Over 112 years ago in Finland and its still the same old shit
@ 4:25 pm Let me introduce the readers to my favorite Victorian Lady; Ethel Bielliana Harley Tweedie, who travelled the world in the turn of the 20th century and made quite a few popular travel books published under the name “Mrs. Alex Tweedie”. Her book published in 1897 “Through Finland in Carts” is that ages answer to Lonely Planet and Berlitz guides. The book is readable online at www.openlibrary.org that is a virtual treasure trove of literature.
But lets get back to Mrs. Tweedie and Finland. She is in a sense a very modern Lady, as it seems its been over 112 years since she was here and foreigners still observe similar things. So I guess its really not worth whining over some things as its been a hundred years and nothings changed. Of course – some things have changed immensely, but some things just do not change.
Like the fact we’re at the arse-end of Europe and nobodys heard of us.
No one ever dreamed of going to Finland apparently. Nevertheless, Finland is not the home of barbarians, as some folk imagine, neither do Polar bears walk continually about the streets, nor reindeer pull sledges in summer
Like we’re a bit silent and obtuse.
Nothing excites a Finn. Although he is very patriotic he cannot lightly rise to laughter or descend to tears ; his unruffled temperament is, perhaps, one of the chief characteristics of his strange nature. ……
They are a grave, serious people, who understand a joke even less than the Scotch, while such a thing as chaff is absolutely unintelligible to them. Life to the Finns seems a very serious matter which can be only undertaken after grave thought and much deliberation. They lose much pleasure by their seriousness. They sing continually, but all their music is sad; they dance sometimes, but the native dances are seldom boisterous as in other lands. They read much and think deeply, for both rich and poor are wonderfully well educated ; but they smile seldom, and look upon jokes and fun as contemptible.
And yeah, FINNS STARE!
But the stolidity of a Finn is always remarkable, and the appearance of strange English- women in somewhat unusual attire appeared really to fascinate the gentleman, who neither moved nor spoke, only simply stared.
Not to mention they ask WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
The peasant asks where you come from the moment he sees you are a stranger, and the better-class folk soon turn the traveller in their midst inside out with questions. They ask not only “Where do you come from ?” but, ” Where are you going ? ” What is your business? “
And the language has always been easy.
The language is intensely difficult to learn, for it has sixteen cases, a fact sufficient to appal the stoutest heart.
And the students wear those funny white caps.
All the students of both sexes wear the most charming cap. In shape it closely resembles a yachting cap ; the top
is made of white velvet, the snout of black leather, and the black velvet band that encircles the head is ornamented in front
by a small gold badge emblematic of the University. No one dare don this cap, or at least not the badge, until he has passed his matriculation examination.
And Finns are ugly, fat and drink a lot.
The Finns, though intellectually most interesting, are not as a rule attractive in person. Generally small of stature, thickset, with high cheek-bones, and eyes inherited from their Tartar-Mongolian ancestors, they cannot be considered good-looking; while the peculiar manner in which the blonde male peasants cut their hair is not becoming to their sunburnt skins, which are generally a brilliant red, especially about the neck where it appears below the light, fluffy, downy locks. Fat men are not uncommon ; and their fatness is too frequently of a kind to make one shudder, for it resembles dropsy, and is, as a rule, the outcome of liqueur drinking, a very pernicious habit, in which many Finlanders indulge to excess. There are men in Suomi—dozens of them—so fat that no healthy Englishman could ever attain to such dimensions ; one of them will completely occupy the seat of an Isvoschtschic, while the amount of adipose tissue round his wrists and cheeks seems absolutely incredible when seen for the first time, and one wonders how any chair or carriage can ever bear such a weight. Inordinately fat men are certainly one of the least pleasing of Finland’s peculiarities.
Not forgetting that Finns apparently never have had any fashion sense.
Top hats seemed specially favoured by Finnish gentlemen. Flannel shirts and top hats are, to an English mind, incongruities; but in Suomi fashion smiles approvingly on such an extraordinary combination. At the various towns, therefore, mashers strolled about attired in very bright-coloured flannel shirts, turned down flannel collars, trimmed with little bows of silken cord with tassels to fasten them at the neck, and orthodox tall hats.
And theres no decent cuppa.
The old market folk all drink coffee, or let us be frank at once and say chicory, for a really good cup of coffee is almost unknown in Finland, whereas chicory is grownlargely and drunk everywhere, the Finlander believing that the peculiar bitter taste they know and love so well is coffee. Pure coffee, brewed from the berry, is a luxury yet to be discovered by the Finlander.
Finns are racists of course.
But it has its advantages, as the passport rigorously keeps anarchists, socialists, Jews, and beggars out of Suomi.
And the TAX RECORDS ARE PUBLIC – which comes as a surprise… to whom?
Very few persons are rich in Finland according to English lights, but many are very comfortably off. It would be almost impossible there to live beyond one’s income, or to pretend to have more than is really the case, for when the returns are sent in for the income tax, the income of each individual is published. In January every year, in the Helsingfors newspapers, rows and rows of names appear, and opposite them the exact income of the owner.
Apart from cultural and ethnographic observations, Mrs. Tweedie goes on to a thorough analysis of the economic and political situation of the Grand Duchy towards the end of the book. She is amazed of the equality of women, the fact that women are studying in the university and riding bicycles, she writes pages on the Finnish education system – sound familiar, that?
There is no sex in Finland, men and women are practically equals, and on that basis society is formed. Sex equality has always been a characteristic of the race, as we find from the ancient Kalevala poem.
I warmly recommend the book as a read, it also has descriptions of a past world that is no more. And some things still are – someone travelling here should not be “shocked” of these “Finnish things” – mind you if she observed something 112 years ago – it is not exactly any news over here.
