The “We Were Friends” exhibit In June, 1941 the German military arrived in northern Finland as part of the offensive against the Soviet Union. The Germans became co-belligerents with the Finns, jointly waging war on the Soviets between June, 1941 and September, 1944 in what is known in Finland as the.

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At its height, 220,000 Germans were based and living in Finnish communities. The exhibit revolves around the premise that in many ways the Finns and Germans experienced all the human relationships common between people anywhere: in various contexts, Finns and Germans were friendly colleagues, indifferent peers, or romantically involved. “We Were Friends” departs from conventional Nazi narratives dispensing familiar moral judgments and instead plumbs everyday life between Finns and Germans. That focus delivers a novel if potentially unsettling humanization of Finnish and German people living alongside each other amidst war. It is an enormously challenging ambition to render the Nazi soldiers in Finland as prosaic and even banal people since the Nazis’ broader legacy has dominated historical pictures of German foot soldiers. Inevitably, the exhibit also uneasily illuminates the historical implications of the Finns’ reception of the Germans.

Perhaps the most interesting juxtaposition of the banal and unsettling in “We Were Friends” is this image of Finns and Germans at a football match (image Provincial Museum of Lapland) The exhibit deploys utterly prosaic everyday experiences to depict Germans who found themselves waging war in Finnish Lapland. For instance, Finnish elders’ oral histories remember mundane expressions of humanity, like German gifts of candy or holiday parties. Everyday life in home front communities like Rovaniemi remained rather quotidian, with hockey and soccer played between Finnish hosts and German guests, and Germans visited Finnish homes for coffee and shared a sauna. The community gathered for concerts and new German movies at the Haus der Kameradschaft (House of Comradeship).

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Germans were an aesthetic and physical presence in towns like Rovaniemi (which had about 6000 German residents), with one exhibit placard concluding that “Officers on horseback in their uniforms were a handsome sight.”. An image of a marriage request between a German soldier and Finnish woman lies beneath letters between the couple. Inevitably some Finns and Germans had sexual and romantic relationships, and those relationships have often been an unsettling wartime legacy held as family secrets. “We Were Friends” paints romance circumspectly, with heartfelt passions and genuine attachments that mostly dissolved in unresolved uncertainties when the Germans left in September, 1944. About 700 children of German soldiers were born to Finnish women (compare the 2015 or a ). Like much of “We Were Friends” the post-war uneasiness if not outright contempt for these relationships stands at odds with the picture of prosaic everyday life the exhibit paints for the co-belligerence period.

In this sense, much of the force of the exhibit is its unexpected banality, which is heightened by knowing the Finnish postwar history but may be confusing to visitors unschooled in the Finnish war experience. “We Were Friends” avoids much resolution or any focus on historical consequences—Finnish-German couples are cast to the wind and the eventual fates of the people and places in the exhibit largely unaddressed. It remains largely in the hands of visitors to make narrative sense of everyday life in the midst of the war. Generaloberst Eduard Dietl in 1942 Among the mostly anonymous Germans, none secures more attention than Generaloberst, the highest-ranking German in Finland for most of the Continuation War. Argues that Dietl looms somewhat awkwardly as a “good German” who respected his Finnish brothers-in-arms and hosts and sought amicable relations between Finns and Germans. In contrast, Dietl’s successor spearheaded the Germans’ scorched earth tactics during the 1944 German withdrawal from Lapland, and he is looked on with much less appreciation.

Dietl is a difficult figure to humanize, though, given his devotion to the Nazi cause since the. Casting Dietl as a dashing figure distributing bon-bons in Rovaniemi hazards ignoring the brutality inflicted on his watch. “We Were Friends” does complicate Dietl’s facile caricature, delivering that blow with Dietl’s own damning words on racial purity: Dietl instructed German officers assessing marriage applications between Finns and Germans that “with only a few exceptions, the submitted applications unfortunately concern quite inferior representatives of neighbouring peoples, who can barely be called close relatives. The attached photographs show almost solely racial driftwood, from girls with clearly eastern features to an ugly and stunted `bride,’ who cannot be considered as suitable German mothers.” The Dietl example shows how “We Were Friends” is perhaps surprisingly circumspect, somewhat clinically documenting everyday life while eschewing a linear narrative confirming the obvious.

Those visitors seeking historical background for co-belligerence or details on what happened in 1944 after the co-belligerent status ended are seeking a conventional, conclusively interpreted historical narrative that “We Were Friends” largely avoids. The reluctance or disinterest in fabricating a clear narrative may reflect the distinctively Finnish memory of World War II. The war may be the single most consequential event in Finnish national heritage, and it is enormously complicated by caricatures, romanticization, and evasion that persist despite an exceptionally rich public understanding of the war’s more-or-less objective facts. Moomin World provides readers the chance to now walk through Moominvalley (image courtesy msaari). One of Finland’s most celebrated contributions to the world is the herd of bleached rhino’s known as the.

