avaruuskissa:

There is no way explaining the absence of small talk culture in Finnish culture to someone who is not from Finland. It is impossible. Sometimes it is considered rude that we just suck in small talk, sometimes it is mistaken that Finnish people are shy and quiet because they do not do small talk. Neither of these are true.

But I can not explain why. We are raised to listen to one another and speak when we actually have _something_ to say or really a reason to say something. We do not pretend that we are interested in you or how you are feeling, if we are not. I don’t do it. We do not give compliments if there is not a reason to do it. And we do not get anxious about silence. Not even when we have company. It is completely fine just to shut up once in a while. 

I have been thinking about this a lot, because I have had the pleasure of working and studying with people from different cultures and I always find it odd how odd social culture we have here in comparison to many other countries. It is not that I feel that I need to learn the small talk culture, no, I do just fine without it, but the absence of the ability to small talk is the hardest thing to explain to someone who has not been raised like we have been raised in here.

(Yeah and when you try to explain it, you end up sounding like a complete jerk ”we are not people who talk bullshit, we actually mean what we say and we listen to people….” oh man….. :D)