You just described Jack Sparrow. Sorry. CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow.

The tag “trying to be funny” kind of says it all. Phil, you should probably just shut up and eat your Rogaine.

It’s not Rogaine, it’s Propecia.

You call it “quirky”, in Britain one calls it “eccentric”, it’s all good.

a bit of a rewrite…

Pekka, an expatriate Finnish man visiting California, was recently diagnosed as clinically depressed, tanked up on anti-depressants and scheduled for controversial Shock Therapy when doctors realised he wasn’t depressed at all – only Finnish.

Mr Pekka, whose characteristic pessimism and gloomy perspective were
interpreted as serious clinical depression, was led on a nightmare journey through the American psychiatric system. Doctors described Pekka as suffering with Pervasive Negative Anticipation – a belief that everything will turn out for the worst, whether it’s trains arriving late, Finland’s chances at winning any international sports event or even his own prospects to get ahead in life and achieve his dreams.

“The satisfaction Mr Pekka seemed to get from his pessimism seemed
particularly pathological,” reported the doctors.

“They put me on everything – Lithium, Prozac, St John’s Wort,” said Mr
Pekka. “They even told me to sit in front of a big light for an hour a
day or I’d become suicidal. I kept telling them this was all pointless and they said that it was exactly that sort of attitude that got me here in the first place.”

Running out of ideas, his doctors finally resorted to a course of “weapons grade amphetamine”, the only noticeable effect of which was six hours of speedy repetitions of the phrases “mustn’t grumble” and “not too bad, really”.

It was then that Mr Pekka was referred to a psychotherapist.

Dr Isaac Horney explored Mr Pekka’s family history and couldn’t believe
his ears.

“His story of a childhood growing up in a grey little town where it rained every day, gloomy snow-filled streets of identical houses and passionately backing a hockey team who never won, seemed to be typical depressive ideation or false memory. Mr Pekka had six months of therapy but seemed to mainly want to talk about the weather – how miserable and cold it was in winter and later how difficult and hot it was in summer. I felt he wasn’t responding to therapy at all and so I recommended drastic action – namely ECT or shock treatment”.

“I was all strapped down on the table and they were about to put the rubber bit in my mouth when the psychiatric nurse picked up on my accent,” said Mr Pekka. “I remember her saying ‘Oh my God, I think we’re making a terrible mistake’.” Nurse Alice Sheen was from Upper Peninsula Michigan, and recognized the descriptions. Identifying Mr Pekka as Finnish changed his diagnosis from ‘clinical depression’ to ‘rather quaint and charming’ and he was immediately discharged from hospital, with a selection of brightly coloured leaflets and an “I love California” T-shirt.

@5,

Yeah it’s all cultural-dependent. From American perspective Finns seem depressed and from Finnish perspective Americans seem narcissistic:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder Symptoms

9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

LOL!! Great story, Hank!

@6 I think the Finnish people get blamed on a few of those points…
especially #8 , but what is missing is “is pathologically interested of what other people think of him”.

#5, resident psychologist of the household has told me a number of times, how psychological tests normalized for the americans give false depression alarms on finns. Also in bipolar disorder, finns tend to go deeper down in depression phase but not so high on manic phase.

About the article, I’m trying to figure out what would be “acceptable” behaviour for a man then? Going to work, playing sähly with workmates, drinking beer by the TV, watching the match, going to Las Palmas with wife once a year? I don’t know whether it’s about being from countryside, but I think great number of finnish males are not enough domesticated for that. Traditionally the house has been realm of the women while sons and husbands have spent long times working far away in the forest or fields. (or being traveling salesman, if karelian).

As a result, finnish guy needs some sort of refuge to hear his own thoughts and not being constantly harassed with 10 second timetables for folding the sheets and issuing statements on bottom widths in various garments. What could be better than having a little workshop in the basement or something similar. Especially, as the old rural- and working class culture had very high regard on skills of the hand.

I don’t recognize my father from the given description, but grandpa for sure. Attending war veterans skiing contest despite of constant warnings by doctors and relatives (the last one turned fateful)…And basement workshop producing pieces of furniture with pedantic wood carvings or sometimes kaleidoscopes and electric magnets for the first grandson. Yes, I’m trying to emulate with “garage physics” etc. but modern kids having seen it all, I’m afraid I’m not quite the magician to my son as grandpa was for me.

Wearing a white overall and a white butcher’s cap — while shouting the lyrics of drinking songs — is the stereotypical Nokia employee way to greet May 1st. It’s team building the Finnish way, no explanation necessary for Finns, no explanation possible for others. But “quirky” is a good description.