The phenomenally popular Angry Birds have no pretensions to being anything but pure entertainment, and they betray little that is distinctively Finnish, so their entry into global popular culture as an absent-minded leisure and commodity has been without Finnish opposition. In contrast, the are literary creations that lay a genuine claim to being a work of art as well as demonstrating some distinctive cultural roots, so their potential reduction to saleable products in marketplaces that cannot fathom the Moomins provides slightly more Finnish angst than the global conquest of the battling birds.

The Moomins remain obscure outside American children’s literature circles, but in Finland Moomins have become commodities on a scale rivaled only by Angry Birds. Moomins have long been reduced to commodities in Finland and at least some international markets, with a decorated with Moomins as well as and a.

Their consumption by an international readership reaching from the to to suggests that the. The first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, appeared in 1945. Characterizing the books’ narrative appeal to children and adults is challenging. The, when published, followed a year later.

Eventually the series included, one book of short stories, five picture books, a comic series, and a scatter of movies and. Moomin lives are chaotic and fraught with danger and apprehension in the form of floods, comets, dark forests, or the depressed, lonely, and terrifying whose icy touch freezes all it contacts. The Moomins approach that world with curiosity, optimism, and trust in family and friends. Moomins hibernate each winter and have a distinctive Nordic connection to nature, facing its undersides and complicated rhythms as they actively explore it. The narratives unfold unpredictably with fantastic storytelling moments (compare the story profiles on tor.com’s ), and for many young and old readers alike the novel narrative elements weave a compelling reading experience. The text narratives are amplified by Jansson’s distinctively precise artwork that places Moomins in the midst of various crises and providing a strangely comforting presence.

Many of the graphics have little or no background and simply rely on the absurd and sincere expressions of the massive bleached trolls and their universe of creatures, yielding a distinctive Moomin aesthetic. Moomins grace the exterior of this Finnair plane (image courtesy Antti Havukainen).

We could ask why these books (or any other cultural product) provide compelling narrative themes; for instance, we might psychologize Jansson’s life, contextualize the historical wartime experience and Finnish sentiments that yielded these stories or, dissect specifically how Moomin stories fabricate a distinctive narrative. Yet perhaps the deeper question may be why particular works enter the mass popular imagination and enchant people from a very broad range of different backgrounds. Articulating “enchantment”—an absolutely emotional and instinctive reaction to stories and graphics—is exceptionally difficult if not impossible to do successfully, though.

A Moomin snow sculpture at the Sapporo Snow Festival (images courtesy Crowbeak.Sasquatch). The Moomins perhaps have because their universe is a very different form of imagination than traditional American children’s literature. After misidentifying Tove Jansson as male, a 1961 New York Times review of Moominsummer Madness lamented that the story “badly needs a down-to-earth mortal to measure things by,” because “as it is, a bothersome nightmare quality is never quite dispelled.” In 1968 another reviewer complained in the Times that “the more one reads about Moomins the less one knows about them. Some vital links have been lost, and these seem to be plot, character, theme and common sense.” Yet in the wake of these stale judgments, many Americans have flocked to non-conventional narrative and aesthetic oeuvres like anime, even though mass culture ideologues are often reluctant to champion a novel popular form if they are not convinced it can become profitable. Ultimately, how Moomin commodities and the narrative reach America will have as much to do with decisions made in American marketing board rooms as it has to do with the fundamentally creative and fascinating dimensions of Moomin stories. This sidewalk plaque using the bohemian Moomins to critique yuppies was found in Sydney Australia (image courtesy mr. Lynch), On the one hand, Finns are proud of the Moomins, whose lives in Moominvalley negotiating nature with quirky grace and curiosity provide a flattering reflection of Finns’ own experiences and perhaps their self-perceptions (for instance, Finns routinely identify their favorite Moomin and how that particular Moomin mirrors their essential personality attributes).

On the other hand, though, Americans in particular may not fathom the Finns’ national stewardship over Moomins, since Americans somewhat arrogantly assume that the planet is universally receptive to and eagerly awaiting our popular cultural products. Where American popular culture mirrors our confident national swagger and powerful international marketing reach, Finland is a much more modest place that has looked beyond its borders somewhat more circumspectly and more protective over its cultural products. References Layla AbdelRahim 2010. The Paulinian Compass 1(4):1-100. Pamela Marsh 1961 Cheery and Dauntless (Review Moominsummer Madness). New York Times May 14:BRA28. Cobus van Staden 2010.

In, edited by Eija Niskanen. International Institute for Popular Culture, Turku, Finland. Barbara Wersba 1968 Moominlore for Moominlovers. New York Times May 5:BRA43. Images courtesy Antti Havukainen Festival image courtesy courtesy courtesy Tagged. The McDonald’s in Oulu hopes to entice consumers with the flavors of America (image by author).

