Being Finnish
If you ask from foreigners about how Finnish people are like, they can give a many different answers, but the main things, what I have noticed so far is that Finnish are quiet and honesty.
Quiet reflects almost everywhere in our lives. You can see it in your everyday life. When we are waiting a bus on at bus station, people keep a little distance to the others if they do not know each others before. That way you can easily avoid a conversation with strangers. We may not small talk to strangers for instance if we ask directions to somewhere. We are not small talk folk! The silence reflects also to environment. Walking in nature or being home, you really can notice that we love silence. Many people go to relax to the forest and enjoy fresh air and silence. There is nothing more relaxing than enjoying a good relaxing walk while you can thinking about your stuff or whatever you have on your mind. Even if you are in city centre in the middle of the day, you might feel the peaceful atmosphere.
On the other hand, there’s a large difference, when Finnish drink alcohol. Then we turn out to be very social and every person we meet is our friend. It can be a quite odd to foreigners to see two totally different sides of Finnishness. It doesn’t matter, where you come from or who you are. You are then one of the others. We could say that the best way to get to know to Finnish is having a beer with them.
Being Finnish means also that you are supposed to be honest. In most cases it’s true. Of course people are different and some of us are not honesty. Though, we like to consider ourselves honesty. It has both positive and negative aspects. For instance, if they have an appointment, they are on time. Being on time shows respect to the other. Also, when they are talking, they get straight to the point, which may be a reason, why we don’t have a skill of small talk.
There’s a reason, why foreigners may feel Finnish are sometimes rude. Being honest means also you will get the straight answer whenever you ask something. Usually it doesn’t matter if you know the other person before or not. We don’t like to mince words. If you have something to say, it’s better just say straight than wonder afterwards, what you should have said. Even though we say things straight, it doesn’t mean we are rude. We just express our opinion whether it sounds rude or not.
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