a new (!) observation on Finnish politeness and gender

Since Wax and I are interested primarily in English-language & international film, we've never bothered with purchasing an actual tv. Getting all our media via the internet has greatly reduced our knowledge of domestic shows, so I've never actually encountered a Finnish remodeling or design series until I found Kotoisa ("homelike", "cosy") on the MTV streaming service. (I've had brief accidental exposure to reality tv at the homes of my in-laws, but this is typically Swedish reality tv because they're Swedish-speaking. Plus my instinctive reaction to dating shows and talent shows — MIL and SIL1's choices — is to move as far away as the limits of the house allow and try to block out the sound.)

Well, in the last 2 days I just learned, from this tv show, that it's normal for adult professional Finnish acquaintances to greet each other with a hug in certain circumstances! And I just learned this ( after 15 years in Finland, lol. )

On the show, the designer and the contractor are welcomed by the homeowner(s) to their homes inevitably like so:

• each set of 2 women hug


• each possible combination of man and woman hug


• each set of 2 men shake hands

(This is also what happens when the two sets of hosts who usually work on separate episodes meet at a collaboration, so they aren't strangers in that case but they also aren't being welcomed into anyone's home: friendly work acquaintances who are happy to see each other but don't do so on a routine basis, I guess?)

So anyway. They seriously do this!

Can you even see yourselves, straight men? Are you for real right now? Out here in public behaving like this and not expecting to be laughed at????

on looking at something felt like somebody looking at something

‘Jeeves,’ I recollect saying, on returning to the apartment, ‘who was the fellow who on looking at something felt like somebody looking at something? I learned the passage at school, but it has escaped me.’

‘I fancy the individual you have in mind, sir, is the poet Keats, who compared his emotions on first reading Chapman’s Homer to those of stout Cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific.’

‘The Pacific, eh?’

‘Yes, sir. And all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a peak in Darien.’

—PG Wodehouse, Thank You, Jeeves