It initially seems somewhat oxymoronic to suggest that there might be a distinctive Finnish popular culture: that is, most of the mass cultural products in Finland are the same as those nearly anywhere, with popular cultural staples like, and firmly situated in Finnish consciousness. It is not especially shocking that Finland cannot claim an array of unique popular cultural products, because most popular culture does not have isolated roots in a specific nation or culture; that is, popular culture emerges from a transnational media and circulates in a widely shared global consumer culture that only strategically identifies its origins (e.g., the transparent nationalistic sales pitch of, the anti-consumption politics that cast, or suggesting that captures some “real” essence of Finnish vodka). Video games, television programs, fast food, movies, clothes, theme parks, and sporting events are all manufactured and marketed by corporate consumer interests committed to profit and the reproduction of power inequalities, and some theorists reduce them simply to economic vessels, mechanisms of oppression, and something “inauthentic.” Yet those products are the contested ground of popular culture, sources of widely shared desire and pleasure that cannot be reduced simply to ideological incorporation.

Much of the appeal of popular culture is that it can be defined in so many contextually distinctive forms, and when Big Macs, Downton Abbey, and Rihanna arrive in Finland they inevitably are received in a vast range of ways. Donald Duck , for instance, is featured in the, where he enjoys more popularity than he has ever secured in the US and easily outpaces the popularity of Mickey Mouse. Finnish author suggests that, who is “forever getting into difficulties or coming under threat from some direction or another. The duck hero has to get himself out of all manner of unexpected and unreasonable scrapes using only his wits and the slim resources he can put his hands on, all of which meshes nicely with the popular image of Finland as driftwood in the crosscurrents of world politics.” Introduced to Finland in 1951, Donald’s arrival “coincided with Finland’s metamorphosis from an agrarian state to a post-modern, post-industrial one.

Little boys and girls in the rural Finland of the 1950s thirsted for the tales from Duckburg, which contained such modern features as urban life, the spread of the motor car, self-service shopping, large supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, and golf. These were details taken from American culture that have subsequently become part and parcel of the reality of a modernised Finland.” In 1999 Donald’s Uncle Scrooge even was featured in a comic adaptation, adapting. Angry Birds’ most recent version joins forces with Star Wars (image courtesy Rovio). Nevertheless, there are a few prominent Finnish contributions to the global popular cultural landscape. Few of those products are better-known or compelling than the story of the multi-colored who are seeking the return of their eggs from a herd of green pigs.

There may be nothing particularly Finnish about the Angry Birds game, and in that sense it is actually quite a lot like most popular cultural products; that is, it hides it origins unless they help sell the product by somehow giving it more desirability. Angry Birds’ makers at continually launch new versions of the game (including a version in November, 2012), and the game is now a. Angry Birds is the ever sold in the UK, and Apple indicated that. An Angry Birds promotion at a Chinese McDonalds (image courtesy dcmaster). The success of Angry Birds has reportedly encouraged, including Helsinki-based developers, and (based here in Oulu), the producers of.

Angry Birds may owe some debt to Finns’ fervent attachment to mobile phones; the world’s first mass-marketed mobile phone (the ) was sold in Finland in 1996, and the country has always been among the world’s most devoted users of cell phones (in 1999, Jukka-Pekka Puro recognized that no other country equaled the 78% of Finnish households already owning a mobile phone, and Finns remain deeply committed to cell phones today). The international shift to mobile phones and tablets benefitted the gaming industry in Finland while Nokia’s simultaneous contraction. Supercell’s that “Helsinki is the best city in the world to build games at the moment. People understand that it’s possible to become global from Finland.” The mass success of Angry Birds, though, may have more to do with its and international corporate investment than it has to do with the creative climate in Helsinki, even though government support and groups like (which publicizes gaming firms and projects across the country) are certainly important. In November, Bloomberg reported that Rovio had, and come from branded commodity sales including $400 million in plush toys alone. Angry Birds soda is in Finland and is set to soon be sold in New Zealand and Australia; an is coming to the US in early 2013; an features egg recipes; Finnair has with Angry Birds’ motifs; Rovio offers in; an opened in in Tampere in 2012, another opened in in the UK, and the parks are. An unlicensed was opened in September, 2012 in the in Changsha, China as part of its month-long “Stress Reducing Festival,” and in an odd referentiality the attraction sat in the park’s “American Zone, next to a scaled-down replica of Mount Rushmore.”.

Angry Birds’ Helsinki shop (image courtesy Rovio). Every staple of popular culture eventually is self-referenced in other popular discourses (as when parody everything from to ), and Angry Birds has reached that standing. Angry Birds’ music was featured in the Israeli comedy (A Wonderful Country), and the video has more than. Pinterest has with Angry Bird products and craft ideas, and Rovio has an. Angry Birds’ branding of Star Wars pairs two of popular culture’s most prominent symbols; in March, 2012 was introduced to the world by astronaut Donald Pettit, using the angry birds to demonstrate microgravity patterns employed in the new game; British Prime Minister David Cameron, Salman Rushdie, and Conan O’Brien are; and Angry Birds has been referenced in television shows including, and. The most interesting popular reference may be from artist Evan Roth, who produced a work called. Angry Birds All Levels reveals the, underscoring the innocuous hand and finger movements that we use to manipulate knowledge and experience filtered through handheld devices.

