I am pretty sure the problem with that survey was that they asked people who are living a comfortable lifestyle.
There are a lot of people (any growing) living pay cheque to pay cheque who would have a different outlook on life.
This survey reminds me of the saying
“don´t piss on my shoes and tell me it´s raining”
I was an American exchange student and on my first day of school (1989) at TYK in Tampere they served mustamakkara for lunch.
I ate it, but I wasn’t super excited about the flavor.
Half-napping on the bus home I imagined this sickly cow with a long piece of surgical tubing sticking out of it dripping blood into an aluminum bucket. A metallic “drip, drip, drip”, I imagined hearing it hitting the bottom of the bucket.
Seeing bottles of blood on the shelf in the supermarket was new, too.
Still vivid 36 years later.
We also had split pea soup, näkkileipä, and some kind of watered down mehua, all three of which I think we had essentially every day. I never got tired of those, oddly enough. I also turned out to be autistic, so relatively bland, monotonous food was never a problem.
Finland might be the worlds happiest, but not Finnish people.
Best
It’s more like least unhappy, rather than most happy. Most people would say things are not great but not terrible. Other countries you got way more of the extreemes while everyone here is pretty much neutral
Finnish Christmas food. I’d never tell Finns to stop tradition ofc but my wife and most of her family have said: “We all hated the food at one point but when you eat it enough times you just start to deal with it”. My wife however still hates the food.
I’d rather just eat food that I liked at the start rather than force myself to eat something honestly. So it’s definitely a tradition I’ll be taking a miss for I’m afraid. No offence intended ofc.
In Finland we also have a saying:
“Ken onnen löytää se onnen kätkeköön”
Which roughly translates to
“Who finds happiness should hide it”
and I think we do that pretty well
Se on tonnin seteli
Obligatory I am Finnish but my spouse isnt, some notable observations of theirs:
– ”Any questions?” And an already painfully quiet group somehow gets even more quiet, everyone is avoiding eye contact, everyone is nearly holding their breath. In class or other group events teachers/managers have to specifically push people to please talk to each other if there’s a group task, because unless people know each other beforehand, aint nobody socializing unless they are absolutely forced to. This doesnt seem to happen literally anywhere else in the world.
– Same people who dont dare to talk to strangers unless forced to, get offended if you dont want to come to sauna naked with them
– Coffee is served everywhere and mostly self-service style with the assumption of you are allowed unlimited refills with purchase, and most people do drink 2-3 cups
– There’s many unspoken social rules that make Finland very similar to Japan: extreme public politeness and consideration of others is expected, but not reinforced. Also because of the shy antisocial behavior, those who dont adhere to the unspoken rules often go unpunished and maybe never realize how much they disturb others, because no one goes to them to tell them to stop and that the whole bus/tram/train/space they are in is hearing them and glaring at them hoping they will understand their mistake. It is rude to make noise and annoy people, but it is super uncomfortable to go an confront someone about it. It feels more rude to call someone else out on being rude than the rude noisy behavior to begin with. Therefore it just continues but everyone else is silently stewing with anger.
Not that weird on it’s own, but the weirdest thing I experienced. Grocery shopping. Anything that needs to be weighed (fruits, veggies, pastries etc.) have their own code under the price. You put the stuff on a scale and choose the code on the screen (or board of buttons with numbers 1-200+) and it prints you the barcode sticker. I only saw this in Smarket and Kmarket. I remember my first time just ignoring all those those codes and just went up to check out without a single barcode, assuming the cashier does it. Had to go back and look for the codes for each item lol. I’ve been to many countries, but never saw something like this before. But now, I low-key think it’s a pretty good idea.
We are better than Swedes at happiness. Thats all that matters.
When I was out jogging I saw a woman in the distance who was walking in my direction. As we got within greeting distance she looked at me and then turned me her back instead of risking having to say hi. As a Swede I think I understand their culture and that the intention was to give me privacy as well as herself but it’s kind of a weird thing to have in your culture.
Mission impossible: Non native being able to not mention this meme in every conversation about fins
In between sad and maniacally smiling.