“…Always grinning while wearing a goofy hat…”
LOL

Well, my father was very old school finn. He teatched me to swim by throwing me from the pier to the lake. When I was able to scramble back to the shore he was very happy and said: See, you can swim and the water is nothing to be affraid.
He teached our dog to avoid the sauna by sticking its nose in to the red hot stove. Dog never came in to the sauna no matter what after that.
He showed to me and my brother how to make slingshots, throw a knife and axe, make ice balls instead of just snow ones during the winter to gain advantage over our enemies during the snow wars.
He teached me to drive my bicycle by putting me on it and pushing me down the hill. We did it so many times that I finally stayed up because the falls hurt too much.
He gave me my first knife when I was five. When I was ten, I had already nine scars in my left hand. I also learned to make fires in the woods, rain or snow. I also learned how to put fire in to the fireplace.
When I once loaded too many logs in to fire place, he let them fall out and told me to watch what kind of damage those burning blocks did to our summerhouse floor so I would learn when the fire escapes and turns in to a house fire. The I had to put it out.
When I was affraid the dark, he took me to his car, drove me about six kilometers away from our summer house and told me to get out. – You know where you are, he said. – It is six kilometers by the road and only two trough the woods. See you at the breakfast.
I was seven years old but I was proud when I was at the breakfast table before anybody else woke up. When my father woke up and saw me, he was very proud of me. – Fill the buckets at the sauna with water, all of them, he said.
When my older brother got caught first time for drinking at the age of eleven, my father threw him around couple times and then opened his own Kossu and took a sip, and offered one for my brother too. After that we did not discuss about alcohol again.
We had a tradition in my family that when ever my father was drunk, we had to wrestle with him and for real too. I remember when I was able to dislocate his spine disk and he dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes for the first time, he was proud of me. After that I was no longer a kid.
He has funny sayings. ” A man eats everything he orders”, ” Never trust the russians” and ” Swedes are sissies” and the old classic: “Never loose a fight for a guy smaller than you”. Also” It is not a shame to loose a fight if you can hurt the other guy”. He also quoted his favorite writer Väinö Linna often. He favorite was “Koskela from Finland, eats iron and shits chain.”
When he was diagnosed of cancer he warned everybody: I don’t want to hear any fucking thing about Jesus. He eventually won the fight with the cancer.
Once, when we were coming from our summerplace, we drove from there to Helsinki in just two and a half hours. Speed meter never went below hundred and twenty and topped at one ninety. When I got jitters because we were going sideways in curves with tyres screaming, he smiled and said: “You feel that? Nice when you are in control, isn’t it?”.
His uncle who was at the Tali-Ihantal in 1944 once decided to talk to me about the war. All he said was this: ” You know the battle of Tali-Ihantala? That was no fun”.

#10 isn’t that a Japanese “team-build” style as well?

I was just about to pick up the art of carving sauna door handles, when I read this. Now I am confused…

[i]- Obsessing over something bizarre like collecting and holding onto some old worthless junk.[/i]

This has my father’s name written all over it. It goes so far that we sometimes had to secretly get rid of old worthless junk, because dad wouldn’t have allowed it

Mum always nags to him about it, and dad just says “well, we might need the stuff some day”.. but who really needs a broken 25 years old washing machine or soil-less wellies?

Hmmm, on the other hand, it’s not necessarily the men only. Pudasjärvi ladies seem to be catching up.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cGQyOGDtNg8&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IeRlqp1e4T0&feature=related

Hey! I must say that your blog is very interesting! It’s fun to see what foreigners think of our country and of our ways. So, I have to say thank you very much for writing this! And keep it up dude! lov ya!

#13. Don’t know. Is it?

I used to live in Finland and I think that all forms of depression are equally found in both places- the difference is that Finnish culture accepts it as “normal” and even enjoys it and actually considers it inappropriate to feel too good, whereas American culture (which I really think has the right idea in this case) recognizes it as an illness that can and should be treated, for the sake of loved ones and society in general. The Finnish guy visiting California was depressed- just that his culture doesn’t expect him to do anything about it and the culture he was visiting does. Hank is right: Finns are actually more prone to Narcissistic Personality Disorder because they’ve endured so much emotional beating as part of their culture, that they have to act extremely proud to make up for it. Have you ever noticed that Finnish people are so quick to point out the faults of other cultures, but then when you tell a Finnish person that he has bad breath or that his flatulence really stinks, he becomes devastated that you could possibly find fault with him?