There are myriad thorough and interesting travel guides to nearly every corner of the globe including Finland, most of which dutifully inventory the standard culinary, historical, cultural, and consumer attractions of a particular place. The official page, for instance, outlines the nation’s many destinations and instructs the potential visitor in sauna culture, the merits of reindeer (living and broiled), the appeal of snow and cold, and Finnish design.

A few sites less intent on tourism alone counsel potential Finnish visitors on the nation’s like the, the, and. Anybody’s visit to any place is inevitably idiosyncratic, and different people will find some things appealing that others find mortifying. With that in mind, and in no particular order, here are a few of the little things that strike me as appealing about Finland. Safety: While visiting some other city in another country, I was reminded of all the little semi-automatic things many urbanites do: looking ahead to watch the dark spots ahead should somebody want to leap out; locking my office door if I leave for even a few minutes; monitoring whoever is trailing behind me on the sidewalk and making sure my messenger bag is firmly attached to me; looking for well-lit streets; removing my headphones so I can hear the streetscape; and so on.

I have stopped doing nearly all of that stuff in Finland, despite coming from a city in which I feel pretty safe already. Finnish TV: Because I forgot how ridiculous is (e.g., reversing a vacuum cleaner to shoot hot blueberry preserves); how offensive British health nuts and American chefs can be; and that really doesn’t make any sense. Sure, they get, but other than that Finnish TV is rife with some stale American and British fare. A comet bears down on Moominland.: I understand the individual words spoken by these Finnish cartoon characters that resemble adorable bleached hippos, and they’re enchanting in an incomprehensible way, but they often make less sense than Twin Peaks. Let me summarize the surrealist masterpiece (which I cannot do justice to): A melancholy muskrat philosopher divines the end of the earth at the hands of comet raining black soot onto the earth, convincing Moomintroll and his best friend Sniff to go to a nearby observatory and observe the coming doom; during their journey Moomintroll develops a crush on the; they learn exactly when the comet will strike and they return home as the comet bakes the sea dry and are greeted at home with Moominmamma’s cake (and the music is provided by ). I fail to do this clever and absurd series much credit, and it is simultaneously dark, funny, peaceful, and optimistic throughout.

Moomins’ stuff is incessantly marketed everywhere, but these books rarely have made much of a dent in the American children’s book market. Pedestrians need fear nothing in Finnish crosswalks. Heated floors: Few physical sensations are as pleasant as a warm floor underfoot on a cold day. Where Americans fry the air in houses warming the ceiling while our ankles freeze, Finns radiate their feet and bodies from the ground level. Buses: Oulu has predictable public transport. People with children in strollers ride free, one of the clever little thoughtful things to make life easier for parents and caregivers. Street crossing: Finns always wait for the walk signal before crossing, and cars seem to universally bear the right-of-way to pedestrians and bikes.

(Indianapolis drivers, in contrast, appear to speed up at intersections.) Quietude: I was reminded while visiting Prague that the rhythmic background punctuation of emergency vehicles is a constant in most cities. While places like Helsinki inevitably have some sirens ring through the city and Oulu has genuine emergencies that require sirens, Oulu is very quiet and the strange absence of sirens (strange to this American at least) is an interesting backdrop. Socks: Finns habitually take their shoes off in private homes and many workplaces as well. I like working in my office with my shoes off, for some reason. Now my socks are a fashion garment. The delights of a Finnish candy aisle.

Candy: Finland is a gold mine of licorice, chocolate, gummy things, and mints. American candy is fine but pretty boring in comparison. School lunch: Instead of fast food and microwaved/reheated/processed foods loosely resembling hamburgers and burritos, the University serves a decent meal everyday and I actually leave my desk to eat. I may be the only person who goes to Finland and gains weight.

Darkness: As I write, the day is about six hours long, and those six hours are really at best a grey chilly drizzle that is only going to get shorter. On these long, dark days snow provides a pleasant reflected light and muffles the already quiet landscape, which I kind of like. On the other hand, spending a summer here in the midst of the midnight sun made me feel like Jack Torrance in the midst of brightly lit cabin fever. Viikki Teacher Training School in Helsinki (image courtesy Malene Erkmann). Finnish schools are for the rest of the world, primarily by self-conscious Americans who persistently troop through Finnish classrooms hoping to find the magic potion. It is not clear that the American K-12 educational system is failing in all the ways American ideologues transparently lament, but the attention to Finnish schools is perhaps most interesting as an ethnographic question revolving around Americans’ own anxieties about education and American competitiveness. The Finns certainly seem to do some things quite well and have improved significantly since the 1970s, but their system is radically different: Despite Americans’ fascination with Finland’s high test scores, America may be unwilling if not unable materially, socially, and culturally to make such profound transformations.