Checks out.
It’s happiest because the sad peiple keep killing themselves.
If memory serves me, the metric is moreso measuring general life satisfaction. People have stability, healthcare and all the basic necessities met.
The weirdest thing at first is going to the sauna naked with your family or coworkers. But it’s not actually weird. we’re just not used to their culture, and we don’t think like they do. The longer you live in Finland, the more it all starts to make sense. Finns see everyone as human beings nothing more, nothing less.
Wife carrying race. And it is not even remotely close to the next thing I might consider weird. Thankfully, only seen it, not taken part in any of the roles. Tree climbing race might be among the coolest, but also just a tiny bit peculiar.
I still cant get over the fact that Finland doesnt have free public healthcare. That shock has been with me for months and I still can’t believe how close to American the system is here. Coming from a poorer country that DOES have it, it’s just too unbelievable
Citing law to justify actions.
I couldn’t count the times I have heard someone using the Nürnberg defense.
Happiest is wrong word, content is more fitting.
I actually think the difference is linguistic and Finnish culture basically valuing humbleness very high.
Buying a house was surreal. In the US, it’s basically financial+legal warfare where you try to screw the other party as much as possible. Here it’s like the most peaceful cooperative thing.
My theory for the Finnish happiness is that we complain freely about our lives.
If you need to fake that everything is ok to everyone while thinking that everybody else is having a great life you will end up feeling extremely alone with your struggles. Here you know that everybody else has their own struggles as people do not fake happiness and having a great life all the time. It is liberating to be able to say that life is not great and it is comforting that you are not alone in your struggles.
I’m from Australia and my 3 weeks in Finland in winter was the best 3 weeks of my life. We went from Helsinki to lake inari and back and saw so many beautiful places and amazing things and met so many awesome people. I absolutely adore Finland.
Fake smile is not happiness. You’re welcome.
Standing in a queue at K market with 2 of my friends , people behind and in front of us in the line , at least 4/5 in front and 3/4 behind us
My friend leaves the queue to go get something and returns not even 15 sec later and rejoins with us, yes he’s black so this could’ve been racism or just an unwritten rule we had no idea about but the elderly lady directly in the queue behind us lost it with him and kept repeatedly saying “are you crazy?” He apologised and offered to go to the back and she just said no
My American husband has seen so many things that shocked him culturally but I think my favorite was when we were walking through our neighborhood to go somewhere and a group of little kids who were playing outside ran past us. Their little sibling, maybe 5 years old, just ran past us butt naked down the street pushing his toy truck as he went. My husband just stared at me and it took him a good minute to even say anything lmao he was shaking his head and kept saying “wow”. I asked him what was wrong, do y’all not have naked kids running around your neighborhoods 🤣
It’s definitely something we still laugh about. Obviously kids here in Finland aren’t naked all the time and in the kid’s defense it was a hot summer day and they had a kiddie pool out lmao little dude was just cooling off in a socially acceptable way!
Weirdest thing I experienced is that my gf and I were on a bus on the way to the train station, there was no seats available so we were standing in the middle section.
A woman came over and started talking to us(Which is unusual in Finland) and some guy followed her. She looked kinda stressed out and we realised that the guy was making her uncomfortable so she came over to us as a kind of rescue.
The guy was either drunk or high and smelled bad, he was also pseudo aggressive, making passive aggressive comments, he was obviously frustrated.
Shortly after that, the guy got off the bus. At which point she explained that he was trying to exchange a bike that he’d presumably stolen for sex.
Also this was in the middle of the daytime.
So that was an interesting day ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
Suomalaisten ikuinen ’mitä muut ajattelevat meistä’ uteliaisuus 😊
People pushing me in public and not saying sorry. I am so used that if I cause the slightest inconvenience to someone I’m almost begging for forgiveness but here it is just understood that if you’re in a crowded place you’ll bump into people so nobody apologizes nor expects an apology.
True, Finns are so closed off that it’s difficult to smile.
