Finland - almost too good to be true

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

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By Ritva Liisa Snellman
     
      It's almost enough to make one blush. Reading the 2005 annual report on Finland in the foreign media put out by the Department of Communications and Culture of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that is.
      I mean, boy, are we good, or what?
      Finland has become a model country in the eyes of the world's media, with foreign journalists chasing their tails trying to find out what it is that makes us tick and succeed.
     
Why does Finland come out so well in all these international barometric studies, whether it is a question of the skills and smarts of comrehensive school kids, the incorruptibility of our civil servants, our competitiveness, the way we adopt new technologies, construction of small family dwellings, innovation, the quality of kindergarten care, our wonderful pre- and post-natal clinic system, or even the relative lack of caries in our teeth?
      "Finland is an Arctic Economic Tiger", headlined one Belgian newspaper. In this promised land of reindeer and engineers, social changes can be implemented without inertia or resistance.
     
The press sections of the Finnish embassies and consulates abroad have kept a broad-ranging eye on what the foreign media have been saying about us. Even advertisements have been pored over at carefully. They, too, help to form part of the Suomi-image.
      Spanish readers and TV-viewers get to see a car advertisement in which a 4x4 Audi drives up a snow-covered ski-jumping hill in Jämsä.
      The viewers are clearly told that the location for the dramatic bit of "don't try this at home" film was in Finland.
      Italians got a glimpse of Finnishness in a chewing gum commercial. Wild savages dressed in animal skins are chased through the Finnish forests by hunters carrying tranquiliser-dart rifles, in order that the creatures can be captured alive to determine why their teeth are so good. The reason: so many people in Finland chew Xylitol gum.
     
One new development is journalists' blogs. A BBC News reporter visited Finland in October and noted in his blog that Finland - or at least the schoolchildren - was "almost too good to be true" and, in the next sentence, "Just too goody-goody to be believable". The kids behaved themselves impeccably and were full of positive energy - and the same went for the country as a whole.
      The Observer regarded the secrets of the schools' success as resting in efficiency, equality, and a sort of cosy, homely quality. This part was demonstrated by the strange habit the pupils have of taking off their shoes as they go into the classroom.
     
Finland's biggest media bang for its buck came last year from the United States. In the spring, a Washington Post special correspondent went the length and breadth of the country, accompanied by a photographer, and captured life here as lived in school graduation ceremonies, kindergartens, saunas, pubs, out Nordic walking, and in hi-tech factories. In the 24-part series, Finland was lauded to the skies.
      The U.S. image of Finland was given a further shot in the arm by the late-night talkshow host and comedian Conan O'Brien, who made a habit in his programme of laughing at and badmouthing different countries. Some others were less than amused by the comic's nightly mickey-taking, but the Finns positively basked in it, and gave back as good as they got. Postcards, banknotes, pickled herring, and odd birch-bark artefacts rained down on the NBC studio host, and the Finland gag and O'Brien's alleged likeness to President Tarja Halonen were a source of entertainment for the educated West Coast and East Coast audience throughout the year.
      The motormouth host seemed to have been looking for an authentic and primitive life to go alongside his pampered celebrity existence - and he found it in Finland. O'Brien visited the country with great success and delivered a (relatively kind) report on his travels - but that will all show up in the 2006 report.
     
Finnish heroes abroad have included bands such as HIM, The Rasmus, and Nightwish, and of course the novelist Arto Paasilinna, who is "very big in France".
      Sportsmen who have crossed the recognition threshold include the taciturn ski-jumper and "Flying Finnish Enigma" Janne Ahonen, the "Finnish javelin deity" Tero Pitkämäki, and Formula One's "Iceman" Kimi Räikkönen, who is known simply as Kimi over in India.
      The former Olympic and World Champion ski-jumper Matti Nykänen is also a familiar figure around the world. In Croatia he manages to be a hero and a criminal in the same physical shape, while in Norway he is an object of pity.
     
