Cultural Exchanges-Fish, Pumpkins, and Ice-Cold Lakes

I have had several interesting and unique experiences that I could only have experienced in Finland. I have also, consequently, been able to share a bit of my culture with others. Here are a couple of examples.




First up, the Baltic Herring Market. Once a year, this market sets up stands for a couple of weeks in late Sept/early Oct. Besides herring, you can also get salmon and muikut, tiny fish that look like minnows and are eaten whole after being sauteed with salt and other spices. My friends, Trevor and Ingo, and I got a combination platter of the above 3 fish served with potatoes, fresh and warm from one of the food stands. Also for sale was pickled herring in a variety of sauces, as well as Tyrni products, yellow/orange-colored jelly and juice that is made from sea-buckthorn berries and is made in western Finland. For dessert, we had a Finnish pancake/crepe-like thing, Pannukakku. It was delicious. This was definitely a uniquely Finnish experience. Well, I've never been to a Baltic Herring Market in the US, at least.



















Halloween. This was a way for my American friends and I to show the other exchange students what Americans do on Halloween. Most of the exchange students I know are German-speakers, predominantly from Germany, but also from Austria and Switzerland. Everybody got dressed up and there was pumpkin-carving (something new to the non-Americans), punch, food, pumpkin seed roasting and finally, a viewing of 'The Shining'. These were all very Halloween-appropriate activities and I had a great time.

Pirates!



And finally, Finnish Sauna!! This was an extreme sport-like experience. I'm not even joking!! A bunch of my friends and I trekked up to a public wood-heated sauna (supposedly much better than the electric saunas that most people are familiar with). To me, it felt less dry and smelled smokier than electric saunas. The public aspect of this sauna experience ended up being slightly problematic, mainly because all the other people there were Finns with the most ridiculously high tolerance for heat. I honestly had to stand in the entrance the whole time because if I'd gone up higher to sit, I problably would have burnt my lungs or something. It was nuts. Basically, when you want to heat up the sauna more, you throw water on the hot stones. If it's already quite hot, you get the sensation that your flesh is burning. It's sort of addicting once you get used to it but painful if you're not. Anyway, the Finnish men in this sauna must have won some award for withstanding the hottest saunas ever (actually I did see one guy afterward with a Sauna Olympics T-shirt), because they were constantly throwing water on the stones. I think the Finns figured out that if they wanted to get us out of the sauna, they could just throw more water on the stones, because we definitely went running whenever they did.







Anyway, once you are thoroughly heated up, you either go sit outside (mind you, this is November, so it was pretty cold outside) or, even better, go jump in the lake right next to the sauna (an even colder experience). Of course, my whole reason for going to this particular sauna was to do the lake swimming as well. That is the coldest water I've ever been in. I'm guessing it was 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit, although I honestly don't know. And get this, there was a separate area in the lake where people would go just to swim laps, without even going in the sauna first. This convinced me that Finns have some supernatural resistance to cold. Anyway, I did the back and forth sauna-lake thing about 3 times and was done. I was quite proud of myself for withstanding both the heat and the cold. And afterwards, I felt as though I'd just gone on a 5 mile run. This is the real benefit to doing a sauna/swim, it gives your body a real workout without your having to do much actual exercise.....something about your pores being opened by the heat and then quickly closed by the cold, and also your heart having to work hard to pump blood to your body once you're in the water.

Although I'm making this Finnish sauna thing sound scary, I think it's very healthy. I'm not excited about doing lake swimming anytime soon, but I try to go to sauna (as they say it here) at least once a week and I feel so much better afterwards. It's also good for your skin, as you can tell when you notice that Finnish people have very nice skin. Although saunas are not nearly as plentiful in the US, I hope to keep up this sauna habit when I go back.

Turku and the American Voices Seminar

October 17-18 2008, I spent some time in Turku, Finland during the American Voices Seminar at the University of Turku. The Seminar gathers together the current American Fulbright grantees and scholars and asks each person to give a 20 minute presentation on any topic related to the US. There were 16 of us altogether and the presentations took up about 3 hours on both Oct. 17 and 18.

My topic was American fiddling styles and I talked about and played examples of Bluegrass, Appalachian and Acadian fiddling styles. I also explained about my experience playing in a Contradance band in Connecticut and ended with a short piece by Mark O'Connor that demonstrates a blend of fiddling styles with western-classical playing techniques. It was not only great to develop a presentation on something that really interested me, but it was also nice to hear what everyone else came up with for their topics. This was definitely an academic experience.

In between the hours of presentations, I also got a chance to see some of Turku. Turku is on the southwestern coast of Finland and is a good departure point if you want to take a ferry to Stockholm. It is supposedly the oldest city in Finland and was the capital when Finland was under Sweden's rule (from the 13th century up until 1809). Finland is bilingual, with both Finnish and Swedish the official languages. Although the majority of people in Finland have Finnish as their mother tongue, native Swedish speakers comprise 6% of the population. The Swedish-speaking minority lives mainly in the western part of Finland and hence, there are a sizable amount of Swedish-speaking Finns in Turku.

Although much of Turku was rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1827, there are still some remnants of old Turku, most notably the Cathedral of Turku and the Turku Castle. I didn't get a chance to see the Castle, but walked by the Cathedral many times.

I also took a pleasant walk along the Aura River. There is a beautiful path alongside it.

It was great to get out of Helsinki for a while to discover a new city. It was also nice to meet up with the other Fulbrighters. This led to lots of story swapping, especially about our numerous fun yet silly mishaps as newcomers to Finland. The camaraderie we've developed has been a real comfort to me while in Finland.