A bit of humour
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prozac
Senior Member
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- Jan 7, 2010
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The more you travel Northbound in Europe, the more people become quiet and especially reserved. The most extreme example of this phenomenon definitely is the nonexistence of small talk in Finland.
Finnish people do not know what small talk is — it is nonexistent in their language, and some children only lear about small talk when learning English in school:
They were taught at school that they had to make small talk in English because foreigners do. And that actually they didn’t even know about small talk outside the English lessons.
(The last quote was taken from The Helsinki Times, but I could not retrieve the original newspaper article.)
Talking to fill up silences is not done — that’s why sudden silences at Finnish receptions or other social gatherings can last for minutes at a time. Your Finnish companions don’t mind the silence at all — why talk about something without having a good, relevant reason ? — but you might find it rather uncomfortable.
The same conversations can also happen in other Nordic places such as Trondheim, Tromsø and the like, for that matter (that’s where I encountered them myself), but I like those silences a whole lot better than constant American-like babbling — as if some people are afraid of the absence of the notes.
But not the Finnish vikings.
They let the silence be, so do not even try to fill it up with noise —
And never EVER start about the weather.
Finnish people do not know what small talk is — it is nonexistent in their language, and some children only lear about small talk when learning English in school:
They were taught at school that they had to make small talk in English because foreigners do. And that actually they didn’t even know about small talk outside the English lessons.
(The last quote was taken from The Helsinki Times, but I could not retrieve the original newspaper article.)
Talking to fill up silences is not done — that’s why sudden silences at Finnish receptions or other social gatherings can last for minutes at a time. Your Finnish companions don’t mind the silence at all — why talk about something without having a good, relevant reason ? — but you might find it rather uncomfortable.
The same conversations can also happen in other Nordic places such as Trondheim, Tromsø and the like, for that matter (that’s where I encountered them myself), but I like those silences a whole lot better than constant American-like babbling — as if some people are afraid of the absence of the notes.
But not the Finnish vikings.
They let the silence be, so do not even try to fill it up with noise —
And never EVER start about the weather.
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