Are all Finnish men as hot as Kimi Raikkonen?
Also, do you think the fact that his cars constantly explode is some kind of Swedish plot? 
Is the phenotype of Finland very homogeneous ?
Also, I request pics
Another Finn chiming in:
Like auRa already mentioned, the school shootings all seem to follow the same pattern. It looks like these people feel somehow left out by the society and think that the only way to get attention to themselves is by killing others.
I personally didn’t find the media reporting on this disturbing initially, but when they started to milk the victims relatives for stories in less than delicate ways etc. the whole thing started to look pretty tasteless.
And yes, computer games and “media violence” gets blamed again, without any real evidence of course. As an avid gamer I find this very frustrating.
How is this constructive? The way you phrased the question amounts basically to “So were you just a whore, or a dirty whore?”.
Finland always tried to remain neutral during the Cold War, but as you might or might not know, we had massive war reparations to pay to the Russians, as we were among the losers of WW2. Most of the reparations were paid as manufactured goods and this caused the need for new industry and road/rail networks to be built. Naturally all this infrastructure opened the possibility of additional trade with Soviet Union.
I don’t know how you can claim that trade to be “profiting off the misery of the Russian people” unless you want to be deliberately inflammatory? Should we have not paid the war preparations? And should we not have traded with them, even though all the buildings we built in the USSR and the factory equipment we sold them surely improved the living standards of the “Soviet People” too?
As far as “kissing up to the Soviets” goes, there have always been some politicians doing something that could be called that, but they’ve gotten called out for it too, since this country has always been a parliamentary democracy.
Yes. Oh yes. 
Unfortunately I can’t provide pictures right now, and I don’t know how correlating our view on “hot guys” are, but there are lots and lots of hot Finnish guys. Of course, there are also lots and lots of not-so attractive Finnish guys, and those in between.
Dating and marrying? Well, from my personal experience, comparing Finnish and Texan friends of mine, the Texans seem to have gotten married a lot younger: a lot of them are married at this age, whereas most of my Finnish friends who are the same age as me are not. People tend to get married at around…oh, I dunno. 27, maybe. We don’t really tend to “date”, so much. People meet each other through work, freetime activities or school.
The average age for women giving birth for the first time is 28. The average age for giving birth period is 32. I haven’t heard of any national monetary compensation program; some small counties will offer cash rewards or lots to build houses on to families who procreate there as an incentive to move. Also, pregnant families receive a “maternity package” from the Social Insurance Institution. This package contains, among other things, baby clothes, blankets, sheets, a bib, a toothbrush, a thermometer, condoms, lubricant, and various pamphlets on, for example, paternity leave and breastfeeding. There’s also the option of taking cash instead, 140 euros. You can find more information about the maternity grant an pictures of the contents here.
This is something which has been in the news often lately, especially in connection with such sad news as the school shooting of today. There is a fair bit of discussion on whether the academic results actually mean anything if children are not doing well mentally, and whether the academic results actually ARE that accurate, etc. The basic points of the article, which trace the outline of the Finnish public education system, are correct: Finns start school at 7, they go to elementary (7-12 years) and then secondary (13-16). After 16, a child does not have to continue in school, but almost all do, either in a high school or in a vocational or trade school. And university education is free. I personally think we have a pretty good educational system, but if they keep cutting spending on creative subjects and school lunches, it won’t be so good for too long.
I’d go see Turku; it was the previous capital and one of the oldest cities in Finland. There’s a castle and a river and the combined archeological-modern art museum Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova…and the very interesting phenomenon of “roll kebab”. Turku is about 2 hours away from Helsinki; for something closer, I’d try Porvoo, which is about 50 km in the other direction and has lots of old wooden houses, a pretty old-town atmosphere, handicraft workers, and a really really good restaurant which specializes in escargot. I’ll let the good tourism people of Porvoo persuade you themselves. For an added bonus, visit near Christmas-time when there’s a fair. And of course hiking either up in Lapland or in the east is a great option, if you want more outdoorsy stuff.
I read somewhere that Finnish folks are quick to embrace technology, and as a result, Finland is geek heaven. Any truth to this?
Kiitos. 
Hmm. When was this? The association for sexual equality, Seta ry, has a pamphlet which lays out some basic guidelines of gay rights in Finland (PDF here). Things may have changed if these gay Finns have moved abroad a long time ago. I must admit I haven’t really got a clear answer on this; I haven’t really discussed things with my gay friends other than the recent debate on allowing gay couples to adopt (currently not possible, people are trying to change it and other people are very vehemently trying to stop them). Gay and lesbian couples can register their partnership; this is basically the same as marriage but there are exceptions concerning taking your spouse’s last name and adopting children. In June, though, a committee set by the Ministry of Justice introduced a proposition that would allow GLBT couples to adopt within the registered partnership, i.e. that the biological children of one partner could be adopted by the other partner. This is currently doing the comment rounds, so I don’t know when it would come into Parliament for voting.
Hot + Kimi Räikkönen = does not compute. I think he squeaks when he talks. Ah well, different strokes.
I don’t know all that much about Kimi and his exploding cars because F1 doesn’t really interest me all that much. A lot of people follow it semi-religiously though. It might not be a Swedish plot. I’m thinking it’s the Italians poking more fun at us after the whole Italian food quality vs. Finnish food quality debacle.
Thanks for the answers!
Considering the only Finns I know are part of the “Duck Pond”* it’s interesting to hear the other side.
