Living next door to Alice? Not...

Let's make this clear:

Joulupukki, Santa Claus, Father Christmas - he lives in Finland, in Korvatunturi to be more precise. Not the North Pole. Not Canada. Neither in Sweden.

Jääkarhu, polar bear lives in North Pole. Not in Finland. Ranua Zoo doesn't count.

Lumimies, yeti. You can never tell with the yetis...

The long and winding road

About a week ago the Atlantic published an article about Finnish school system. The article highlighted that the goal of the Finnish school system is equity over excellence. The article praised the goal, but naturally many people also criticize it for holding back the talents and wasting intellectual resources. But as the goal of the compulsory school is to teach you to read, write and calculate, to give you a basic understanding of how things work, and to give you the keys to educate yourself further - regardless of your background - I think the noble goal has been achieved quite well. And let's remember that in this system the pupils and students are not customers, they are part of the system.

The article sheds light on the ideology behind the school system, but let's have a look at the structure:

I think the finest remark on this map is, that there are no dead ends in the system. In theory you can become a PhD no matter what you've chosen in your early days. Of course, it's not the intention that everybody achieves PhD and of course the road for PhD is longer with some choices compared to other. But the bottom line is that you don't close the doors for the rest of your life, even though you'd have a difficult teenage crisis. And in the end of the day, no matter which path do you take, you will (or you should) end up working.

Moomin conspiracy

Moomins are probably the best known Finnish fairytale figures (Angry Birds are not fairytale - yet). At least they are big in Japan. Not as big as Hello Kitty, but big enough to embrace our national self esteem. The original Moomin comic strips are a bit weird but they had edge. The Japanese animation version is much lighter and targeted for kids, but I must admit I sometimes watch the TV animation and I kind of like it.

President Tarja Halonen has been compared to Moominmamma in the media - mostly because of her purse style, not because of her personality. The current candidates obviously have some Moomin genes, too. I think Timo Soini (Stinky), Pekka Haavisto (Snufkin) and Paavo Lipponen (The Groke) hit the nail with the character also in terms of personality, but others are more or less artificial.

Speaking of Moomins, I have a theory. A conspiracy theory. Maybe raejuusto, cottage cheese, is not really cheese at all. I mean, it doesn't taste like cheese, you can't slice it, and it doesn't melt when you heat it. Maybe raejuusto is minced Moomin meat. Yummy?

The sock pimp

Some years ago there was an intense media discussion about a problem that presidential candidate Sauli Niinistö had: he was frustrated to spend time in finding the matching pair for the countless number of black socks after washing them. Sauli, may I introduce a Finnish innovation to simplify your laundry circus: Supi the sock holder.

Store the sock pins close to the place you collect the dirty laundry.




Unite the socks with the pin before you dump the socks into the laundry basket. Throw the pinned socks into washing machine. Let it roll.




Use the little hook on top of the pin to hang them drying.

Meet the weathermen

I must continue the weather theme. If you're talking about weather, you must know the people behind the weather: the meteorologists. These are the most powerful people in the Finnish society, as they are the ones who decide which topics people are talking about. Politicians must be envious.



Pekka Pouta. Nomen est omen - his last name means "sunny weather" in Finnish.



Petri Takala. In the end of his forecast he usually approaches the camera and tries to come through the TV screen into your living room (check out the 5 last seconds of the video). I'm not sure if approachaphobia is a real diagnosis, but I'm sure he's causing the phobia. In the video he's younger and thinner than today, but for recognizing him today: he looks just like the comic book guy in the Simpsons.

Mette Mannonen. Mette has grown from an insecure weather girl to one of the most professional meteorologist. She has the best weathers, and she can find the silver lining of clouds.

Anssi Vähämäki. Watch out this guy. He doesn't look harmful at all, but he knows how to mess the weather! You can tell by looking out the window if he's been forecasting: it's raining cats and dogs and it takes at least a week from his colleagues to fix the weather back to good.

It's raining ___________

We don't do small talk in Finland. We don't even have a Finnish word for small talk - jutustelu is probably quite close, but not exactly the same. For us it's perfectly normal to be quiet in company - for example at a lunch table. The only chit chat topic that we master is the weather. That's what we do, in Facebook too: snow <3

My colleague moved to Finland in the beginning of November, and he said that on the first two weeks the Finns were mostly apologizing the weather. But honestly, that's what you can expect from people whose native language has a three-digit number of words for different weather phenomena - and no word for "please". So if you really want to master the Finnish language in your everyday life, you should focus into the weather terminology and phrases. You can start by sneaking the following into your lunch table discussion (it's impossible to translate these into English, but I'll try):

• On ilmoja pidellyt - It's been keeping weathers. The mother of all starter phrases.
• Tulee vettä kuin Esterin perseestä - Water is coming from Esteri's ass. Ideal for emphasizing the volume of the rain.
• Alavilla mailla hallan vaaraa - There's a danger of night frost on the flat nether lands. That's when the strawberry farmers in Pohjanmaa get angry. 
• Talvi yllätti autoilijat - The car drivers were surprised by the winter. A news that is reported every year after the first real snow storm and the consequent car crashes. At the headlines tomorrow.

I think I just realized what's the touché translation for small talk: lätinä! The primary meaning of lätinä is a jolly good continuous splashing sound on asphalt. The secondary meaning of lätinä refers to kind of empty talk, you know, lots of talk with no real content or message. How conveniently weather related is that!

Happy 2012

Celebrating the New Year between the last of December and first of January is more or less newish tradition in Finland. Originally the New Year was celebrated in autumn, at Kekri, after the harvesting season. That may sound quite rural, but let's bear in mind that it's not much more than one generation ago when most of the Finns were still living in the countryside. And come on, Chinese are not celebrating their new year on the switch of Dec and Jan either, the year of the rabbit is still going strong!

But despite the shortish history of the  New Year at this point of year, there are still some distinctive items that belong to the Finnish new year:

• Sparkling wine, nakki and potato salad. Who said cava doesn't go with cold sausage?
• Fireworks. It's not difficult to guess what's statistically the most probable day of getting an eye injury.
• Melting and re-casting tin horse shoes in order to forecast your future. Well, they're not really made out of tin but lead, which means that your future is based on toxic waste.
• New Year speech by the president of Finland: "Kansalaiset, medborgare..." Tarja, you could have been a bit more radical with your last speech.
• Ski jumping on TV. The men with the mullet and mustache!
• Tipaton tammikuu, dropless January. No alcohol in January (Lonkero doesn't count).

In any case, have a good 2012 (and enjoy the remaining year of the rabbit)!