Saturday, September 26, 2009

Where the river runs into the sea...


It's the end of my first month, and money has been flowing out of my account like water, which means that I'm having to be quite cheap until the end of the month. My excuse is that there have been a lot of start-up costs: secondhand bike, one-year gym pass (yay for free group training!), Dinsko shoes, condiments, etc etc. As suggested by Kate, I have started a budget spreadsheet for the rest of my year in Finland, and according to my projected budget, I can finally start to save money next month. :) Learning to manage my money via this spreadsheet is surprisingly satisfying. Because I have no money right now, Christoph and I spent the day around my apartment, rather than going into the city center. I threw together some leftover ingredients and made us fried chicken (recipe from Robert), fried rice, and this Finnish pastry with rice in the center. Then we took a walk through an area near my apartment.

To be honest, my expectations for the walk weren't too high at first, but I was once again blown away by this wild sort of beauty in Finland. We found the place where a river becomes the sea.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare... a novel I read in high school. That's what the whole scene reminded me of, especially the place where the river meets the sea, where fields of reeds merge with the water. It creates this intensely melancholy sort of beauty.



I found a few small fields of daisies.


Christoph grew up in Kiel, Germany, a city which curves around a bay, much like Helsinki, so he has a bit of knowledge and connection to the sea. He told me that freshwater fish can actually live in the Baltic Sea. The many rivers flowing into the Baltic greatly overpower the salt water from the Atlantic, so that the Baltic Sea is almost completely fresh water. The Atlantic perhaps has a salt concentration of 5.8%. The area bordering Germany, which is closer to the Atlantic, is the saltier part of the Baltic at 1%. In the more northern parts between Finland and Sweden, the salt concentration is maybe 0.1%.

A neato, half-pier/half-couch-like bench we found.


These snails were everywhere in these bushes in the woods.


Mushrooms?


The coming of fall...

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Being Asian in Finland

When I had tea with Kirsi last week, she mentioned an article about Finns and the Japanese. Research somewhere showed that Finns and Japanese people connect more easily than do Finns and Norwegians.

I thought about it, and there is some validity. For example, both Finns and the Japanese seem to have this softer, more steadily paced, and respectful manner of speaking. Additionally, while Tokyo is one of the largest cities in the world, like Helsinki, it is also one of the safest places in the world.

That got me thinking about my own Chinese heritage. Recently, I've felt little bits of my Chinese upbringing resurfacing, because of their connection to Finnish culture.

During tea, whenever Kirsi said something good about herself, she would downplay it immediately afterwards, like 'Oh, but no, maybe not really...' In China, I had always been taught to hesitate in the face of compliments as a way to be humble. This means saying things like, 'No, I'm not that good at ...' After moving to the States, adults thought that this was sweet and a sign of a good upbringing. However, as I got older, I started to get comments of 'Don't fish for compliments.' It took me a long time to realize that downplaying personal strengths requires the other person to reaffirm you by saying more good things, and this is a negative indication of a lack of self-esteem in America. Thus, I learned to say 'Thank you' and just accept or acknowledge the compliment, whichever is appropriate. On the other hand, when Finns do say something good about you, they mean it as a fact, not a compliment.

I have also noticed a slight change in my mannerisms. As mentioned above, Finns seem have more paced conversations, where interruptions are considered rude. The American style of conversation is more 'overlapping', oftentimes with people vying for talk space, and it takes some skill. In the States, I have learned to do this with people I am close to, and only in the past couple of years have I learned to really speak up and speak my mind. However, now that I am in Finland, I still want to speak my mind and am striving to be truthful, but I find myself less willing to interrupt fast-paced conversations. When in a group, I'm more inclined to wait for a pause in the interchange - an end to a cluster of thoughts - before jumping in with my own comments. I'd like to find a good balance.

It's funny. If you've ever been to China before, Chinese people can actually be pretty loud and boisterous. But as a child in China - the daughter of two intellectuals - I was expected to be quieter and more respectful when in public, and I suppose some remnant of that has stuck with me... since it never evolved by also growing up in China.

