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How the Finnish Survive Without Small Talk (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Finnish people often forgo the conversational niceties that are hard-baked into other cultures, and typically don't see the need to meet foreign colleagues, tourists and friends in the middle. As Tiina Latvala, a former English instructor in Sodankyla, Lapland, explained, part of her job was to introduce her young students to the concept of small talk. "We had a practice where you had to pretend to meet someone for the first time," Latvala said. "You had to pretend you were meeting at the cafe or on a bus and [that] you didn't know each other and do a bit of chit chat. We had written on the whiteboard all the safe topics so they didn't have to struggle with coming up with something to talk about. We brainstormed. They usually found it really difficult."
"[They're] about basic conversation," she explained. "The answers are already there. We are taught to answer 'I'm great, how about you?'; 'How is your mum?'. It was very clear how to be in a conversation, as if we didn't already know. It was very weird as if there were right answers to the questions." There are more hypotheses than answers for why Finnish culture has a veil of silence permanently stitched in place. Latvala believes their trademark directness has something to do with the complexity of the Finnish language and the fairly large distance between cities (Latvala's reasoning: If you've travelled any distance to see someone, why waste time?). [...] It isn't for lack of skill, for Finland has two national languages -- Finnish and Swedish -- and Finns begin English lessons when they're six or seven. But rather it's because when faced with expressing themselves in second (or third) language, many often choose to not say anything rather than risk not being fully understood. However, when among their own, silence functions as an extension of comfortable conversation. "'It's not about the structure or features of the language, but rather the ways in which people use the language to do things,' Dr Anna Vatanen, a researcher at the University of Oulu, explained via email. 'For instance, the 'how are you?' question that is most often placed in the very beginning of an encounter. In English-speaking countries, it is mostly used just as a greeting and no serious answer is expected to it. On the contrary, the Finnish counterpart (Mita kuuluu?) can expect a 'real' answer after it: quite often the person responding to the question starts to tell how his or her life really is at the moment, what's new, how they have been doing.'"
"[They're] about basic conversation," she explained. "The answers are already there. We are taught to answer 'I'm great, how about you?'; 'How is your mum?'. It was very clear how to be in a conversation, as if we didn't already know. It was very weird as if there were right answers to the questions." There are more hypotheses than answers for why Finnish culture has a veil of silence permanently stitched in place. Latvala believes their trademark directness has something to do with the complexity of the Finnish language and the fairly large distance between cities (Latvala's reasoning: If you've travelled any distance to see someone, why waste time?). [...] It isn't for lack of skill, for Finland has two national languages -- Finnish and Swedish -- and Finns begin English lessons when they're six or seven. But rather it's because when faced with expressing themselves in second (or third) language, many often choose to not say anything rather than risk not being fully understood. However, when among their own, silence functions as an extension of comfortable conversation. "'It's not about the structure or features of the language, but rather the ways in which people use the language to do things,' Dr Anna Vatanen, a researcher at the University of Oulu, explained via email. 'For instance, the 'how are you?' question that is most often placed in the very beginning of an encounter. In English-speaking countries, it is mostly used just as a greeting and no serious answer is expected to it. On the contrary, the Finnish counterpart (Mita kuuluu?) can expect a 'real' answer after it: quite often the person responding to the question starts to tell how his or her life really is at the moment, what's new, how they have been doing.'"
"Hi! How are you"?
"I'm Finished."
<conversation over>
I mean, as an object-oriented language, Smalltalk is pretty good, but it didn't seem to make inroads outside of IBM supported systems.
Two Finns go into a bar, and order beers. They drink the beers in silence, and when they finish them, they order two more beers. Still without saying a word, they finish the second set of beers, and proceed to order a third glass. Halfway the 3rd beer, one of them says: "good beer", to which the other replies: "did we come here to drink or to chitchat ?"
Most of our small-talk boils down to one of these common scenarios: ...and it all kicks off from there.
"Hey how's it going, shite weather today isn't it?"
"Hey there auld (old) yin (one), ye got yer wife pumped yet?"
"Did you see that awful game last night? Fuck was that about?"
"When's tea and crumpets?"
"Fucking Tories, what are they all about? Get that old fart kicked out"
What started as a casual encounter in the street at the daily shop visit ends up down the pub, half drunk, at 1pm. Sometimes there is even a fight.
Britain, what a marvelous place.
You're autistic, not Finnish.
"The Scandanavian Cold shoulder is already famous. "
I had a Scandinavian girlfriend once.
Not sure which Nation, but during sex she always yelled:
'I'm not Finish!'
1) It's spelled Asperger's.
2) There's no capital letter for autism. It's not a proper noun.
Two married Finns are sitting a table for their wedding anniversary, not talking.
The wife eventually reaches over and slaps her husband.
He sits there for a bit then asks, "why did you slap me?"
She says, "That was for 30 years of bad sex."
He then sits there for awhile, then eventually reaches over and slaps her back.
She says "What was that for?"
He says, "That's for knowing the difference!"
Yes, but sex in Finland occupies maybe five, six minutes, which still leaves 22 hours of darkness for drinking.
You are welcome on my lawn.