Thai exoticism in Finnish Lapland

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By Tapio Mainio
     
      Amid peals of laughter, Thai Suay Janecheinchan is trying to teach Finnish to an Israeli family at Hotel Kakslauttanen in the fell village of Saariselkä, some 250 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland. The Bonnehs are on their first snow holiday in Saariselkä.
      ”Kiitos, päivää, hei”, Ohad Bonneh gropes for the Finnish words, wrestling with the problems of double vowels or consonants and those odd-sounding fronted vowels.
     
Finland’s future can already be experienced at Hotel Kakslauttanen: increasing numbers of jobs in the service sector will be occupied by foreigners.
      The current share of workers with a foreign background at Kakslauttanen is already 80 per cent. Most of them come from Thailand.
      The payroll of the hotel comprises 25 employees.
     
Making a polite bow, Prakobkit Tavapee is carrying in Lappish food which fellow Thai Virot Ponnade has cooked in the kitchen.
      Like most of the others, Virot has previously worked at a five-star hotel restaurant in Bangkok.
      ”In the summer I will have a long vacation and go home. Then I will come back”, says Virot, adding that he is already used to the cold winter.
      In fact, many Thai workers enjoy skiing and even ice-fishing.
     
”I went to Thailand myself in order to look for qualified employees with language skills, as it is no longer possible to find any in Finland”, says hotel entrepreneur Jussi Eiramo.
      Eiramo predicts that in five years there will be a severe shortage of labour in most parts of Finland.
      Initially, the Thai workers had problems with work permits, as employment officials could not be persuaded to believe that the country was facing a labour shortage*, which is why the statement required for a work permit from the Sodankylä employment office always came back negative.
      Committed, skilled restaurant workers - waiters and chefs - who are willing to head up to to Lapland are now nearly impossible to find in Finland, Eiramo notes.
     
Last winter a number of restaurant workers came to Lapland from Central Europe, as the snow conditions in the Alps were poor, but this winter there have been hardly any arrivals from that area, reports Eiramo.
      ”At our hotel Finnish is not required as a must, since most of the customers are foreigners. Our first language is English”, Eiramo continues.
      ”Baking cinnamon buns was initially a bit of a struggle for the Thais, but now even their buns look quite Finnish”, Eiramo says.
     
Nearly every day Eiramo can hear some Finns grumbling about Kakslauttanen using cheap labour.
      He vigorously denies the charge.
      ”Every employee is paid at least according to the collective agreement, while they are also offered a proper company-owned dwelling. The purhasing power of the salary that a Thai worker earns in Finland is around five-fold in Thailand”, Eiramo argues.
      The Thai employees have been surprised at the local corporate culture, with its almost total lack of hierarchy.
      ”For example, one of the Thais found it extremely hard to believe that I am the manager around here, as I enjoy my meals and coffee at the same table with the workers”, Eiramo says with a grin.
     
Eiramo has noted some intriguing cultural differences over and above those found with his Thai employees.
      One Japanese tourist overnighting at the hotel in Kakslauttanen noticed late at night that the toilet paper had run out in the WC in the room.
      The guest did not have the nerve to request an extra roll from the reception (probably in the case of most Finnish guests the request would have been accompanied by a stern rebuke that such a lapse had been permitted to happen in the first place), but instead notified the Japanese tour operator of the shortcoming.
      The tour operator - in Japan, no less - then called up Eiramo at 2 a.m. and reported that the loo paper in Room No. 36 had run out.
      The paperless guest had not wished to lose face.
     
     
     
*Note: The impending shortage of labour is real. According to a forecast from Statistics Finland, in 2010 there will be roughly 3,514,000 people of working age (15-64 years) in Finland. This will decline to just over 3.4 million by 2015, and to 3,334,000 by 2020, assuming there is no migration inwards from abroad. Before very long, there will be fewer under-15s in the population than there are over-65s. At the end of this year, the country's dependency ratio will be 50.7, indicating the number of dependent minors and old people for every 100 persons of working age. There are currently around 130,000 foreigners in Finland. Of this figure, roughly 3,500 are Thais.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.4.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  A de luxe wedding in Lapland (18.3.2008)

Links:
  Saariselkä

TAPIO MAINIO / Helsingin Sanomat
tapio.mainio@hs.fi