Spoken and unspoken
A man from Casablanca knew about (the?) Finnish way of life. I was watching TV on Friday night and a gentleman originally from Casablanca was being interviewed. This man, a professor, had been living in Finland for 30 years and when asked about silent Finnish rules, he so accurately replied: “A foreign policy issues are delicate in Finland, secondly it isn´t good to repeat oneself and thirdly approach Finns slowly.
Yes, I think the man from Casablanca was correct. Someone asked me about freedom of speech in Finland; my answer is, that we have a freedom to talk about anything. I would also like to say, that more freedom one has, more responsibility one has to take, I also would like to add, that as with anything it is good to have manners and respect towards others. To my knowledge our foreign policy is one of issues, that are being luckily looked after with care and subtleness. I will return to this subjest later on during November.
Thank you Flippo, Tiasha, Ernesto, Kirsti, Redouane, Adriana, Adek, Ana Paula, Hien, James, Naheed, Carolina, Jola, Marianna, hyoshil, Beatriz, Benka, Antonio, Majka, Mateen, Tuong Van and of course our tutor Rachel. It is a great privilege to be able to write here, so many sincere thanks to BBC Learn English team as well.
I think that the hardest part lies upon you. Day after day you find time to encourage a new blogger; you kind response makes me feel so honored and humble. For instance you advise: “Just write how you feel, was so simpple and yet so wise counseling”.
hyoshil from Lincoln, please put me out of my misery and tell me your whereabouts roughly. Naheed and everyone else I will be talking about Finnish food tomorrow. About clocks, yes we do change them back and forward twice a year, we did that about two weeks ago.
You were also asking about our language. Finnish language belongs to the Finno-Ugric languages, which are: Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian. The official languages in Finland are Finnish and Swedish, the later is spoken by some 6 percent of the population. I am a Finnish speaking. Other topics that you have requested are written in my notebook: weather, farming, global warming, faith issues (religion in Finland)…etc. Ana Paula I haven´t forgotten you request about New Zealand I will try to find time to write about that wonderful country as well (I have lived in Auckland New Zealand for five years). In the mean time I will add a good link for you to research further. Also don´t forget a great New Zealand singer, a Kiri Tekanawa.
By the way I can very well understand, how difficult it is to understand our lightless days and our days without darkness, it isn´t easy to comprehend unless you have experienced it.
I was touching to read your thoughts about the shooting in Finland. The day of Darkness it was.
If I may recommend to you some Finnish reading, it would be a book by Mika Waltari. The title is Sinuhe Egyptian. I have added a link on the right hand side for you to get more information about it. I also have added a link telling about Kalevala, our National epic. Is there a national epic in your country?
Today I have a couple of pictures for you look at. The first one was taken last night at our hide a way place, where my husband was doing his raking two weeks ago. The other photo is taken some hours ago, while returning home from our cottage; we came across with a group of men just about taking off moose hunting, the lady with the men is a working girl Leila. I asked men how many moose can be killed this year, and they told that 53 000. I have never hunted myself, but moose meat is supposed to be delicious (I will talk about food tomorrow), and the people who hunt say that they are doing a favor to everyone as the moose tends to be a problem on the roads causing accidents. Many parts of the country road sideways have been fenced so that moose would keep away from the road. It is a big and very beautiful animal.
Someone noted that Finns have many firearms, it is true. The large number of guns is to my knowledge due to many factors: hunting being one of them, the other reason maybe is that almost all Finnish men so far have served in the army and thirdly we have been in the war. My father used to hunt wild birds for us to eat when I was a kid, father also served in the army and he has fought in a war. Do you have to serve in the army?
Comments
Good afternoon Leila! I hope you´re having a wonderful Sunday. The pictures are really nice! Oh by the way, I liked your glasses :-). I also wear glasses and sometimes is difficult to find a pair of glasses that suits you well, dont think so Leila? Many thanks for answering my question. I loved it the New Zealand site and the other sites as well. How interesting to konw you lived in New Zealand for five years. I bet you have lots of nice stories to tell, don´t you? Ah! I also like Kiri TeKanawa. She´s a diva! :-) In answer to your questions, one of the most important epic of Portuguese language is The Lusiads by Camões. However, if I could choose a national epic this one would be 'Grande Sertões Veredas'( The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) by Guimarães Rosa, who has written this book with rare linguistic and philosophical style. A masterpiece indeed. Anyway Leila, I don´t have to serve the army. In Brazil only men do, which is mandatory for them. Oh Leila, it´s time to go now. I´m going to have a tea with my grandma. Hurray! :-) See you soon, Ana Paula.
