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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 fail to see the problem with any of this. Small talk is time wasting bullshit to try to keep up pleasantries. Instead of asking pointless questions you already know the answer to, why not just find someone you can have a worthwhile conversation with instead of having both people engage in an activity that neither find particularly enjoyable or stimulating?
Trying to teach Finnish people to partake in this idiocy is like actively teaching a dog to crap on your carpet.
“It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as in "It's a nice day," or "You're very tall," or "So this is it, we're going to die."
After a few months of observation he had come up with a second theory, which was this--"If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.”
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
If you ask Germans "how are you?" (or the German "Wie geht's dir?") you can expect either getting a full rundown of their health, work, financial, family and marriage situation or just a "fuck off" look (which basically means "None of your business, stranger!"). It's just one of the language and culture differences you have to adapt to: Words don't mean the same even if you can perfectly understand them.
Small talk isn't something that the Finnish are lacking, it's rather something that the Americans are very good at. Very similar with smiling by the way: Americans do that all the time, Europeans not so much.
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.
"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!'
They drink. A lot.
One common joke about most any culture seems to be how much they drink alcohol. It doesn't necessarily have to be a nationality but that's a common delineation, it also works for distinctions along religious or cultural lines. Take your pick of some segment of the global population and you'll find a joke about how much they drink.
Here's one:
Why should you invite two Baptists when going on a fishing trip? Because if you invite only one then he'll drink all your beer.
The truth is that humans drink a lot of alcohol, all over the world.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
...from Scandinavians in general.
How do I know? Because I spent most of my life in 3 scandinavian countries, and I can pretty much sum up the major differences, and what they have in common.
Norwegians: Very straightforward people, you sort of have to agree if something is funny, and you'll have to let them in on the joke, if you want to kid around. They're very much independent of E.U. for a reason, and that is because they have their own way of doing things. A word is a word, and there's never anything hidden behind it, they can also be a bit stale and boring when it comes to sarcasm and longer lasting jokes. They're fairly authoritarian but without the totalitarian style in them, they can loosen up quite a bit - generally likes to travel to Denmark to get wasted beyond recognition and make complete asses of themselves, and have an easy time understanding Swedish and Danish.
Danes: People with possibly the best sense of humor of all the Scandinavian countries (I'm Norwegian originally btw. so I might be biased here), but they generally never take themselves too seriously. One of the biggest trait Danes have is that if they really like you, they will take the jokes on you so far you'll go crying home wondering where you went wrong (I did for the longest time when new to Denmark), but 6 months later I realized they're really just masters of sarcasm and funny. Even their TV ads reflect this, if anyone can joke about themselves and anything, it's them. But when it comes down to brass tax (like money) the generic Dane changes in nature immediately, they take their personal economics seriously (My grandmother warned me about this before I moved to Denmark for 10+ years), and she was right, more than I'd ever care to admit. Danes in general will gladly be friendly with any strangers, but it'll take 3-6 years before you get "invited" into their private circle of friends and family. They might seem very open and free, but they're like...that on the surface, if you want to go deeper, you gotta fight and work for it. But then again, you probably have a very good friend. Their housing prices are through the roof, and overvalued in every single way, new players hardly have a chance of getting a foot in - without bringing the previous owners high evaluation and lifestyle with them, and paying for it later. Norwegians have this in common with them as well.
Swedes: These are supposed to be the neutral counterpart of the two, anyone who know just a little bit about history, know what happened to Norway during the second world war, but the Swedes are a bit ashamed of that, because they're a very open to everyone kind of people, and they are almost TOO open about that today, which is why there's trouble in paradise right now (clearly reflected by the rising Right wing over there), but the Swedes are like the Danes when it comes to long-term friendship...it generally takes a few years, but then you'll have a friend for life. However, Swedes are not that easy to impress - unlike the Danes they have this "thinking" way of everything, they literally overthink everything, this is why it's so hard to get a job in Sweden - but once you GOT a job, they will try everything else before letting you go - Danes, not so much, for the Dane it's all about how you blend in, for the Swede - it's all about what you bring to the table, and once you're in - you're gonna have a job for a VERY long time, as they tend to question themselves first, before questioning you. I'd say that the Swedes are the most Authoritarian of all the Scandinavians.
FInnish people: Oh boy, they're basically nothing like the Swedes, Danes or Norwegians. They are very direct (as the article suggest), don't like to small-talk too much, and they are VERY straightforward about basically everything. They're workhorses like NO ONE you've ever met. I've got some Finnish colleagues, known quite a lot of Finns, and you'll be pleasantly surprised that they're just as different from each other as the rest of the population, but they DO share this "seriousness
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
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!"
Finland is a Nordic country, not usually considered Scandinavian.
The truth is that humans drink a lot of alcohol, all over the world.
No they don't. There are dramatic, hundredfold differences in alcohol consumption between countries.
Muslim countries tend to drink the least, and in some of them consumption is a crime. But even in non-muslim countries like Singapore and East Timor, consumption is very low. The highest level is in Belarus, followed closely by several other countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia.
Finns drink about as much as the French, and about a third more than Americans.
List of countries by alcohol consumption