------

New shoes by Dinsko, a Swedish company. One advantage to having small feet is that most Finns have larger feet, so the sale section often has a good number of small shoes. I got these for 25 euros. ^^


While I bought these because I wanted a pair of everyday-every-activity-shoes, I am also conforming a little to the Finnish sense of style, which I am a little ashamed to admit. The most popular outfit this fall seems to be a loose top, with leggings or skinny jeans and dark shoes. The overall tone is relatively modest and subdued in color, yet stylish and comfortable, all of which I really like.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Snippets of Daily Life

I went to my Fulbright buddy's house for tea on Sunday. Her email said 'tea and toast,' so that's what I expected - bread and butter - but it was so much more. By tea, she meant tea or coffee, and by toast, little calzone-looking sandwiches with tomatoes, cheese, salami, and onions... on top of cookies, meringues, and home-grown plums (plum season). Delicious.


On my way down the stairs to the laundry room tonight, I could smell the various dinners people were cooking. Pasta with alfredo, rice, and maybe shrimp. Then on the way up: not just rice but sweet and sour sauced Chinese food, shrimp, then pasta again. It smelled so good, so I thought that I would put up an update about daily life here.

Laundry

I have learned so much about this since moving to Finland. My first attempt at laundry was an utter disaster that lasted for nearly a week. The temperatures on the washing machines were confusing, and the dryers were inefficient but endowed with intensive shrinking power. I also ended up abandoning a bottle of sensitive detergent for good ol' colors. Doing laundry really requires knowing the general characteristics of each item of clothing. For example, thin shirts and sweaters should be hand-washed once a week, machine-dried halfway, then hung dry. On the other hand, jeans should be machine-washed, machine-dried almost all the way, then hung-dry. Also, certain sweaters should NOT be washed with anything else, or you will end up with lint-covered outfits. I can't help but be a little proud of figuring these things out...though it took a couple of fiascoes to do it. I've also strung some twine across my window for drying socks. :)

Biking


I took my bike to the mechanic on Wednesday, so I'm really missing it at the moment. Even though biking to lab everyday makes me sweaty and out of breath, I much prefer it to sitting still for an hour on the bus each way. I'm also missing the daily exercise.

I still laugh at myself on the inside, whenever I see elderly ladies whizz past me, as I struggle up long slopes and small hills. My mentor joked that older folks should not exercise in public... it's too much of a blow to our egos.

Finnish

My Finnish is sadly as poor as ever. Helsinki is probably one of the most difficult places to learn Finnish. The minute you start to stumble over your words or look uncertain, the other party will automatically switch to speaking to English. Phrases like 'Do you speak English?' or 'It's okay if you all speak Finnish to one another' almost produce offended looks. I'm determined, though, so hopefully I'll get somewhere with it.

Helsinki International Film Festival

Now that the warmer season is almost over, the city seems to be trying to squeeze in as many festivals and activities as possible.

The Helsinki International Film Festive has been going on, and Sunday evening, a few friends and I saw a Finnish movie: 'Overseas and Under Your Skin' (Maata meren alla). It was actually really good. It's about a Finnish girl, who was adopted from Africa at the age of three. Her mother is into progressive movements. She has always thought that she herself was just another case for her mother, without realizing that her mother had brought her to Finland so that she could grow up in safe place, and the girl goes to Berlin to find her dreams. Just a brief plot summary doesn't do the movie justice, though. It never does, because it misses out on the nuances of the dialogue and the neat filming. There are so many good movies going on! :) If only I had the money to watch more of them!

The movie was shown on a screen in a courtyard behind Cafe Engel. I was worried about the cold, but there were these great heating devices near the chairs. I love how good Helsinki is at heating and insulation.



Feeling at Home...

I'm still trying to figure out what it means to feel at home, but I think that it has something to do with building sustainable relationships. It's about coming home every evening and having one or two close friends to share your thoughts with, some kind soul to taste your newest dishes, or just a friendly roommate who's room you can burst into at any moment.

