Flyaway Friday: Avoid Small Talk & other Finnish Stereotypes

How is your weekend coming along and do you have plans for travels? No? Don’t worry join me in my trip to Finland under the Flyaway Friday feature. Wondering what this is about? We are taking armchair travel to another level, by learning about a country, reading books that talk about the country and now we have a guest blogger from the country to tell us more about their Finnish native.

Finnish

I have Jenny, better known as Tecsie, from Finland to share us about her country and their Finnish ways of life. I know her from our common Discord groups and then her blog Tecsielity;. She is a book worm, designer, video gamer and of course a blogger. Here is her bio that she shared with me:

Jenny (or Tecsie, either way is fine) is a 25-year-old Finnish lover of books and video games so she blogs about both of them. She’s currently obsessed with the Outlander series and also enjoys napping a lot because it’s cold outside.

Jenny takes over from here:

Finland

The common stereotype of Finnish people is that we are silent people who possibly drink a lot of alcohol, listen to metal and of course enjoy the sauna. Most Finns probably won’t deny these.

Small talk is not a big part of our culture and people are very comfortable with silence but don’t worry, we also have some chattier people among us. We may warm up to strangers a little slowly, but once you get to know us you may find that we’re actually very friendly people. And yes, we do love our saunas!

Finnish

Sauna

You can pretty much expect to find a sauna in every Finnish house, they’re that important. Yes, we go in there naked and yes, it’s very hot. The temperatures can be anything from 60C to 120C, but personally I think 60-70 is the most comfortable. It may sound way too hot if you’ve never been in one, but it’s actually very comfortable and especially lovely in winter.

A fun sauna tradition is gathering a bunch of leafy birch branches (vihta) and hitting your back with them (it’s supposed to be relaxing for the muscles and it also makes the sauna smell really good).

All the snow

Another thing you can of course expect to find in Finland is snow. Since it snows everywhere in the country it doesn’t affect the life much, we don’t close schools etc. for any weather and buses and trains will run unless something actually breaks down. I have unhappily walked to school in -30C weather quite a few times in my life.

Winters have become a lot milder these past few years though, especially in the southern Finland and even my area had surprisingly little snow last year despite being pretty north. Lapland still gets the harsher winter no matter what, and that’s probably part of the reason majority of the population lives in the south. North is the way to go if you wish to see the northern lights though! I know many tourists come here just to see those.

Finnish

Food

Our traditional foods probably won’t sound very fancy compared to many countries, but I’ll introduce a few examples anyway. My personal favorite are Karelian pasties which are basically rise wrapped in a rye crust and they’re so good! It’s common to put egg butter on them, but I prefer just normal butter. Karelian stew is also very good (it’s usually beef or pork stew). Some holiday related things would be mämmi (rye pudding) on Easter, and star shaped Christmas tarts (joulutorttu) that usually have plum or apple-cinnamon jam in the middle.

Don’t be alarmed if a Finn offers you salmiakki, it’s just salty liquorice. I’m personally not a fan, but it’s a very popular candy here it may be slightly hilarious to offer it to people who have never tried it. We also have a weird love for tar flavored things because for example tar flavored soda is a thing.

Finnish

Finland in media

Finland does not come up a lot in fictional media (or elsewhere, I mean there’s a conspiracy theory that Finland doesn’t exist) which is why Finns are always very excited if something has Finnish characters in it or someone even just mentions us! You may see the phrase “Suomi mainittu! Torille!” on the Internet a lot if we’re actually included somewhere. It means “Finland mentioned! To the marketplace!”.

Some examples of Finnish fictional characters: M.K. (aka Veera Suominen) in Orphan Black and Ritva Tuomivaara in the game Wolfenstein II. Vikings has also had two Finnish actors (Jasper Pääkkönen and Peter Franzén) in major roles in the newer seasons.

