News in Finnish: Kiinalaisten jumala

[Jukka Aho]

Kiinalaiset pitivät kaupunginjohtajaa jumalana
Ahti otti ilmaisia hierontoja
Tiistai 17.1.2012 klo 22.28

Kymenlaakson käräjäoikeus antoi tiistaina tuomionsa ex-kaupunginjohtaja Aimo Ahdin lahjusjutussa.


Ex-kaupunginjohtaja Aimo Ahti (oik.) tuomittiin oikeudessa yli 4 000 euron sakkoihin. (HARRI EKHOLM)

Kouvolan nykyinen elinkeinojohtaja Aimo Ahti tuomittiin maksamaan yhteensä 50 päiväsakkoa, 83 euroa kukin, eli sakkoja yhteensä 4150 euroa lahjuksen vastaanottamisesta.

Vuosina 2008 ja 2009 Kouvolan kaupunginjohtajaa lahjonut 53-vuotias kiinalaisyrittäjä puolestaan tuomittiin 6 kuukauden ehdolliseen vankeusrangaistukseen lahjoman antamisesta ja kiskonnan tapaisesta työsyrjinnästä. Hän joutui myös maksamaan 960 euron oheissakot.

Yli vuoden


Kaupunginjohtaja otti vastaan ilmaisia hierontoja. Kuvan henkilöt eivät liity juttuun. (COLOURBOX.COM)

Nykyisen elinkeinojohtaja Ahdin lahjonnassa oli kyse yli vuoden jatkuneista ilmaishieronnoista kiinalaisyrityksessä vuosina 2008-2009. Ahti maksoi hierontansa vasta, kun asiasta nousi julkinen kohu.

Kymenlaakson käräjäoikeuden tuomion perusteluiden mukaan silloisen kaupunginjohtaja Aimo Ahdin ja kiinalaisyrittäjän menettely oli omiaan heikentämään luottamusta viranomaistoimintaan.

Jo lokakuussa käräjäoikeudessa käsitellyn jutun tuomion antamista lykättiin jo välillä kertaalleen ja tuomio annettiin vasta eilen.

”Jumalan asemassa”

Jutun suullisessa käsittelyssä viime lokakuussa kiinalaisen hyvinvointikeskuksen työntekijät kertoivat, että heikäläisen kulttuurin mukaan paikallinen Kouvolan kaupunginjohtaja oli yrityksessä lähinnä ”jumalan asemassa” eikä kukaan kuvitellutkaan, että kaupunginjohtaja Ahti maksaisi mitään saamistaan hierontapalveluista.

Kiinalainen jumalakäsitys ja suomalainen oikeuskäytäntö poikkeavat kuitenkin toisistaan, kuten käräjäoikeuden tuomio osoittaa.

Lisäksi 53-vuotias kiinalaisyrittäjä ja hänen suomalaisyrityksensä Leishi Finland Oy tuomittiin maksamaan valtiolle yrityksen rikoksilla saamana hyötynä 7 500 euroa.

HARRI EKHOLM

[AldenG]

-- Kiinalainen jumalakäsitys ja suomalainen oikeuskäytäntö poikkeavat kuitenkin toisistaan.
This is the kind of dry humor I appreciate.

The article doesn't elaborate on the kiskonnan tapainen työsyrjintä. Whatever it was in particular, it must explain the otherwise eyebrow-raising gap between the sentence for the giver versus the receiver of the alleged bribery. I would also want to know did the company actually receive any favorable decisions or actions from Ahti or was this just bad judgment on both sides in allowing the appearance of a potential tit-for-tat and violating laws designed to prevent such exchanges.

[Rob A.]

-- Kiinalainen jumalakäsitys ja suomalainen oikeuskäytäntö poikkeavat kuitenkin toisistaan.
This is the kind of dry humor I appreciate.

The article doesn't elaborate on the kiskonnan tapainen työsyrjintä. Whatever it was in particular, it must explain the otherwise eyebrow-raising gap between the sentence for the giver versus the receiver of the alleged bribery. I would also want to know did the company actually receive any favorable decisions or actions from Ahti or was this just bad judgment on both sides in allowing the appearance of a potential tit-for-tat and violating laws designed to prevent such exchanges.

I guess judges here as well seem to prefer these dry turns of phrase ...

But I suppose it points out the difference between the Chinese approach that whatever it takes to get business done is morally acceptable....business is sacred afterall... And the Finnish...well, north European, I guess, sense that government officials must be detached and objective and not get into activities which compromise their integrity.....

Maybe I didn't fully understand the article, but I thought the penalties were actually kind of light....

[onkko]

The article doesn't elaborate on the kiskonnan tapainen työsyrjintä.

That is mainly "We imported you so now you work 14h/day 7d/week for 1e/hour or we get you deported and you cant pay your loan to yakuza" and similar. Basically blackmailing or using ingorance to put worker in bad position.
This is what law says.

