Given that nothing of note has happened to me here (i.e. I've been at work, and Saturday night I went for some beer and played minigolf) this series can continue. I've already elaborated on some of the more difficult points of adapting to life in Finland for the foreigner, but one of these points has received considerable media exposure over the last couple of years. A quick look at Maslow's triangle of essential human needs will reveal that in order to live one needs communication, sunshine, clothing, sex (I've had another visitor to this site from Austria on that very subject), and the odd trip to the pub/Tallinn. This blog has covered all of those subjects and now the final issue, I'm sure you've all guessed, is food.
The Finnish culinary scene has come under somewhat of a microscope in recent times with both Silvio Berlusconi and Jacques Chirac having a good poke. The truth is though that the quality of food in this country, much like that of the women, varies enormously, from immensely tasty to downright dangerous. Firstly, one of the first things I ate in Finland - Mämmi. At this point even the Finns shudder, despite the fact that practically all of them eat it. It's an Easter "speciality" which everyone claims to hate, yet nearly everyone eats it anyway, just because that's what you do around Easter. It looks like crap (literally) and also tastes quite similar, even when, as the natives do, you absolutely drown it in cream. It looks something like this. Other appetising dishes include those made of blood - for instance sausages, small pancakes, and soup - as well as pea soup and a sausage which is so low on meat that, according to EU directives, it's actually a pastry. Sadly, most things don't actually taste of very much and it seems that this is because of some kind of Northern European healthy reflex which sees it absolutely impossible to get anything in the supermarkets which are not free of this or low on that. Add to this the fact that every person in the country is allergic to something (lactose, gluten, sugar, fresh air, you name it) and the task of finding something decent for the ordinary, unallergic, uncomplicated eater becomes rather more difficult. Getting a decent cheese in a shop, for instance, takes good luck and a decent map of the supermarket, and finding milk products which are not low-fat/lactose free/reduced calcium/in powdered form/etc. also takes quite a bit of dedication to the cause. I've also read that spices are not really used in Finland because of a traditional belief that they were harmful to the consumer's health. And in a country with such a high intake of alcohol that's quite amusing.
However, let's surprise you all here with a few revelations. Finland produces, in my opinion, far and away the best strawberries in the world. Strawberries !! You wouldn't expect them here and I thought it was some kind of joke the first time I saw them in a supermarket but they're bright and red, juicy and tasty and you don't buy them in a bag which says "reduced beta-carotene" or "vitamin free !". Secondly, anyone heard of a cloudberry ? They're strange little things that look like raspberries except that they're orange, and they don't taste like anything else I know. Finns make great cakes out of these and, for that matter they make great cakes out of most things. Anyone had beef jerky ? Well a Lappi speciality is reindeer jerky. Moose sausage is also pretty good and I've also eaten a moose curry, which wasn't bad. Moose steak is eaten with lingonberries, which is also tasty. The Lapps also have some kind of oven cheese which squeaks on your teeth when you eat it, and also tastes of something. Sadly that's the only cheese you can buy here which really tastes of anything at all, but it's a start So unlike what Chirac and Berlusconi seem to believe, the situation here isn't really all that bad. Going to a restaurant isn't something to be feared if you're going to eat Finnish food.
For some reason though, foreign restaurants in Helsinki are useless. The Chinese restaurants are pretty tasteless, and nothing much else exists. When a Moroccan restaurant opened last year, I went with watering taste buds thinking that I was actually going to eat something which was knowledgeably spiced, and came out thinking that it sucked. Fast food is expensive and, even after a heavy Finnish night out, tastes pretty crap. I guess part of the problem is that the largest immigrant communities in Finland are (at least this is what it seems to me, it's not backed up with statistics) Somali and Russian. Neither are exactly tasty food paradise and makes you wish that more Arabs, Indians, Chinese and Mexicans could be imported here. They would then be encouraged to start up decent restaurants instead of dodgy imitation chain restaurants.
Going to the supermarket is even more frustrating unless you live to eat ready-made things straight to the microwave or the oven. Go to a supermarket here and try to find something simple, like chicken for instance, and you'll see it's impossible !! Chicken in marinade, chicken soup, lactose-free chicken, all OK. Plain, untainted chicken breast, sorry - no can do. I won't go crying about it too much though, even if I do cry myself to sleep every night over the fact that I haven't eaten merguez for months or that to make a poulet yassa I have to deep clean the marinade off the chicken legs. I suppose the Finns go to Western Europe and complain that they can't find rotten fish, Mämmi, cloudberries, low-fat bacon, or lactose-free lactose. This is what intercultural dialogue is all about.
One more thing I'll stand up for Finland in is the following. When Chirac criticised Finnish cuisine, he did it indirectly by stating that Britain was "after Finland, the country with the worst food". This is not true. OK, Finnish food is on the whole quite tasteless, but comparing it unfavourably to British food is simply unfair.
