hier eine interessante Reihe, was entdecken Finnen, die mal was anderes gesehen, erfahren, verglichen haben. Aus Helsingin Sanomat.Deutsche Begrüssungskultur löst in Finnland komische Reaktionen aus:
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/COMING ... 5248976383COMING HOME: They don't talk, they don't kiss, and they don't say hello
By Ilkka Ahtiainen
There is an old saying that goes something like "A real Finn doesn't talk and he doesn't kiss on the cheek".
I'd be inclined to add another thing to the list of what Finns do not do willingly. A Finn doesn't go in for greetings that extend beyond a grunt.
This came back to me when I returned in the summer from four years working in Germany for the newspaper.
Here in Finland, if one flips a friendly "Hei" to some stranger in the elevator or while out with the kids in the playground, the chances are that the response will come at a delay and in grunted form.
During the pause between the greeting and the reply, the greeted's face clouds over with a mixture of shock and consternation that barely conceals the question: "Is this person slightly mental? Or is he drunk?"
I guess the Finn would prefer to be left in his or her own space even now, when most of the population already live in cities and are inevitably going to be rubbing up against other people, like it or not.
Or then perhaps the majority of Finns believe that it is the others who jealously guard their privacy. Even though in reality everyone would probably enjoy exchanging a few words about the weather or the daily grind of family life.
A couple of days ago I was surprised to hear behind me a woman saying good morning to the bus driver as she got on.
But then when I glanced round, I noticed that the greetings were being delivered not to the driver but into her mobile phone.
In Germany people greet perfect strangers without giving it a second thought, when and if they come together in the same space.
Deep down, the German seems to be thinking that it would be stupid to keep quiet if you areright next to someone.
But not greeting someone is also impolite. It is read as a signal that the other person's presence is not even worth acknowledging.
I will admit that I was distinctly confused on the first occasion that I went into a doctor's surgery in Berlin.
As I walked into the waiting-room, the half a dozen people alreadyseated there greeted me in chorus.
"Guten Tag", I mumbled back, and was already priming myself mentally for the fact that next we would have to explain the reasons for our visit to the GP.
For me at that time, a greeting was an assault on my personal space, threatening the protective ring of my Finnish privacy. Since then i have let the walls crumble and have begun to enjoy Germany's rich culture of greetings.
Up north Guten Tag, further south Grüss Gott. The one I liked most was the unafected Servus that you find in the south of the country, which is handily suitable both when meeting and parting.
At lunchtime, there's Mahlzeit. And in the Ruhr region there is still the old coalminers' greeting: Glückauf!
Encouraged by my experiences abroad, I have resolved henceforth to take up arms against the windmills and will blurt out greetings left, right, and centre here in Finland, too.
Then again, it remains to be seen quite how long I will be prepared to put up with the stares and the stifled grunts I get in return.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.9.2009
In this series of articles, former Helsingin Sanomat foreign correspondents stationed abroad reflect on Finland as seen through new eyes on their return home. Ilkka Ahtiainen moved back after four years covering news in Germany for the paper, and like the other two journalists whose comments were presented two weeks ago, he discovered a new view on things he might once have taken for granted.
Finnischer Glasmensch
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/COMING ... 5248600162COMING HOME: Registered male
A former foreign correspondent sees things back home through new eyes
By Sami Sillanpää
After my return to Finland, one of the first things I had to do was to get a season ticket for the buses, trams, and Metro of Helsinki City Transport.
At the point of sale, the official behind the desk asked me my name. This seemed a bit odd, but I obliged.
The person behind the counter-window tapped a few keystrokes into her computer terminal and then looked up and said:
"And your official place of residence is still..."
I was gobsmacked.
Well, yes, it is. But why do you know that? You sell bus tickets!
More registers reared their heads when I went to renew my department store loyalty card.
The customer service clerk did a bit of tap-dancing on the keys and announced:
"Your credit details seem to be all in order."
Oh. Well, thank you for telling me. I don't have the faintest idea how I would go about getting my own credit rating details, but it is nice to know that it can be done quite so efficiently.
I got the card, and silently swore to myself that I would never use it.
I came back to Finland from China, a country that is described as authoritarian, bureaucratic, and "controlled".
it seems odd that only back here in Finland have I had the feeling that somebody wants to write down every move I make in some register or other.
Of course, this is not to say that the authorities in China did not show any interest in my doings there. In the archives of the Ministry of State Security in Beijing there is a file with my name on it that undoubtedly contains more information about me than I would care to divulge.