36 comments
Salmiakki
Finns
Yes.
I am pretty sure the problem with that survey was that they asked people who are living a comfortable lifestyle.
There are a lot of people (any growing) living pay cheque to pay cheque who would have a different outlook on life.
This survey reminds me of the saying
“don´t piss on my shoes and tell me it´s raining”
I was an American exchange student and on my first day of school (1989) at TYK in Tampere they served mustamakkara for lunch.
I ate it, but I wasn’t super excited about the flavor.
Half-napping on the bus home I imagined this sickly cow with a long piece of surgical tubing sticking out of it dripping blood into an aluminum bucket. A metallic “drip, drip, drip”, I imagined hearing it hitting the bottom of the bucket.
Seeing bottles of blood on the shelf in the supermarket was new, too.
Still vivid 36 years later.
We also had split pea soup, näkkileipä, and some kind of watered down mehua, all three of which I think we had essentially every day. I never got tired of those, oddly enough. I also turned out to be autistic, so relatively bland, monotonous food was never a problem.
Finland might be the worlds happiest, but not Finnish people.
Best
It’s more like least unhappy, rather than most happy. Most people would say things are not great but not terrible. Other countries you got way more of the extreemes while everyone here is pretty much neutral
Finnish Christmas food. I’d never tell Finns to stop tradition ofc but my wife and most of her family have said: “We all hated the food at one point but when you eat it enough times you just start to deal with it”. My wife however still hates the food.
I’d rather just eat food that I liked at the start rather than force myself to eat something honestly. So it’s definitely a tradition I’ll be taking a miss for I’m afraid. No offence intended ofc.
In Finland we also have a saying:
“Ken onnen löytää se onnen kätkeköön”
Which roughly translates to
“Who finds happiness should hide it”
and I think we do that pretty well
Se on tonnin seteli
Obligatory I am Finnish but my spouse isnt, some notable observations of theirs:
– ”Any questions?” And an already painfully quiet group somehow gets even more quiet, everyone is avoiding eye contact, everyone is nearly holding their breath. In class or other group events teachers/managers have to specifically push people to please talk to each other if there’s a group task, because unless people know each other beforehand, aint nobody socializing unless they are absolutely forced to. This doesnt seem to happen literally anywhere else in the world.
– Same people who dont dare to talk to strangers unless forced to, get offended if you dont want to come to sauna naked with them
– Coffee is served everywhere and mostly self-service style with the assumption of you are allowed unlimited refills with purchase, and most people do drink 2-3 cups
– There’s many unspoken social rules that make Finland very similar to Japan: extreme public politeness and consideration of others is expected, but not reinforced. Also because of the shy antisocial behavior, those who dont adhere to the unspoken rules often go unpunished and maybe never realize how much they disturb others, because no one goes to them to tell them to stop and that the whole bus/tram/train/space they are in is hearing them and glaring at them hoping they will understand their mistake. It is rude to make noise and annoy people, but it is super uncomfortable to go an confront someone about it. It feels more rude to call someone else out on being rude than the rude noisy behavior to begin with. Therefore it just continues but everyone else is silently stewing with anger.
Not that weird on it’s own, but the weirdest thing I experienced. Grocery shopping. Anything that needs to be weighed (fruits, veggies, pastries etc.) have their own code under the price. You put the stuff on a scale and choose the code on the screen (or board of buttons with numbers 1-200+) and it prints you the barcode sticker. I only saw this in Smarket and Kmarket. I remember my first time just ignoring all those those codes and just went up to check out without a single barcode, assuming the cashier does it. Had to go back and look for the codes for each item lol. I’ve been to many countries, but never saw something like this before. But now, I low-key think it’s a pretty good idea.
We are better than Swedes at happiness. Thats all that matters.
When I was out jogging I saw a woman in the distance who was walking in my direction. As we got within greeting distance she looked at me and then turned me her back instead of risking having to say hi. As a Swede I think I understand their culture and that the intention was to give me privacy as well as herself but it’s kind of a weird thing to have in your culture.
