by: 17 members
About Me:
Curmudgeonly yet whimsical, I'm a San Francisco tourguide full of vim and vinegar.
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