Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would ever visit a place as far away as Finland. Then my employer, a world wide chemical company, asked me to sell a business that was headquartered there. I was there a dozen or so times and I found the people and country to be very fascinating.
The Finnish language is like no other. That is very unusual in Europe. The other Nordic countries, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, all have languages that are very similar. Because they are so isolated from the rest of the world and their language is so different, the Finns are linguists. I met an airline flight attendant who told me that she only spoke nine languages.
The Finnish language is also very difficult to learn. From the perspective of an American tourist, billboards seemed to have very long words printed on them. All traffic signs in the country are in Finnish and Swedish. All business in the country is conducted in Swedish.
I encountered very few people in the country that could not speak fluent English. The young man, who served me a hamburger at McDonalds and the lady that cleaned my hotel room, could speak our language very well. The only person that I encountered that could not speak English was a native of far northern Finland, who was selling rein deer meat in a public market.
The northern third of the country is in the arctic circle. Like most countries that are this far north, most of the population live in the major southern cities, Helsinki being the largest. In the dead of winter, a significant portion of the country does not experience the light of day. In Helsinki, there are only a couple of hours of light during the winter. The news is good, however, for those of you who would like to play golf at two o’clock in the morning in July. The exact opposite happens in this beautiful land in the summer.
There are some peculiar traditions in Finland. They are crazy about taking saunas. My hotel had a sauna, complete with a “washer woman”. Many people told me that it was a tradition for all parties to take a sauna together after a large business transaction was completed. It did not come up when I closed the sale of the business. I did not inquire further about either opportunity.
Also, it is a tradition in Finland, to cut a hole in the ice in the harbor in the winter and jump in for a few seconds. My Finnish lawyer told me that it was the most exhilarating experience imaginable. I did not show any interest in trying it.
Finally, every hotel in Helsinki has a ballroom. Almost every evening, there is a lot of drinking and dancing. I guess that when it is dark all of the time the people need to find something to do. This was pretty amusing to me. Here I am, a country boy from Arkansas, staying in a fine hotel very far from home. And upstairs in the ballroom, there is a huge crowd square dancing. I wonder how you say, “Allemande Left”, in Finnish.
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