# 12 Sam the ham: what you describe is ABUSE. My Finnish father-in-law is like that and I am so relieved to be living halfway across the globe from his tyranny and boorish behavior.

The Emperor has no clothes. Finland is just as screwed up as any other society.

Yep, that’s my dad- creating strange things out of wood, so so many things; and yes, grinning while wearing a goofy hat, his was a toque, indoors and outdoors, summer or winter.

Great blog, I love it, and I love my dad for his quirkiness and, I must add, his brilliance at all he does.

Wow, another poor American who has been stuck here as long as I have.

Somehow or other, I have spent most of my dating life with Finnish men (How else do you think I got here in the first place?). I have spent a total of 12 years with two different, but equally “quirky” and frustrating specimens (not at the same time, obviously). Thus, as something of an expert on this topic, I have to say that you are right on the money.

One thing I disagree with, however, is that you CAN blame their fathers, because if their fathers weren’t so damn weird, the sons might have had a chance of turning out normal. On the other hand, I am not entirely convinced the mothers would do so much better..

Let’s see, quirky behavior.

-Believes that the center of Helsinki is best place in the universe, having to go further than Sornainen is “commuting” and requires a car, and anything outside the ring road is the middle of nowhere so why would anyone want to go there. And to be sure, why would anyone want to be anywhere other than in the center of Helsinki? Even though it’s all sh*t anyway?

-Who needs sleep when there are stamps to collect/computer games to play/annoying instruments to master (i.e. TRUMPETS)?

-Even if it’s moldy, you have to eat it.

-Video games are God’s gift to man– the only acceptable way to let out all that pent up rage you pile on going about your daily life (working a cushy job at Nokia or the University, parties and beer every weekend, nothing in the way of real hardships..)

If you let me I could go on all day, so maybe I’ll quit while this rant has been mildly satisfying, before it turns into deep depression over my fate of getting stuck with these creatures..

Actually, some of the quirks might actually be good things. For example, I grew up in perpetual embarrassment of my father, a New Yorker, who would never fail to say the most annoying thing that came to his mind at any given moment, especially in front of my friends. Horrifying. And I have also noticed that my tolerance for people blabbing on (especially when they think they know it all) has become very low. Two things you never have to worry about with a Finnish guy.

My husband is half Finn/half Jew…imagine the possibilities!!!

Just came to my mind: One expression nowadays frequently used by many finns: Just put your cheek on your chest and focus on the next disappointment..

My time wasted. his what you write is 90% bullshit and also shows how narrowminded you are , Dear Phil. In your eyes everything seems weird or quirky, so just stick to avoiding all that and be your boring self and get the fuck out of finland.

Quirkiness has nothing to with sisu, if you have quirks, you have eccentricities, if you have sisu, you insist on doing something that is virtually impossible, e.g. some sports event, let’s say a 75 km cross country skiing contest, halfway through your legs and arms tremble, your throat burns, your eyes are watering, your chest is tightening, you’re on the verge of blacking out, but you just go ahead anyway and reach the finish line. The closest thing to sisu would be sheer willpower.

Hi pals! I can recognize many of these traits in many finnish men, especially lappish, including myself. But let’s remember that we, human beings, are like snowflakes ..there are no two alike. I tend not to generalize and that has proven to be a good approach. How would I have ever met the great ones of my american friends if I was preoccupied at the moment of meeting them the first time??

Comparing the US and Finland is crazy, since the cultural and genetic inheritance of the US is extremely large, whereas that of Finland is (or has been) very isolated. There was some recent research showing the Single Nucleotide Polymorphism -based genetic similarities within european nations. Finnish gene pool seemed to be isolated from the rest of the interconnected europe, although (surprisingly) not narrow.

Sorry for my bad english (:

Good luck and love!

I want to do something strange.

Now!

Aha! ..and thanks Phil for making fun of us all!! (:

STOP BEIGN SO RACIST TO FINNISH PEOPLE! IM ONE SO FUCK YOU ALL!

Awwww, All your doing is making me what to date a Finn. man even more than I already did.

This is interesting…(I’m predominantly Finnish and my immediate ancestors are from Finland).  I don’t know if it’s totally accurate limiting this type of personality to one nationality.  However, my father, and my grandfather do, in fact, show these kind of characteristics.  It’s interesting that this fits both of them to a “T”.

My wife is from Finland. Shes an amazing person…no one better than her for me! Unfortunately, I have a crazy in-laws that will never forgive her for being with a spanish guy. Apparently, she was supposed to go for a Finn to keep the genetic pool in place…

Is that a normal thing or I just have the best of lucks??