Midsummer Night Madness

The beginning week's weekend is midsummer weekend. Midsummer's day is a big thing in Finland. The origin of midsummer celebration has its roots in the pagan times. The peoples of the Nordic and Baltic countries used to celebrate midsummer on the longest day of the year, i.e. the summer solstice. After Christianity arrived in the area, the Catholic church thought it best to accommodate the local people and incorporate their festival into the religious calendar. As John the Baptist happened to have been born around the time of the midsummer festivities, his birthday was declared the official midsummer's day. In Finnish midsummer is called "juhannus" and the name can be traced back to "John" (Johannes in Finnish. Reading tip: the "j" in Finnish is pronounced as "y", like in "yolk", never like "j" in English). Juhannus always falls on a Saturday between 21st and 26th of June.

So, what is traditional for midsummer celebration in Finland? I cannot speak for the whole country as traditions may differ from one area to the other, but I will explain how it is and has been celebrated in my area. In the past times the midsummer time was considered magic and even a bit threatening, it was thought that evil spirits and ghosts were fooling around on the Earth. A suitable way to repel the potentially harmful influence of those spirits was to be as badly drunk as possible and burn big, bright midsummer bonfires. (Sounds like a dangerous combination, right?)

At the same time it was considered a time when forecasts about the coming year could be made and people used to perform rituals to secure their livelihood and good luck on the marriage market, the latter usually only concerning young girls (which annoys the hell out of me because it's not equal!) When I was a child my grandparents and parents told me that young girls were supposed to collect seven different kind of wild flowers and put them under their pillows, so they would meet their future husband in their dream. Another way to see the future husband was to peek into the well. The image of him should be reflected on the surface of the water. I wonder how many young ladies met the grim reaper instead of the fiance after falling into the well.. 

For midsummer people used to, and still do if possible, place birch trees on both sides of the entry to the house. It is still traditional to bathe in the midsummer sauna to be lean when it's time to celebrate on earnest. As a matter of fact, even if some traditions will fade, one tradition is going to stick around: Finns have always been and will always be drunk as a skunk during midsummer. And this leads me to describing the ways to die during the festival. 

1. Traffic. Midsummer is one of the most popular times to go to the countryside, and that means more traffic than usual. Sadly, it is not uncommon to drive in the state of serious intoxication which increases the risk of traffic accidents. Someone dies every year. 

2. Drowning. Midsummer is also a popular time to be on the boat and as many summer cottages are located on a lake shore, there's plenty of fresh water to drown into. I remember at school a first aid teacher once told us that 80% of the people who fall from the boats and drown in the lakes are young men and 80% of them have their fly opened (that is, they wanted to pee to the lake but being drunk ended up falling into the water. Well, there will be no further need to pee..)

3. Fight. When alcohol is involved, people might get a bit aggressive. Especially the ones who have the "drink and fight" gene. So, someone might end up in the hospital or in the cemetery. 

There are other ways to end the days during midsummer, too, like alcohol poisoning etc. but let's not dwell on the subject. Juhannus in general is a happy holiday when families or groups of friends gather together. There will be barbecue, beer, cider, plenty of food and weather permitting people will be outdoors. Some skiing centers and other holiday resorts organize their midsummer night's party where it's impossible to run out of alcohol. 

One more direct consequence of midsummer night's more relaxed behavior is the occasional peak in the birth rate nine months later. (According to statistics there doesn't seem to be a relevant connection between midsummer and a baby early the next year but this myth still lives and people joke about it a lot. :)

So, are you ready to celebrate midsummer? great! Hyvää juhannusta! Happy Midsummer! 

The Summer Guests

"I always knew the summer had begun when the summer guests started arriving", my mother told me some time ago. "They would walk to our house from their summer cottages. The house was always full in the summer. They started arriving in May and the last ones left in September." We were driving by the said summer cottage that's been empty all winter now and I was thinking summer is absolutely the best time to be in Finland. See, everyone else is here, too. Even when I was a child I also knew it was summer when my godparents came home from Sweden.