Kiskonnantapainen työsyrjintä

Jos työsyrjinnässä asetetaan työnhakija tai työntekijä huomattavan epäedulliseen asemaan käyttämällä hyväksi työnhakijan tai työntekijän taloudellista tai muuta ahdinkoa, riippuvaista asemaa, ymmärtämättömyyttä, ajattelemattomuutta tai tietämättömyyttä, tekijä on, jollei teosta muualla laissa säädetä ankarampaa rangaistusta, tuomittava kiskonnantapaisesta työsyrjinnästä sakkoon tai vankeuteen enintään kahdeksi vuodeksi.

[AldenG]

Ah - I didn't realize that it was a named legal concept.

I do feel vindicated, though, that I didn't feel right putting a space (as the newspaper article did) in the middle of kiskonnantapainen.

[AldenG]

I guess judges here as well seem to prefer these dry turns of phrase ...

Could well be, though if I'm not mistaken, in this case it seems to be reporter Ekholm's own quip.

[Rob A.]

Could well be, though if I'm not mistaken, in this case it seems to be reporter Ekholm's own quip.

Yeah, I guess you're right....I suppose it's enough for me to be able to understand the Finnish, which is still quite a slog, let alone remember who was saying what to whom...

[Upphew]

Yeah, I guess you're right....I suppose it's enough for me to be able to understand the Finnish, which is still quite a slog, let alone remember who was saying what to whom...

Now that you say that... I remeber having the same thoughts back in the day when I read my first English novels. Maybe I could now try again Silmarillion

[Jukka Aho]

I do feel vindicated, though, that I didn't feel right putting a space (as the newspaper article did) in the middle of kiskonnantapainen.

On the subject of -näköinen, -kaltainen, -tapainen, -kuuloinen, etc.:

http://igs.kirjastot.fi/fi-FI/iGS/kysym ... e066c15ccc

[Rob A.]

Yeah, I guess you're right....I suppose it's enough for me to be able to understand the Finnish, which is still quite a slog, let alone remember who was saying what to whom...

Now that you say that... I remeber having the same thoughts back in the day when I read my first English novels. Maybe I could now try again Silmarillion

You have read Tolkien and I'm reading...painfully slowly... Waltari (Sinuhe egyptiläinen)....

[AldenG]

Yeah, I guess you're right....I suppose it's enough for me to be able to understand the Finnish, which is still quite a slog, let alone remember who was saying what to whom...

Now that you say that... I remeber having the same thoughts back in the day when I read my first English novels. Maybe I could now try again Silmarillion

You have read Tolkien and I'm reading...painfully slowly... Waltari (Sinuhe egyptiläinen)....

The process will accelerate. Now that you're into the actual story, or at least the backstory, and away from the opening soliloquy, you'll find it written on a more practical level. And although Waltari certainly gives the language a workout, there are after all only a finite number of constructions, even in his writing. Each one that you develop a reflex to parse will last you a lifetime (once you've got it into long-term storage) and at some point you will run out of ones you don't know. Plus you'll get a lot faster with practice. In these ways it's not so different from learning to play Freecell.

I expect it would accelerate your pickup of vocabulary and of intuitive parsing if you would read certain chapters or parts thereof in English before reading them in Finnish. (And others, of course, in Finnish first.) It's not "cheating" if it has a good pedagogical purpose, and I believe it does. I think you will more easily attach meanings to new words and phrases, sometimes without looking them up, when you're deciphering descriptions of events and thoughts you already know. And by "meanings" I don't mean "translations." (Thus I recommend pre-reading by chapter or by clumps of paragraphs rather than sentence-by-sentence. That's so that you don't remember exact words but only a more wordless kind of knowledge of what's being said.) I think that's one reason you seem to find newspaper articles easier even when their language is actually more complicated than Waltari's. With a newspaper article, once you know the subject you have more idea of what to expect it to say.

[Rob A.]

The process will accelerate. Now that you're into the actual story, or at least the backstory, and away from the opening soliloquy, you'll find it written on a more practical level. And although Waltari certainly gives the language a workout, there are after all only a finite number of constructions, even in his writing. Each one that you develop a reflex to parse will last you a lifetime (once you've got it into long-term storage) and at some point you will run out of ones you don't know. Plus you'll get a lot faster with practice. In these ways it's not so different from learning to play Freecell.

Yes...I can agree with this.... It's all about effort....

I think that's one reason you seem to find newspaper articles easier even when their language is actually more complicated than Waltari's. With a newspaper article, once you know the subject you have more idea of what to expect it to say.

And again yes....with newspaper stories they are so "canned" and predictable...you pretty well know the story once you have figured out the headline. [Though, to be fair, each day, whether in English newspapers or Finnish, I usually find some unusually interesting story....something that has an interesting angle.] But for the most part, newspapers are more about "informing" than "educating"....though really I suppose their primary goal by a long margin, is keeping their shareholders happy ....

Once I can read and understand in Finnish the whole of a wikipedia article on something like this:

Suhteellisuusteoria

Suhteellisuusteoria tarkoittaa kahta erillistä fysiikan teoriaa: erityistä ja yleistä suhteellisuusteoriaa.

....then I'll actually accept for myself that I have become fluent....