I’ll start right out by saying that I’m not actually Scandinavian, and I don’t have any ancestry in that part of the world. My actual ancestors came from the British Isles and Holland (per our family tree, and confirmed by 23&Me). However, I was born and raised in Minnesota, and the influence of the Scandinavian culture has impacted me in ways I never realized until recently.
For those who are unaware, Minnesota was primarily populated by immigrants from the Scandinavian countries. Per the history records of the area, Norwegians started coming in the early 1800’s. Other Nordic populations followed suit, so that by the mid 1850’s, Swedish writer Fredrika Bremer wrote, “What a glorious new Scandinavia might not Minnesota become.” Many of them came for the opportunity to own their own farms, and to escape the lack of opportunity in their home countries. They brought with them their language, culture, cuisine, Lutheranism and other aspects of daily life distinctive to this part of northern Europe.
The influence of these immigrants was seen in our unique accent and even in how we phrase certain sentences. This was immortalized in a great book called, How to Talk Minnesotan by Howard Mohr. While he overexaggerated some, it does capture pretty well how native Minnesotans speak. While I’ve lived away from home for over 25 years now and my accent has softened, I am still caught out by sharp-eared Midwesterners who catch my stereotypical long o’s (e.g. when saying where I come from, I pronounce my home state as ‘Minnesooootah’). And, I can’t change some of the phrasing I grew up with. (See how I did that?). When I ask what someone wants to do for the evening, I’ll often say, ‘So, what do you want to do then?’ (the classic ‘so, then’ phrase). Or, I might ask if you’d like to join me on a trip shopping by saying, ‘I’m going to the store, do you want to go with?’ (no, I didn’t leave anything out, I’ve completely finished that sentence). I also routinely comment on unique or unusual things being ‘different’ (my daughter used to translate for her friends in New England that if her mother said something was ‘different,’ it wasn’t ever a good thing). Anyway, I’m sure that others will pick out my other Scandinavian-influenced modes of speaking and making the sounds of letters, since even being away for over 25 years hasn’t changed my ‘base’ language all that much.
I grew up with plenty of Olsen / Olson, Nelsen / Nelson, Petersen / Peterson, Johnsen / Johnson and even Johansen families in the neighborhood and school, and so on. Delicacies like Lutefisk, while the butt of many jokes, and pickled herring in various forms were indeed served at buffets. I am convinced that the practice of putting mayonnaise in everything and eating ‘Jello’ as salad has something to do with the immigrants from Nordic countries as well. While my family never celebrated Santa Lucia Day, we had plenty of friends and neighbors who did.
Around 1982 (sorry for the lack of precision, ‘the Google’ couldn’t help me narrow this down to an actual date), a big Scandinavian festival was launched to welcome the Royal Families to the area. As a member of the largest school chorus to be assembled in Minnesota (up to that time), we sang for the Royal Families, old favorites like Finlandia. This was a big deal for a kid, the highlight of an otherwise boring childhood (unless peeking at President Carter walking into House of Hope Presbyterian Church when he came for Hubert Humphrey’s funeral is exciting – the biggest scandal was that it was mid-January in Minnesota, and the President wasn’t wearing a winter coat!).
Now, flash forward to 2016 and I receive the news that my company is going to acquire a Finnish company outside of Helsinki. I fly out to Helsinki to meet the management team and begin my work on the acquisition. A friend described the approach to Helsinki as akin to flying into Duluth. It was such a strong visual for me, as we made the landing and I saw the topography so reminiscent of northern Minnesota. The blonde haired, blue eyed young woman who so happily welcomed me and made my coffee at the Starbucks in the airport made me feel right at home. Driving east from Helsinki, it felt just like we were driving in the Northwoods up near Brainerd. Except for the sign that indicated St. Petersburg (aka Russia) was a mere 4 hours away, you would think you were in Minnesota. I immediately knew that I was going to like this place. While it was a 3-hour flight from London, it was truly a home-away-from-home, since St. Paul was over 9 hours away. For the first time, I fully understood why the Scandinavian immigrants had settled on Minnesota – it really is just like home.