Jul 12, 2008
A couple of small thoughts
A couple of small thoughts in no particular order.
Firstly, since writing the article "Sex sells" I've had 4 visitors who have come to this site specifically having gone to Google and searched for sex-related themes - one from Israel, one from Iran, one from the United Arab Emirates and one from France. I think that's a reasonable amount, given that this blog doesn't contain any porno or erotic literature or whatever. Maybe I should continue the research and write a steamy story and see how many people click onto me then... As a further sign of this, M has told me she doesn't read Teppo M's blog any more, the reason being that he isn't writing it any more. The reason for this ? His story has been bought out by a publishing house and a company planning to make a movie about his story. Yup...
Secondly, I have been quite negative about Finland and Finns so far in this blog. This shouldn't be taken in the wrong way - I know many very nice and friendly (and even talkative !!) Finns here and I think the country is one of the most beautiful in Europe, even if it could probably do with having a mountain or 2 to break the monotony. I like to entertain though and the truth is, like it or not, that taking the piss generally offers more opportunities to have some cheap fun than saying how lovely this or that is. So, yes, I am presenting this country and its inhabitants in an unbalanced way. It's not to make everyone hate you, my fellow residents of this frozen wasteland, it's just to try and make people smile.
Firstly, since writing the article "Sex sells" I've had 4 visitors who have come to this site specifically having gone to Google and searched for sex-related themes - one from Israel, one from Iran, one from the United Arab Emirates and one from France. I think that's a reasonable amount, given that this blog doesn't contain any porno or erotic literature or whatever. Maybe I should continue the research and write a steamy story and see how many people click onto me then... As a further sign of this, M has told me she doesn't read Teppo M's blog any more, the reason being that he isn't writing it any more. The reason for this ? His story has been bought out by a publishing house and a company planning to make a movie about his story. Yup...
Secondly, I have been quite negative about Finland and Finns so far in this blog. This shouldn't be taken in the wrong way - I know many very nice and friendly (and even talkative !!) Finns here and I think the country is one of the most beautiful in Europe, even if it could probably do with having a mountain or 2 to break the monotony. I like to entertain though and the truth is, like it or not, that taking the piss generally offers more opportunities to have some cheap fun than saying how lovely this or that is. So, yes, I am presenting this country and its inhabitants in an unbalanced way. It's not to make everyone hate you, my fellow residents of this frozen wasteland, it's just to try and make people smile.
Hey Rastaman !
First up, an explanation for the lack of text recently. I moved house, had the flu, got a new job, and then spent a week working it. I'm now a tester and translator for mobile phone video games, spending my day translating simple phrases from English to French and then playing games for hours on end, surrounded by computer geeks. And they actually pay me for this ! It's great.
Now, onto the main idea. Looking at the title of this entry - it's not only black guys with dreadlocks who have this said to them. It's also white guys who go around with either necklaces or bracelets with red, green and yellow on them. You'll usually be drowned in comments with mock Jamaican accents like "Rastafari !" or "De colours of Jomaaaica maan !". If you say this to me, then you'll expect quite a bit of a lecture back in return. Red, green and yellow are not the colours of Jamaica - look at the flag. It has black on it, and also has no red on it. Look at the flag of Ethiopia instead, or the flag of numerous other African countries. These other countries adopted the colours of Ethiopia as a sign of pride in and respect for Ethiopia, which was the only country in Africa to successfully resist colonisation. The Rastafarian religion is Jamaican, as is reggae music. The colours associated with them, however, were adopted from Ethiopia and their God is Haile Selassie I, former Emperor of Ethiopia, seen as the chosen leader of the black community given that, in the 1930s when the Rastafarian movement began, Haile Selassie was the only recognised black head of state in the international community. Rastafarianism teaches that the black population of the western hemisphere was stolen from Africa and must live as close as possible to African ways while awaiting their return to the continent of their roots.
Anyone who's listened to reggae will know they go on about lions a lot - this, again, comes from the fact that the Emperors of Ethiopia claimed descent from the Queen of Sheba and the Israelite tribe of Judah which had a lion as its symbol. Given that these guys then went on to rule Ethiopia, they referred to themselves as the Conquering Lions of Judah. Haile Selassie had loads of lions in his garden as pets.
Another line I heard a lot is "reggae singers go on about Zion ! They want to go to Israel !" which is not true either. Zion as a concept is a utopia or a promised land. It was a word which indeed came from Jewish lore, as a hill in the area of Jerusalem has been called Mount Zion for several millenia. Obviously, as a consequence, history has placed Zion in the Jewish context given their status as a population in exile for those few millenia and the Jewish yearning for the promised land has been dubbed Zionism. Rastas, though, refer to Africa in general and a historically independent Ethiopia in particular as their zion, or promised land.
