One girl once said to me how she absolutely loves Hel Looks. It’s a fashion blog in Helsinki. I look at it and think the people look a bit silly. Then I feel stupid for not “getting it”.

Somebody also once commented on how Finnish girls always wear scarves, sometimes two at a time. It’s so true. Scarves are everywhere. The same as water bottles, these girls are obsessed with carrying a water bottle that they refill with tap water. Freaky.

Two Finnish scarf-wearers and a water bottle

It’s also come to my attention that one person found the Finnish way to dress admirably ethnic. It’s true in the sense that the Finnish dress in a unique way. It’s a peculiar bunch walking out there. In Sweden they’re like a clone army.

Anywhere else a goth walking down the street would draw attention because they’d stick out. In Finland a guy with a long black leather coat and what look like black spice girls shoes is a perfectly normal occurrence. I always smile when I see a goth abroad because they remind me of home. They must think I’m a bit dim.

But what is uniquely Finnish is the shell suit, tuulipuku. Old couples wear matching tuulipukus and it’s become a symbol of the regular folk. It’s a real double whammy if you spot a couple wearing matching shell suits and crocs.

In my current work, I deal a lot with visitor groups and make restaurant reservations. Everytime I book a meal for a group of Finns, I need to be careful with the order as there’s likely to be people with celiac disease, lactose intolerance, fish allergies and nut allergies.

I have friends who seem to attract all the possible allergies; in addition to the usual dietary ones they have a dust allergy, asthma, oversensitivity to fragrances, atopic dermatitis and get hay fever every summer .  

You can imagine this makes for interesting orders at restaurants abroad - most of them can’t quite fathom the concept of lactose intolerance or celiac disease. I’m dreading the day they serve pistachios to a nut allergic or pastry to someone with wheat allergy.

The abundance of allergies in Finland has led to some rather peculiar restrictions. 

Rekku, Musti and Jeppe are not welcome in Finnish shops

Finns for example are shocked to see dogs inside a shop, let alone in restaurants. Even bringing them on public transport is frowned upon.

There are signs that you shouldn’t wear perfume when travelling with public transport or flying on a plane. At kids’ birthday parties there might be three different kinds of cakes to cater for the need of all the kids present.

Some say it’s this superhygienic approach to everything that initially led to all the allergies. Who knows, we might be better off with carpeted floors after all. (Finns hate carpet floors)

So I hereby start a campaign to bring dogs everywhere with you. This obviously has nothing to do with my urge to get a dog.

Well for Finland that’s more like two.

Whenever I meet a new Finn abroad, I’m almost certain we have mutual acquintances – especially as they’re likely to have lived abroad for a while, hung out with a similar group of people and studied a similar subject.

When I meet Finn in Finland it’s still a similar case. Except there’s a higher chance we’re actually related since my dad has like a 100 cousins, me and my sister have probably hundreds of second cousins we know nothing about.

Whenever there’s a new celebrity in Finland, there’s always someone saying: “Yeah, I went to school with her” or “He’s my cousin’s teacher.”

I’ve met a Finnish girl in Newcastle who happened to be from the same (relatively) small town as I am and who was friends with my cousin. Some Finnish guys got kidnapped in East-Timor years ago, one of them was my classmate’s dad’s boss. One popular artist when we were kids was my friend’s teacher’s husband.

The list goes on forever really. There’s always a connection.

Yesterday it was announced that my awesome friend Anne is going to be the host of the Finnish national Eurovision selection. Today her brother wrote on her facebook-wall that one of the contestants is his boss’ daughter.

It’s a small world. And, by the way, now you all know Finnish celebrities by proxy as well.

But if you thought Finland is close-knit, it’s even worse in Estonia. There everyone really knows each other. Or that’s what it seemed like with my friend Triin.

I always feel like somebody's watching me

Finns are taught it’s rude to stare. So we avert our eyes all the time. Sure, there might be a person walking around naked but it would be rude to stare. Oh yea, I did see that guy in a pink tutu singing a Spice Girls song but I didn’t want to stare.

These are just your everyday responses to something’s that is very innate in us.

Not so in Belgium. When you walk down to street, prepare to be stared at – especially if you’re a girl. No matter if you’re wearing your sweats or a mini-skirt, the stares will follow you everywhere.

Even at the bus when you’re facing someone and sitting there for 30 min you might think that a stare would be awkward. In Finland you might steal an occasional embarrassed glance but in Belgium you’re more likely to get a full-on wide-eyed stare for the whole trip.

Finns have mastered the technique for averting their eyes from other people and are experts in staring out of the window or simply facing the ground all the time. In Belgium there’s no shame in looking.

Most people won’t notice the difference because they’re so used to their own environment but juxtapose countries like Finland and Belgium you’ll definitely notice the difference.

