post 5 Protest for peace

Taisa from Brazil was keen on joining a protest on the first Sunday of our trip. Many journalists like to experience topical news so they were keen to join a peace march.

Finns and some tourists and immigrants marched against violence, in solidarity with Norway. This was following the attack by the terrorist or whatever he is; Brevik. The group like many groups in Finland was full of people with light blonde hair. However, as said not everyone was Finnish. This was the day I saw the first Indian person I would see in Finland. It was amusing to me because Taisa's friends, who were part of some sort of youth organisation wrote his name down for me but could not pronounce Singh properly.

Mr Singh was a reality or pop star. He seemed quite popular but I am not convinced he many interesting or inspiring things to say. Perhaps Finnish leader Tarja Halonen agreed with me and saw no need to visit the protest for peace. There were some Finns with signs saying, what now, Tarja. However, what did they expect, this was a march for peace. I am sure there have been a few in solidarity with Norway. Not being an expert on Scandinavian politics, I think this march went well. People did notice it; it was televised. I have heard that Halonen also visited Norway soon after the attack. I do not think that any conduct of any party around the attack has strained Finnish-Norwegian relations.

After marching to parliament and saying some slogans aloud, many in English, we marched to a park. This was fitting for this naturally beautiful country that is full of so many parks. At the park, there was one band and people were chilling. There was a language centre where people could practise speaking various languages with each other. The group in the march was composed of many young people and maybe they are more open to foreigners and their languages. However, I am not sure if the language lab was part of the march or a common occurrence in Finland.

Overall, it was an enjoyable Sunday afternoon.

Secrets of Nuuksio

TRAVEL: Finland, land of forests, saunas and magic

Finland, tucked away near the top of the world, is a country that few of my acquaintances have visited

ALISTAIR ANDERSON

Published: 2011/10/14 09:51:52 AM

Many countries boast natural beauty as a draw card — South Africa included. The natural beauty of Cape Town and the Drakensberg regularly feature on travel brochures. If you can sit outside while on holiday and relax, that is a plus. So, if an overseas destination offers natural beauty and good weather, it is worth a visit.

Finland is a country that few of my acquaintances have visited. It is not that it is dangerous or dead boring; it is just tucked away near the top of the world, and its citizens are not famous for letting the world know how proud of their country they are.

Upon landing at Vantaa airport, in the capital, Helsinki, I am overrun by trees. Hamish, a friend from South Africa, was right; Finland is a giant forest.

As I walk out of the airport, I wonder why I am not wearing shorts. It is as humid as Mozambique in January. Hamish did not mention the humidity, but he had been here in winter. He said it was -30° Celsius.

Having arrived on a Saturday, I spend the weekend visiting beaches and seeing the sites the city has to offer. But I start the first official week of my programme here (it is a business visit) by befriending trees.

Hamish said all he remembered about Finland were trees, trees and more trees. But he did not mention how beautiful these trees were. As much as 70% of the country’s land area is covered by forests. It is full of beautiful green structures and has more lakes than any other country — the combination is spectacular.

According to the website Forest.fi, Finland is the most extensively forested country in Europe. There are about 4,5ha of forest to every Finn, of which there are about 5-million. Aki, a Finn from the country’s embassy in South Africa who has visited Mpumalanga, says he saw many trees there too, but they looked planted for industry. Finland, instead, has maintained its forests, adding some trees, but always trying to make it hard for tourists to tell which are for industry.

It is Tuesday and, following a cruise along the Baltic Sea, my group is visiting Nuuksio national park. We take a bus from Helsinki and stop among — surprise! — some trees. We are going to experience some of the most beautiful forests in Finland. A man in a multicoloured cap, jeans and a lumberjack-type shirt greets us. What hair he has is quite light.

"Hello, I am Pekka and welcome to our forest. We go for a walk and then we drink coffee, OK? Coffee is wonderful," he says.

According to research by Alwyn van der Merwe, Sanlam Investment Management’s director of investments, Finns drink more coffee per capita than any other nation. The average Finn drinks 1,400 cups of coffee a year.

Pekka Väänänen’s company Green Window operates in Nuuksio. Judging by our 30-minute bus ride, one could argue Nuuksio is near the city. But there is no sign of city slickers other than my tour group.

"Don’t disturb the elves," Mari, a Finnish organiser, warns.

"There are elves? Do Finns really believe in magic?" I ask.

"I don’t know what you mean by magic but elves are real. You may just see one," she says.

Nuuksio’s valleys and gorges were created during the Ice Age. I know I will not see mammoths and other creatures from that time but elves — I am now determined to see one.

I did not see any elves in any forest but I was still able to be Fox Mulder of the X-Files for a few minutes. I spotted something that looked like a dog with wings and fangs. I was convinced it was la chupacabra, a mythical creature that kills goats in Latin America.

Back in Nuuksio, we are, I assume, halfway through our trip, when Pekka shows us a flower. I am not sure what it is called.

"Give it to a beautiful person. It will bring them luck" he says.

