In Finland, mothers are celebrated on the second Sunday of May. In Mexico, the date is fixed on May 10th. Therefore, yesterday was the first in long time when I could celebrate at the same time with my mom and my in-laws.
Other than that, traditions are relatively similar. Family lunch and maybe some gifts or cards for the päivänsankari / homenajeada.
One situation I encounter time and again is people who have great insight but cannot communicate it forward as they haven’t learned to give a presentation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m an expert nor that it is easy to do. However, the ability to give presentations is an absolutely fundamental skill regardless of your profession, and is something that I feel is not stressed enough in Finnish education (I remember one of my teachers in Belgium used to complain about that after having seen many Finnish exchange students), to the detriment of business here (I am yet to count how many times I’ve heard that “We have great ideas but don’t know how to sell them“).
I haven’t tried them (most of what I know about speaking in public I learned in Models United Nations as a teenager), but I understand a good way to improve in this area is to try Toastmasters. They even have a Helsinki chapter.
Last week something interesting happened. I was walking to the store and in quick succession two unrelated strangers spoke to me in Finnish, like any other person, asking questions about the neighbourhood or directions.
Why is this significant? Because I don’t have the stereotypical Finnish complexion nor facial features and dress in a very particular way (jeans, black jacket and texano cowboy hat this time), so more often than not people will address me in English or refrain to do so.
As said in the title, maybe people around here are getting used to “the different”, as they have in other places like Brussels or Stockholm.
That’s September 16th. I assume it’s celebrated in the United States for two reasons:
Although it is certainly celebrated in some parts of Mexico, the whole brouhaha they make north of the border as “Mexican heritage day” is as alien to most Mexicans as hard-shelled tacos.
After a week and a half of having declared the emergency, everything is slowly going back to normal in Mexico City now that the government has declared that the worst has passed (at least in Mexico itself, as the virus is still being reported in the U.S.). Tomorrow people will go back to work and in a few days schools will reopen. There are a couple of diplomatic incidents still ongoing, and I for one am not planning to go to China nor Argentina anytime soon (both suspended flights, and Mexicans without symptoms are .
I really hope that the Mexican tourism industry recovers once this emergency is over, as the economic cost of this emergency runs in the billions. At least it’s not the main news item in international media anymore at the time of writing.
For a good overview of this most liquid of Finnish festivities and how it’s celebrated you can check out Wikipedia. On that day I remember why binge drinking is not a good idea and how practical it was to run around in overalls…