But one thing about China - you can buy a bus pass there without having to show a personal ID.
In Finland that ID has already been required in several everyday situations: borrowing books at the library, checking in to a hotel, or when I try to have a flutter at an online betting site.
It gives me the sensation that my entire life is in The System somewhere. In an instant, any and every official could whisk up out of the registers all the details of my life to date.
And hey, it doesn't have to be an "official" as such. A shop assistant will do just nicely.
"Have you got an S-bonus card?"It is such a common question in modern Finland - and not just in shops but also in bars - that it might well have been the first sentence in Finnish I ever learnt, if I didn't speak the language already.
I have not got myself into the bonus card thing. If I did, then The System would also know exactly what I have been buying, and where and when.
In China I used to lie quite a bit. I would never have dreamed of giving my correct personal details when asked.
If I was obliged to show my passport and at the same time fill in some form or other, I tried to fudge it by writing doctor-style so that my handwriting was almost illegible and indecipherable.
That was born out of a lack of confidence. As with many Chinese citizens, I believed that somebody would in any event be misusing my personal or contact details.
At the very least I would get a bunch of contact attempts from eager-beaver Chinese entrepreneurs suggesting some common business venture.
There is no fear of this in Finland.
And I suppose no other fear, really.
And that is a very nice thing. We all agree to feed our details into the gaping mouth of The System, because we trust it. We trust the State and above all we trust other people.
When buying my bus pass, in the end I did not put up any resistance - I'm a Finn, after all - but told the sales clerk everything she wanted to know.
All the same, I'm still not completely sure what purpose the information serves.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 16.8.2009
In this series of articles, two former Helsingin Sanomat foreign correspondents stationed abroad reflect on Finland as seen through new eyes on their return home. Sami Sillanpää moved back after five years covering news in China for the paper, while Jussi Konttinen spent six years in Russia. Both have observations on things they might once have taken for granted.
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/COMING ... 5248602370COMING HOME: Rushing to take a breather
A former foreign correspondent sees things back home through new eyes
By Sami Sillanpää
Here in Finland, everybody talks about busy-busy-busy. People complain about the insane rush at work, and even in their free time things are so hectic that they don't have time even to read the newspaper or look after the flowerbeds, let alone nurture their personal relationships.
What the hell are they on about?
People in Finland are always free, or so it seems.
The working days are reasonably short, Sundays are a day off for most people, and every so often the calendar throws up some odd religious holiday that further shortens the working week.
When I study my acquaintances, the impression is that half of the Finnish population are constantly on some kind of maternity- paternity-, job alternation-, official-, or some other kind of leave from their workplace.
As for annual vacations, the Finns have them by the weekload, and in some cases by the monthload.
A Chinese worker would get about as much time off in a decade.
In China, people have statutory leave from work of ten days a year - and this includes public holidays. Many workers in factories or on construction sites effectively do not have any time off.
If they want to rest, they quit work.
It's quite awful.
Then again, it's easy for the Finns to have a rest, in a finished society.
The 1.3 billion people in China are living through a complete upheaval in the society, and that's enough to keep head, hands, and feet busy.
The hardworking nature of life means that the Chinese society is dynamic.
It also lives every day to the full and well into the evening. In the view of the Chinese it would be completely senseless to keep shops and restaurants closed at just the times when people have the time to frequent them.
There is in the hard work also an aspect of the different attitude to life in Asia.Japan may already be a developed society, but to the Japanese the Finnish - or Nordic - lack of haste in life is a tourist sight.
Many a Japanese tourist comes here specifically to wonder at the Finns' ability to take it easy.
Oh look at that, look how they live in peace in their pine forests with their animals all around them. What harmony!
By contrast with the Chinese model, the restful nature of life in Finland lends itself towards stagnation and inactivity.
Given that frame of mind, it suddenly seems quite normal and natural that one would spend a quarter of a century mulling over whether or not it is worth building a Western Metro out to Espoo.
When I worked in China, it was always safe to come home to Finland for a holiday.
There was never any sense of excitement or worry that something might have changed while I'd been away.
The same bars were all there where they used to be, and they all had the same names. One knew to avoid certain construction sites, because they were still in the same place they'd been a couple of years before.
The government changed, but the politics didn't.
When I eventually moved back to stay, I thumbed through the evening tabloids with some interest, only to find the same old familiar names were there: Matti [Nykänen], Spede [Pasanen], Kirka, Juice [Leskinen]...