Americans’ fascination with Finnish education (and apprehension over our own self-perceived shortcomings) has been most clearly initiated by their stellar test scores and various rankings placing them at or near the world’s best school systems. The Program for International Student Assessment around the world in math, reading, and science has placed Finnish students at or near the top in each of the three studies conducted since 2000, while Americans have limped along well behind the Finns. In, the Finns placed second (to the Republic of Korea) in both reading and mathematics (the US was 14 th and 25 th respectively); and the Finns were first in science (the US was 17 th). In 2009 the United Nations placed Finland in a five-way tie for the world’s best school system (along with Denmark, Cuba, Australia, and New Zealand; the US was 13th).

Arola Elementary School in Ohkola (image courtesy MikeAncient). For Americans, the Finnish model is puzzling: Finnish schools assign nearly no homework at all, valuing creativity and genuine Socratic conversation. American students visiting Finland (I have an ethnographic study subject in my own household) are joyful to find that.

Finnish children do not start school until they are seven years old, though nearly all are in preschools, where the focus is on allowing children to play (and they always receive a long recess). For a system in which children test very well, students are. In 2008 the surveyed these facts and scratched its head in bemusement that “High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don’t start school until age 7. Finnish youth, like their U.S. Counterparts, also waste hours online.

They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they’re way ahead in math, science and reading — on track to keeping Finns among the world’s most productive workers.” The Finns long had no concrete goal to produce high test scores; instead, they simply aspired to serving all Finnish children with, consistent health care, small class sizes , and respected and well-paid teachers.

In few if any countries in the world are teachers more than in Finland. Finnish teachers receive their educations at the cost of the state; all have Master’s degrees; the competition for teaching jobs is significant; they are unionized; most teachers stay with a class group for five years, as opposed to changing teachers every year; and they have considerable freedom to craft lesson plans appropriate to their students and community. All of this has been dissected by the popular press as it paints a caricature of the American school system that ignores all the complexities of the US and all the successes of American education. From an ethnographic perspective Americans’ popular vision of education may be most interesting in the recurring American neurosis about universal measures of success like test scores, which misses Finns’ ability to see “success” in much more complex ways that include students’ self-esteem, teachers’ own satisfaction, and an unwillingness to leave behind members of the community who may not have conventional academic skills. It also conveniently ignores that ours is a system and society characterized by profound disparities.

Visit a range of central Indiana schools—or those in any other relatively diverse metropolitan American city—and you will find some exceptionally beautiful and well-equipped buildings in some zip codes, and other schools in lower tax brackets are poorly outfitted and deteriorating structures. Comparison of Finnish and American schools is unreasonable if not hypocritical in some ways. Found that American kids had the second highest poverty rate in the world at 23.1%, whereas Finns’ 5.3% rate was the second lowest in the world. Changing that system would not come cheap, and in contemporary Finland–in school and all social services–everybody pays and everybody benefits. “Success” may have little or nothing to do with Americans’ working harder or teachers developing new classroom practices and much more to do with rethinking some of the fundamental assumptions about what we want out of schools at all.

Courtesy MikeAncient courtesy Malene Erkmann Tagged. Few descriptions of Finland ignore the impression of the environment on Finnish culture (image from Oulanka National Park courtesy purplespace). In the wake of World War II Julian Steward led a wave of anthropologists focused on culture as an adaptation to physical and social environments, a body of theory referred to as “.” Dissatisfied with prevalent explanations of cultural change, Steward coined the term cultural ecology in his 1955 study, arguing that culture and cultural transformation were direct reflections of environmental adaptation.

In 1962 borrowed from biological systems metaphors when he defined cultural ecology as the study of “the role of culture as a dynamic component of any ecosystem.” Steward and a host of scholars examining the relationship between culture and the environment have emphasized that cultures change in direct response to the possibilities provided by a concrete environmental context, so classic studies have been conducted in arctic and equatorial settings where some cultures have crafted clever responses to challenging environments. Snow covers much of the landscape for six months in northernmost Finland (image courtesy Markus YK).

Most definitions of Finnish life place the environment in general and cold in particular at the heart of Finnish culture, heritage, and psychology. Since the ice sheets receded from Finland, the environmental landscape has had a profound impact on cultural adaptations.

For instance, argue that between 6500 and 4000 years ago postglacial land uplift in northwest coastal Finland reduced the distance between the rivers flowing into the Bothnian Bay, which triggered increased population densities and sedentism among hunter-gatherers living on the coast. It would be very difficult to examine Finnish heritage and culture and not acknowledge the profound power of nature on Finnish life. Of course there are seasons besides winter in Finland (image from East Uusimaa courtesy Visit Finland).

