To me Finnishness is partly following certain stereotypes or at least making sure everyone knows the stereotypes even if they wouldn’t really picture the speaker himself/herself – I mean not everyone here loves ice hockey or spend hours in sauna, but they still understand that these things are important part of our culture and keep spreading it around. I guess we find joy and feel proud about the image we’ve gotten: We’re happy to be seen as a small, dour nation where everyone loves black candy (salmiakki), sauna and personal space, haha. On more positive side people are trustworthy and friendly after you get past the cold exterior.
There are many comics about Finns and the stereotypic Finnish personality. We’ve already met Matti, the main character of Finnish Nightmares on this blog. These comics squeeze up so well how most Finns are and what they feel in different situations. I can relate to many of these.
I can’t help but to chuckle bashfully everytime I read Country balls and SATW comics where Finland appears. We know exactly how other countries see us and the fact that the comics humor me so much confirms what I said at the start – I’m proud of my country and I enjoy the image we have even if it wasn’t 100 % me or even the people closest to me here.
From my own experience I can say that Finns are quite reserved people, but not nearly as lonesome as most stereotypes suggest. Some of the stereotypes state that a Finnish person can barely handle a smile from a stranger, but I’ve proven that wrong many times. …Just don’t expect a kiss on the cheek as a hello from me if we meet somewhere on the Finnish streets.
Statistics show that yes, we really do love saunas since we have so many of them compared to our population, but having a sauna in your house doesn’t necessarily mean that you’d use it for the purpose it was made, few of my friends keep their saunas cool all year long and just store stuff there as if it was an extra storage room.
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