The old 1970s German pejorative Finnlandisierung (Finlandisation) has changed its meaning. It no longer refers to brown-tonguing or grovelling appeasement of a greater power, but skilful diplomatic moves.
      In the Turkish media, the EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn is a familiar figure, known as "Mustafa Olli", who plays football in his spare time. In the Balkans, for obvious reasons, they wrote a lot about former President Martti Ahtisaari, who was described by the leading Slovenian daily as an excellent negotiator and so stubborn he would rather die than back down.
      Nearly everyone knows who Ahtisaari is, at least after his high-profile appointment to mediate the final status of Kosovo, but Piritta Sorsa is a less famous name. And yet this lady, the IMF's Chief of Mission for Serbia & Montenegro, was listed last year as the seventh most-influential female in Serbia. She is described as a tough but fair woman who is also able to listen to the other side's views.
     
Amidst all this, we should not forget that Finland and the Finns were also roundly laughed at during 2005. There were, for instance, the little wire-service stories about the alleged shortage of toilet rolls in the country arising out of the summer strikes and lock-out in the pulp & paper industry.
      In the Czech Republic, they grinned at the news that Finns would now have to rely on Estonian toilet paper, the post-socialist qualities of which they had previously sneered and sniffed at.
      Then there were those remarks by the Italian Prime Minister and the French President about the poor state of Finnish cuisine. However, the news items as such did not ruin the reputation of Finnish gastronomy.
      British journalists even felt a need to visit Finland to determine whether - as was claimed - we really could have worse food than the United Kingdom.
      In an editorial piece, The Times of London came to the defence of Finnish cuisine, declaring it was so good that it really ought to be served in British pubs.
      A South Korean television programme examined the health benefits of blueberries, and two staffers from the Finnish Embassy in Seoul were invited to make blueberry pie and blueberry soup for the viewers. Meanwhile, in Singapore, Finland was declared to be the "Silicon Valley of functional nutrition".
      Even this pales beside the fact that the Serbian Sport Supplement tendered a request that the recipe for liver casserole by the Sydney shot-put gold medallist Arsi Harju be translated for its readers.
     
Finns are now seen as sensible but nonetheless still "exotic". A Lithuanian journalist, Laima Lavaste, took her analysis a stage further: "If I had to portray Finland, I would describe it as a giant iceberg, from which large heads are poking out and looking at the world through childlike eyes. The Finns are even now naively decent people, modest and sensitive. Finland is the country where the world's childhood lives."
      Down on the island of Cyprus, they recalled the arrival of Finnish UN peacekeepers 41 years earlier.
      "Suddenly they were everywhere. They had the palest of complexions, they were frendly, good-looking, and they smiled a lot. These youngsters with their bicycles had arrived from their cheery homeland in the midst of our country's problems."
     
Things may come and things may go, but one subject never goes out of style: you cannot have a year without foreign journalists writing about Finnish drinking.
      Estonian newspapers continued to sigh and tut-tut about male binge-drinking and the consequences, and about the ugly, fat Finnish women.
      In the Serbian and Montenegran papers, Finnish drinking habits continue to prompt amazement. What is it that makes a nation turn to drink when things are so good at home?
      In Slovenia they wrote that it is no shame to be seen drunk in Finland. Because alcohol is expensive, people produce home-made white lightning on stills. Readers were also generously given a recipe for the moonshine.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.5.2006
     
Behind the Headlines is an occasional article series, published in the Sunday edition, in which Helsingin Sanomat staffers comment on the media. The writer in this case is a journalist on the paper's Sunday desk. The media review referred to can be found (in Finnish) at the link below).


Previously in HS International Edition:
  President Halonen presents Moomin characters to talk-show host Conan O´Brien (15.2.2006)
  Washington Post journalist and photographer touring Finland (26.5.2005)

Links:
  Finland in the Foreign Media 2005 (in Finnish)
  Newsroom Finland: Finland in the World Media

RITVA LIISA SNELLMAN / Helsingin Sanomat
ritva.liisa.snellman@hs.fi