Silence, Patience and the Finns

To be honest, we germans are very time-dominated. It is just a matter of principles and the way of living to get stick to rules, organization,hierarchy,timetables and all the plans for a day or several days...

The use of time is very linear-active dimension of culture, as it can be found in a typical german.

What is a dimension? In a technical point of view, there are four dimensions existing today: three spatial dimensions and one time dimension.

copyright: http://pdgusers.lbl.gov/~pslii/uabackup/source_files/image/dimensional_axes.jpg

Those dimensions encapsulate all the specific features to find a way of expressing the related meaning of any kind of subject or topic. All the information contained by the dimensions is required or can be useful to exactly define the content. So and how can it be seen for cultural aspects? 

A linear-active person is someone, who represents the ideology of a well-planned individual, who focus on ‘one thing at a time in the sequence’ (Lewis, 1999, 37). According to this dimension, this person doesn’t like when someone screw up the planned schedule. This circumstance reminds me of myself. For me it is totally obvious to have a dynamic plan for life and everything. I see the point in setting up a plan to successfully manage and cope with your challenges and problems, which will occur in your lifetime. I also totally agree with the argument that ‘these people think that in this way they are more efficient and get more done’ (Lewis, 1999, 37). As a future technical Engineer from Germany, the Linear-active dimension enables me to acquire a better insight into my field of studies to manage all kind of study topics. It is indeed necessary to switch off the ability to do multiple actions at the same time and to concentrate on only one assignment. ‘Achieving a near perfect result’ (Lewis, 1999, 39) represents for me the most acceptable and approachable reason to exert this method dimension. Attributes like ‘methodically, punctual and dominated by timetables ‘stand also for a person, which is led by the linear-active dimension of culture.

As you may know, in Finland, there is a huge reservoir of lakes, trees, forest, more forest, more and more forest, and nature. Nature and the dark is dominating the life here in Finland. All those circumstances impact, that you can find a lot of shyness and silence in Rovaniemi.

But, it is not possible to find silence in a cinema. What is the purpose of a cinema? Well, you meet there, together with your friends, and get entertainment by watching a hopfefully a good move together. Drink some beers, eat some snacks and Popcorn, and enjoy the movie. Here in Finland, they have a little bit different point of view concerning the cinema.

Yesterday, I was in an international cinema evening with around 12 guys from Austria,Belgium,Germany,Japan,Spain, and Slovakia in the movie "Skyfall" - The new James Bond.

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http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/f5/d3/1352485409_5290_Skyfall.jpg


Rovaniemi has a quite small, but nice cinema, where the movie was shown with english audio. The first thing I realized, they offered subtitles in finnish and in swedish(swedish is also an official spoken language here in Finland) But luckily the cinema wall was very huge, so that the subtitles didn't disturbed anyone.

The first thing, which pissed me off, was that over the entire movie, some of the viewers in the cinema were just crushin there papers of their snacks and candys. And not only from one spot, I got the feeling that I was surrounded by them, and that I was the only one who didn't want to disturb other people while watching the movie. It was almost happened that I felt like an Angry birds

copyright : http://bilder.winload.de/Angry%20Birds/Angry%20Birds%20spielen.jpg

 or like Christian Bale as in the movie "American psycho"

Christian Bale in the movie "American psycho"

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http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/BOOKS/Pix/pictures/2010/12/23/1293098416971/American-Psycho-006.jpg

It normally take a lot to get my annoyed and agry but in this point, the patience won the first round.

Another think, which really pissed me off, was that when the movie is over, and they start to show the credits, everybody in the cinema got up, disabled my view to the credits, and just took his mobile phone and started typing.

Seems so that the finns aren't very patience, when it comes to wait for a few good things to get developed! 

Really, I thought that I am stuck in a technolgy world,  everyone I could see around me took his mobile phone,  seriously, aren't we able to survive the world without being available for 2 hours, 2 hours of no social media(facebook,twitter,msn...) or no whatsapp and no messages ?,  come on! It can't be hard. Okay I know that the finns mostly prefer to be very talkative on the phone, but not when you are in a cinema.

It is really a pitty shame, that the youth of today is so addicted in the use of mobile phones. Where is the real conversation? Where is the real talk, with a direct eye contact, and not only everyone is listening and typing in his phone at the same time :)

After the movie, we headed to a small bar, 21 in Rovaniemi, where we could achieve some few drinks and enjoyed the society.

There was a free WiFi available, but luckily it didn't work. "Ah it would be nice to have internet now..."

All in all it was a nice evening and night. But I can't recommend the movie. It was humourus,interesting, full of action, but the typical James Bond style, and a good, long-developing story was missing.

hope that James Bond is not on the way to a normal action movie...

Stay tuned for my next posts :)