I'm beginning to make friends outside of my flat, too, but it's definitely more difficult to make those long-lasting and deep, without the advantage of living or having classes with one another.

I locked myself out tonight and had to call Matti, who lives a couple of entryways away, to open the building door for me. It was nice to have someone to call in this situation: someone willing to leave his studies for five minutes, throw on a jacket, and come unlock the door for me.

------

By the way, I am finally, in earnest, beginning a personal recipe book. Since I cook most of my meals now, I've been gathering recipes here and there from friends... a creamy recipe for chanterelle mushrooms (mushroom season!)... boiling, sauteing, and stewing beets in various ways... instructions for pasta from my Austrian flatmate ("The Italians would say to start with cold water.") Now I can put them all in one place for future reference, with little notes and histories on the side.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

The Rock Church

I went to the Rock Church (Temppeliaukion kirkko) today to try to catch the English service. The church is actually Lutheran, the main religion in Finland. I don't know what Lutheran means exactly, but I figured that as long as they talked about Jesus in a non-blasphemous way, then I would be happy. It turned out the English service had actually taken place two hours earlier, so instead, I just sat in the sanctuary of the church for about half an hour.

This Church is one of my favorite places in Helsinki. It was difficult to get a good picture, so I am including a picture of a postcard. The door is on ground level, and the architectural idea is to make the church accessible, down-to-earth, and welcoming to all who might want to participate. I like that. The inside is simple but elegant and very peaceful. When no services are happening, the church becomes a tourist attraction, but the quiet, calm feel of the place remains, with light organ or piano music in the background.




Back at the flat, we had an impromptu music night. Erika, my roommate, performed a mock audition with her trombone, followed by some solos by Melanie on her clarinet. Then two guys from upstairs knocked on our door, to settle a wager. They were betting on whether one or two instruments were being played. Gustavo, the Argentinian one, decided to join us with a guitar, and we all took turns playing and/or singing with various instruments.


Gustavo lent me his guitar for the night. Even though I don't play much, it feels so good to have a guitar in my hands again.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Suomenlinna

Today was so beautiful that Christoph and I decided to go to Suomenlinna, an island fortress built by the Swedes back in 1748, when they still ruled Finland.

Suomenlinna is difficult to describe. Many parts of the fortress have been left as they are, and you can just walk through them. Christoph and I walked through a couple of the buildings/hills (it is difficult to say which, because the fortress is so integrated into the landscape), and it was so dark in some parts that we had to put our hands out in front of us and check gingerly for unseen steps.

While the fortress was neat, the best part was the natural landscape. Christoph thought that it looked like the countryside of Ireland. I'm not quite sure how to describe it in words, so I'll just let the pictures tell the story.




It was actually supposed to rain today, but I've found that weather reports in Finland are extremely unreliable. It's not uncommon to experience sunshine, clouds, wind, and rain all in one day. Weather.com said that it would rain all day, but the rain didn't actually come until around 4pm. We then stood fascinated by the clouds, as a large spread of various shades of blue and gray rushed towards us, slowly covering up a clear sky. I didn't even see how quickly the clouds were moving until Christoph pointed it out to me, and I took a break from being distracted by wildflowers to watch.




Okay, so time for a brief history lesson of Finland, gathered from our exploration of Suomenlinna, and confirmed by Wikipedia. Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden from the 13th century to 1809, when it was ceded to the Russian Empire to become the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. Finland then gained independence in 1917. I knew that Suomenlinna was built by the Swedes, but I had forgotten the Russian episode until Christoph showed me the detailing on this cannon. The date - a bit hard to see - is 1876, during Russia's rule, and the lettering is Russian. :) Neat, huh?


