Since there has already been many good posts in this blog about the most common things about Finland I want to bring something new to the table.
- Finnish economy – Now vs. the past
For such a small nation, Finland has historically done amazingly well when it comes to economics. We broke through with mobile phones, we make the best elevators in the world, we have one of the best paper industries, we educate specialists to almost every single thing that there is and so on and so on. This, even though it’s sad to say, is mostly history. We barely anymore make cellphones that were, in Juhani Tamminen’s words, our “Big Steal” and we are pretty much struggling with the economic situation overall. Well, at least the almighty elevators remain. Much of this, of course in due to the overall economic crisis, but a lot could be done better. We should focus in new industries that are small, and we should start many of them and add in some innovative ideas. Not all that we produce has to be huge ships or world class technology. Even though there has been some good success stories during the recent years (Rovio for example), it is not enough, and also these delightful things always get sold abroad. Frustratingly most of these ideas are driven down with all kinds of ridiculousness that a new entrepreneur has to face when starting to kick something off. But hey, don’t take my word for it.
- Finland – Nation of sports
Finnish people in general love watching and doing sports which is great. Back in the days we practically had dynasties in many sports. (ski-jumping, javelin, even long distance running for example!) Well, this also is mostly in the past. And even though not many admit it, the main reason to this is money. The support for “professionals” of many sports are ridiculous, even when compared to our southern neighbor Estonia, which is even a way smaller than us! (read Aleksi Valavuori’s article about that) It seems that only our ice hockey is heading for the right direction, which for me as a hockey fan, is great, but also as a sports fan in general is kind of annoying at the same time. There are so many stories about the past Olympics and other competitions of almost all sports, not to even mention our national football team. I really hope all the best for the future of Finnish sports, but changes will have to be done before things get back on the right track. Even though the most important sports are the ones that normal people do on their free time to stay in good condition, there are still people who represent our country and basically get spit on while doing it. Not all sportsmen make money like they do in the NHL and today competing on the highest level of basically any sport is a full time job and even more.
- Sauna, beer, nature etc.
Okay, I started with two very negative points, but I just wanted to bring them up because those are two very interesting things in my opinion and I am pissed off just because I care. I just want to put it short: I love Finland with it’s beautiful nature, mostly shitty beer, sauna and all other things that have made us what we are, but like in everything or everyone you love, there is always something to complain about.
Yours truly,
Lauri Soini
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