The Center of the World
I lived in Rome almost 10years and I was trying to be a tourist everyday. Even if I was taking a walk around my house I had my camera with me. Having a camera is a good exercise. You are always looking for new details, or
maybe even taking pictures of same nice gate everytime you walk in front of it but is good. Its beauty is there and you recognize, admire it, without just passing by
So in Rome I wanted to be a tourist. I have so many same kind of Colosseo's pictures, at least 100 ;)
And in Finland I'm a tourist, sort of 100% tourist. I am studying the culture but I'm not part of it. I try to live as a finnish person but for example during christmas I was here, in the middle of the celebrations, but not part of it. That wasn't a problem, just to say that I am still watching Finland as a tourist, more easily to do here cause I am not part of the culture and I can easily see the differences
One of the main difference about an italian and a finnish person is this:
If you move in Rome nobody will ever ask you "why you moved here?".
They know why. The best city in the world, best food, sun is shining and bla bla bla. So as italians they think they are the center of the world (we are in the center of the map, geographically in the center, this help to think that
you are in the center). Usually there's nothing more than Italy. The power and the important of a nation is calculated considering the football importance. So brazil, argentina, france, germany, spain maybe? (i'm not an
expert) are important country, or anyway known countries, the rest are like 3rd word. We have just sort
of US imitation problem not related to football but this is a common world problem nowadays
....the point was that an italian won't even ask why you moved. They think that is the center of the world so it's normal that people are going there.
As you know I come from a 1000persons place. I had to go 24km to high school. And there they were also thinking to be the center of the world too. Can you imagine? a 24.000persons place ;)
Then I moved in Rome...and of course...if every town in italy think to be the center of the world what about the Eternal City?
In Finland is different! Everybody, everybody will ask you "why you moved here? Seriously...what the hell let you move here? Nokia? Do you have a girlfriend? Why in finland?"
Maybe is the geographical isolation, maybe is the culture differences but not considering yourself the center of the world make you more curious, like this is not the end, there's so much more to see, to discover.
That was my philosophy. Coming from a small place....you can't consider it the center of the world. But still, it's easier to love it even if you won't live there forever. And after seeing how many people already consider
themself to live in the center of the world..it helps to open your mind and to be a bit modest.
So I think finnish are really open minded people. They are curious, they know the world is small and they want to travel. Lot of them want to live finland, they sort of hate this place, the winter, someone for the people,
it's normal.
But then they live....and they have lot of interesting experience around the world...but they miss Finland. They start to see how Finland is nice place compared with the place they are that of course it's a nice place but it's
not like home.
Italians travel with a different spirit. They are terrible tourist. They don't travel to know more, they travel sort of conquering the world again ;) Looking for italian food, italian restaurant, italian people to talk with.
We go on holiday in places where you can find lot of other italians and we rarely travel alone (I use we instead of Italians...the sense is 99% of the italians ;)
So when you are abroad then you start to miss your home just cause you where expecting to find same culture in a different country and you complain about the price, everywhere is more expensive then home, about food. And you miss home cause it's so hard to adjust to a different culture if you don't respect or consider that there's other cultures too
That's why I love here. (in Finland)
Cause it's not the center of the world. Cause people are complaining but strongly loving this place. It feels like home. And finnish people are extremely curious and in the latest year they showed
it inventing lot of revolutionary product. Linux..Nokia...and all I can see around are a lot of brilliant minds
Of course mc donalds is coming here too...fast...bringing mtv and more shit. But this is still a pure country. That doesn't want to look perfect and doesn't see itself as a perfect country cause nobody, almost no finnish will
ever tell you that this is a nice place to live. But you can feel the vibration, the energy the effects that this kind of thoughts have on people behaves
So these are still confusing ideas and my english again is not good enough to express it.
I hope I managed to give you sort of idea about what I am thinking ;)
And sorry for the long email
C.
[this is a long email I wrote to a friend]