We all have our own way of dealing with it but the Finns have their own particularities even in this case.

I would claim there are five stages to culture shock:

1. The stressing bit
• Moving to a new country, dealing with the local bureaucracy, trying to grasp your head around the whole small talk concept… All these will puzzle a little Finn.Not to mention the whole notion of arriving to a new country without a place to live – the ultimate test for the organised Finn.
2. The OMG-I-LOVE-THIS-PLACE-FINLAND-SUCKS-YEYEY bit
• When you make those new friends, you find the cheapest watering holes in town and discover that the people are a lot more friendly and smiley and the alcohol is a gazillion times cheaper than in Finland.
3. The Routine
• When you finally figured out that in order to do anything, you need to carry around your last gas bill. Or you should say sorry or please or “ummfffff” (that I made up) all the time.Essentially when you don’t feel obliged to go to every party just to meet new people and have finally settled on a possé of your own.The little things that you get to know after a while that make you feel like you’ve properly settled in now.
4. The Fuck-my-life-I-just-want-to-go-home period
• It may come only after a few months, it might take years but eventually all you want to do is to complain about whatever stupid country you’re living in and compare it to Finland. Preferably you do this with other Finns.Most of your complaints will start by “But in Finland this always works out like this..” Because in Finland everything always works out. Usually follows a major disaster with local authorities or companies.
5. It is what it is
• The Acceptance. The country you live in might suck in some way. But you’ve also come into terms with the fact that Finland isn’t perfect either. You’re now permanently stuck between these two countries, mentally and physically.

With a show of hands, who’s experienced a culture shock?

And we’re always excited to see other Finns. Others try to play it cool and ask me why would they want to meet other Finns when they’re abroad but I know secretly they relish the fact we can complain about whatever bugs us in that country and do it in our own little hermit language.

If you pair up two Finns in a party, they’re excited to see each other and will start going through a list of mutual friends. Americans on the other hand will try to hide the fact they’re American and dread the possibility of running into fellow countrymen. The Italians meet another Italian and just think “Oh yey, yet another…”

the Finnish mafia, organised like no other

Here in Brussels I’ve happened to run into a lot of Finns. Now I even work in an almost all-Finnish environment. I take part in events organised by the Finnish Association in Belgium and am a member of my party’s local Brussels branch.

I live with a Finn and whenever I go to a party, it’s likely I’ll bring a long a few of my friends – who might just happen to be Finnish.

This tendency to hang around with Finns prompted my Italian colleague to comment on it and claim that we’re like a Finnish mafia. I thought it had something to do with being a criminal organisation, but he assured me it all starts by knowing each other.

Who knows what we’ll evolve into.

Smoking, so passé

One of the reasons for my behavious is my Finnishness – people don’t smoke that much in Finland anymore. Among my close Finnish friends there’s not a single smoker – and maybe only one or two that do it when they’re drunk.

On the other hand, this spring I noticed most of my foreign friends were at least casual smokers. My dear colleagues at work had to constantly put up with my very informative messages on how smoking kills.

So I checked a few statistics. About 19% of Finns smoke, most of them older men. These days only about 14% of people aged 14 to 24 smoke. Finns (among with Norway and Sweden) smoke the least out of European countries.

We even have the world’s strictest tobacco law. Cigarettes are hidden away in shops, there are no cigarette-vending machines and under 18-year-olds aren’t allowed to carry cigarettes let alone buy them. Naturally you can’t smoke in any public place, including outdoor spaces where there are children around.

Most Finns who smoke are embarrassed by it. Buying cigarettes is expensive and smoking them is a strenuous task (finding a place where you can smoke). It’s no surprise really that fewer and fewer people smoke these days.

I remember when I was 14 and a good friend of mine told me she wanted to try smoking and then tried to bum a cigarette from another friend. I told her it’s a bad idea and also told the smoker-friend not to give her any. It worked that day and I don’t think that friend ever took up smoking. But you can tell I was a bit of a preacher back then already.

I’ve had this exact conversation about 100 times. How the discussion moves on from there depends on my mood; sometimes I take an educational approach and inform that not everyone is blonde and even those who are, can dye their hair. Or at times I let it go and apologise for my dark hair and point out at least I still have blue eyes.

I feel sorry for the Finns who have brown eyes and dark hair – poor things must have to carry passports with them at all times to prove their nationality.

The shock really kicks in when I reveal that I dye my hair and am actually far lighter than what I appear to be. Men get a sad, depressed look on their face as if I’ve destroyed something precious and the girls give me a wide-eyed stare and wonderer at my eccentricity.

Let me in on you a little secret – a lot of Finns dye their hair.

The reason for it is sometimes simple, it provides a nice change.Also, it’s a lot easier to dye light-coloured hair than it is to dye black hair. So we do it.

