The Symphony Of Extremes

Hello everyone. Today I wanted to talk about a subject I was told about concerning Finnish music and more precisely, Finnish metal music.

In 2017, for the centenary of the Finnish independence, Visit Finland – The Official Travel Guide of Finland and the metal band ‘Apocalyptica’ decided to create a song that can express the diversity of both Finnish people and nature. For that they took DNA of different ethnicities of Finnish people and transform this DNA structure into music.

The goal of this project was to show some extreme aspects of Finland like an extremely cold temperature (-51.5 °C), or the number of lakes in Finland (188,000). You can find all these extreme numbers on the web page dedicated to the project.

I know you’re now waiting for one thing, see how this renders in music. You can find the video clip just here:

Figure 1. Apocalyptica – ‘The Symphony Of Extremes’ (Official Video) on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awOYVAQ-x4o)

I think this music represents Finland and Finnish people well. They are very reserved and polite in public, but in private they transform themselves in heavy metal listeners.

I hope this article has taught you anything about Finland!

See you soon!
Clément

Sources:

Education in Finland

Finnish education system has this reputation to be one of the best in the world. This is another reason why I wanted to experience this country. Basically, the education system is kind of similar to the French’s one. We can notice that in France we have three years of pre-school instead of one, but the rest of the career is pretty much the same. To me, the main difference is how Finnish teachers (and parents also) deal with learning. The first interesting thing for a foreigner like me is the notation system. In France, we are used to have different notations. In pre-school we have a notation going from A+ to F-. After pre-school is the 0 to 20 notations, and so until the end of our studies. I have the feeling that we (French people) grant a lot of importance to notation whereas Finnish people consider marks more like a second plan thing and truly understanding is much more important.

            Another huge difference with France is teaching time. I truly believe that we have too long school days in France, around 8 hours per day that is gigantic! Some scientific studies report that we can not be focus more than 90 minutes on a daily base. In Finland, school daytime is more around 4 hours, which is clearly better. Moreover, teaching methods in Finland are more practical, concrete which help a lot for memorizing and focusing.

            School is also free in France, which is one a basic point in a society for me. To me, states must give the same access to education no matter how rich you are. There is a citation that I love: “Students might be 20% of our population, but they are 100% of our future”.

            In conclusion, Finland has one of the best education systems in the world and I have the chance to experience it. Accent is put on collaboration instead of competition. If you have time, I recommend you to watch this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4xj0MaP1J0. It sums up just perfectly the vision I have about our current school system and how good Finnish one is.

Take care,

Romain GIROU.

Finland During Corona…

Hey ! Sorry, it’s been a long time since my last article, but there was a lot of thing going on down here . Actually, you might not have heard about it, but there is a little disease called “Covid-19” (Corona-virus for the intimates) which is spreading around the world.

In every country, people are getting into quarantine, need to be 2 meter away, they are robbing the supermarkets, even buying guns (crazy uh) and the hospitals are overcrowded.

But not here… Finnish people don’t give a s*** about corona. In fact, in the Finnish culture, social distancing is the norm. In Finland, people don’t like being close to each other, even friends and family. So when you see people on the street, they always make detours to avoid being close to you.

Finnish people vs coronavirus - Imgflip

Obviously, the Finnish government still set up some rule to prevent the spreading of Corona in the country :

  • Non-essential public places are closed (bar, library, school, …)
    • online classes are set to allow student to follow their curriculum.
  • Meeting of more than 10 person at a time are forbidden
  • You are not allowed to travel abroad
Distribution of the cases of Corona in Finland

Our school, ESAIP, advised us to come back to France. So 3 of us did. We’ll see you in September, Thomas, Gabin and Erwann.

Stay all safe and see you soon !

Nähdään pian

Cyprien Barbault

The Finnish anthem(s)

Three years ago, in 2017, Finland celebrated the centenary of its independence (see my article ‘Finland in a nutshell‘). During these celebrations, I heard the fact Finland had two national anthems, an official and an unofficial.
Let me share you my research about this.

‘Maamme’, the official national anthem of Finland:

‘Maamme’ (our land) is the official Finnish national anthem. It is composed of the first and the last verse of the translation of the Swedish poem ‘Vårt land’ written in 1846 by Johan Ludvig Runeberg. The music, composed by the German Fredrik Pacius in 1848, is common with the national anthem of Estonia and Sweden.
You can listen to the Finnish anthem here:

Figure 1. “Maamme” – National Anthem of Finland on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM2Lr3NqUcg)

The translation of the song in English:

Our Land

Our land, our land, our fatherland,
Sound loud, O name of worth!
No mount that meets the heaven’s band.
No hidden vale, no wavewashed strand.
Is loved, as is our native North. Our own forefathers’ earth.

Thy blossom, in the bud laid low,
Yet ripened shall upspring.
See! From our love once more shall grow
Thy light, thy joy, thy hope, thy glow!
And clearer yet one day shall ring The song our land shall sing.

‘Finlandia Hymne’, the symphonic poem by Jean Sibelius:

Even if Maamme is the official anthem, Finnish people prefer the song Finlandia hymne from the symphonic poem Finlandia by Sibelius. It’s one of the most important songs in Finland. Sibelius composed this music in 1899 with the goal of illustrating Finland’s past. The text of the song was written by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi in 1939.

Figure 2. Jean Sibelius: Finlandia-hymni on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC1AWfiz8lk)

We can see in these lyrics, the desire to show a strong Finland:

Finland, behold, thy daylight now is dawning,
the threat of night has now been driven away.
The skylark calls across the light of morning,
the blue of heaven lets it have its way,
and now the day the powers of night is scorning:
thy daylight dawns, O Finland of ours!

Finland, arise, and raise towards the highest
thy head now crowned with mighty memory.
Finland, arise, for to the world thou criest
that thou hast thrown off thy slavery,
beneath oppression’s yoke thou never liest.
Thy morning’s come, O Finland of ours!

I strongly hope you learn something about Finland today!

See you soon!
Clément

Sources:

Welcome to Suomi

that’s it we are there
Since our arrival 4 weeks ago, we had been able to admire some Finnish city under their coats of snow.

Tampere,Finland
Seinajoki,Finland


We had the opportunity to meet many people such as our different tutors who helped us to settle in our different apartments.
Despite the negative temperatures, Finland, particularly the city where we are doing our semester Seinajoki, is a city where life is good, the city is calm and the population is very friendly, we were able in particular thanks to some sporting or festive events organized by our tutors discover other students from all over, namely Europe, Asia and America.

We had the opportunity to visit some place in the city.

Lake Seinajoki,Finland

we had been able to observe a magnificent sunset near the partially frozen lake of the city although we were obliged to go to warm it up by a campfire lit by a camper.
our adventure promises to be full of good times.
We will meet you later to tell you more.

Moi,Moi nähdää ! (bye,see you !)

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