a new (!) observation on Finnish politeness and gender

[cimorene]

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

Obviously 15 years in Finland has given me plenty of experience of how Finns are at work, at school, in higher education, in customer service and public transport and in public. But because my inlaws and their community are Swedish-speaking Finns, I have very limited experiences as a guest in the home of a Finnish speaker. Discounting my fandom friends (bc all single students in student digs), that would be:

• Visits to the homes of 2 Finnish work friends in the last 2 years, once and 3x respectively (daytime coffee)


• Birthday party for Wax's gay work friend Aki, then in his early 20s


• Two coffee-and-cake visits to the home of my Finnish-speaking SIL2's parents in Kuopio while on visits to B&SIL2


• Thanksgiving dinner at the home of our American expat pal's Finnish-speaking parents-in-law in Rauma

You see that only in the last case were the hosts more or less strangers to us, so it's the only time I would have noticed being hugged as a potentially new culture norm. And in fact, mostly I just thought on the last occasion how incredibly warm and outgoing and emotive our friend's inlaws were for Finnish speakers, which can partly be explained by their cultural background (Rauma is known for hospitality, I've since been told).

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????

Comments

[mecurtin]

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

SO MUCH SAME

Hugging in Finland?!? What has the world come to?!?

[cimorene]

Of course there is plenty of hugging one's close associates in Finland, but hugging people you've just met? Come on, Finland, I trusted you to be introvert-friendly!

[yvannairie]

Bwaaahahaahahaaa it's such a thing. My stepdad is still a bit confused about me hugging him when we meet, and he's one of the more emotionally-in-touch-with-himself men I know.

[cimorene]

Huh, I'd've thought hugging one's stepchildren should still be okay regardless of the gender rules. But maybe he's just gruffer than the guys on this show so far.

[yvannairie]

He's from Lapland, and is a pretty easygoing guy for a Northener :'3

[cimorene]

Awwwwwwwwwwww! ...Lapland is still rather exciting and exotic since I've spent almost all my time in Finland in Varsinais-Suomi. That sounds like it makes sense. More space, fewer people, less hugs, right? Maybe someone has plotted a graph.

[yvannairie]

I joke about being from "all over the place", so I have a bit of insight into this and, yeah, the further north you go, the more people "give space". People in Lapland are cold to outsiders even while they're incredibly hospitable and warm towards their friends, but socialisation is noticeably more hands-off there than it is in Häme, where I grew up proper. Also, the further away from a border you are, the more space people tend to give, so people in Kainuu have a shorter social distance than people in Häme.

This also ties into my conspiracy on why Anglophone countries seem so uniquely fucked up -- they've got the population density of somewhere like Central France or Italy (which are so affectionate, my touch-starved arse was absolutely ruined by my internship in Milan) but the social more akin to... well, here. xD

[cimorene]

Anglophone countries have a wide variability of population density, though! I don't know anything about South Africa's really, but Australia's center is nigh-uninhabitable, and Canada's northerly bits of prairie are so sparsely populated they have trouble getting food in the grocery stores.

The US population is extremely concentrated along the coasts, and within those coastal areas is a spectrum of personal space and warmth cultures, with the caveat that urban centers always have to accomodate the presence of potential crowds of strangers etc. There's no region that's acquired the indescriminate hugging, kissing, yelling, and short conversational distances of Italy or Latin America, but there's a huge difference between northeast and southeast. The midwest is generally more similar to the southeast in warmth and social distance.

[yvannairie]

I mean, you say that as if it's not also true for Finland? The country may have an average population density of 13/sqkm but we still crowd along the rivers and to the cost pretty well. There's still a whole hell of a lot of people here, and the way fluctuations in density doesn't flow in a "more people == shorter social distance" manner.

IDK I guess this is just one of those observations I've come to as I've started to unpack American and British influence on my thinking and how it clashes with the cultural values I grew up with. My neurotype makes me a mirror, I am what people tell me I am, and expunging hangups typical of the Anglophone culture I consume is what has left me with this sense of "... well, something's wrong with those guys." It's very easy for me to absorb those twisted attitudes if I'm not making the distinction between what I'm seeing and what I'm experiencing clear for myself and for others.

[cimorene]

No, I don't say that as if it's not true of Finland at all! In fact my understanding of Finland is that its population is even less evenly distributed.

No, I was just responding to the hypothesis that higher population density at odds with social distance culture might be the reason for Anglophone countries' particular fuckedupness, because I'm not sure that sort of population concentration has been historically dominant enough in all of them.

[yvannairie]

Ah, okay, I see now :|c

[oanja]

As a Finnish person I feel deeply betrayed by these kinds of shows, as I have never hugged a stranger and never would! (also the refusal of the men to hug each other is just ridiculous) But I would generally blame it on copying other western countries (especially in the context of a tv show) I dunno how common that actually is 'in the wild' so to speak.

[cimorene]

Yeah, I mean... ! All the examples where I've spotted Finnish hugging in my memory are hugging, you know... friends. And people you really like. On the other hand I doubt anybody was consciously planning that for the show, like saying "We need to look more American so hug now," but they were probably just influenced by past shows they've seen and the like and probably the hosts themselves are the ones who are responsible for the fact that the homeowners end up hugging them...

...but I'm still bemused by the coworker-friends on the show hugging each other on camera. Like, for example, the two sets of hosts hugging before they walk into the house to help out; or the designers and contractors hugging the vendors they're friends with (the interior designer and a kitchen store person; the construction contractor and the guy at the sauna supplies shop, which is just hilarious, like, they're friends because somehow they're both sauna-building geeks...?). I won't say that nobody in America hugs in those circumstances, but they're definitely out of place to my eye and wouldn't occur in the equivalent situations on the American and UK renovation/design shows I watch or in the equivalent cultural contexts (meeting someone you're friendly with or a friend in a professional context for professional transaction) in my RL past. If the hosts are pushing hugging on their vendor pals in these situations, that's quite funny too; are they going for, like, a Mediterranean or Latinx feel then?