Typical Finnishness:
Finnishness could be found so easily as a foreigner in Finland, since I have lived in Finland for 2 years so far. And I found out that Japanese have so many points to correspond with Finnishness. One example could be broader personal space. Finnish people needs to have this personal space unlike French where they hug and kiss to the first time meeting person. It is really similar to my Japanese culture where we even do not hand shake for the first time meeting. (Hand shake is normally used for business meeting.)
In addition, Finnish people doesn’t answer clearly with Yes/No. Their answer is often described with longer sentences without conclusion. We Japanese also prefer not to state Yes/No to keep the conversation very flat with each other. Discussion is rarely occurred during casual meeting with friends.
Lifestyle:
Finnish finds more culture in their lifestyle and from nature. Such as Sauna, Nordic designs , Fabrics, and social welfare. For example, marimekko’s fabric design is always inspired by Finnish nature. Work-life balance is concerned so importantly by having more rights to choose what the employees wishing, thus Family can spend more time together. I think it comes from the severe and long Finnish winter when people have to spend most of the time indoor. And they have to collaborate each other effectively so that they will not die in long winter.
Finnish lifestyle became role model for some countries like Japan, and lots of Japanese people are fascinated by its effectiveness and comfortableness. I was also helped by this life style throughout my Uni life. I have never had extreme stressful time because the nature was always close to refresh my mind, and school gives student always chance to recover our studies by the great system of student councillor and retake.
And this is what i like about Finland but at the same time, makes me wanting more to see arts and architectures in cultural city by traveling another countries.
Entrepreneurial spirit:
Entrepreneurship is always a hot topic in Finland. Slush Helsinki, and Tokyo is getting bigger, where investors and start-ups gather together to network and create new business contract. And students are always encouraged to involve to these startup events for free as volunteers. The reason why Slush was founded is quite interesting to find Finnishness in the business side perspective. « Slush » means the wet snow which Finland experience in November, and the event is held around this time to boost Finnish and world entrepreneurs to come up with great business ideas. The message here make people come out from there home to this chilly and wet weather. And it has been a big success, that the event is now held in Japan and China, two of the biggest business market in the world.
Anyways, Finnishness is attractive enough to make anybody comfortable being in Finland. Especially for Japanese there are not so much difference EXCEPT for the weather 😛
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