I'm really beginning to appreciate this Fulbright business. I was stressing Friday night about planning out my itinerary for today - refill bus pass, go to flat mate's comics festival, Suomenlinna, and so on - but then I realized that stressing was silly, because I was doing everything that I wanted to do. In addition to projects, another major focus of the Fulbright is cultural exchange. This program is paying for me to see this beautiful island, to meet comics experts, to read Kalevala, and basically to see and experience as much of Finland as I can. That's kind of amazing. :)

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

First impressions


I arrived in Finland on August 28th, and I have to say that when I first arrived, I was a little nervous. I had expected a large urban metropolis. I mean, it is the capital of Finland. But I arrive at the airport and didn't even see a customs check, just a side door to go through if you have any items to report. The girls and I joked, 'Really? After all the trouble we went through to get our residence permits?'

However, just in the past couple of weeks, I have really come to like this place.

From my impressions so far, Finns are a somewhat peculiar but wonderful set of people. Very law-abiding and somewhat reserved, but also friendly and helpful. I don't have to loop my lock around my bike wheel, I have no problems asking for directions from strangers, and I'm still getting used to cars stopping for me at crosswalks.

I bought a bike last week, and one thing that is both wonderful and frustrating about Helsinki is the way that roads just somehow become one another. This means that sometimes, I'll magically arrive at a destination without quite realizing how, but at other times, I'll end up on a street like Helsinginkatu, 2-3km past my lab, after completely missing a major park. I do love the bike paths, though, especially this one path down Koskelantie. It is marked like a miniature two-lane street, and it runs down the middle of the road, protected on both sides from cars by bushes and trees. It nicely puts bikes on the same level as cars. :) After lab yesterday, I followed five or so other bikes onto this path, one behind another. I then worked quite hard to keep up with them, to maintain our little biking brigade, at least in my head.

So I just became enrolled at the University of Helsinki! Whoo! This means great discounts (2.60€/lunch, 50% off on long-distance travel, and other nice perks). It also means that I get grouped together with all the other international students, especially those of Erasmus, a European exchange program. One of my closest friends at the moment, other than the other Fulbrighters at my apartment complex, is a guy named Christoph from Germany. It struck me the other day that Christoph is actually a German from Germany! This might sound rather silly, but when I realized this, I wanted to ask him all sorts of questions, especially about WWII. I wanted to know what Germans thought of it and if talking about it was okay. I wanted to hear this from a real German. I'm so so glad that I get these opportunities here in Helsinki.


Along these academic lines, my elementary Finnish class starts next week. I really hope to at least achieve a conversational level of Finnish. While most Finns are quite used to speaking English, it is still a gesture of politeness on their part. I think that a knowledge of Finnish is useful for really getting into the culture and learning about it's nuances. Finns are also very appreciative of people who try, and they like to teach it. (I do believe that they are also proud of how difficult it is, and they should be.) The other day, I asked a lady on the tram about the words of the months, and she ended up giving me a mini lesson. All the months end in '-kuus', which means 'month'. It is really exciting when random sounding syllables begin to make sense. Streets tend to end in '-katu' or '-tie', and 'yksi olut' means 'one beer'... very important part of Finnish culture. :)

One more story before I go. Police Day of the Helsingin Poliisi. We accidentally ran into this amazing affair one afternoon near the railway station. A stage had been set up for various small performances, with a small live police band on the ground level. As we watched the commotion, a group of eight or so police officers started to dance and lip-sync to the song "Let Me Entertain You." It was hilarious in a very good way. They just looked so happy on stage. Three other American girls and I clapped and hooted all through it. Then a couple of officers made a speech, and every time one of them said 'yksi' (the only word we could understand, meaning 'one'), Melanie and I would clap loudly and excitedly, as the Finns around us stood in respectful silence. I suppose that's one nice thing about being a foreigner, you can get away with a lot of silliness, and I think it makes the Finns rather happy (or amused) if it's appropriate.


So altogether, Helsinki has been a beautiful city, and it's getting better as the various regions on the map begin to make sense. It's also berry season at the moment, a fleeting but delicious time. Apparently, Finland has the best strawberries... small and very sweet. Because of the cold climate, the berries take a long time to mature, and then in the summer, there is so much sunshine around the clock that they become very very sweet. Real strawberries.


Oh, and yes, a very traditionally Finnish pastry. It really does taste better than it might look. I enjoyed it. :)