The Talkative Finns

This week I saw a video of Jimmy Kimmel talking to a couple of his audience members who were from Helsinki, Finland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvidoBBJSRA
In the tradition of great Finnish men like Mika Häkkinen and Kimi Räikkönen these guys were brief and to the point with their one syllable answers.


Finns are not known for the art of small talk like Americans or the English. In fact the idea of speaking uselessly is anathema to them. They really encompass the idea of "If you have nothing useful to say, then say nothing". For instance there is a classic joke about the taciturn Finns which goes like this:

Two Finnish men, Jukka and Pekka, go ice fishing. They fish in silence for a long while and eventually Jukka asks "So how are things?"  Pekka doesn't answer and they continue fishing in silence for some more hours. Then Jukka asks, "So how is the family?" At this Pekka gets angry, stands, up and shouts "Did we come here to talk or to fish?!"

Of course this joke is an exaggeration and there are always exceptions to the rule. But it is true that Finns simply say what they mean and mean what they say. Finnish men especially follow this rule. This also means that Finnish men are not good at "sweet" talk. And many people especially men need a few drinks in order to open up to strangers and talk, or to approach a woman. That's why Latin men are very popular amongst Finnish women and Finnish men hate them. Haha!


For a Trini who likes to talk, in the beginning my interactions with Finns felt awkward at times. For instance, at one of my first work places in Finland we would regularly have lunch together. Quite often there were long silences during our lunch especially near the end. Everyone was content to sit there just staring at each other for long stretches of time which made me uncomfortably try to fill the silence with my chattering. Eventually I grew used to it and also began to be content to just sit there in silence for a few moments with my colleagues.


Trinidadians talk a lot and we are loud. Up until now, I have what is considered a bad and rude habit by Finns, of talking on top of others. This is actually a survival tactic because in Trinidad, especially in my family, you will never get to say your piece if you don't talk over everybody else and louder than them. The last time my husband and I visited Trinidad my family had a gathering. My husband thought it was insane how everyone spoke at once and so loudly. He thinks it is an incredibly inefficient mode of communication. Maybe he is right. Finns will wait patiently for their turn to speak and if you keep interrupting them, like I do, they stop speaking. When they do speak it will be concise and to the point.


 I remember a funny anecdote about a trip to Barcelona my husband and I once took. We stayed with a friend who was a native and she showed us around. The Spaniards are lively, talkative and loud people. I think they may be even more so than Trinis. We went to a house party with my friend. As we entered, the noise level was beyond that of any Finnish house party just from all the chattering. My husband spent quite a while in the hallway just inside the front door before he could acclimatize himself to the noise level and start interacting with these incessantly chattering and gesticulating people. And let me tell you my husband is not the stereotypical quiet Finnish man but, even to him this was too much.


After living here for almost twelve years I must say I have grown accustomed to the "silence is golden"  mantra. I no longer always feel like I have to fill in the silence when I am in a group of Finns. And my brain gets tired when I am with my relatives for long periods of time because of all the noise and endless talking.

Cultural Differences or Just Plain Bad Manners?

This past week another person almost bumped into my baby's carriage with their shopping cart at the grocery. This time however it was not intentional like the disagreeable (I am trying to use a nice term here) old man who purposely bumped into my baby's carriage a few months back. She was cluelessly just dragging the cart behind her and not looking where she was going. I said a loud blasphemy and then she noticed us but said nothing while I complained that she was not watching where she was going and almost hit us. After almost ten years of living in Finland I know that people don't say sorry when they bump into you but it still ticks me off! That's one thing I still cannot get used to. And I still don't understand why they do it. What is it about the Finnish culture that caused this habit of not saying sorry? How hard is it to say?

There is also the habit of not saying excuse me and just steam rolling ones way through a group or crowd of people. I don't understand that either. How hard is it to say excuse me? Saying excuse me is such a strange thing here that when someone is blocking your path and you politely say, excuse me, it takes them a while to realize that you are talking to them.

Then there is the door slamming in your face that also ticks me off. If someone is right behind you coming through a doorway how hard is it to hold the door open for a second? Not saying hello to people you have met before is another pet peeve of mine. Luckily, not saying hello is not common in all circles. But when I worked in the University of Helsinki's Viiki campus this was very common. In one example, a few months ago, some plumbers my husband sent to the house came to check a pipe and then left when they were done without saying anything! I would not have known they were gone if I had not heard the door shut. What takes the cake are the maintenance men at my last work place. They would come to the lab, look around, not say hello, not ask for the person who requested them, and then just leave. A week or two later when you realize they never came and you called them they would say that they came and you weren't there. Then someone in the lab might say "I think I saw a guy in overalls poking his head into the lab a couple weeks back but he didn't ask for you". I sometimes wonder, are these behaviours really their culture, or is it just plain bad manners?

Unfortunately I found myself picking up the bad habit of not saying hello. Mostly because I felt stupid saying hello to people who never said anything back and just left me hanging. But recently I have been reading a new American best selling book called "Bringing up Bebe or French Children Don't Throw Food". In it the author mentions how important it is in France that children learn to greet everyone they meet and that their parents are constantly telling them to say Bonjour. I thought that's the same thing I was taught in Trinidad. In Trinidad it is considered very bad manners not to greet everyone you know with a good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night or at least a hello. And I thought I really shouldn't forget these teachings and start to lose my manners too. Regardless of whether no one else around me exercises good manners at least I should.