Red, blonde, brunette - I've done them all

Another reason for dying our hair is because the most common colour in Finland is mousy brown – or dirt road grey (maantien harmaa). Not attractive on anyone.

But blondes must have more fun, not having to answer whether they’re actually Finnish all the time. People just assume they’re Swedish. Ha!

Shock #1 was when we found out we had to wear a swimming cap at all times in the pool. Odd.

Shock #2 unisex changing rooms. They had tiny little cubicles in which you went to change and you were expected to emerge from the other side with your swimming suit on and all other belonging ready to be put into a locker.

Shock #3 open showers. There was only a small, 1m-tall wall separating the showers from the pool. You could easily see everyone in the pool and they could see you.

Shock #4 sauna cost extra.

What shocked me the most were the changing rooms and showers. Why the tiny cubicles and unisex changing rooms? Why did we have to wear the swimming suit on all the time – surely these people don’t shower with them on at home, why here?

A friend of mine who’s lived in Belgium for a while now summed it up fairly well: “In Belgium you’re never naked. Ever.”

That’s not the case in Finland. Or with Finnish people in general.

Sure, we seem like a reserved nation. We have our personal space. But nudity has nothing to do with that.

See, we have this thing called sauna. And reilu meininki.

Sauna is where naked men sit next to each other sweating without anybody thinking much of it. Where grannies and teenage girls chat about the weather or life – in the nude. If it’s at the summer house, then everyone will most likely run to the lake in the nude afterwards. At the pool, you’d just go take a shower. Naked obviously.

As a kid you think nothing of it. Mothers take their children who’re too young to go by themselves with them so sometimes there are little boys in the women’s changing room. Teenagers are a bit more self-aware and I remember not being entirely comfortable with being naked in front of my classmates. As an adult you know that there are women of all shapes, sizes and age around, you’re just one among many.

A friend of mine recently told me how they went to a summer house where they thought they wouldn’t have a lake so people didn’t bring their swimming suits. But turns out there was one so everybody went swimming – naked. One girl had brought hers but since everybody else (men and women) was naked she didn’t wear it.

So that’s the Finnish countryside for you, lots of naked people running around to the nearest pool of water.

But the nudity runs deeper than that. Sometimes the young men in our country drink a bit. At times they feel like clothes are a bit too constrictive so they take them off and run around naked in the streets. This happened a lot when we won the Ice-hockey World Championships.

I’m not saying the Belgian way of keeping your clothes on at all times is wrong. It’s just odd to a Finn.

Let’s start with statistics. Girls are likely to do better at school than boys. In fact, 53% of university students in Finland are women – and 64% of university students that graduate are women. Women are also more likely to do a PhD in Finland: 54.5% of PhD students are women.

So the girls are smart. They are also independendent because it’s intrinsic in our upbringing – individualism is highly valued. The Economist actually published this fantastic blog post about the Nordic welfare state and how the role of women has contributed to its success:

the family remains a central social institution in the Nordic countries, but it too is infused with the same moral logic stressing autonomy and equality. The ideal family is made up of adults who work and are not financially dependent on the other, and children who are encouraged to be as independent as early as possible.

Have a good think about it; have you met Finns abroad? Mostly girls, right? It’s no wonder really, they speak several languages and have already lived alone for several years. Some have boyfriends in Finland but they’re confident that their relationship will last even while they’re abroad – and it usually does. If someone has an amazing opportunity to go abroad and they’d refuse it because they’re dating… well that’s just crazy.

But back to basics. I rarely allow for someone else to carry my bag for me – it’s my stuff and since I’ve packed it I should be the one to carry it. Why whould some poor guy have to do it for me simply because of their sex?

Finnish women are survivors. Men get eaten by polar bears.

Finnish women also tend to be rather strong – physically and mentally. When we moved to our current flat we had to carry a mattress upstairs. I had an Italian friend helping us and he was amazed how my flatmate – a relatively tiny blonde girl – was lifting it up the stairs the same as he was.

Whenever somebody needs help in lifting things or assembling furniture, they’re likely to call my sister. She’s beautiful, tall and could probably beat you in arm-wrestling any day.

But just wait if you try to pay for our dinner – the reaction is likely to be anything from disbelief to annoyance. Why should a man pay for a woman? I don’t need to be taken care of financially – I’m not inferior. I work and make money just the same as they do. There’s just no logic there.

After all this, it’s likely to be no surprise that Finland as a country is a bit of matriarchy. Our president is a woman. Our former prime minister was a woman (still no new government but let’s not get into that). 42.5% of our MPs are women (compared with a European average of about 19%), 61.5% of our MEPs are women.

As a result, Finnish women tend to be a bit bossy. For this I apologise. Especially to my Italian colleague who has to deal with it every day.

Now it would logically follow after this that I would write about Finnish men. Unfortunately I know very little about them. I rarely meet one.