I hope the working girl is well. Thank you so much for noting down my request. What I say about today's photos? They are marvellous! I'm envious of you - I wish I ever get to enjoy the snow fall as it never snows in Karachi. It does snow in other parts of Pakistan, though, but, not in my city:(. As for epic in my country, I'm afraid I don't know, but, for joining the army, yes, people do go for it to serve their country. Bye for now, Naheed
Hi Leila, I knew about the “Kalevala” but I have never tried to read it. However I read “Sinuhe the Egyptian”, in Spanish, more or less thirty years ago, I have also read from Waltari “Vieras mies tuli taloon”, in French and the “Seven brothers” from Aleksis Kivis. In Spain there is « El cantar del mio Cid » that is based on a true story, a Spanish hero El Cid Campeador, whose true name was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, during the Reconquista, or reconquest of Spain from the Moors. Yes, I have served in the Spanish Legio, in Melilla (North Marocco), where I spent fifteen months in 1979.
Hello Leila. You are right. It´s very dificult to imagine a day without light if you have never experienced one. Regarding to moose. I know that some hunting could be sometimes a benefit for the environment and the species been killed, specially when their natural predators have disaperead or are too few. But 53.000 seems to me a huge number. With those amounts I suppose almost every finnish house must have one moose head over the chimney. Do you have one? About your questions. Yes, we have our national epic. It's "La Araucana", by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga. It´s was writing in the XVI century and talks about the long, long, long war between the spanish conquerors and the mapuches indians, that were the only aborigen people who never were completely defetead by the europeans.
I 'm loved this blog, I know I need to incrise my english, but I'm strongly much more so, may be, I'll lerning more quickly
to admin of the student blog: the feed of the student blog has been locked at nov. 4, 2007. the last feed is "A happy student here again" and after that there is no new feed. would you please fix it. thank you.
Hi, Leila. I learnt a few years ago that there are some ten languages related to Finnish, spoken by very small minorities, less than fifty people. Livonian is spoken in Livonia (Latvia), Votic or Votian in the Kingisepp district (Russia). - I was very impressed by Antonio who has read more books by Finnish-Finnish authors than I have.
Oh, when I saw my message I have to correct it. Livonian or Votic are spoken by some ten people, but there are other Finnish related languages with more speakers. Veps for instance is spoken by about 8000.
Hi Leila! To read your very fluent English and all the comments in order to get to know more interesting people is giving me a strong feeling of happiniss.I can´t nothing better imagin for me though I have the same desperate troubles with my home note book and internet connection as Benka has, I only pay money for nothing. Yes, Leila, my dear nephewe Peter started to study at military university in September, something about computers which would be available only in czech republick. There is only professional army here now, which his older brother is very happy that he could avoid this. Only their mother support them with money so this was the way too they both can study at university. I see the lack of ability to answer your question about epic. This based on the real man Juraj Jánošík who around 1710 with companions took money from the lokal nobility to hand it out to needy families.
For Babak:We have checked the RSS feeds and they seem to be working. Can you please check again to see if you are receiving the feeds now.
Hello Leila How are you doing? It’s Sunday night, my children are sleeping, my husband watching football and I’m indulging myself with a “mate” (a typical Argentinian drinking) while reading your always welcome post! Your dedication to writing almost everyday is something that deserves to be mentioned!! Thanks for the pictures! As regards them, do Finnish people often wear bright colours like those? It was something that called my attention immediately! You talked about freedom of speech in your post. I’m glad to know that in your country you are allowed to say whatever comes to your mind. In Argentina on the contrary, people are not always allowed to do so. Many political T.V. programmes that talked against the actual government were censored and they are not any longer on the air. Surprised? Censorship is very common in Argentina. Not only is the government averse to people that say some truths about them but also they lie to us in an unbearable way. There is an institution called INDEC which is “The National Institute in charge of all the Statistics and Censuses”. It was lately discovered that the numbers or data made public by this institution every month are false and manipulated by the government for their own benfit. They do this in order to make people believe that there is no inflation in the country, that the number of poor people is less than it really is, that we are a secure country to invest money in etc, etc…Needless to say that corruption is very common here…But It is not my intention to bore you so I’ll stop talking about the many problems in my country…It’s late, my husband is sleeping like a log and I’m running out of water for my “mate” (Can you believe that I’ve almost drunk all the water from the flusk?) Mate is like my petrol, so “no mate no more writing” ha ha…Have a nice day!!
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