Climate, Finns and changing

Finnish summer weather is a preferred topic in the headlines – no matter what turns: hot, warm, getting colder, the sun is out, behind a cloud, cold and windy, thunder in the air..

Last week was groundbreakingly warm. Having almost +30 degrees is a lot for May. The papers went crazy over the hot weather and so did people, the streets were full of life. Now the week started with drizzling rain and less than +10 degrees. The changes are visible.

I find it amazing to see how weather affects the general mood. It’s more of a guideline than an exception: when the sun is out, so are the people. I know that in most parts of Europe the same deal exists. However, when the weather goes on for a longer time, people tend to find it as a nuisance. Allergies get worse, plants dry up, you get sweaty just thinking of food.. or it’s too cold for this time of the year, people are wearing woolen socks and whining about freezing weather and constant rain when according to them it’s suppose to be sunny. The weather takes a hold of everything from traditional cuisine to acts of love, from common habits to bureaucracy, commonly preferred cloth-colours to the national sport. It affects moods, traditions, how the roads and houses are constructed etc. Seems that most of the people take 30-40 years to get used to the weather in their home country. Why?

Here are a few paragraphs freely translated from the blog of Aikamatkustaja, a counter migrant in Finland. You decide if it’s beside the point:

“It is fashionable to blame the immigrants about everything at the moment. Cultural differences and violence are things that were brought here by foreigners. Politicians could find the guilty from outer space easier than from their own parties. Cultural differences have always existed. Karelians, Savonians, Tavastians, people from Varsinais-Suomi and especially from Ostrobothnia have down the ages caused a respectable amount of quarrels, conflicts, silent treatment, crisis in marriages, open quarrels, drama in tutelages and knife fights. There was no foreigner needed either before.”

Read the whole text here (in finnish). There was also a group on Facebook telling the volcanic ashes to go back to Iceland. I would love to present it for joining purposes, but apparently it doesn’t exist anymore. So instead, make it fun and go dance with cultures from all over the world when they meet in the centre of Helsinki 29 and 30 May 2010.

Pyhiinvaeltamattomat

Tallennettu kolumni Hesarista 15.1.2010. Kirjoittanut Riku Rantala.

Kuvitelkaa, että Turun keskustaan, Aurajoen rannoille, ahtautuisi yhtäkkiä kymmeniä miljoonia ihmisiä. Mukanaan he rahtaisivat ruokaa, polttopuita ja asumuksensa. Pikkukaupunkiin nousisi jättimäinen telttakylä.

Sellainen härdelli oli eilen Intian Haridwarissa, kun Kumbh Mela alkoi. Melat ovat maailman suurimpia joukkokokoontumisia. Ne näkyvät avaruuteen asti.

Vierailin vuosi sitten yhdessä Melassa, joka silloin oli Allahabadissa. Tuntui kuin kaupungin olisivat muinoin nimenneet ruotsalaiset: alla ha bad. Koko kansakunta oli tunkenut rituaalikylpemään samalle, muutaman sadan metrin mittaiselle pätkälle Gangesvirran rantaviivaa. Tunnelma oli intialainen: mystinen ja täysin kaoottinen mutta samalla hämmästyttävän toimiva.

Myöhemmin luin Hindustan Timesista, että pelkästään meitä kylpijöitä oli sinä päivänä yli miljoona.

Oli pitkäpartaisia pyhiä miehiä ja alastomia nagababoja, askeetteja, joita brittivalloittajat kutsuivat aikoinaan fakiireiksi. Oli suurperheitä isoäiteineen ja lukuisine lapsineen. Oli rehvakkaita työpaikkojen jätkäporukoita, rutiköyhiä rääsyläisiä ja vanhoja pariskuntia, jotka ajelivat hartaina toistensa päät kaljuiksi ennen kylpyä.

Kaikkia yhdisti vaellus, matka, jopa tuhansien kilometrien mittainen jalkapatikka.

Kylvyn jälkeen saimme yösijan ja ruokaa guru Khareshwarin ashramin – eräänlaisen seurakunnan – teltasta. Ympärillä leijui sankka savu, kun kymmenillätuhansilla nuotioilla valmistettiin illallista samaan aikaan. Mekin istuimme nuotiolle.

Vieressämme tulta kohenteli itse guru. Hän oli seissyt taukoamatta kaksitoista vuotta, yöt ja päivät, osoittaakseen uskonsa vahvuuden. Niin ainakin väitettiin.

“Mihin te suomalaiset pyhiinvaellatte?” guru kysyi.

En tiennyt, mitä vastata. Perheet – automarketiin joka perjantai? Vanhat pariskunnat – Finlandia-hiihtoon? Työpaikkojen miessakit – Tallinnaan vetämään lärvit?