In East Asia people always try to get home for the lunar new year. Summer is our lunar new year. Most Finns who left the country to work abroad try to return in the summer. My home town is in Eastern Finland, it was one of the areas that lost a lot of young people in 60's and 70's when they mass emigrated to Sweden to work for the growing industrial sector, or went to work in the bigger cities elsewhere in Finland. My home town was pretty much empty in the winter but in the summer it filled with people, filled with life when the summer guests arrived. In the summer Finland is one, big, open guest house. We meet people we haven't seen in a year.

We call this Midsummer Rose because it's supposed to blossom around the time of  midsummer 

Of course Finns travel in the winter too, for Christmas and New Year's holidays and such but traveling in the summer has one advantage over everything else; traveling is easy. It's warm and it's daylight throughout the night. In addition people mostly take their longest vacation in the summer. There is plenty to see, too. Some small, local places like restaurants and cafes in Finland are only open in the summer. I invite you to come to Finland in the summer. We are ready to receive more guests!

The Moomin Mania

The story has it that it all started with a drawing on the wall of an outhouse in 1930's. Since then these funny, hippopotamus-shaped creatures and their motley collection of friends have made their way into the hearts of the Finns. I am talking about the Moomins.

Most people have at least a couple of Moomin mugs

I have more than a couple of them..

The first book was published in 1945 straight after the Continuation War finished. At that time the book didn't appeal to the greater audience, the nation was too busy rebuilding everything to be interested in books and such. Despite the low interest in her story, the creator of the Moomins, Tove Jansson did not give up but published another book the following year. The second book didn't sell any better and the publishing house declined the questionable honor of publishing even more of the books that didn't generate any income. Jansson offered her third book to another publishing house and finally the Moomins started to receive some attention. The third book was Jansson's break through and since then nothing has been able to stop the Moomins from taking over the world.

Containers for coffee, sugar, flour etc. 

The Japanese got interested in the Moomins as early as in the 1960's. Two animations were created in the following decade but it was only in the 1990's when a Japanese animation for kids became hugely popular in Finland (you can watch the animation online in Youtube. Just type in "Moomins" and an English version will appear). Originally the Moomin books and comic books were written for grown up people, but the Japanese did some editing to make their animation more suitable and interesting for a younger audience. When I was a child I loved the Moomins, even though some of the episodes were actually quite scary. :)

The pages of the Moomin notebook are being filled with notes about job applications sent

Eventually, the Moomins also made it to the cinema and theaters and the books were translated to 40+ languages. These days Moomin characters decorate anything that can be decorated. There are the mugs, the pillow cases and duvet covers, towels, notebooks, you name it. The oddest thing I have seen was a Moomin bra in Bangkok. At that moment I realized I've seen it all. Also, the Moomins are probably the only thing that can cause a riot in Finland. When a special batch of Moomin mugs was released to the stores, people were actually snatching the mugs from other people's trolleys and even some fights over the coveted ceramics were reported in the news. This all in a country where people don't even want to cross the street if the light is red.

Plush toys..

No wonder at some point Jansson herself admitted being sick of seeing the Moomins everywhere she went.

Pillow cases

Decorative items..

In addition to story books and comics, there are books about the stories and the author

Puzzles

More containers.. oh yes, I am obsessed

Want to know more about the Moomins? Check the webpage!
Moomins

The fires of the fox

This is a short post for those of you who are interested in aurora borealis. Often times when I'm travelling people ask me about the northern lights, if I've seen them and if it's easy to see them in Finland. Well, the answer to the question is yes I've seen the northern lights, if only three times in my life. See, the problem is, the northern lights usually occur in the night and because I am a good girl, I sleep. When I was living with my parents they never woke me up to see the lights even though there were winters when the lights appeared most nights for weeks. So I've only seen a very weak, fading sort of northern lights and I feel a bit bitter. I spent the best part of my youth huddled up in the disgustingly cold, unpleasant north and didn't even see our trademark northern lights. The strongest ”northern lights” I've seen were during a flight from Bangkok to Helsinki. In some Finnair planes they can demonstrate the phenomenon, even if it doesn't look perfectly natural.