We might circumspectly ask why people choose to live in such conditions, how it shapes Finnish culture and life, and, “The obvious question in all this is: what makes Finland – with its near constant cold and long stretches of darkness – such a happy place to live?” This raises the thorny ontological issue of what constitutes happiness, but by many relatively concrete measures Finland has virtues. The Nordic countries are routinely placed at the top of lists of “happiest” or even “best” countries in the world, with a (first in education, fourth in quality of life, fifth in political environment, eighth in economic dynamism, and 17 th in health; the US was 11 th overall, compare, which sarcastically but presciently may capture Americans’ amazement). The environmental realities are pretty objective, yet arrayed against them is the seemingly contradictory mountain of evidence underscoring that Finland is a well-managed state peopled by relatively happy citizens. In a flood of, the Finns in 2012 have the; the (second in reading and second in math); the (down from first in 2009); the in 2008; as a percentage of GDP is higher in Finland than any other country in the world, and Finland has the world’s second highest participation in higher education; and the. All this made Finland the in 2010 (only Denmark was considered happier).

Finnish winter is a complicated interplay of light, snow, and cold (image courtesy speedwaystar). One explanation for Finns’ seeming “happiness” is that it is explained by the cold and not in spite of it. For instance, Finns are astoundingly active despite the challenges of the cold, with scores of residents Nordic walking, hiking, riding bikes, jogging through the depths of winter. That activity may actually be because of those conditions: in bracing cold, moving can be enormously better than simply standing motionless waiting for a bus. The vaunted school system may have some link to the cold as well: sitting in a well-warmed classroom on a brutally cold albeit gorgeous snowy day does make white collar work and scholarly labor seem more appealing than physical labor. Regardless of the often unpleasant physical sensation of being in the cold, it is aesthetically pleasing, and Finnish tourist pages devote much of their energy to illuminating the pleasing aesthetics of the Finnish snowfall, northern lights, frosty reindeer, and dew-covered berries. Flickr is loaded with countless images of Finnish nature, and many appear to be taken by Americans captivated by this environmental aesthetics and the momentary simplicity of living within and not against nature (at least for the week an American urbanite is vacationing in Finland).

Finland actually has some seasons and color besides winter and white (image courtesy -zelig-) Yet much of the American fascination with such world rankings of countries and our obsession on where we sit on such inventories of joy may reside with our own commitment to happiness. And Eric Weiner’s each hypothesize that the chill and dark may have a significant influence on Finland’s happiness, but it may also lie in how Americans define happiness, which goes well beyond the measured contentment Finns find in everyday life.

Americans arrogantly wrote the “pursuit of happiness” into our founding document despite subsequently assembling a diverse and unequal state society covering numerous environmental zones. Weiner questions why Americans consciously commit so much energy to actually thinking about securing happiness: “I’ve spent most of my life trying to think my way to happiness, and my failure to achieve that goal only proves, in my mind, that I am not a good enough thinker. It never occurred to me that the source of my unhappiness is not flawed thinking but thinking itself.” This suggests that much of outsiders’ inability to understand Finnish contentment—or secure their own–may revolve around our inability to understand some people seek meaningfulness that may not necessarily be “happy” in a hackneyed American definition of the term. What it means to be happy or content is inevitably local and highly contextual and certainly culturally specific, and there is certainly a link between the unavoidable Nordic environment and Finnish cultural definitions of contentment, but the relationship between happiness and culture in Finland and America reaches well beyond the mercury and depth of snow each winter. Image courtesy Rupert Brun Popular culture is an uncanny mirror of society, but it is always a distorted mirror that reflects who we are in our most spectacular and hyperbolic dimensions: for instance, science fiction projects contemporary social apprehensions into futures and fantasy worlds; sports provide a clarity of rules and resolution we rarely secure in our everyday lives; and funnels myriad discourses invoking gender, sexuality, and commercialism that we all recognize in prosaic everyday forms.

Few popular cultural discourses have more influence on how we see the world than television. The reflection of America as seen in the mirror of Finnish television is, at best, disorienting and maybe a little demoralizing. A media economics scholar could explain the marketing reasons for why a specific range of American television shows have made their way to Finland, and the perpetual repeats of, and hopefully has little to do with Finnish culture. Yet the array of television shows appearing in Finland cannot be entirely arbitrary, and it certainly provides a distinctive picture of America and perhaps even Finland. Finns watch an (Americans watch roughly ), and of course much of it is in Finnish, but Finns watch quite a lot of English language programming. More than 70% of programming (23.3% share) is documentaries, news, or educational programs; (21.8% share) and (16.9% share) show a slightly broader range of entertainment shows that include Finnish and English-language shows. But the range of other Finnish channels like, and show many English-language shows including lots of American programs bearing the heavy burden of introducing Finns to America.

Finland’s primer on America comes from an incessant stream of reality shows in situations that do not have any easy analogy to Finland., for instance, chronicles people who wander around California purchasing the unknown contents of storage lockers. In this oddly American treasure hunt people buy piles of things that somebody else couldn’t fit in their house, so they placed it in storage only to abandon the locker or simply find themselves unable to pay for it; the unlikeable Storage War stars then swoop in to claim it. Some of the American offerings are fascinating in an odd way like that shares with our Scandinavian allies the awaiting an electromagnetic pulse, earthquake, or inevitable rioting following Obamacare.