Vastasin, että konsepti on meille tuntematon. Me emme usko mihinkään, eikä meillä ole aikaa vaellella.

Guru sanoi, ettei sellainen elämä ole ihmistä varten.

Hello fellows

And I’m back in the game! Graduated, rested, past Christmas and ready to roll. So let’s start this roulette all over again, from different point of views. Here’s a tale for you whilst I’m packing my stuff and getting ready for my 3 week London-Gran Canaria experience.

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
– Not very long, answered the Mexican.
– But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more? asked the American.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked,
– But what do you do with the rest of your time?
– I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. I have a full life.
The American interrupted,
– I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.
– And after that? asked the Mexican.
– With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.
– How long would that take? asked the Mexican.
– Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years, replied the American.
– And after that?
– Afterwards? Well my friend, that’s when it gets really interesting, answered the American laughing,
– When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!
– Millions? Really? And after that? asked the Mexican.
– After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.

Do you know where you’re going? Maybe you’re there.

Yet another awesome travel code

“– Remember that there are not many “undiscovered” places left in the world. Focus on the places that are undiscovered to you and you won’t go wrong.

Obviously, each place you go to will offer unique challenges, but following this list will get you off to a good start.”

There are lots of codes and rules for travellers going around the world considering practical things and culture. A big amount of them might sound scary and I personally know many people who don’t want to go to certain countries because they have the image it is dangerous. Of course you have to be smart about it. However, the main thing is to be aware and ready for whatever might come on your way – or at least as ready as you could be.

There is a CNN program called AC360 which I have never seen. In it “Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news.” The program like every other nowadays has a blog, where lies a great thing from one of the contributors, Chris Guillebeau: 28 things I wish I knew before I started traveling.

“12. When you feel pressured beyond your comfort level by someone who tries to follow you, be polite but increasingly firm. Don’t string anyone along out of guilt—tell them you don’t want their help, and move on. If they keep following you, tell them to stop.

19. Like it or not, you have to be somewhat tolerant of smoking. There are lots of places in the world that haven’t picked up on the Western anti-smoking crusade. If this is hard for you to accept, you’ll likely be frustrated.

22. Don’t point your feet at people or touch anyone on the head. In several cultures, this is disrespectful or otherwise inappropriate.”

He also gives good tips from how all plane tickets are changeable no matter what is written on them – to politics, money exchange, byrochracy. Guillebeau has his own blog The Art of Non-Conformity. And as a side dish he will also teach you how to be awesome ;)

Mm, I didn’t have to tell you twice to go read it, did I? You went already didn’t you.. come back soon, ok?

Culture shock, phase three or four or five?

I’ve been waiting for this to pass for sometime now but everything around seems to motivate it. I have a really bad urge to move abroad.. again.

The weather is getting worse all the time. Finland is beautiful in the fall. I don’t mind it nor winter as long as there is no water from the sky involved (or at least only at times when I’m inside). Last week my socks got wet the first time. The last time it rained disturbingly much was in February when I was in Spain. So the weather is rubbish, the food is not as good, it’s boring here (though I did go to an interesting bar here in Helsinki just last night) and I’m annoyed by the general being of Finns. Blaa blaa..

But the main reason is – that some of my friends are moving or already have moved abroad to places I like or would like to visit. Looking at their pictures of the warm and exciting.. uff. A beautiful sunset viewed from a cliff somewhere in Marseille, driving around Paris on a scooter, the blue waters of Spain, sky diving in Italy, dancing salsa in Barcelona, pizza eating at the Colosseum and further more – canooing and snorkling in Thailand, Bali, Singapore.. Miami, Colombia, San Jose, Venezuela.

Even Finland’s English language magazine, Six Degrees, has a survey “How to avoid autumn depression?” and the first answer from the designer Lincoln Kayiwa was “A bit of travel should be refreshing.” YES.. please! Though right after it the next answer went for a cognitive hint “Do not complain about the weather all the time. It does help to accept the situation as it is.” (Ruth Franco, psychologist)

I’m curious about life, period.

I’ve had some back problems in the past few days. Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with my booty pop practising.. or well, maybe it does, because I don’t really know what it’s about. Also writing the thesis is getting on my nerves at times. Poor flatmate, has to bare with me :)

While I keep on struggling with my own little problems, there is something greater to be shared, Wisdom Book.

The maker Andrew Zuckerman. Source: http://www.zimbio.com/

Wisdom is an ongoing project which was inspired by the idea that one of the greatest gifts one generation can pass to another is the wisdom it has gained from experience. This project seeks to create a record of multicultural group of people who have all made their mark on the world.

