The vocabulary we English-speakers use is diverse, varied, motley, heterogeneous and multitudinous. Even if an English speaker don't talk very good, each sentence out of his or her mouth is an artful combination of Latin, French, Old Norse, Old or Middle English, and to a lesser extent, Greek. To that linguistic framework we attach words from most any language we find useful. For example, if you were sitting on your futon eating a kiwi in your pajamas, you couldn't write an inane Facebook status-update without using loanwords from Japanese, Maori and Urdu, respectively. This peculiar quality of English results from a long history of foreign domination, followed by a shorter history of dominating foreigners (which we're still enjoying today). Yet the Finns and their language have remained distant - the Finns don't have the necessary self-esteem to conquer others, and they can't grow enough spices to be worth our time. As such, from the many dozens of words in the Finnish language (by my count), only one enjoys common usage in English - Rapakivi granite.
Rapakivi granite is a hornblende-biotite granite containing large rounded crystals of orthoclase, and its name derives from a Finnish compound word meaning "mud rock." It is also the topic of today's post.
Oh wait sorry, I was just reading about granite on Wikipedia. The only Finnish word that enjoys common usage in English is sauna. Today's post is about the Finnish sauna.
Finland is home to 5.4 million people and over 2 million saunas. The saunas are hidden in the forest and around all the lakes; they dot the tundra and line the seashore, they're built into every home where we might have a utility room, and they're on the roofs of urban apartment blocks and student dormitories. The presidential summer residence outside Turku has a lavish presidential sauna, and members of the Finnish parliament have members-only access to a parliamentary sauna large enough to fit an entire naked governing coalition. There is a sauna 100 miles south and 4,724 feet down from where I am right now, at the bottom of Europe's deepest mine. During the Cold War, president Urho Kekkonen famously welcomed Soviet leaders into his sauna, and a sauna-book at the library has extensive quotations from Kekkonen on the sauna's merits as both a bathing and political aid. Every apartment listing in Finland has a "sauna" column in the specs. I can see a rooftop sauna from my window as I write this.
The saunas have wood-burning stoves, electric stoves, or infrared heating elements, all of which heat rocks, onto which you throw water, in order to produce sauna steam or löyly. It's pronounced just like it looks. The historical origins of the sauna are unclear, because the Finns abhor talking about themselves, but for at least 1000 years the average Finn has dedicated a significant portion of his or her life to the production of löyly. Today, as before, löyly is the endpoint of most Finnish dreams and aspirations.
In the sauna-prehistory, the traditional Finnish sauna was a smoke sauna, which also burns wood, but has no chimney - they would build a fire in the morning, let it heat the rocks for many hours until the fire burned itself out, then ventilate the room before steaming. This has gone out of favor since the advent of having an actual job. But at the time there was no other way, and the smoke was a necessary disinfectant - smoke saunas doubled as food-storage lockers, meat smokers, and the place for childbirth. If the modern Finn is less likely to have been born in a sauna, he or she was still probably conceived or gestated in one.
So 2 million saunas, 5.4 million Finns. By my calculation, that means that each Finnish citizen could spend 8 hours and 58 minutes each day alone in a sauna, without any scheduling conflicts and without having to converse with one another. If, on the other hand, they do run into one another leaving or entering the sauna, there's actually a unique Finnish expression for that - it's 8 seconds of respectful silence.
But alas, even in Finland, society has not been organized to quite that degree of numbing, mechanical perfection. Until that day, the Finns must share the löyly with others. But I say with only in the broadest sense - they can see each other, but that doesn't mean they have to interact. In the sauna speech is superfluous - through deep inhales and muttered half-words, everybody expresses the same thoughts. These include, and are limited to, "there's not enough steam," "that's a bit too much steam," or ideally, "this is the right amount of steam." If there is any discord - say, if the Finn with the water-bucket throws too little on the stove - the Finns have an expression for that as well. It's 8 seconds of resentful silence. As with any linguistic subtlety, a foreigner in Finland learns to distinguish between similar silences through repeated exposure.
My own initiation into the sauna ritual was surprisingly painless, aside from the steam-scaldings and the repeated birch-branch whippings (not made up, see bottom of first picture). Whenever I would wade into some new cultural milieu in Russia, it was a minefield of rules of etiquette, archaic rituals and superstitions, all perfectly tuned to produce stress and wonder in equal measure. So in Finland I expected the same - on the face of it, sitting naked in a tiny box with a bunch of natives would appear to be cultural immersion at its most terrifying and productive. I thought the Finns would see through me like an autist through a Magic Eye poster, correcting every misstep and faux pas until I either cried or rapidly Finnicized.
Yet this didn't happen. As it turns out, Finns don't seem to care much who you are, what you do, or how you speak, so long as there's enough physical space to accommodate them in the sauna. This is a blessing for most visitors but perhaps a curse for my writing. By extension, it may help to explain why the blog has floundered, and this is likely the last post.
The sauna is a warm, friendly, comfortable, thoroughly enjoyable facet of the culture, and the Finns would readily accept it (and often employ it) in various metaphors for the country at large. Yet as Finland's most distinctive cultural tradition, the sauna neither offends nor challenges. Within the country, it is beautiful but commonplace, and for visitors it is celebrated but not adopted back home. That seems to be the metaphor to me.
I'm reminded of Mark Twain's oft-quoted observation, that there's no difference between those who don't read and those who can't. Within the sauna, for better or worse, there seems no difference between the Finns, who choose not to speak Finnish, and me, who can't. That is, when life is at it's most Finnish, it can be hard to tell I'm in Finland.
