The concept of Finnishness is a great source of pride, that I like show to others because we, Finns, are an unique nation and some even perceived us a little bit as special (in good way). The things that make us so unique is that Finland differ from other countries and their nationalities very visible even other Scandinavian countries. We have our own language which is very hard to learn and we have only about 5, 5 million Finnish people in the whole country, Where as many European countries have this amount of citizen in their cities. In addition, Finnish professionals and experts in various field are greatly appreciated in the world.
But when I think about Finnishness the first things what come to my mind are our pure diverse nature, specific community and so called Finnish craziness.
Since I have almost lived all my life in a small town called as Ylitornio (population of 4200) in Finnish Lapland, I have been able to spend a lot of time in untouchable nature. Also one of my main relaxation method is to go out to the forest to run and clear my thoughts if I feel myself stressed.
Over the decades Finnish people has got their food from the nature and these old manners has never forgotten since Finnish people like to respect their old family heritage. For that reason in many Finnish families, family members like to go out to gather different berries and mushrooms for upcoming winter. Also Finns are really passionate for hunting and fishing, which are very traditional activities during summertime. All in all Finnish people indicate a great respect for the mother of nature.
Because of my sports fanaticism, this specific community that I mentioned earlier, can be seen the best in different sports because Finns are love sports and people says that Finland is sports crazy country. Despite low amount of population, Finland has always produced the high amount of great athletics in various sports, in particular Finns always tends to succeed in different extreme sports for example; ice hockey, Rally, Formula, Ski jumping and javelin, which are not maybe the most popular sports in other countries. And I am sure that Finnish craziness has something to do with this. Finnish craziness can be also seen in other Finnish traditional habits for example the Finns like to sit in a room in which a temperature is over 80 degree and after that we go to swim into ice cold water in the middle of winter. Besides the Finns are hard-working nation, who work their ass off every day from dawn to dusk and a word as “holiday” is a strange concept to us at least when I look my parents.
Ice hockey has always been my number one sport and I can surely say that it is a great factor that divides Finnish people in to smaller fan groups but when Finnish ice hockey national team plays everybody comes out to cheer them and when they win something remarkable, people love each other and come out to celebrate to the square.
See a link below. This video helps you to understand what this all mean.
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