Throughout most of the year Finland is covered in darkness. The phase of life slows down, people choose to spend their evenings at the comfort of their homes and a certain drowsiness and quiet takes over. We find comfort in watching shows, reading, playing videogames and heading to saunas, which are very common in households and apartment complexes around Finland. Saunas are an iconic part of Finnish culture and Finns enter them with their friends, families, co-workers or complete strangers. While we are naturally more reclusive and quiet, saunas invite us to share cold beers and partake in honest conversation and opening up about emotions and internal lives. They say that the best way to get to know someone is to head to a sauna with them.
Winters are hard and long, and a good portion of the population gets slightly depressed during the darkest days. We call this “kaamosmasennus”, which translates to seasonal affective disorder (SAD). What gets us over these times is dry humour and drinking with friends. Finns have a peculiar meme-culture, where we share relatable, funny and somewhat sad memes with each other, often with poor image quality and captions, which are often misspelt. Finnish websites archive massive collections of Donald Duck, Moomin and Kummeli memes that would be difficult to explain to a foreigner.
If the Finnish memes don’t land, you can head to a bar to cure your case of the SAD’s. Finns like to drink heavily and it’s socially acceptable to stumble your way to the karaoke booth and sing melancholy Iskelmä-songs from the bottom of your heart. The lyrics will often be about lost youth, longing for paradise and missing that hazel-eyed man in Mallorca.
Torille!
Comments