Managing Differences

 

    From my understanding, vacationing in Finland would be a fairly easy place to travel. It is a very clean place with lots of public transportation that anyone could use. According to Finland.fi, “Finland is an easy country to visit. Finnish customs and manners are clearly European, with only a few national variations, and attitudes are liberal.” They are very nice people and open to tourism at almost all times. I feel like it would be a great time, seeing people with a different perspective on life in more of a positive way, as well as also having many great pieces of nature that people can see. However, if you were to live here for longer than a couple of weeks there could be some issues for people to adapt. For example, Finns are very blunt and appreciate less communication and rather straight to the point. Americans could see this as potentially disrespectful and the people do not want to talk to them. Another problem that Americans may have is the balance of work and life. We like to intertwine the two and meet some people on a more personal level. In Finland, they like to keep their lives distant and away from the individuals they work with. To make it easier to communicate with this culture would be adapting to be 100 percent honest and direct with your communication. 



The intercultural ethics discussed in the textbook involve the morals that people in Finland hold. One big thing they hold themselves to is treating everyone equal and every single person as value. This is part of our American rights, but not always displayed so being able to show this all of the time would prevent issues in intercultural exchanges. Another moral that Finns hold is respecting their culture, for example they are huge on saunas. An American going into one of their saunas would feel uncomfortable because they have never been in an environment like that, but understanding how they value this object is very valuable in communication. Reflecting on these important values would help with all exchanges you have in life. Another part of their culture is not engaging in small talk because this is just not part of their culture. They are not being rude or disrespectful, it is just a part of the culture. 

Some strategies I could use to engage in Finnish culture would be watching more shows and reading more on their culture. There are many blog posts from people of Finland talking about how their culture is and everyday life. Constantly getting more information on their culture would help me gain valuable knowledge that I would never know before. Another strategy I could use is talk more with my co-worker that is here for the semester who is actually from Finland.


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