What this says about the country has been difficult for me to parse, and even more difficult to convey in blog form. One thing I can say is that, for the blog to peter out, without much conclusion and with weeks remaining in country, somehow seems a suitable end. The harder I look at Finland, the less clear its outlines become. This may in large part result from language limitations, in which case the blog will return when I do. But I suspect there's more to it than that. I'll post another round of pictures, because I have no shortage of beautiful landscapes and funny English,
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Rapakivi granite is a hornblende-biotite granite containing large rounded crystals of orthoclase, and its name derives from a Finnish compound word meaning "mud rock." It is also the topic of today's post.
Oh wait sorry, I was just reading about granite on Wikipedia. The only Finnish word that enjoys common usage in English is sauna. Today's post is about the Finnish sauna.
Finland is home to 5.4 million people and over 2 million saunas. The saunas are hidden in the forest and around all the lakes; they dot the tundra and line the seashore, they're built into every home where we might have a utility room, and they're on the roofs of urban apartment blocks and student dormitories. The presidential summer residence outside Turku has a lavish presidential sauna, and members of the Finnish parliament have members-only access to a parliamentary sauna large enough to fit an entire naked governing coalition. There is a sauna 100 miles south and 4,724 feet down from where I am right now, at the bottom of Europe's deepest mine. During the Cold War, president Urho Kekkonen famously welcomed Soviet leaders into his sauna, and a sauna-book at the library has extensive quotations from Kekkonen on the sauna's merits as both a bathing and political aid. Every apartment listing in Finland has a "sauna" column in the specs. I can see a rooftop sauna from my window as I write this.
The saunas have wood-burning stoves, electric stoves, or infrared heating elements, all of which heat rocks, onto which you throw water, in order to produce sauna steam or löyly. It's pronounced just like it looks. The historical origins of the sauna are unclear, because the Finns abhor talking about themselves, but for at least 1000 years the average Finn has dedicated a significant portion of his or her life to the production of löyly. Today, as before, löyly is the endpoint of most Finnish dreams and aspirations.
In the sauna-prehistory, the traditional Finnish sauna was a smoke sauna, which also burns wood, but has no chimney - they would build a fire in the morning, let it heat the rocks for many hours until the fire burned itself out, then ventilate the room before steaming. This has gone out of favor since the advent of having an actual job. But at the time there was no other way, and the smoke was a necessary disinfectant - smoke saunas doubled as food-storage lockers, meat smokers, and the place for childbirth. If the modern Finn is less likely to have been born in a sauna, he or she was still probably conceived or gestated in one.
But alas, even in Finland, society has not been organized to quite that degree of numbing, mechanical perfection. Until that day, the Finns must share the löyly with others. But I say with only in the broadest sense - they can see each other, but that doesn't mean they have to interact. In the sauna speech is superfluous - through deep inhales and muttered half-words, everybody expresses the same thoughts. These include, and are limited to, "there's not enough steam," "that's a bit too much steam," or ideally, "this is the right amount of steam." If there is any discord - say, if the Finn with the water-bucket throws too little on the stove - the Finns have an expression for that as well. It's 8 seconds of resentful silence. As with any linguistic subtlety, a foreigner in Finland learns to distinguish between similar silences through repeated exposure.
My own initiation into the sauna ritual was surprisingly painless, aside from the steam-scaldings and the repeated birch-branch whippings (not made up, see bottom of first picture). Whenever I would wade into some new cultural milieu in Russia, it was a minefield of rules of etiquette, archaic rituals and superstitions, all perfectly tuned to produce stress and wonder in equal measure. So in Finland I expected the same - on the face of it, sitting naked in a tiny box with a bunch of natives would appear to be cultural immersion at its most terrifying and productive. I thought the Finns would see through me like an autist through a Magic Eye poster, correcting every misstep and faux pas until I either cried or rapidly Finnicized.
Yet this didn't happen. As it turns out, Finns don't seem to care much who you are, what you do, or how you speak, so long as there's enough physical space to accommodate them in the sauna. This is a blessing for most visitors but perhaps a curse for my writing. By extension, it may help to explain why the blog has floundered, and this is likely the last post.
The sauna is a warm, friendly, comfortable, thoroughly enjoyable facet of the culture, and the Finns would readily accept it (and often employ it) in various metaphors for the country at large. Yet as Finland's most distinctive cultural tradition, the sauna neither offends nor challenges. Within the country, it is beautiful but commonplace, and for visitors it is celebrated but not adopted back home. That seems to be the metaphor to me.
I'm reminded of Mark Twain's oft-quoted observation, that there's no difference between those who don't read and those who can't. Within the sauna, for better or worse, there seems no difference between the Finns, who choose not to speak Finnish, and me, who can't. That is, when life is at it's most Finnish, it can be hard to tell I'm in Finland.
What this says about the country has been difficult for me to parse, and even more difficult to convey in blog form. One thing I can say is that, for the blog to peter out, without much conclusion and with weeks remaining in country, somehow seems a suitable end. The harder I look at Finland, the less clear its outlines become. This may in large part result from language limitations, in which case the blog will return when I do. But I suspect there's more to it than that. I'll post another round of pictures, because I have no shortage of beautiful landscapes and funny English,
but this may be the last essay for this trip. Accordingly, please enjoy this collection of Finnish sunsets - click on any picture for a full-size version.
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