Well, the sun showed up here in Lappeenranta yesterday. Rami and I celebrated by snapping some photos of the awesome winter scenery.
I think Rami took this one.
"I'm really mad at something outside!
"Me too!"
I hate to beat a dead horse, but I never realized how not-depressing winter could be. Sometimes I look forward to swimming in the lake, though. (Nope, I'm not so Finnish that I'd dare to splash around in the ice. Nope.)
That's all I have. At some point, I'll be writing a review of Miesten vuoro.
Very early this morning, I awoke to the sound of an electric guitar, unplugged and bluesely strummed.
"What the fuck?" I asked in a voice that probably sounded like one belonging to a 65-year-old male. My husband was sitting up, plucking out a little tune.
"I'm just waking up!" he said moodily, and in such a way that told me he was, in fact, still mostly asleep. He put the guitar back on its stand, flopped exhaustedly onto his back, and began snoring loudly in a matter of seconds.
Apparently he sleep-guitars. This was a first, not for his sitting up and doing weird stuff in the small hours, but for the involvement of his guitar.
This makes for a pretty good intro to the topic I had been wanting to write about: Finnish music.
Up until now, I haven't really liked a whole lot of it. This has partly to do with my husband's tastes. I don't think he likes so much as one Finnish artist, and so he fails to, in turn, proselytize to me about what's good and what isn't. And while he likes a certain amount of metal music (the genre for which Finland is probably best known internationally), it is all in the vein of stuff like of Electric Wizard. Now, I'm as yet pretty ignorant about Finnish music, but I haven't heard much in the way of stoner metal. For the most part, he's into American and English rock and blues from the 1960s.
As for me, I'm a classically trained soprano and former choir girl who likes a lot of music (much of it outside the realm of what is considered "popular music") but I've been on a kick (read: 2 years or so) during which I've been attracted to indie and shoegaze music. It's painfully embarrassing, actually. Consider me a very intemperate person, lustily pursuing what my ears crave. Lately, I've been especially in love with bands originating from the Austin, TX area. For example, here's some distortion-infused psychedelia from The Black Angels:
And I absolutely love this band from Oklahoma, Colourmusic. Ah, the noise!
Anyway, I've begun to feel rather bad about not really knowing what's out there in terms of enjoyable Finnish music (you know, aside from Sibelius and Olavi Virta). God knows you can't rely on the radio to expose you to the good stuff, either. So here I am, on a mission of discovery.
The first Finnish band I discovered is one I've actually known about since about 2010, when I was merely visiting here. They're called Murmansk, presumably named for the region of Russia that borders Finnish Lapland. Check them out:
One band that my most recent mission has revealed is one called French Films. First of all, I love the name. It's so...ironically douche-y. Or is it? Well, that's all part of the fun!
When I told Rami that my musical odyssey had yielded some results and played this track for him, he said, disdainfully, "Oh, it's so indie." Then he remembered that one of their songs has been in heavy rotation on the radio where he works, fully deflating my "I never like anything on the radio" theory. Anyway, these guys can get a little cloying on certain tracks, but I dig their distorted new wave sound. Maybe that's been done a lot recently, but I don't mind.
Sadly, both of these bands sing in English. Don't get me wrong, I adore English (primarily because I can understand it rather well), but it would be nice to listen to something in the language I'm meant to be learning. Oh well. Cultural imperialism strikes again.
There are others I've found in the last day or so, but I haven't listened to them enough to definitively write an opinion about them. Consider this part one in a series. What music, Finnish or otherwise, do you like?
1) Not much is going on in my life other than the study of Finnish. Once again, I must say, I don't exactly mind. It's pretty rewarding to form a grammatically correct sentence in this language, and I seem to be doing that more and more these days. It hasn't been entirely without frustration, though. There was one particular day last week on which I felt rather lost in class. I spent the break poring over my dictionary in search of words I hadn't understood during a discussion on the Finnish presidential election. Then, a classmate of mine expressed her own frustrations, which prompted our teacher to advise: "Rentoudu!" or, "relax!" and "Ota iisisti!" or, "take it easy!" Having someone command me to relax was precisely what I needed, actually. After reflecting a bit, I realized that one day on which I felt lost doesn't erase the fact that I feel relatively competent most of the time. What I really need is to stop wanting to deliver absolute perfection. It won't happen.
I apologize for this horrible picture.
2) Which brings me to a subject that will likely be much more appealing to most of you. What is my downfall, you ask? Finnish candy. You see, they have these little candy stations in a lot of the common grocery stores. These evil things typically have a large variety of stellar candy available for scooping into a paper bag and, later, directly into your face. For someone who is both weight conscious and in possession of a stupidly sensitive stomach, this isn't a good thing. Damn you, Candyking! Actually, I believe this company has its origins in Sweden, so I suppose I'll just do what the Finns tend to do in matters such as these -- I'll blame the Swedes.
Just kidding.
I did bring a bag home for a group of my friends last month, and I believe the consensus was that Candyking is positively delicious. Here's hoping I don't become morbidly obese and further fulfill the American stereotype!
A few days ago, I tried mustamakkara for the first time.
Did I like it? Yes, quite a lot, actually.
Blood sausage is actually relatively common throughout the world, as many disparate cultures seem to possess their very own versions. Yes, we humans are so violent, so depraved, so bloodthir -- hungry that a good percentage of us have conceived of stuffing the intestines of an animal with its own dried blood, only to devour it with lingonberries, or some other cultural garnish-of-choice. Shocking, isn't it?