Mission impossible: Non native being able to not mention this meme in every conversation about fins
In between sad and maniacally smiling.
Checks out.
It’s happiest because the sad peiple keep killing themselves.
If memory serves me, the metric is moreso measuring general life satisfaction. People have stability, healthcare and all the basic necessities met.
The weirdest thing at first is going to the sauna naked with your family or coworkers. But it’s not actually weird. we’re just not used to their culture, and we don’t think like they do. The longer you live in Finland, the more it all starts to make sense. Finns see everyone as human beings nothing more, nothing less.
Wife carrying race. And it is not even remotely close to the next thing I might consider weird. Thankfully, only seen it, not taken part in any of the roles. Tree climbing race might be among the coolest, but also just a tiny bit peculiar.
I still cant get over the fact that Finland doesnt have free public healthcare. That shock has been with me for months and I still can’t believe how close to American the system is here. Coming from a poorer country that DOES have it, it’s just too unbelievable
Citing law to justify actions.
I couldn’t count the times I have heard someone using the Nürnberg defense.
Happiest is wrong word, content is more fitting.
I actually think the difference is linguistic and Finnish culture basically valuing humbleness very high.
Buying a house was surreal. In the US, it’s basically financial+legal warfare where you try to screw the other party as much as possible. Here it’s like the most peaceful cooperative thing.
My theory for the Finnish happiness is that we complain freely about our lives.
If you need to fake that everything is ok to everyone while thinking that everybody else is having a great life you will end up feeling extremely alone with your struggles. Here you know that everybody else has their own struggles as people do not fake happiness and having a great life all the time. It is liberating to be able to say that life is not great and it is comforting that you are not alone in your struggles.
I’m from Australia and my 3 weeks in Finland in winter was the best 3 weeks of my life. We went from Helsinki to lake inari and back and saw so many beautiful places and amazing things and met so many awesome people. I absolutely adore Finland.
Fake smile is not happiness. You’re welcome.
Standing in a queue at K market with 2 of my friends , people behind and in front of us in the line , at least 4/5 in front and 3/4 behind us
My friend leaves the queue to go get something and returns not even 15 sec later and rejoins with us, yes he’s black so this could’ve been racism or just an unwritten rule we had no idea about but the elderly lady directly in the queue behind us lost it with him and kept repeatedly saying “are you crazy?” He apologised and offered to go to the back and she just said no
My American husband has seen so many things that shocked him culturally but I think my favorite was when we were walking through our neighborhood to go somewhere and a group of little kids who were playing outside ran past us. Their little sibling, maybe 5 years old, just ran past us butt naked down the street pushing his toy truck as he went. My husband just stared at me and it took him a good minute to even say anything lmao he was shaking his head and kept saying “wow”. I asked him what was wrong, do y’all not have naked kids running around your neighborhoods 🤣
It’s definitely something we still laugh about. Obviously kids here in Finland aren’t naked all the time and in the kid’s defense it was a hot summer day and they had a kiddie pool out lmao little dude was just cooling off in a socially acceptable way!
Weirdest thing I experienced is that my gf and I were on a bus on the way to the train station, there was no seats available so we were standing in the middle section.
A woman came over and started talking to us(Which is unusual in Finland) and some guy followed her. She looked kinda stressed out and we realised that the guy was making her uncomfortable so she came over to us as a kind of rescue.
The guy was either drunk or high and smelled bad, he was also pseudo aggressive, making passive aggressive comments, he was obviously frustrated.
Shortly after that, the guy got off the bus. At which point she explained that he was trying to exchange a bike that he’d presumably stolen for sex.
Also this was in the middle of the daytime.
So that was an interesting day ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
Suomalaisten ikuinen ’mitä muut ajattelevat meistä’ uteliaisuus 😊
People pushing me in public and not saying sorry. I am so used that if I cause the slightest inconvenience to someone I’m almost begging for forgiveness but here it is just understood that if you’re in a crowded place you’ll bump into people so nobody apologizes nor expects an apology.
True, Finns are so closed off that it’s difficult to smile.
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