Finnish Language

Since I already taught you one great Finnish phrase, let’s continue with a few more of those:

  • Moi/Terve/Hei = Hello
  • Mitä kuuluu? = How are you?
  • Terveydeksi = Bless you
Finnish

If you’re learning Finnish it’s also important to know that there are a lot of different dialects in different areas, so if you end up coming to Finland it probably won’t hurt to research a little bit how people talk in the particular area you’re going to so you won’t be completely lost. (Most Finns are pretty okay at English though.)

You’ll notice the difference even in such simple words as I or you. I can come up with at least five different ways to say each of those.

You = sinä, sää, sä, sie, nää

One of my favorite very local words is “pahki”, which basically means bumping into something or someone. If you tried to use that in southern Finland people most likely would have no idea what you’re talking about unless they’ve happened to hear it before!

Finnish

Thanks Jenny for your time and sharing with us a glimpse of your Finnish life. You can contact here through her blog and social accounts.

That brings us to the end of our travel, the Finland edition. I will meet you next month with another country with its books, author and bloggers and whatever I can think of.

Do the Finns live up to your stereotypes? Do you have any friends from the Finland? What other countries do you wanna travel next? Let me know in your comments.

23 Comments

  1. Sheila @ She's Going Book Crazy

    A conspiracy theory that Finland doesn’t exist!? That is one of the oddest things I’ve ever heard! This was a great post, and very enjoyable to read! Thanks for sharing, both Gayathri and Jenny!

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Right? Finland definitely is real and it exists, people.

      Reply
  2. Megan @ Ginger Mom

    This was so much fun to read!

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Yes, Jenny did a great job with her post!

      Reply
  3. Stacey

    A sauna in every home. Yes please, though I’m not sure I could cope with the cold weather. Great post.

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      I have never to a sauna. I don’t think I will ever need one especially at where I am living right now, which has like 65 degrees F at its lowest.

      Reply
  4. vvb

    Fun post! love doing some arm chair traveling 🙂

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Arm chair traveling is the best part of reading, I guess.

      Reply
  5. Latoya

    I couldn’t imagine having to walk in that type of weather…I just wouldn’t leave the house. I’ve been in a sauna once and it was so relaxing. Thanks for sharing about Finland!

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Imagine how much time we will gain if we stayed in and kept reading instead of going out at all?

      Reply
  6. Tin

    Informative post! Finland is def one of the countries in my bucket list.

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Am glad I could be helpful!

      Reply
  7. Nikki

    Thank you for sharing!

    Reply
  8. Jordana Landsman

    This was a treat to read while we [absurd, pathetic, helpless] Los Angelenos are huddled together in frozen bewilderment while the wind gusts around at a frigid 50 degrees farenheit. Thanks for reminding us what real weather in a real climate looks like!!

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Ha ha your comment made me laugh. I am calling the 70 deg F as my winter here at Dubai, so even 50s would be too much for me 😛

      Reply
  9. DJ Sakata

    I confess – I tend to get the Scandinavian countries and customs confused…

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      That is quite common DJ!

      Reply
  10. Lauren

    I mean dare I even leave the Finnish words Tecsie has taught me in a comment? cheeky grin

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      You are tempting me to ask what they are. 😛 Maybe I will, in the discord chat.

      Reply
  11. Jenn @ Bound to Writing

    This was such a great learning experience. Thanks Jenny for teaching us about Finland! It was so fun to learn about your culture and the different foods. Thanks Gayathri for hosting another great country this month! I can’t wait to see what next month’s country is.

    Reply
    • Tecsie

      Yay I’m glad I managed to be informative! 😀 Writing about my own country was both fun and challenging because there was so much stuff I could include but it would have ended up super long haha

      Reply
      • Gayathri

        I can’t thank Tecsie enough for putting together such a well written, interesting post.

        Reply
    • Gayathri

      I am glad you enjoy the series as much as I do.

      Reply

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Gayathri

Gayathri

Gayathri has been reviewing books since 2010. When she is not reading books or creating online content, she works as a writer and a digital marketer. Head over to meet me!