*They’re even from Åland and neither speaks a word of finnish I’m afraid.
I have always heard that, because the Finnish language is not Indo-European in origin, it is grammatically pretty much unlike any other national language except maybe Estonian. So how weird did English and other European languages you may have learned seem to you? Does Swedish seem as foreign as, say, French?
Genetically very homogeneous. Phenotypically also, traditionally; we have a lot of blue-eyed blondes here. Of course, things are changing in this as well, because of internationalization and people from different countries moving in and all sorts of mixed-race children-having and international adoptions and coming back from your foreign exchange at Barcelona University with a Spanish girlfriend and what have you. But traditionally, there have been a lot of blondes here.
Pics, eh? Hmm.
You know what? Try Hel-Looks. Lots of oh-so-trendy Finnish people with sometimes interestingly quirky and sometimes just jaw-droppingly bizarre fashion sense. Collected on the streets and clubs of Helsinki. There are some very beautiful people here, and also some complete twerps. Although I do have to say this: in Helsinki, there seems to be a far wider variety of fashions on the streets, as opposed to, say, Stockholm, where everyone looks really good, but everyone looks the same because Ebba von Sydow told them that this is what you should wear.
Sorry, my wording was off. When I wrote “political climate”, I meant the general everyday attitude toward GLBT people. The people I talked to left Finland in the late 90’s- early 00’s. Gay men especially talked about a very deeply rooted macho culture with very low tolerance for homosexuality.
Obviously, attitudes will be different depending on location, social strata and so on. Most of these people were from Helsinki, though.
This got me thinking. How many refugees and immigrants are there in Finland? I remember reading some years ago that very few were let in (just like here in Iceland), in comparison to Sweden where there nowadays are quite a lot of people from former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and other refugee-zones.
Yeah, I guess we are. I remember in 1998 when I came back to Texas after a summer in Finland, I was very surprised that people were showing off their pagers, different covers for them, and what not. I’d never seen anything like them…because back home, we all had cell phones. Geek heaven - sure, could be. I haven’t really thought of things that way.
Ole hyvä.
Also, this is so true. I’m from Stockholm, and we’re a bunch of wimps when it comes to style.
Ah, okay. Well, yeah, the traditional Finnish male culture is quite macho. I think there’s been a bit wider range of acceptance here lately, though. I think right now we’re in the stage where for Average Joe and Jane Finn, gay guys in the media are okay, especially if they’re trendy or amusing. There was a Finnish version of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy on TV a few years ago which didn’t cause nearly as much complaining as people thought it would; currently one of the most popular or trendy actors/performers among the young people, at least, is Jani Toivola, who is a gay black Finnish actor who currently hosts the Finnish Idols program. I, at least, haven’t noticed very widespread dismissal of, say, gay politician Oras Tynkkynen; more people seem to concentrate more on his Green party affiliation and pot-smoking than his homosexuality. This might be my bias, though; I probably wouldn’t notice it. I’ll have to ask my gay friends what their views on this are. No-one from my social circle has ever indicated that they’d move abroad because of persecution or intolerance here, but it could vary. I’ll get back to this.
Well, English is basically a second native language for me since I’ve been speaking and reading it since age four, so I haven’t really learned it so much as absorbed it.
Finnish, on the whole, is a fairly grammatically consistent language, once you get past the 15 grammatical cases and everything. All verbs are pretty much regular and words are pronounced how they’re spelled, with a few rules to remember such as the diphthongs “ng” and “nk”. Other languages with silent letters and “être, no, it’s je suis, tu es, il est…” can be a little confusing to a Finn who is accustomed to relatively simple rules. Learning Swedish helps to study German, though. The two languages are fairly grammatically similar, in my opinion. I think since I’ve been around Swedish all my life, too, it doesn’t seem as foreign as French or Spanish, but there’s still a definite “wait…okay, I have to think this through” aspect to all of those languages.
I have to say, though, that things like the plusqueparfait in French were pretty simple once I figured out that we have the same thing in Finnish. I also have to say that a lot of foreigners are completely stumped by Finnish and they would emphatically disagree with my “relatively simple” classification.
Do you like that Monty Python gave your country at least fleeting fame with its song, “Finland, Finland, Finland?” (which is what I think of when someone says the name). Also, what else is there to do in Finland except “pony trekking or camping or just watching TV?”
Also what are the major exports of Finland? And I’m confused–your country had to pay reparations to USSR after WW2, but also lost WW2? I apologize for my ignorance and will go look it up, but I’d like your opinion on the matter–Russia lost in WW2–so how did you guys end up paying to them? 
No, Russia won in WW2 – though I can’t say anything intelligent about reparations. Russia bailed out early and lost in WW1.
You’re not alone in thinking the Finnish education system is good - it is consistently ranked as either the best or one of the best in the world. My last job (I work in the British education department within the government) was on long term changes to our system we could make through better links between sectors of society and Finland was forever being thrown in as “this is how to do it” along with Singapore.
On the LGBT issue, I’m surprised to hear gay folks have any issues in Finland given how liberal the Nordic countries are supposed to be on this issue. Given that Sweden is so incredibly progressive in this area it seems strange that the country next door isn’t.
:smack: :smack: :smack: Of course Russia won. :rolleyes: (those eyes are for me)
I knew that. Gah–no brain today. Sorry. And the Allies just let poor lil Finland hang there flapping next to the Iron Curtain? Shame on us (although we all did have our hands a bit full).