In 2006 I am walking on Mannerheimintie and trying to stop a cab. It is midday and the season has propelled most Finns to the Center, Helsinki downtown . Proud of my New York-ish skills we tried everything and no cab stopped. The Finnish cabs of course are organized and respectful of those stops where they might take on and take off passengers. Nowhere else. We wonder what is wrong with these people. We are two Peruvians, different generations but the core of us is still pervaded with what some people would call informality and others flexibility.
Since then, and during the last 7 years later I have been extremely lucky to visit Helsinki regularly. It has led me to understand hands on more about myself and the world in general. And in turn those visits - all of them - I have begun to understand the relativity of concepts like home.
Because of all trips have been because of business, I have faced the oh-so-different culture at work. 180 degree difference than Peru, where one tends to engage in “social intercourse” before kicking off business. Chit chat is no-no. Being straight is rewarded, relationships are secondary or less, most of the time. Time is of the essence. It can be a brick on your head, that is how it feels.
The language is the one way to learn about the culture, so I started to learn Finnish. I think very highly of me and my intellectual capacities, Finnish proved to be something challenging from a grammatical point of view, from all views actually. What surprised me the most is how the gender difference is quite minimal than other languages. How do you know if it is a she or a he I candidly would ask? Why should you? We are all the same.
There was also the unforgettable time when I was strolling at night and this man started yelling at me from the opposite sidewalk . I ignored him and his yelling but he would not stop. I assumed this man was drunk and -honestly - flirting with me because of my exotic South -american type . Well, it turns out, he was trying to save my life. As the snow was being cleaned from one of the roofs and thrown into the sidewalks I was very close to becoming a headline or more like head-less story in the Herlsinki Sonomat.
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I learnt about SISU head on, when in winter one literally lives in the darkness. One gets up in the darkness, one heads to work while own’s biological clock argues it is still night. The day goes by, a few hours of light shyly show up during office hours. And then , it is dark again. Most of the time i was in meetings anyway, so I saw no light. The first day, I remember clearly, I woke up I thought half of the population would not show up at the office. I was oh so very wrong. Finns, like soldiers, very well groomed and dressed up for work, march to the bus stops, to the trams , to their cars . It is part of the game. Pretty much nobody talks to you during this time of the season, no stranger I mean, i came to my own personal conclusion that it takes too much to just deal with yourself and get out of bed that asking to extend kindness as if this were Zuma beach.... Like a trooper I dressed up in black, with I am sure more underlayers than them and headed where I needed to go. Snow. More Snow. I learned.
The skiers solely take over some trails during winter, which I ventured myself running, basically messing them up with my tracks. I was greeted with weird looks. Some people again yelled at me..in Finnish... . and because of the running high - I was oblivious to all of them. It did not matter I was the only one running for around 4 hours, my head could not perceive anything wrong in the situation.
It forced me to live in the slow lane - even though for some people Helsinki is fast paced ...ask Porvoo people. Finns waiting at the checkout lane did not seem to bother I had 50 things to pay for (which I could not carry BTW) , they would still not go first when I offered. ‘There is time’. Well, not here, not in California. Of course, and there was the self measuring and the self bagging in supermarkets... . How many eggs do I need today? one? There is of course the super advanced recycling which is by itself an art. I met people who could not entertain the idea of disposing one plastic bottle, not once in their lives. Much karma to pay on my side.
Yes, the winter is tough. But there is a fundamental lesson they learn with every season and that is that everything is in flux all the time. I am sure they know more at a personal level what impermanence is than most of us. This too shall pass.
At first I fought the culture , resented and then I adopted it as much as possible . It helped to unveil a part of me which was dormant and for some strange reason extremely familiar with their ways of living. I have always liked after all going on my own for lunch, recharging in solitude. Home is (reference to the Matrix) after all a word. What matters is the connection.
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