{"id":6455,"date":"2017-02-18T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-18T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-09-12T15:50:37","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T19:50:37","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-finland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-finland\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From Finland … Featuring Leona @ Leona’s Blog of Shadows"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nIt’s time for this month’s So Your Character is From Another Country! This is a monthly or bimonthly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last week’s So Your Character is From the Netherlands … be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span><\/div>\n

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<\/span> I honestly didn’t know too much about Finland before this post. I knew it was in Scandinavia, very cold, and there’s reindeer. That’s one of the many reasons why I was so happy that Leona agreed to be interviewed. Let’s welcome Leona!<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nDisclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts are as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\n(None of the Images are Mine)<\/span>
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\nI am an IT engineer by day and book reviewer and fantasy writer by night. I was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, relocated to San Francisco Bay Area, CA in 1999 for work, relocated to Austin, TX in 2004 and later to San Antonio, TX and became a naturalized US citizen somewhere along the way. I moved to Finland in 2013 where I currently reside and hopefully for good. My main hobbies are medieval re-enaction, fantasy cosplay, sailing, needle crafts, nature photography and drawing. I don’t see writing as a hobby, I treat it as my second job. I am working on the first two books of a dark fantasy series loosely based on a medieval Byzantine setting and draws elements from Turkish, Armenian and Mongolian mythologies.<\/div>\n

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My name is Hanna and I\u2019m 24 years old. I live in Raisio with my family. Raisio? Yeah, this is a small city they call \u201cthe big crossroad in the middle of Turku and Naantali\u201d. I\u2019m currently at home with my three kids but after summer, I\u2019m going back to school and hopefully be a midwife someday. When I have a chance to be by myself, I use it for reading. Soon (hopefully) I\u2019ll be able to get back to horse riding too.<\/span>
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\n What do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/span><\/b>
Leona: <\/b>The amazing nature is the first thing many people notice. The most famous landmark is the Helsinki Cathedral (also known as the White Cathedral). But Finland is unique with the number of lakes. It is known as the Land of Thousand Lakes and there are around a quarter million lakes, most of them concentrated in central Finland. There’s also the midnight sun in Lapland, the northern half of the country. And the bodies of water all freeze during the winter. <\/span>The sea is warm enough to swim in the summer and frozen enough to ski in the winter. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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The other special thing about Finland is everyman’s law, which means you are free to pick berries and mushrooms in any land, including private forests, so long you don’t get too close to the owner’s home. Fruits and mushrooms are for everyone! Finland is one of the few countries where people still celebrate some of the old pagan holidays like May Day and Midsummer with big bonfires. <\/span><\/div>\n

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\nHanna:<\/b> I\u2019d like to say sauna! And we also do ice swimming in the winter. Well the bravest ones. We also have couple castles and beautiful churches but what I really want to mention is our amazing Snow Village! It\u2019s completely made of ice and snow and you can even stay the night and sleep there.<\/span>
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\nTell me about your country’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/span><\/b>
\nLeona: <\/b>Finland is the land of forests and lakes, my favorite place is pretty much anywhere in the middle of woods with a small log cabin near a lake. I love the nearby national parks in the Helsinki Capital Region, Sipoo and Nuuksio. Nuuksio is stunning with its lakes, ponds, tall trees and wildlife. <\/span><\/div>\n

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\nSouthern Finland is sub-arctic climate, winter days are short with only 4-5 hours of daylight, cold and dark. Snow stays on the ground from January till mid-April and temperatures can drop to -30. But the summer is the opposite, we get nearly 21 hours of daylight during Midsummer. It can get quite warm, some years it hits 30C, some years it stays around mid 20’s. Lappland has harsher climate than that, and there’s no daylight for months in winter, and the sun doesn’t set for a couple of months in summer. <\/span>
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\nHanna:<\/b> We have so many beautiful forests! And well they say Finland is a country of thousand lakes. But I love the forests! Especially the big ones where you can just wander around not hearing any noises from cars and city.<\/span><\/p>\n
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Tell me about your country’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/span><\/b>
Leona: <\/b>Finland’s special delicacy is reindeer meat, which is awesome but pricey in steak form. Shredded reindeer in a bed of mashed potatoes with lingonberry sauce on the side is my favorite. The ‘typical’ Finnish food is salmon and potatoes. Karelian pie is a favorite breakfast food, I love those. Cloudberry jam is another favorite of mine. I love the good old Oltermanni cheese on bread and Lappland’s unsalted ‘bread cheese’ paired with cloudberry jam. <\/span><\/div>\n

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Hanna:<\/b> <\/span>We have some weird foods, at least I think so. Probably the weirdest of them all is M\u00e4mmi, our Easter food. It\u2019s basically just water, rye, salt and orange zest. It looks very weird and unappetizing but with whipped cream, ice cream or vanilla sauce it\u2019s delicious! <\/span>
\nMy absolute favorite is mashed potatoes and meatballs.<\/span>
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\nTell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

Leona: <\/b>I don’t speak much Finnish, I have intermediate level reading skills, they have a distinct slang in Helsinki Capital Area and a few dialects. Finnish is not an Indo-European language, either, it doesn’t share any common words with any other European languages. There are some loanwords form Swedish but the Finns twisted them out of recognition. <\/span>
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\nHanna:<\/b> Well Finnish language is hard even for us. Most words conjugate super weirdly and like million different ways. We also have several different dialects depending on where you live. For example word I and you: \u201cmin\u00e4 and sin\u00e4\u201d and then in dialect \u201cmie and sie\u201d.<\/span><\/div>\n

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