“Presented against the same white space, all of the subjects are removed from their context, which not only democratizes them, but also allows for a clear dialogue to exist between them. In an attempt to create a more profound, honest, and truly revealing portrait of these luminaries, the project encompasses their voices, their physical presence, and the written word.”

Chuck Close, Billy Connolly, Clint Eastwood, Malcolm Fraser, Kris Kristofferson, Henry Kissinger, Esther Mahlangu, Nelson Mandela, Willie Nelson, Yoko Ono, Michael Parkinson, Federico Mayor Zaragoza.. and so many others I’ve heard of once, several times or never.

Browse through the whole heartfelt page, and see the touching film trailer, here: http://www.wisdombook.org/

You made me happier than I’d been by far

Do the things that you always wanted to
Without me there to hold you back, don’t think, just do

More than anything I want to see you, girl
Take a glorious bite out of the whole world

(a song from Snow Patrol I’d like to share just because it’s so beautiful.)

The many meanings of light

The first days that I lived in this new apartment, I lit the first candles of the year. I was trying to remember when I lit the last one. Maybe last December. Maybe November even.

The word light has many definitions. A device serving as a source of illumination or the visual effect of illumination on objects or scenes as created in pictures. Luminosity, brightness, luminance, luminousness, light.

Cottage in Korppoo, the archipelago of Turku

I’ve been thinking about how much light and climate effects on how people are.  Everywhere. Malagueños go on Sunday walks, while people in Helsinki mostly stay in. Spanish dance and but don’t drink themselves to the stage of unattractive, Finns stay in smokey bars and get heavily drunk.*

Light and climate create an ambience that effects on people’s personality and behaviour. Not to even begin with the food we make. Finns obviously cannot get as fine olive oils, fruits and vegetables because there is not enough sun light while all the Mediterranean enjoy their diets. I believe many people don’t like Finland just for the things that the climate prevents us to be and have. The climate was the number one reason for moving abroad what I heard from Finnish immigrants in Spain. (And there are plenty, up to 15 000 only in Spain.)

Absolutely everything seems to have an aspect that can be explained by how the dynamic duo has affected on us or the systems. The twists of the moods, the difference in people’s appearance between summer and winter, the traffic, the ways and times to work, how we work.. even politics. Like the british writer and comedian and a long-time resident in Helsinki, Neil Hardwick said: the seasonal switch between summer and winter puts the other rules on use. “The rules, which unofficially kick in on October 1st and run until April, require that people no longer smile, make eye contact with strangers, or wear anything colourful.”

Although light and climate seems to have a very deep of effect on us Finns, the contrast does have a thing or two to do with history as well.

* Sure I’m talking about harsh stereotypes but to proove a point that can only be prooven through them.

Source and more info if interested: Katja Pantzar’s The Hip Guide to Helsinki (Wsoy).

How to learn a language in 6 months

I’m known to be lazy when it comes to languages. If possible I always prefer the possibility to learn it in a genuine environment and even then it can be hard if there’s no effort put in it. I believe a teacher cannot teach everything, basicly he can only get you started and teach you good grammar. When you are not in the environment where they actually use the language, you don’t understand everything and a teacher cannot explain it to you correctly because it needs to be experienced. For example in Italy I found out that there are some words they use that just simply are not possible to translate in Finnish. It just doesn’t make sense and has so much to do with the atmosphere.

At school I still have an English class to attend, Work English. We have to write a CV and application letter for the course. A friend of mine was helping me with them and at a point we were trying to find – if for nothing else, just out of curiosity – the formal ways of saying how well you know a language. While searching I bumped into a series of advice for learning a language or recovering one.

Reading through the 10 steps to becoming fluent in a language in 6 months or less, I realized these were exactly the steps that made me get through to Italian. I remember someone telling me that you know a language quite well when you start to think in that language and not translate it in your mind.

Before going to Italy, I wrote a blog of unimportant everyday things but I wrote it in the spaghetti language. I even had an online friend who was going through the writings and telling me what went wrong. Through that I improved a lot. My first roommates were also very into watching TV which was quite good for me – I sat there mostly trying to get to know them and in the meanwhile I learned from the TV. They played their country mens music for me and I checked up lyrics online to understand what it was about. I still find the most interesting the local ways of saying something and learning how to make use of body language. In the end, the most important is to get understood.

In that year both my Finnish and English skills went downhill and now I’ve decided to sign up for English and Finnish prep classes after my graduation. So I guess you can say grammar is school stuff and everything else comes through life, doesn’t it?

From the same site you can find very good advice on how to recover a forgotten language and learn about the styles for learning one and which one suits you best. Other interesting (and laughable) things the site offers: How to pack, 10 things to do in Amsterdam except smoking pot, 8 incredible survival stories and how to have sex in a hostel! Check ‘em out!