I found out how much more the Finnish influenced Minnesotans and our culture when I started working with native Finns. My boss, though born in northern Minnesota, also exhibited these cultural traits and was much more culturally Scandinavian than me (or I had lost some of it along the way having lived elsewhere for over 25 years). My boss fit in with the Finns even more than I did since he could speak some Finnish, and my American mouth couldn’t form those words (a taxi driver told me not to even try since all Finns speak English and it’s even more difficult than English to learn). During the integration process with our new company, I became the interpreter for the British and Finnish managers since there seemed to be a communication gap between them. Having worked with the British for several years, I was used to the subtlety of their language and behavior. For example, when describing a problem, they often say ‘there’s a bit of an issue.’ In reality, this could mean that the manufacturing plant just burned to the ground. At my church in England, a local crazy man decided to throw a rock through the stained-glass window above the altar (right through Jesus’ head). The next week, the church published an update on Facebook with the headline, ‘A bit of trouble.’ The article went on to say that the damage was £10,000 (or approximately $15,000 at the time). This was a ‘bit’ of a problem, eh?
Of course, the British sense of humor is also very subtle – in fact, many Americans don’t realize that the Brits are ‘having a go’ at them and making them look very foolish in front of the rest of the British audience (who cares if the Americans can’t understand it? That makes it all the more funny). In my case, knowing what’s going on means that I’m often very embarrassed to see fellow Americans being mercilessly made fun of without even being aware that is what is happening. That said, I was laughing along with the Brits when the Queen communicated quite clearly to her people that she wasn’t pleased to have to meet President Trump. She appeared alone (very unusual not to have other members of the Royal family with her), she wore a funeral broach (the very broach her own mother wore to her father’s funeral) and she refused him the state dinner he so craved (so he could show-up the Obama’s who famously got to meet a young Prince George in his PJs following a dinner with the family). So, all in all, the Queen who isn’t supposed to demonstrate any political leanings did so in a very British way – and everyone in the UK loved her all the more for it.
In their own way, the Finns (and by default, Minnesotans) are another subtle culture. Some may say ‘passive aggressive,’ but I think that’s an overly negative categorization. I’d say that there is a desire not to disappoint or to engage in a vocal or visible conflict with another person. There’s a desire to get across what you want, but not to be so impertinent as to ask for it directly. Agreeing to something that you dread, or not articulating how you’re actually feeling are all par for the course. Leaving things left unspoken (because you assume that the other person can fill in the blanks) is another frequent behavior. While both Brits and Finns are subtle, they are subtle in different ways, which means that there can be even more misunderstandings or miscommunication that confuse or surprise the other party. As an interpreter, I found myself in the position of needing to articulate and explain what was happening when I could see that confusion cropping up.
Give us an example, you ask? One of the Finnish managers was really struggling with the increased workload that came as a part of joining a much larger company (aka bureaucratic ‘stuff’ that gets added on when you have to report to the n-th degree on everything). Her local Finnish boss called me and told me that she was about to have a melt-down, and could I please do something before we lost her to a medical stress claim. I met with her and we discussed in a round-about way the amount of extra work she had, and the fact that she was working so many hours, she couldn’t even do her normal running workout (yes, we runners can sympathize with each other when it comes to work interfering with our running). I told her not to worry, and that I would take care of it. I then returned to the UK, and met with her new boss in my company. I explained that he needed to figure out a way to lighten her workload, or get additional resources to help her. He was shocked and surprised. After all, he had just met with her, and she assured him that everything was fine, and that she wasn’t having any issues meeting the new deadlines, or doing the increased work. I patiently explained that this wasn’t actually the case, and that if he didn’t do something soon, she’d likely end up on a medical leave. He became very concerned and said that he would immediately call her to sort it out – NO!!!! I told him that he shouldn’t call her, because it would embarrass her. I said that I was the messenger to let him know that all was not well, and that he shouldn’t say anything to her directly. He needed to make the necessary changes, and let her get on with it. He said that he didn’t understand how this could be – I explained that the issue was that she didn’t want to disappoint him or admit that she couldn’t do the work, and that she didn’t want to talk about it with him, so I was there to make sure that things were sorted without any chance for disappointment or a conflict and/or direct confrontation. While he was still confused, he agreed to figure out how to help her without actually saying anything to her. On my next visit, she pulled me aside and thanked me for my help. Disaster averted.