Well, I like my tour group, and the respective Finnish embassies in each of their countries chose well. I am looking around for a pretty person, and many of the girls already have flowers. I give mine to Ekatha from India. "I hope he’s right," I say.

Next, we pick blueberries. Pekka also picks mushrooms, showing us which are edible and which are also edible but with side effects.

"These ones will make your stomach unhappy. These red ones will make you see things and not sleep," he says. "But the blueberries go well with coffee."

It is slightly darker, so it must be nearly 8pm. We have been drinking average-strength coffee. Some people wet their feet in the lake in front of us, while I drink more.

Half an hour or so later, Pekka says the salmon he was smoking is ready. It is the finest I have eaten in my life; so juicy. I hear the food is from restaurant Metsätähti. It’s a Finnish surname. The boys drink copious amounts of wine with it, while the girls go to do something else that also involves smoke — "they go to sauna".

The rest of us also conclude the day by going to sauna, a popular but also spiritual activity in Finland. It is a tradition that came from people wanting to make their bodies stronger for the winters — to build their sisu, or strength of will.

Nowadays, Finns sauna throughout the year. It is a peaceful setting. I do not think intimacy accurately describes it but I feel stripped of stress.

* The writer was hosted by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

This piece was first published by Business Day, a part of the BDFM company.

Pekka loves Nuuksio.

Finnish Social Innovations - 1

Finland is famous for it's ability to innovate.

This is the first post in a series about social ideas that prevail in Finland.

1. Free School Meals

Students in comprehensive and high school get free meals in Finland. This cannot be cheap but SA spends tonnes of cash on education so maybe instead of giving loot to Setas, SA could buy cheap meals which would help children to concentrate.

Flights to Finland

It takes over 10 hours to get to Helsinki from Johannesburg. I flew via Frankfurt, Germany, with Lufthansa.

Lufthansa was a bit dull but the guys on the flight to Frankfurt were nice. They were two guys who were heading to Toronto, Canada to bury their father.

Finland's history is characteristic of Swedish and Russian history, for historical reasons. Finland was ruled by the Kingdom of Sweden for around 600 years and then ruled by Russia for a while. Luckily, in my view, Finland was not a part of the USSR. That's part of the reason it is now a well-functioning state. It also has an economy which has been managed with skill.
On my trip, I met a prominent Finnish historian called

Finland August Post 4 - The weekend before the program began

(Top: Cimo House from the outside - picture by Alistair Anderson)
(Second: Sight seeing: a pier in Helsinki - picture by Jelena Jorgaevic )

After landing in Helsinki on a Staurday at the end of July, I passed out on my bed. Together, two flights and in between waits, made for a long travel period. Before, I passed out, I was whisked from the airport. There I met Andrina, one of the organisers of the FCP and then, Mari, another organiser at the actual residence; Cimo House, where I would stay for most of the month.

Later that evening, we all met one another downstairs in the clubroom. I'm not sure why but I instigated a massive ice breaker where, in a cliched fashion, I suggested everyone say who they were and who they wrote for. We would probably do the same thing come the Monday morning.

It actually went quite well. A few people were still arriving late on the Saturday or on the Sunday but FCPers keep themselves busy. I am pretty sure we had already tasted some Koff beer on that Saturday night.

Taisa from Brazil had suggested on facebook a few days before that we attend a Norway peace march on the Sunday. The march followed the gun and bomb attacks in Norway which occurred a week or so before I went to Finland.

On Sunday, we wandered around the city. Bobby from the United States who arrived on the Friday, had already been for a few walks but he showed us what he thought he was interesting. I wanted to "get lost" in the city for the day before the march, which I did. A highlight was the orthodox church, where people were getting married. Around 80% of Finns belong to the Lutheran church but some 1,1% of Finns are Christian Orthodox. Most Finns are not churchgoers and about 20% of them do not have a religion or have not submitted statistics on their religion. Finland also has Jewish, Muslim and other religious minorities.

A search on Wikipedia, brought up this interesting fact, with respect to Jewish people:

"There are about 1,300 Jews in Finland, 800 of whom live in Helsinki and most of the remainder live in Turku."

"During World War II, Finnish authorities refused to deliver Jews to the Nazis, and the country's Jewish community survived the war virtually intact."

I found it interesting to see the wedding which was full of decoarations.

By three pm or so, we went to the march for Norway. Many people there were calling it a protest but, in that case, it was the most peaceful protest I have ever been to.

It was led by an Indian singer-turned-politician called something Singh. I was chatting with a bunch of Finnish people there and it seemed only I could spell and pronounce his surname properly. I have lived in South Africa, alongside hundreds of thousands of Indian people so it makes sense. It did throw me back a bit nevertheless. I did not expect to see a horde of blonde people following an Indian man around. Although, Helsinki is somewhat multi-ethnic and cultural. It is not as mixed as some other cities but it is to a noticeable extent. People shoudl not expect it to be much more mixed; Finland only has 5-million people living in it, it has harsh winters, and it's far from Africa and parts of Asia.

