Skip to main content

Finland's mark



Today in Finnish class I went up to a Nepali classmate and asked him if he knew a Nepali song that I have been obsessed with for the past two weeks. I told him that I was in love with the song but couldn’t understand a word so could he please translate it? In the middle of asking my question I realized he had no idea what I was talking about and that this was really awkward but it was too late to back out so I ploughed ahead anyway. The result was that I avoided him for the rest of class. But part of me didn’t care. Being in a new country gives you thick skin for awkward encounters.

Being in a new country also shapes you and molds you into a different version of yourself. A friend of mine wisely said that “where you live leaves a mark on you.” I’m still only a couple months into my two year long stay here in Finland but it is leaving a mark already.

On our way to Naantali, a town 18 km away from Turku.
There are the little things. I drink coffee (well, half of it is milk and sugar but still, baby steps). I wear reflectors now. With the winter being so dark, multiple people have said reflectors are an important way to avoid accidents when you have to walk both to class and back home in darkness. Biking is my preferred means of transportation and has forced me to learn to bundle up. And after years of my mother unsuccessfully imploring me to wear a hat, I now don’t leave the apartment without one.

I have taken charge of my education and social life as well. These are two very broad topics and probably deserve posts of their own but I will be brief here. In Finnish higher education, most of the learning is done by yourself rather than in class. The result is that you need to take the initiative to read, discuss and complete assignments without a teacher breathing down you neck. Most of the readings that are due for classes aren’t ever mentioned by the teacher. And socially, I have transformed into a planner to prepare for the impending winter. Keeping an active social life, I have
heard, keeps the winter blues away.

Some of my lovely classmates at our first potluck.
Subtle changes add up and sometimes I wonder how it will feel to go back to the US after two years of living here. Turku feels like home and has already made many of the changes I wanted to make on my lifestyle but was never able to back in the States. But as that same wise friend said, I haven’t seen a Finnish winter yet so we shall see how much I love this country in December. But to quote the Finns (and Game of Thrones) winter is coming.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Working Identities

The halls of a TC building where I must be a doctoral student It’s been a while since my last post. To be honest, I haven’t done much besides school work, to the point that the I no longer know what to tell people when they ask me what my hobbies are. Which also means I feel a constant looming pressure of knowing I live in a big city with a reputation for never sleeping yet I spend my weekends holed up in my room or in the library (and the occasional coffee shop). This is not to say that I spend all of my time doing doctoral work. I have found two outlets in the form of jobs that have enriched this semester in ways that I didn’t expect. One is at a preschool, the other is working at the Graduate Writing Center consulting students working on academic writing projects. After not working for two years, I had forgotten what it feels like to be part of something that allows for change that you can actually see. Teaching is always rewarding as you watch children grow and marvel...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Waltz

At a Finnish wedding, the tradition is for the newlyweds to dance to a wedding waltz during their reception. It doesn’t matter what kind of wedding it is, the waltz is an essential part of the program. I hate the waltz. Compared to the Latin dances that I have been learning, the waltz is too stately and prudish to be of much fun. So I have jokingly told my boyfriend that at our wedding we will not be dancing the waltz. In part this is to gauge his response to my presumption that we are getting married (a bit sneaky, I know). In part it is also to make sure he knows that I am most definitely not Finnish (though I tell him that I am 50% Finnish, 50% Indian and 40% American). When I last told him there would be no waltz at our wedding, my boyfriend didn’t flinch at this challenge, to his immense credit. He just laughed. At which point I realized I didn’t even know how to waltz, which only made him laugh even more. Somehow, after this exchange, he decided to put on some wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spot of Tea

I didn’t like tea for most of my life. Mami, my aunt, very strongly discouraged us from drinking tea, telling us “gitte reh jaoge (you will remain short)” any time we voiced a desire to have some. This was said so many times that we regarded it as a cold, hard fact. Unfortunately for Mami, seeing her only once every two years meant that we grew older rather quickly between visits and she didn’t have many opportunities to continue telling us this piece of wisdom before our heights were pretty much set in stone and could no longer be threatened by a cup of hot chai. For Western children, they outgrew Santa Clause. We outgrew Mami’s alarmism. My parents drinking their afternoon cup. But Mami’s efforts did not go in vain. Having never drank tea habitually as children, we didn’t feel any affinity to it as young adults. I was accustomed to seeing my parents’ elaborate morning ritual of going for a walk, making tea, and drinking tea while reading the paper. Every aspect of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more