I like to think of myself as an open-minded person and, I think, I usually succeed in being one. I'm particularly good about trying foods that might seem gross at first blush. I suppose I haven't had the opportunity to try anything really exotic (as in rarely heard of, or particularly revolting to American/European sensibilities), but I'm always up for trying things that do not fit within the usual repertoire of the American palate. Here's a picture of me (taken by my lovely friend Jes) proudly devouring a century egg after my dear friend Melissa bet me fifty bucks that I wouldn't be able to eat a whole one. She had purchased them at a nearby Chinese grocer and she hadn't liked them. I tried a bite, didn't think it tasted half bad, and I downed it pretty easily. (I didn't collect on the cash.)
Mustamakkara, I have to admit, did give me pause while I was standing in K-Market, trying to decide what sort of meaty thing I wanted to buy. I mean, of all the things I've ever eaten in my life, it would almost certainly not be among the worst-tasting. Plus, it's a traditional Finnish food (although not native to South Karelia; I believe that honor goes to Tampere), and I'm trying to do as the Finns do. I suppose my reservation stemmed from the whole concept of blood. Blood is something I'm able to comfortably push from my mind when I buy packaged meat at the store. It's as if all chicken sprouts from the (bloodless) chicken tree, and beef grows in the ground with the potatoes and carrots. Out of sight, firmly out of mind, and I'm inclined to believe that this is not as it should be.
So being the sort of person who feels a bit of shame when she finds another culture's food "gross," particularly if that culture is the one in which she now lives, I bought a package. I cooked it up, ate it (regrettably, not with lingonberry jam), and I liked it a lot. The end.
But not quite. As I was stuffing my mouth with dried pig's blood, it struck me as a little barbaric. I mean, isn't it enough to just eat the non-intestinal portion of a pig carcass, and to leave blood to soak into the soil somewhere? (It just now occurred to me that I have no idea what is normally done with blood after a slaughter.)
I'm only guessing here, but it seems the various sorts of blood sausages around the world probably exist so as to limit waste. In other words, it has been necessary for humans at various times and places, in history and at present, to use every last nutritional part of an animal, right down to its blood. Food has a long history of being scarce, and that's sometimes hard for a spoiled, over-fed American woman to remember. And you know, it's a step closer to being honest. I come from the land of factory farms and animals stuffed full of grain. Meat of all sorts is so readily available and so utterly convenient that we're able to forget the uncomfortable truth - meat isn't a plant product; it was once an animal and someone slaughtered it. [Whether farming conditions are humane in Finland, America, or elsewhere is a discussion for another day and another blog.]
I'm not saying that eating mustamakkara is somehow akin to killing for your own meat, but it does limit the amount of denial in which you can awash yourself. I think that's a good thing.
Back home in New England, there's always a reason to hate snow. It needs shoveling. Cars need to be dug out from underneath it and scraped clean. It can make travel difficult, too, particularly if one doesn't have adequate tires and must drive long distances each day. If there is a big storm, there's always a chance you'll lose electricity. It reminds us that we don't live in Florida, a mere three to four hour flight away, and we're just so envious of their warm weather! (Never mind that we could also live in Minnesota or North Dakota.) We resolve to move to a warmer climate every winter.
Most of these snow-related inconveniences apply in Finland as well. (Except, I think, for the tire bit; Finns, as far as I understand, are required by law to have winter tires, and a lot of people have studs.) Still, I never hear anyone complaining about it. In fact, if anyone mentions it at all, it's to comment on how beautiful it looks. And, as you can see from the above photo, it really does.
Not being burdened with a car is a luxury for several reasons and, for me, one such reason is that I'm able to enjoy the snow without any niggling complaints. The same is true for not owning a home. Basically, I don't have to do jack shit about the snow other than walk in it and admire it. It's a pleasure I've taken nearly every day since it belatedly showed up.
Now, if I one day do own a car, a home, or both, it will be my charge to think more like a Finn than a New Englander about snow. It's a fact of life, and you might as well just appreciate it for its beauty rather than despise it for its causing a few problems.
Yes, the title is redundant, but "Suomessa" has the requisite number of syllables for a Beatles reference.
Having been back for a week now, I'm feeling settled in once again. The jet lag has diminished enough so that I'm at least able to crawl out of bed and make myself a decent pot of coffee in the morning. The homesickness has dissipated. There is finally some non-slushy snow here in Lappeenranta, which really does make things, literally, seem brighter.
It wasn't easy, though, leaving home again. In very real sense, it felt as if I'd never left. Very few things had changed, and it seemed a little like I had only come back from an inordinately long vacation, not that I was, in fact, on vacation. This was rejuvenating in one sense and unnerving in another. When the time to leave drew near, I began to think that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have come home quite so soon -- that it might've actually slowed the process of my integration and weakened my resolve.
It's just that I feel so cemented into the structure of that place; it's a little like an addiction in that being there isn't particularly good for me, and yet I feel compelled to crave the good things about it. These are mostly things that revolve around the idea of "safety." No one will ask me a question I don't understand in Finnish; I don't look particularly out of place, and if I do, I don't much care because the place is my own; my family and friends are largely concentrated inside of one small radius; I feel normal and average and not likely to attract attention.
Of course, I love "home" for more than just its safety. I wrote an entry last March describing my feelings, so I won't bother to do so now. TLDR: it was hard to say goodbye, but I'm okay now.
Some good news is that, as of today, I'm back to studying Finnish. I managed to remember a lot, so that really pleased me. Oddly, learning that language is one reason I'm glad I moved here. I get to dedicate most of my working hours to learning something both useful and fascinating. I think a lot of people are frustrated by the prospect of having to delay their professional lives in order to master the Rubik's cube that is the Finnish language, but I'll gladly delay whatever in order to stay a student. It's pathetic, really. Maybe one of these days I'll get sick of it and decide to be a "student of life" or whatever people say when they're disparaging education, but not quite yet.
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