It doesn't stop there, however. After I went to an interview a few weeks ago wearing them, M warned me against doing it for any high level job. Not because it would come across as not being serious, but because I would be assumed to be a pothead. "What ??!" I enquired. She told me that this is what these colours are associated with here. So in Finland it's not even associated with a country with which it shouldn't be, but just places me into a serial waster category, which is even more interesting if depressing. I'm sure this happens in a lot of other places too, although Finland does have quite a strange fixation with weed. Having grown up in a country where you can see people sitting around in the capital's main square smoking up freely in the summer, it comes as a bit of a shock here when you roll a cigarette and people look at you curiously and say "joint ????". And it happens a lot too. Sure, everyone jumps to conclusions, but to assume I'm too much of a joint smoker to do a job properly just because I happened to buy some beads in Senegal (whose flag is red, yellow and green) does seem to me to be pushing the boat out a bit too far.
So, to recap, given the strong identification of Rastafarians with Ethiopia, the colours that crop up in Rasta culture are the same as the ones which crop up in Ethiopia. So when you see me with these necklaces, drop the Jamaican accent. I've never been to Kingston and I got these necklaces and bracelets in Africa. Also, less than 1 in 10 Jamaicans is Rastafarian. So even if these colours are loosely linked to the religion and the music, they have nothing to do with the country. Thank you.
Now, onto the main idea. Looking at the title of this entry - it's not only black guys with dreadlocks who have this said to them. It's also white guys who go around with either necklaces or bracelets with red, green and yellow on them. You'll usually be drowned in comments with mock Jamaican accents like "Rastafari !" or "De colours of Jomaaaica maan !". If you say this to me, then you'll expect quite a bit of a lecture back in return. Red, green and yellow are not the colours of Jamaica - look at the flag. It has black on it, and also has no red on it. Look at the flag of Ethiopia instead, or the flag of numerous other African countries. These other countries adopted the colours of Ethiopia as a sign of pride in and respect for Ethiopia, which was the only country in Africa to successfully resist colonisation. The Rastafarian religion is Jamaican, as is reggae music. The colours associated with them, however, were adopted from Ethiopia and their God is Haile Selassie I, former Emperor of Ethiopia, seen as the chosen leader of the black community given that, in the 1930s when the Rastafarian movement began, Haile Selassie was the only recognised black head of state in the international community. Rastafarianism teaches that the black population of the western hemisphere was stolen from Africa and must live as close as possible to African ways while awaiting their return to the continent of their roots.
Anyone who's listened to reggae will know they go on about lions a lot - this, again, comes from the fact that the Emperors of Ethiopia claimed descent from the Queen of Sheba and the Israelite tribe of Judah which had a lion as its symbol. Given that these guys then went on to rule Ethiopia, they referred to themselves as the Conquering Lions of Judah. Haile Selassie had loads of lions in his garden as pets.
Another line I heard a lot is "reggae singers go on about Zion ! They want to go to Israel !" which is not true either. Zion as a concept is a utopia or a promised land. It was a word which indeed came from Jewish lore, as a hill in the area of Jerusalem has been called Mount Zion for several millenia. Obviously, as a consequence, history has placed Zion in the Jewish context given their status as a population in exile for those few millenia and the Jewish yearning for the promised land has been dubbed Zionism. Rastas, though, refer to Africa in general and a historically independent Ethiopia in particular as their zion, or promised land.
It doesn't stop there, however. After I went to an interview a few weeks ago wearing them, M warned me against doing it for any high level job. Not because it would come across as not being serious, but because I would be assumed to be a pothead. "What ??!" I enquired. She told me that this is what these colours are associated with here. So in Finland it's not even associated with a country with which it shouldn't be, but just places me into a serial waster category, which is even more interesting if depressing. I'm sure this happens in a lot of other places too, although Finland does have quite a strange fixation with weed. Having grown up in a country where you can see people sitting around in the capital's main square smoking up freely in the summer, it comes as a bit of a shock here when you roll a cigarette and people look at you curiously and say "joint ????". And it happens a lot too. Sure, everyone jumps to conclusions, but to assume I'm too much of a joint smoker to do a job properly just because I happened to buy some beads in Senegal (whose flag is red, yellow and green) does seem to me to be pushing the boat out a bit too far.
So, to recap, given the strong identification of Rastafarians with Ethiopia, the colours that crop up in Rasta culture are the same as the ones which crop up in Ethiopia. So when you see me with these necklaces, drop the Jamaican accent. I've never been to Kingston and I got these necklaces and bracelets in Africa. Also, less than 1 in 10 Jamaicans is Rastafarian. So even if these colours are loosely linked to the religion and the music, they have nothing to do with the country. Thank you.
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