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How the Finnish survive without small talk
51–60 of 208 posts
Re: How the Finnish survive without small talk
#52Sometimes in Finland you see people from countries like USA talking with each other endlessly and often quite loudly. Many of us Finns find it annoying as it is against local customs (it resembles situation where somebody comes too close to my personal space). This constant chit-chat prevents me concentrating on my own thoughts. I wouldn't mind if they would talk about some important things or keep their chit-chat short, but I don't want to be exposed to this kind of noise about trivial things for hours.
Re: How the Finnish survive without small talk
#53(I’m a Finn) I didn’t know what small talk was until I went to study abroad. Most of my foreign classmates often asked me things like ”how are you doing?” etc. and when I literally answered them what I had been up to recently they were very confused. ”Dude...no need to tell your life story, just say ’good’ and that’s it” I replied ”Why do you ask a question if you don’t care about the answer?” I learned the hard way,…
"how are you doing?" is literally asking just that. You answered with what you had been "up to" recently - that doesn't make sense.
A better example would be your friend asking "what you been up to?" and you answered in very detailed manner when your friend might have been expecting a brief answer like: "not much" or "I've been busy".
Re: How the Finnish survive without small talk
#54Russian people are similar in that regard. We also don’t ask how are you. It’s mostly transactional with strangers.
Re: How the Finnish survive without small talk
#55Oh, come on. Most parts of Asia have no notion of a small talk, moreover, it is considered impolite and sometimes even silly. Only almost formal, exceedingly polite and necessary conversations are part of the social norm, and you see, it is OK for a few billions or so.
A similar kind of formality used to be a thing in Western culture, at least up until the 1980s. Watch any kind of TV show from back then and notice the formality in the clothing of presenters, the substantially more discernible pronunciation, the vocabulary. The cultural shift towards informality is a recent trend in the West.
One should be careful basing observations on what is shown on TV. As an extreme example, it would suggest that most couples did not sleep on the same bed during the 1950s.
There was also a cultural fashion in the US to use a "Mid-Atlantic accent". Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent :
> The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent,[1][2][3] is a consciously acquired accent of English, intended to blend together the "standard" speech of both American English and British Received Pronunciation. Spoken mostly in the early 20th century by Americans, it is not a vernacular American accent native to any location, but rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, an affected set of speech patterns whose "chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so".[4] The accent is, therefore, best associated with the American upper class, theater, and film industry of the 1930s and 1940s,[5] largely taught in private independent preparatory schools especially in the American Northeast and in acting schools.[6] The accent's overall use sharply declined following the Second World War.
On the UK side of the Atlantic, the Received Pronunciation was considered the appropriate form of English in BBC broadcasts, leading to "BBC English", which again reflected upper class use. As I recall, it wasn't until the 1980s when BBC announcers were more free to use regional dialects.
So when you view history through TV, remember that you are also seeing it through a upper-class lens.
Re: How the Finnish survive without small talk
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
leads to depression hence their sky high suicide rates. That's a myth. Finland's suicide rate is basically the same as that in the US, and Norway, Sweden and Denmark all have a significantly lower rates.
It is an American myth? I have seen it numerous times here on HN, and always found it weird since it is very clearly false if you look up the data.
I know that Eisenhower (US president) helped popularize that view. Doing a search now found https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?artikel=5924063
Re: How the Finnish survive without small talk
#57(I’m a Finn) I didn’t know what small talk was until I went to study abroad. Most of my foreign classmates often asked me things like ”how are you doing?” etc. and when I literally answered them what I had been up to recently they were very confused. ”Dude...no need to tell your life story, just say ’good’ and that’s it” I replied ”Why do you ask a question if you don’t care about the answer?” I learned the hard way,…
There were these two British gentlemen coaching our doctoral programme summer meetup. I think their task was to make us better communicate our research. Probably quite hard because we were all from a STEM background and at least half of us Finns.
During a break, we were seated in a table of five and this British guy sits with us for a while and asks some generic questions, but soon leaves our table because he wants to meet the other students, too. Then one of the Finnish students next to me asks ironically: "So... was that supposed to be that famous small talk?", making many of us smirk.
Re: How the Finnish survive without small talk
#58I'd be definitely more interested in an article on "How US/UK survive with small talk".
Re: How the Finnish survive without small talk
#59Sometimes in Finland you see people from countries like USA talking with each other endlessly and often quite loudly. Many of us Finns find it annoying as it is against local customs (it resembles situation where somebody comes too close to my personal space). This constant chit-chat prevents me concentrating on my own thoughts. I wouldn't mind if they would talk about some important things or keep their chit-chat sh…
The constant chit-chat is at the surface of this phenomenon, it's the general hyperactivity of Americans that strikes me as an eastern European. Always moving around restlessly while holding a drink, overacting and commenting after any kind of trivial situation around them, something that most people would not care about at all.
Re: How the Finnish survive without small talk
#60Russian people are similar in that regard. We also don’t ask how are you. It’s mostly transactional with strangers.
In Finland we sometimes ask how are you, especially if we know the person. However, it is usually meant to be a real question and not just empty phrase where "fine" is regarded as the only correct answer.