One of the things that we were told during our lesson of: "How to live like a Finn" was to blend in, to adopt to the country, its people and their habits. And that for some reasons Germans can do that very well.
I wondered why that might be and my first guess was: it is a "statistical" error. The biggest group of the foreign/exchange students that is here in Oulu is from Germany hence the biggest group that would stay here or blend in very well would be from Germany. Percentage wise probably the same as from every other country but number wise the most.
After some more careful observation I think there might be other reasons. In some dimensions Finland is what Germans dreamed of raised the power of two. Let me give some examples:
In Germany we dream of having our own house with a garden. We end up with a lot of houses squashed together in a tight space. Here they not only want to have one house they often have two. A weekend house, a mökki, most of the time near the sea or a lake or a river. Not seldom on an island of its own. And they do not squash anything tightly together because they don‘t have to.
In Germany we love to do things ourselves. We love to own tools. We love to grow plants. We are proud of what we can do ourselvs and when you drive to a Baumarkt (hardware store) at the weekend it is most of the time filled with people buying things for their garden. And you will end up with no parking space close to the entrance and therefore you have to carry your stuff all the way over the whole parking-lot. Let me tell you they have a solution here. The hardware stores here are so big that you can actually drive in there (I am not kidding you) with your car and you trailer for easy loading.
You think a German 9 to 17 job is nice and tidy. You think Germans are always on time and follow the schedule? When you arrive here at the university at 7:50 the parking-lot is almost empty. When you leave at 16:30 it is almost empty. But mind you, if you arrive at 8:00 or try to leave at 16:00. Madness. Want a coffee at 8:30, 10:30 or 13:30? Good luck, the coffee kitchen will be full to the brim. Any other time, no problem.
I think we Germans love our nature, we like to go hiking, we barbecue at every weather and some of the most famous of our poems are about nature. Well here they collectively travel to their mökki for a whole month, which usually has no running water, no heating except a fireplace and often no electricity and is in the middle of nowhere but at a beautiful lake. They also collectivly take a week of during October to go hiking because nature then has the most beautiful colors.
I am also told that the Finns believe in hard working and would also wait at a red signal for pedestrians in the middle of the night while trying to cross an empty road.
So it seams to me that both societies share a lot of their core values, to a much greater extend than I expected. Although you will find some noticeable differences. For example people seem more friendly and less bothered with formalities of communication. It is not professor Latva-Aho it is at most professor Matti.
Also, and that might be an important difference, the Finns seem to be more pragmatic. This is not meant as an euphemism for something, quite the contrary. In Germany, at least this is my personal impression, we are obsessed with the process. We want to streamline every process, what want to make rules for it, document it and perfect it. Have a look at our bottle deposit system, our transparent factories or any public office. We are so obsessed with process that we often forget what is at the beginning or the end of it. I have the feeling they people here can keep that in mind a little bit better.
Well, this is it. I end again with some more pictures of the nature around here. Oh yeah, and the bed we build! You know, adapting to the local habits…