But many more are absolutely banal: features a stream of people desperate for money (or deluded that their things are valuable) aspiring to sell stuff to a pawn shop; are a couple overbearing guys who just storm into people’s homes to purchase their things; witnesses the persistent stream of Americans who think their entrepreneurial inspiration should be supported by a bunch of rich guys; has already bored America; and aspires to weave a narrative around the flood of Americans who want butterflies inked onto their hips. The picture painted in these shows is of a monotonous America peopled by overblown and largely unsympathetic personalities committed to wealth. The British programmers do their best to match America’s offerings to Finland with the likes of, which features an array of festering privates, swollen scrotums, and startling disfigurements; and the digestively detailed.

Australia adds their creativity with their version of, in which beautiful airhead women and uber-nerds are thrown into the same whirpool. Like many American reality shows focused on crime and the seamy underside of life, Finns have (i.e., Cops), and,and detail the amazing number of people who try to pass through customs with 10 pounds of cured meat or packages of swallowed drugs. Makes a weekly case for taking the train; competitive chefs face off in and, with the wrinkle of; and many more cooking shows include, and the world’s most overbearing culinary ethnographer,. It goes without saying that there is a flood of dance and talent shows and the ever-present, which has its own Finnish version that appears to be as reflective as its American peer.

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This blog was written in Fall 2012 while I was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Oulu, and I continue to work in northern Finland. I am a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI); Docent in Historical Archaeology at the University of Oulu (Finland); and Past-President of the Society for Historical Archaeology (2012-2013).

16th January, 2017 Good morning ladies. Hope you had a great weekend. This is another week to be awesome Here’s starting on a good note with His word. Don’t Give Up! Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

—Galatians 6:9 KJV Do you ever feel like giving up? Perhaps you’re discouraged about your finances or you’re facing problems with your health, your marriage, or your children. Sometimes problems seem so overwhelming the road ahead seems too steep to climb.

We all go through these times. I’ve wanted to give up and quit many times through the years. But when I realized I had nothing to go back to, I determined to keep pressing on. Even though continuing to move forward is sometimes painful, it is far better than giving up and sliding backwards. God is doing a good work in you so He can do more for you and through you.

So ask Him to fill you with holy determination today and keep moving in the right direction. Cc: @salamigirl3k @ange @weni @eka @lilymaram @edojaprecious @namy @chixavier @missamerley ztee @missfafa @nkay @tiwa @bola2016 @ebi-4 @eguns @abeemah @egobaby @emeraldmoni30 @ladylorrie @iphii @ikechukwungozi Culled from http://www.joycemeyer.org/Articles/Devotional.aspx. 17th January, 2017 Good morning ladies, do have a great day and enjoy the devotional for today. Testing Builds Endurance James 1:2-4- 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisterswhenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

“Why would a loving heavenly Father allow His children to go through terrible trials and experience sorrow?” We can understand the reason that this is a common question—it can be baffling when the all-powerful God of love seems to stand by silently while painful things happen to His followers. Where is He during personal tragedies, natural disasters, financial crises, and other times of heartache? The Word of God is the only place we can find the real answer.

Even so, today’s reading can be hard to understand or accept. One might read James’s exhortation to be joyful in the face of trials and think, Count me out! Difficulties and joy just don’t seem to go together—that is, unless we understand God’s perspective of what life is about. When James spoke of joy, he wasn’t referring to a cheery, frivolous feeling. Rather, he was talking about an inner sense of calmness, peace, and confidence in the Lord.

He wasn’t telling us to feel happy about our trials but to know, as we go through them, that God is up to something good in our life. Our attitude during the struggle will determine what shape we’re in when we come out on the other side.

When our faith gets tested, the end result is endurance; being aware of this gives us hope and strength. What’s more, the Bible promises God will use trials for our good, so we don’t need to be afraid or anxious.

God’s desire is to bless you, not destroy you. Adversity can make someone feel like a victim, but as followers of Christ, we can choose to be victors! Cc: @salamigirl3k @ange @weni @eka @lilymaram @edojaprecious @namy @chixavier @missamerley ztee @missfafa @nkay @tiwa @bola2016 @ebi-4 @eguns @abeemah @egobaby @emeraldmoni30 @ladylorrie @iphii @ikechukwungozi Culled from https://www.intouch.org/read/magazine/daily-devotions. 18th January, 2017 Sometimes, we forget that God knows us too much; knows the hidden truths, pain in our hearts. However, it’s comforting to know that even when we forget, He is so mindful of us and He somehow finds a way to remind us of the fact that, He loves us. That was what the devotional of this morning did for me.

It reminded me of God’s love. Of how, He’s never tired of listening to my heart cry and making everything work themselves out in my favour. Hope, it blesses you as much as it blessed you. How Long, O Lord? “How long will my enemy triumph over me?“ Psalm 13:2b (NIV) When I reached my 30s, I remember praying “How long, Lord?” as I filled out yet another change of address form.