Here's some mythology about the northern lights. People in Eastern Finland believed that a giant firefox, wagging its tail while running in the snow, occasionally hits its tail to a rock or a tree, thus creating the northern lights. Hence the name in Finnish, revontulet, the fires of the fox. Also, some tribes believed women had better avoid seeing the lights and never venture out when the lights appeared as it was believed it would induce bleeding. Some northern tribes also believed that the soldiers who died in the battle still continued to bleed in the heaven. So, there seems to be a connection between blood and aurora borealis, because in addition to being a pale green tinged with blue, the northern lights can also be red.

I don't have a photo of the northern lights, this is a normal sunset

Planning to come to Finland for some northern lights spotting? The best time is either early autumn or late winter. In the summer they cannot be seen because it's too sunny even in the night. They cannot been seen if it's cloudy. In the winter in Lapland it's possible to see the northern lights three nights out of four and the best time is around midnight.

I will not even try to explain how the phenomenon forms because it's totally beyond my abilities. Also, you will find many different myths and legends about aurora borealis online, I've only introduced the ones that I know well.  

Entäs sitten?

Australia-vuosi on ohi ja olotila vähintääkin tyhjä ja toivoton. Ei oo töitä, ei oo asuntoo, eikä juuri muutakaan. Onneks on kuitenkin vähän rahaa tällä kertaa. :) Yleensä on mukava käydä täällä meillä kotona, mutta nyt kun jatkosuunnitelmat puuttuvat, en oikein osaa innostua ajastani täällä. Ehkä siitä tulee liian pitkä? Australia oli elämäni suurin suunnitelma. Ajattelin aina, että Australiassa on jotain minulle, että jotain ilmaantuu vuoden aikana, keksin viimeinkin, mitä haluan tehdä. Olin kerran elämässäni positiivinen ja katsokaa kuinka kävi. Australiassa ei ollut minulle mitään, eikä vuoden aikana ilmaantunut mitään. Mutta se siitä.

Syksy

Mietin, mitä teen tälle blogille sillä aikaa, kun suunnittelen tulevaisuuttani. Ajattelin kirjoitella suomesta, mutta pelkästään englanniksi, koska oletan suomalaisten tuntevan oman maansa. Sitten innostus Suomea kohtaan jäi jonnekin Bangkokin ja Helsingin välille, lentokentällä tunsin pelkkää ahdistusta tänne paluusta. Nyt kuitenkin ajattelin, että kirjoitan Suomesta, englanniksi. Mikäli lukijoita ilmenee useampi kuin yksi tai kaksi, jatkan Suomi-juttuja, kunnes lähden uusien tuulien mukaan. 

And then what?

The year in Australia is over and I'm feeling empty and hopeless. I don't have a job, I don't have an apartment, actually there's nothing in my life at the moment. Except a little money from Australia :) Usually I enjoy visiting my home but this time I don't have any plans for the future so I cannot fully enjoy my stay here. What if my stay here will be too long? Australia was my ultimate plan, I always thought a year is long enough to figure out what I'd like to do with the rest of my life, I was sure something would appear, there would be something just for me. Well, that's the one and the only time I've been thinking positive in life and look what happened. There was nothing for me and nothing appeared.

Autumn in Finland 

Back to the blog then. I don't have a clear plan for this blog, I don't have a clear plan for anything. I was thinking of writing about Finland only in English (because Finnish people are supposed to know these things about their country). Then all the warm and fussy feelings towards Finland disappeared somewhere between Bangkok and Helsinki, at the airport I was only feeling anxious and depressed. But I think I will follow this plan A. If I have more than two readers for those posts, I will keep writing about Finland while I'm still here, planning for the next step.

PS: It was snowing today :(