This gave me a funny turn: weren't Spede, Kirka, and Juice all dead - in fact, hadn't they all turned up their toes quite some time ago?*
I could just about understand that Saturday night TV still included a Finnish Have I got News For You. But how to explain the fact that Happy Days was still being shown, or those old Der Alte cop series - German police in their pastel 80's blazers. Popeda are still being played on the radio. Yup, the 1980s are still going strong in Finland.
Naturally, when it comes down to it, it's all good.
You'd imagine more people would pick a laid-back life over one of constant hurry and pressures, if they had the choice to make.
A Chinese acquaintance nevertheless said that whilst Finland is a very nice country, he still couldn't take living here.
"Altogether too peaceful for me."
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 2.8.2009
In this series of articles, two former Helsingin Sanomat foreign correspondents stationed abroad reflect on Finland as seen through new eyes on their return home. Sami Sillanpää moved back after five years covering news in China for the paper, while Jussi Konttinen spent six years in Russia. Both have observations on things they might once have taken for granted.
*Note: Pertti "Spede" Pasanen, film director, comedian and TV-presenter (1930-2001)
Juhani "Juice" Leskinen, rock musician, singer-songwriter, career bohemian (1950-2006)
Kirill "Kirka" Babitzin rock/pop singer (1950-2007). Former ski-jumper Matti Nykänen is still going, and still occupying the tabloid headlines, two decades after his sporting career came to an end.
Ein Vergleich der Bürokratie Russland --> Finnland
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/COMING ... 5248976383COMING HOME: Good bureaucrats
By Jussi Konttinen
When I moved back to Finland from Russia, I had to take care of a tax matter.
I was flabbergasted when I discovered that I did not have to go in person to the local tax office. I could do it all perfectly easily over the phone! Amazing!
Finnish bureaucracy works. People are not endlessly bounced from one office or department to the next, and the official does not require more and more papers in triplicate. Getting one matter sorted does not take an entire day as it does in St. Petersburg or Moscow.
Someone who has lived the entire time in Finland might beg to differ, but at least from the viewpoint of a returnee, Finland still enjoys relatively good public services.
For example, simply the post-natal clinic system is an adequate reason for a family with kids to return to Finland from abroad. And you can get to the clinic on the bus with a pram - free!
On the other hand... Finland's bureaucracy is somewhat short on flexibility. If there is a rule, then it will be adhered to.
For instance, I had to time my return to Finland such that at least six months would pass before the calculated date of the birth of my child. Otherwise I would not qualify for any paternity benefits.
Then at some summer event, the security staff brusquely tossed our family out of an area licensed to serve alcohol.
The reason was that we sinners had with us our 7-month-old baby, who was underage.
The security gonzos could also have added to our list of wrongdoings that the infant in question had come into the area equipped with her own beverages - in her mother's breasts.
In Russia, bureaucrats are horrible creatures and exercise their own arbitrary personal power, but there is always room for negotiation with them.
In its most brutal form this means providing a pecuniary reward for the civil servant's time and services.
A Russian would be quite unable to understand for instance the fuss that is raging around the bribery allegations against the state-owned arms supplier Patria.
The company's lads pulled off some excellent deals with Slovenia as far as Finland is concerned, and then the national broadcaster goes and blabs on about some bribery nonsense.
Laws in Russia are strict, but obeying them is a more liberal matter.
The laws exist there only for safety's sake - in order that everyone can if the need arises be shoved into prison.
For this reason, the Russians would prefer that as little as possible is known about them. Name, home address, and telephone number are often jealously guarded secrets.
In Finland, everything is wide open. Nearly everyone's mobile number can be found from directory enquiries or over the Net.
A car's owner - for example if you've bumped him or suspect he's bumped you in the car park - can be got in an instant with an SMS message to the registration people, and you can even access tax information via the Net.
And the mailbox actually has the home-owner's name on it.
Wild stuff!
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.7.2009
In this series of articles, two former Helsingin Sanomat foreign correspondents stationed abroad reflect on Finland as seen through new eyes on their return home. Jussi Konttinen moved back after six years covering news in Russia for the paper, while Sami Sillanpää spent five years in Russia. Both have observations on things they might once have taken for granted.
. Hiess es nicht, kaum Unterschied? Hab eben die Zeitungsversion von vielen, sehr vielen Finnen gehört. Die haben es sich kaum ausgedacht.