During several years of job and life transitions, I’d filled out my share of these. I needed to have a list of my previous addresses nearby just to remember them all, and it drove me insane when the gas station pumps began requiring zip codes to make a transaction. My biological family had painfully broken apart years ago, and now everywhere I turned, I was reminded I had no place to call home.

Why, God, am I still living out of a suitcase? How long is this going to be my life? These were honest prayers, raw prayers, and I had to go on a journey with God to learn it was OK to pray them at all.

For much of my life, I thought to question God was to doubt Him. I had learned to trust in His sovereignty, and desired God’s will for my life over my own. But somewhere along the path of obedience, my questioning ceased, and so did my laments. Lament is a passionate expression of grief where God meets us in our time of sorrow. Lamenting prayers are prayers where we express our honest emotions before God.

God wants to hear us, even on our bad days, and He is always open to our honest prayers. One example of a lament found in Scripture is when the Psalmist cries out to God, asking: How long? “How long, LORD?

Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13:1, NIV) Have you ever lamented how long to God? How long must you be in angst? How long before you see your children come to the Lord? How long must you stay in a job that doesn’t satisfy you? David’s how long lament shows we will sometimes feel forgotten, and even forsaken by God. Notice that this lament isn’t silenced by a happy-go-lucky song in church, or dismissed by an uncomprehending friend.

David’s lament is taken directly to God in the form of prayer. In Scripture God permits us to lament, and as we cry out to him in lament, He answers.

The Psalmist continued, “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?” (Psalm 13:2a) God gives us permission to present our honest questions before Him. He knows we will have anxious thoughts and troubling circumstances. It is what we do in these lamenting times that matter. Unfortunately, I am guilty of often gossiping about God instead of taking my honest laments before Him in prayer. As a child of God, we can take our questions directly to God, even while our hearts are still filled with pain.

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Why is she getting married, and I am still single? Why is her life blessed, and I am still struggling? Why is my sorrow unending, with no change in sight? What are your how long prayers right now?

Do you have permission to express them in the context of a Christian community, and have you given yourself permission to lament them directly to God? We are all blessed with good things in life, and many of us are simultaneously struggling. As God’s people, we can experience multiple emotions at once. In a later Psalm, David laments as a form of confession, while at the same time asking God’s help to give Him praise. “Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.” (Psalm 51:15, NIV) There is no “fake it ‘til you make it” in Scripture.

Lamenting gives our honest cries to God and gives Him the opportunity to comfort us when everything is not fine. Being “fine” is never to be our goal with God, however, intimacy and transparency are. As we take our laments directly to God, He will meet us right where we are not where we pretend to be. Keeping our laments inside will cause us to shut down, displace emotions, isolate ourselves or stop praying altogether. What a generous God who has invited us to lament “how long” and modeled this language to us directly. Heavenly Father, help me let out my laments to You.

As I cry out, “How long?” meet me right where I am, and transform my laments into praise. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY:, “How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save?” (NIV) Revelation 6:10, “They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’” (NIV) REFLECT AND RESPOND: What is one lament you have had in the last 24 hours?

Practice telling God of the disappointment you are currently facing. Cc: @salamigirl3k @ange @weni @eka @lilymaram @edojaprecious @namy @chixavier @missamerley ztee @missfafa @nkay @tiwa @bola2016 @ebi-4 @eguns @abeemah @egobaby @emeraldmoni30 @ladylorrie @iphii @ikechukwungozi Culled from http://www.christianity.com/devotionals/encouragement-for-today-proverbs-31/.

He brought me forth also into a large place; He was delivering me because He was pleased with me and delighted in me. —Psalm 18:19 Have you ever taken time to think about what you think about yourself? God thinks you are special, and He celebrates you all the time. He doesn’t mention your past sins, and He rejoices over you with singing (see Zephaniah 3:17). According to Scripture, King David, who wrote our verse for today, was far from perfect, but he believed God was pleased with him.

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David made the same statement again in 2 Samuel 22:20. He really knew God’s pleasure and delight in him. I hope you also know how pleased and delighted God is with you. Can you imagine walking around your house or driving around in your car singing, “God is pleased with me and He delights in me!” Many people would not have that kind of confidence, but we should. We should believe what God says in His Word about how He feels toward us. If you have the courage to begin speaking over yourself that God is pleased and delights in you, you may feel embarrassed at first, but soon you will begin to walk in new levels of confidence, power, peace, and joy.

God may not be pleased with all our behavior, but He is pleased with us if we love Him and want to make progress. When we make positive confessions like the ones I’m suggesting today, we are agreeing with God’s Word. Love Yourself Today: God is not mad at you, and He loves you. He’s smiling over you and singing over you because He is pleased and delighted with you.

Cc: @salamigirl3k @ange @weni @eka @lilymaram @edojaprecious @namy @chixavier @missamerley ztee @missfafa @nkay @tiwa @bola2016 @ebi-4 @eguns @abeemah @egobaby @emeraldmoni30 @ladylorrie @iphii Culled from http://www.joycemeyer.org/Articles/Devotional.aspx.