Why Finland?

1. I chose the culture of Finland, and therefore the overall Scandinavian culture. I come from a Finnish family, but because of bad blood, my family doesn’t speak to my dad’s side, who is “more Finnish” than my mom. There is also a church in Finland, called the Laestadian Lutheran church, that my family left when I was little, and I am curious to know the impact of the Finnish culture in that church. I think that deep diving into this culture will help me understand my family, and by extension, myself. I want to be able to recover some relationships that were lost when I was small, and I think that learning and understanding why my family is the way it is will make it easier to communicate and relate to them. 

I think that learning more about my own supposed culture will help me connect to more people because I will have more of a solid base to relate to them. I will have a base to jump off of, to connect my own culture to the culture of others, and be able to connect on a deeper level. 

2. A feature of Finnish culture is the home life of the Finns. As of 2023, there are 1.75 children per woman, and small households aren’t wanted (CIA 2024). In Finland, the more children in the household, the better, and that carries into the USA. My dad has 14 siblings, and my mom has 4. The amount of children in the family is super important to the culture. Another feature of Finnish culture is gender equality in the household (AFS). Although women still take the larger share of the domestic chores, the equality between men and women is more equal than in countries like the United States. It’s more common to split the chores based on the amount of work both people have, so if they have an equal workday, they will often come home and clean together. 

3. I think that working within this culture, it will be difficult to find a medium between the real Finnish culture, and the culture that I know. My Finnish culture is more rooted in the religious aspect of it, but because it’s a US-based church, things will be different from the US culture and Finnish culture. To work around this, I am going to work on comparing and contrasting the two different cultures, to see where the traditions come from, and how they have been changed over the years. I want to be able to find the similarities and differences of the two religions, while not projecting one on the other. To do that, I need to go into it with a neutral mind, and slowly work on the similarities later, after all of the research has been compiled. I need to be able to separate the two cultures and treat them as two separate entities, while also realizing that they are interconnected. 

AFS USA. (2024). Exploring the Culture of Finland. https://www.afsusa.org/countries/finland/. Accessed 18 January 2024. 

The World Factbook. (17 January 2024). Finland. CIA. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/finland/#people-and-society. Accessed 18 January 2024.