Another time, my boss from Minnesota held a staff meeting to discuss the upcoming year and goals and objectives for the senior team. The staff was comprised of 2 Minnesotans, a handful of Brits and a Frenchwoman. I found the meeting to be very informative, and was impressed with how he captured the right tone to get everyone charged up and marching in the right direction. At the end of the meeting, he duly asked everyone to get on with it, and set the business on the right path. After the meeting, I was pulled aside by the team who asked me, ‘what are we supposed to do???’ I laughed out loud – of course, a Minnesotan had given marching orders, and a fellow Minnesotan clearly understood what he wanted done. The Brits and the French were left totally confused and couldn’t understand what he’d just asked of them. It was then that I realized that I wasn’t just the senior HR business partner for this team, I was the British-Minnesotan translator.
Going the other direction, my Minnesota boss and I were discussing the adjustment to living in the UK and understanding British culture. I had already been there a few years and had always had an affinity for the British culture (maybe being Episcopalian and an anglophile at heart?). He had moved directly from Michigan where he had been living with his previous company (having moved from Minnesota to Canada and back to the Midwest, he was in the Scandinavian bubble for sure). This was his first experience living and working in the UK, and he was finding some of the adjustment difficult. As we talked, we started complaining about traffic and the difficulty of getting to one of the sites he was responsible for in the company. He made a comment that he’d leave extra early to get there on time, and then sit in the parking lot working on his laptop, and waiting for the receptionist to come in and open the building. I was confused – why would you sit in the parking lot? Why not just go in? He said that he didn’t have a security badge for the building. I was outraged. I knew exactly what was going on here. His role was new to the company and the manager of that site didn’t like the idea of reporting to him. So, they were hazing him – making him sign in as a guest to a facility that he had overall responsibility for within his job. I couldn’t believe that he let them get away with this, but he didn’t understand that it was a deliberate ‘message’ and not just protocol for someone who wasn’t permanently working at the site. Needless to say, I took it upon myself to contact the local HR person for the site and arrange a badge for him. I also warned him not to let them get away with diminishing his role – he was quite senior, and needed to be treated as such.
As a part of my duties in Finland, I got to participate in the annual Christmas party. While most of my businesses at the company tended to have a fancy dinner party with lots of alcohol over a couple hours (then all go home to sleep it off), the Finns had a different take on a company party. We were to gather at a remote hotel with expansive grounds for a half-day business meeting (have to get in some ‘business’ to make it not a taxable event for the employees). Following the meeting, we would then participate in an outdoor teambuilding event. Next, would be a gathering for hot drinks, before we headed to the sauna. I’m not sure which horrified the Brits more, the idea of doing an outdoor event in Finland in December, or the fact that the sauna, while separated by gender, was traditionally done in the nude. Once again, I had to reassure the Brits that all would be well – the Finns actually do know how to plow their roads and ensure that you could get around in the wintertime. I also explained that the sauna was a traditional thing and that being nude wasn’t a problem for them since it’s not meant to be ‘sexual,’ but more of a health activity (and who wants to sweat in a swimsuit anyway). In the end, there were 3 of us that went over from the UK. As the only female in the party, I followed tradition when it came to the sauna. The local female staff were impressed since they knew that nudity was often an uncomfortable thing for Americans (a throw-back to our Puritan ancestors). One of the men ‘forgot’ his swimsuit so he ‘couldn’t’ go in, and the other decided that he simply couldn’t do it nude (so wore his swim trunks into the sauna – good for him that he still did it).
Following the business side of things, I made my way to Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland and Santa’s official hometown. This was an amazing visit to the arctic circle where there was just over an hour of daylight each day. I may write about this another time, since I think this edition would go on too long if I started to describe the amazing trip to see Santa and visit his reindeer. Suffice it to say that I can’t wait until I have grandchildren who are old enough to appreciate this kind of thing. I’ll be back, Santa, don’t you worry!
