How come people in the country so gloomy and dark consumes over 12 kg of the ”dark gold” commonly know as coffee, per person per year? And despite the freezing winters and the coldness that specific group of people also eats approximately 13 litres of ice cream per person per year. Like the surrounding darkness and coldness aren’t enough? At least they have sauna, so they can escape the coldness even momentarily. But it’s like they have this urge to freeze continuously, because during winter they might dip themselves into hole in the ice which are covering the frigid waters of the thousands lakes in Finland.
Statistics also tells that people in Finland seem to like heavy metal music quite a lot. And song topics among other genres as well are rather blue. Why the nation whose national diseases are depression and alcoholism listens music that contemptible? But light haired and skinned, tall and shy finns interest in nature and valuation for privacy and peace are certainly perceivable. I mean, what else to expect from people so distant and quiet. That group of people, so small that they are basically on the brink of extinction, don’t even know how to small talk.
Stereotypes about people in Finland live rigidly among people and especially finns are rather conscious of them but I can’t quite agree with those copperplate printings. After I moved to Tampere from a small eastern town called Savonlinna I’ve noticed that there might not be such a thing called finnishness. The areal differences between habits, dialects, showing feelings, talking strictly and being honest are huge. People from western coast have such a different gestures and mannerisms than people living close to the Russian border. In global world these prehistoric and outdated stereotypes doesn’t fit to international folks. The stereotypic finn sounds like some old hermit living in a small cabin some where in Lapland out of the reach of any kind on civilization
Even though I could refute most of the stereotypes about this so-called finnishness I won’t say there isn’t something deeper understanding between people from Finland. Nowadays it’s not the blondness, skin colour or lack of social skills that makes you a finn. For me the proudness of being from Finland that is buit-in finns is not patriotism even though it’s seem to be some kind of a pride and awareness about your basis. It’s a mutual grasp that even though you are social and outgoing person, sometimes being quiet and alone is acceptable or actually advisable. And drinking six cups of coffee per day is also fairly natural. How else can you stay awake when the nature is messing up with your circadian rhythm when sometimes the sun is not setting and at times it’s not rising at all.
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