From 2006:
Finns love to boast that they are more honest, hardworking and modest compared to other nationalities. We are also encouraged to believe, by the Finnish media, that Finland’s education, health care and other public services are the best in the world....Yes, well now I am afraid loosing all the propaganda would then cause the Finns to realise the Emperor has a wrinkly bum and commit mass suicide like so many lemmings. Life is hard here as it is, one has to have some belief in that the life in -20 horizontal sleet in November in Oulu, sunrise and sunset at around noontime, is worth living. Now all those drunk people have seen the wrinkly bum and want to forget it.
Now if all the immigrants do, is come over with rose-tinted glasses and then from day one bitch and moan and whine and then go back home as they lack the guts to survive, why would the locals want to make friends with them? To hear how life is wonderful someplace elsewhere, and how Finland is so terrible and all that. And then you read it in the papers too. No wonder people don't hire foreigners - after reading this board I wouldn't hire one of these whiney gits either.. Heck, *I* know how it is a struggle to live here, it is far from as wonderful as these tourist promotion people on bad acid make it sound, but no use to bitch, moan nor whine either that "Finland is not like someotherplace". Yeah, well, Finland is a foreign country. In foreign countries things are different from "at home". If Finland was like "at home", then Finland wouldn't be a foreign country, would it now?
Now what is so wrong with Finns? The "why don't you then go home" - attitude? Well, here is a piece of answer to a bloke on a BBS who is pondering about student exchange...
Henkisenä neuvona annan sen, että varaudu erilaisuuteen. Sekä aineelliset että aineettomat asiat voivat olla hyvinkin paljolti toisin kuin Suomessa, eivätkä ne muutu miksikään ainaisella ""prkl kun tää on paska maa ja Suomessa tääkin asia on paremmin""-narinalla, sen sijaan fiilis voi kärsiä. Jos haluaa hoitaa asiat ainostaan suomalaisella tavalla, kannattaa jäädä Suomeen
- As a psychological councel I give, that be ready for differences. Both the material and immaterial things can be very much different than in Finland, and they won't change with any consistant "damn this is a !"#¤% country - in Finland these things are so much better" - whining, on the contrary your own feelings will suffer. if you want to deal with things in only the Finnish way - you better stay in Finland. -
Quite a sound common sense piece of advice.
OK- Now you remove yourself from Finland and think of some place you would happen to move to.
You go live in the country in a native town. You bring in a fancy car tax free and complain about the import taxes, you have a job and you complain about everything about the job, still theres a huge unemployment in the country. The natives provide you sharing from their own, you complain about their food, you laugh at their customs, you complain about their language and demand them to speak English. You tell the natives how well things are everywhere else is and tell how you had a big house and servants. You complain to the natives their lack of culture, their language and everything. The natives have to pay half of their income in taxes, but you wiggle out and pay only half and hide your money overseas. Then you complain the natives don't want to be your friends, and move away calling the natives intolerant racists. The natives are left to pay the taxes and eagerly wait for the next foreigner to come so they can sacrifice them to the bloodsucking forest gods
Hyttynen and
Itikka.
So why would the natives be hostile? I wonder.
The key point to multiculturalism is the realisation that there is no right and no wrong way to do things - there is a lot of different ways to do things. If Finns happen to do something in a different way - say like not greeting a total stranger on the street - how is it "unfriendly" or "racist"? It is "customary" and "good manners" to let people be, and it is the foreign person who is in the "wrong" invading a stranger's privacy - if there is anything "wrong" in the first place. If the customary way in the UK is to greet a total stranger, why should this be adapted by the Finns, as there is an equally as good way of showing your tongue as they do in Tibet?
Smells slightly of "cultural imperialism" to me trying to push your national habits on people. Finns might have a slight problem with foreigners coming over and telling how to conduct our business. After all, we've been told by the Swedish for some 900 years we're no good and by the Russians for another 100 years how to act proper... so one might understand why a Finn would get a knee-jerk reaction. So if you claim the right for multiculturalism remember that your culture is at par with all the other cultures - including the local one.
So if you claim that Finns have a staring problem - Quite the opposite. Finns stare as a normal daily thing. You're the one with the problem - you don't stare enough. Start ogling
Thanks to all who is keeping its' alive!
it is like someone tryes to get into your soul with dirty feet.... I cant stare at people, and I hope that others will learn not to stare as well.
