NORMAL LIFE: No More 'How Are You?'

I have been studying Imperatiivi ('imperative' to you and I) in my Finnish lessons, and I'm starting to understand the natives more and more. While Finns love a good whinge and are so good at giving someone they don't like the cold shoulder with their intolerable Finnish silence, the briefness of their communication could be misconstrued as uncivilised. The truth, however, is that they want to keep communication to a minimum which is a contradiction, given that they are happy to write thousands of words per day in emails to colleagues sitting in the next room!

For five years, I thought the Finns were uncivilised, but having studied Finnish Imperitive, I think I've finally got it! This blunt aspect of language appears much moreso in Finnish that in English. For example, if a Finn wants you to shut up, they will just say so without meanning or intending to cause any offence. Meanwhile, a native English speaker might choose to be more polite, asking "Could you be quiet" or "Please be quiet" not just "Be quiet!". Admittedly a small difference, but it speaks volumes in diplomacy.

To illustrate a Finn's love for minimum face-to-face communication, I asked my closest colleague how she was this morning. Her reply was: "I'm the same as I was two hours ago when you asked me and I'm the same as I was yesterday and the day before that". I thought to myself, fuck you, misery! Why don't I ever learn that these people don't like small talk, not that asking how your colleague is could possibly be considered small talk? It's either me or them that is the problem because exactly the same thing happened in my last two jobs for Finnish companies. I am the foreigner in their land and, yes, I should adapt to the local ways. However, it's astonishing that my colleagues don't open their small minds just one moment and think, Hey, he's not Finnish and maybe he's just being polite!

What I find really hilarious is that, an hour later, I 'pinged' the same colleague on the online chat facility to ask her a question about a mutual project we have and she was nice a pie. This just illustrates how technology has taken over Finnish life moreso than English life because, last time I checked, English girls and boys still enjoyed going to the pub after work for a good old natter!

That was during my working day. During the evening, I went to my Finnish lesson and then rushed to the gym in desperate need of toning up. First task: 30 minutes on the running machine. The line of running machines are situated in front of a long mirror measuring from floor to ceiling so, as you run, you can see everything behind you which is a good way to while away the exhausting 30 minutes jog. As I ran, the vibration of the running machine caused the battery element of my hearing device to detach; it fell to the rotating belt and came to a stop at the end of the running machine. Halfway through my run, and reluctant to halt the burn, I left it there.

What surprised me was that, over the remaining fifteen minutes, I counted four people who passed behind the running machine I was using; I could see them because of the mirror in front of me. All of them noticed the one inch square battery lying on the floor and, incredulously, not one of them picked it up or took a closer inspection to see what the hell it was. Is that weird? If you saw something in a relatively clean environment such as a gym, wouldn't you think to pick it up and hand it over to reception so they could log it as a lost item? Deep down, I hoped somebody would pick it up and ask if it was mine. Each of them avoided the item as if though it might harbour traces of the bubonic plague.

It was then that I deduced that these people are just ignorant. How else could there be hundreds of zebra crossings in the city of Helsinki which the vast majority of drivers refuse to stop at (read here)?