Finland August Post 3 - Why do they fear us?

While visiting Finland for a program organised by the country's ministry of foreign affairs, Business Day journalist, Alistair Anderson, scared many Finnish people. Not because he was badly behaved but rather because South Africans are "dangerous".

In a supermarket in Helsinki on Saturday night, Mr Anderson was accosted by someone he assumed to be a Finn with an agenda. The Finn made jokes about how people could not buy pies in Finland among other unusual characteristics of the country (such as how they drink milk all day). Mr Anderson was not sure why these idiosyncrasies were funny but Finns have a strange sense of humour.

After Mr Anderson did not laugh, the comedian asked him where he was from.

"I'm from the other side of the world," he said.

"From where?"

"South Africa," Mr Anderson said which prompted the unusually talkative Finn to say: "I'm not messing with you," and to run off.

The Insider doubts New Zealanders will show similar fear when they meet South African rugby fans this month.

(A version of this was published in Business Day on Tuesday September 6 2011).

Finland August Post 2 - Culture and Customs

(Group photo in the Nuuksio forest)

Stereotypes are true. If they were not true, they would not exist.

When I boarded a plane for Finland, via Germany, I was nervous. I had heard that Finland was a very different country from South Africa. Apparently, it had an education system that benefited far more people than SA's did. It had little corruption. Newsweek voted it the best country to live in. I did not expect it to be as good as that. But from a cultural perspective, I did expect something different. Let's be honest, Finnish people are not really in world news very often, unless they are driving rally cars or striking oil with a company like Nokia - not that common for them or any country. And when Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen win races they hardly brag, which maybe makes them less interesting for celeb tabloids too.

Well, Finns are not that strange in terms of their customs but they are distinct. Their obsession with saunas is a tad unhealthy. Although, I am sure people do get into very personal conversations in winter in Finnish saunas, when the outside is unrelenting. I am not sure that the winter is that nasty, as a travel brochure that came with my ticket to Finland said the average temperature in winter was -10 degrees celsius. Discussions about Finnish weather can wait for another blog post, however.

Anyway, back to culture shock.

When people travel to countries or even cities or towns they do not know much about or have not been to before, they often experience culture shock. One needs to adapt to unusual ways of living. It can be frustrating but also rewarding. However, the culture shock I experienced early and even during my trip was intense, just one aspect of the trip that beat my expectations.

That was magnified by me meeting people from 20 countries. It was basically like experiencing culture shock 21 times. Did I survive it? Did I thrive within it? You would have to ask the 20 other people on the trip and the organisers to find out if I did. I will tell you that I would probably have drained out Bobby from the US's singing in the streets if I had stayed with him for a few months but I did not within a month. He is a good singer but there are only so many Sinatra covers that a person can handle. I really am not a fan of Michael Buble.

I feel I gained valuable insight about life because I saw how people from other lands reacted to a new land and to each other's land. This made my FCP trip more useful than I originally imagined it would be.

Moving onto Finnish customs, I can say that Finns' reservedness is clear from how they communicate with one another and especially foreigners. They greet people from arms length. They shake hands. They do not kiss each other hello. They only hug people they know well. These are all quite South African traits, so I was not that phased.

What were much more interesting, were the habits of certain people in my FCP group. I will blog about the more unusual or entertaining ones in later posts.

On a side note, Finns take their shoes off at the door. Apparently this is true of 1-in-2 Finns, one of the speakers told my group in one of our early lectures. I think it is true of almost all Finns. I left my shoes in Savo as a result but lucky I got them back in Helsinki.

Finland August Post 1 - My Scintillating Suomi August

Kippies to new friends

I'm not sure that August 2011 was the best month of my life. Some incredible and good things may have happened to be in other months of my life, which are still significant to me. Nevertheless, last month was filled with brilliance. I met interesting people and enjoyed excellent hospitality. Last month, I lived in a Finnish bubble.

But why was I in Suomi (Finnish for Finland)? Every year, 20 journalists from selected countries can apply to a scholarship where they visit and learn about Finland. It starts on August 1st and ends four weeks later. It includes briefings on Finland today, meetings with professionals, politicians and other folks and visits to business enterprises, cultural sites and institutions. It includes a weekend as a guest of a Finnish family as well as visits to different parts of Finland.

Before applying to Finland's Foreign Correspondents Programme (FCP), I had wanted to visit the country but it was not at the top of my "things to do list" and I did not expect to visit it within the next few years. If anything, I would have stayed maximum a week in Helsinki or Lapland and then would have gone to Sweden or Latvia. Therefore, the FCP looked like a nice programme when I stumbled upon it on the Internet a few months ago. However, a few days into the programme, to call it nice would be to insult it. I may have been a bit too busy with my formal programme to see as much of the nightlife and other events and to get to know some Finns, a clearly reserved people, as I would have liked, but I enjoyed so many activities.

This series of posts opens my travel blog. Outside of SA, I have been to Germany, Scotland, England and Mozambique before and I may write some blog pieces on them in future but, I am beginning with Finland.

Alistair Anderson