Culture of Finland

PERRRKELE!!

“Opera? Fuck no!”

~ Javelin thrower Seppo Räty describing how most Finns feel about culture.

Culture is illegal in Finland. The Finnish law states that "every Finnish citizen who is involved in artsy-fartsy activities, such as going into art exhibitions, listening to classical music, reading art books or possessing original works of fine art, can be prosecuted and face up a maximum of 25 years in jail". Capital punishment is usually applied only to those who go to the opera on a regular basis. Fortunately, it is easy for most Finns to obey the law, since approximately 99% of the population hate culture.

The constitution grants Finnish girls the right to urinate on the streets. However, only male Finns tend to practise this habit.

Ritualistic spitting on sidewalks is observed every third Thursday of the month, a tradition whose roots are not well-known. It is thought that the people of Finland fear the build up of saliva, the juice of Satan, and the purging of this devilish liquid frees them of any hedonistic thoughts that had been planted by any one of Satan's minions.

Every year in September, the Puouåkkoänta Hamsteri (The Stabbing of the Hamsters) Festival is held in the town of Oujuthuomentahyvääpaivajärvilainnen in Lapland. This attracts thousands of knife-bearing Finns who gather to stab the specially bred Finnish Giant Hamsters. Fortunately they also stab each other.

There is only one full-length movie ever made in Finland called Poika ja ilves (Tommy and the Wildcat), a cult classic among movie enthustiacs. Copies are rarely seen but some are frequently sold on eBay with prices up to 15 billion North Korean dollars. It is a movie much liked by foreign pornography collectors.

Holidays

Day	Name in English	Name in Finnish
January 1	"The Recovery from hangover Day" day	Krapulasta toipumispäivä -päivä
February 7	Boozeday	Viinan päivä
February 23	Festivals	Festarit
April 28	The Morning before the Day Before the Eve of Wappu	Wappuaatonaatonaatto
April 29	The day before the Eve of Wappu	Wappuaatonaatto
April 30	The Eve of Wappu	Wappuaatto
April 33	The end of Wappu	Wappu loppuu
May 20	The Frozen Hell day	Ähäkuttipäivä
June 24	The Ultimate Boozeday	Jussi
June 25	The Ultimate Hangoverday	Kankkuspäivä
November 23	Birthday of Uusis	Uusiksen syntymäpäivä
November 30	The Cheat on Your Husband Booze Day	Pikkujoulujen maahantulon vuosipäivä
December 6	Memorial Day of the Repeal of Booze Prohibition	Kieltolain lakkauttamisen vuosipäivä
December 24	Christmas	Lahjojen saanti -päivä
December 31	Booze and fireworks Eve	Rakettien ammunta ja kossun juonti -päivä
Wednesday	Saturday eve	Pikkulauantai

Literature

Finland boasts a Nobel laureate in literature, Frans Eemil Sillanpää, who won the esteemed prize in 1939. Now, how many of you knew this guy before? How many of you have read his works? If there is at least one, please write an article on him. Finnish literature is dominated by war books and books concerning the boooooooring life of the rural people in Northern Ostrobothnia. In the Hall of Downward's House by Volter Shield is a rare exception of this tradition. The Finnish national epic is called A Gloomy Inner Monologue by Olaf Peterson and is compulsory reading for every citizen.

A special Literature Act allows a Finnish citizen to legally own only three books. These books, Seventy Brothers by Alexis the Stoned, Why is Moomintroll So Damn Fat by Nokia Corporation, and Laid-back Finnish Soldiers Talking in Various Dialects by Väino Linna (Persecution Castle), are found in every Finnish bookself, covered with at least an inch of greasy dust.

Dr. Persecution Castle (honoris causa) has also written a heartbreaking trilogy of novels entitled Above the North Star. This acclaimed series of three stupenduously long novels tells about a passionate love-triangle involving three Russian cosmonauts trapped inside a runaway space station, which becomes a spice station after Harrison Ford has jettisoned his cargo.

Nowadays Finns mostly read books written by the notorious hack Ilkka Realmess. These are predominately spy thrillers with titles such as The Pillow of Darkness (Pimeyden tyyny, WCOY, Viipuri, 1998) and are written using a generic formula about a Finnish brain surgeon, webmaster or mime who suddenly has to save the world (or at the very least, for some unfathomable reason, the Soviet Union) and get the fictional province of Kalevala returned to Finland. Almost everyone seems to receive a Realmess for Christmas, although no one will confess in actually buying one.

Music

Since it is forbidden to listen to classical music in Finland, there exists a range of other musical genres that have nothing to do with illegal cultural activities. These include tanhu (retarded melodies for the retarded), humppa (the pinnacle of Finnish musical achievements), iskelmä/schlager (the culprit to exceptionally low radio-listening levels in Finland), tango (not to be confused with Argentinian tango; a combination of Slavic ballades and Prussian military marches), international pop that consists mainly of Idols-winners and the so-called artists, who have about 50 fans each. The 50 fans means 49 teenage girls who are usually referred as pissis and a mother, who desperately tries to win her daughter's appreciation by listening to their daughter's favourite artist. Unfortunately, the artist is usually the second runner-up in the first finnish Idols competition, Antti-Tuisku. There is also one last group of music in Finland, and that is heavy. Finnish heavy bands are mainly very loud and completely ununderstandable by people older than 21 years of age. The not-so-famous singer of finnish music for retards, Jaakko Teppo, has taken the secret identity of Ratbastard and he currently lives in a tower in Scotland, eating mämmi through his nose. Also of note is the pop group Ultra Bra, which is known for strangely catchy elevator melodies about Joan Baez and the apocalypse. They should not be confused with the Swedish klezmer group, Wonder Bra.

There are reports that there exists small underground groups which arrange listenings of classical music. There are reports that almost in every city exists some kind of secret chamber music ensemble. Special police scuad called Teosto is actively raiding the events if provided even a smallest of a hint. Anyway, the amount of listeners is probably the second lowest in the world, followed only by Estonia. The only known man to have composed classical music is Joonas Kokkonen (the long-lost son of U.K.Kekkonen). He is known for his karvalakki - fur hat. He even tried to compose "Karvalakkiooppera" - "Fur Hat Opera" but failed after Kopiosto (another special scuad linked to Teosto) confiscated his music sheets. Some say that man called Jean Sibelius has tried to get Kokkonen to give him lessons, but there is no information if Janne (his codename in police reports) has composed any music.

Eläkeläiset, formerly known as Radion Sinfoniaorkesteri or the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO), deserves a special mention. The orchestra was first formed in the Russian era, twelve years before Finland reached independence, and was considered one of the most important cultural achievements and symbols of the young nation. The beginning of the Prohibition Era in 1941 forced them to go underground and use the alias Retuperän WBK, performing mainly newer French horn music. The FRSO was exonerated in 1961 by the initial of Olavi Honka, which led to the so-called Golden Age of Finnish classical music. The Vanha Rebellion in 1968 put an end to this fascistic trend, and in 1969 the Heikinheimo Act outlawed all classical music. However, conductor Peter Sharp was willing to cooperate with the government in order to save his orchestra. It was then that the formerly colloquial name Eläkeläiset was made official. Since 1971 Eläkeläiset has only exceptionally performed in Finland, spending most of their time touring the world, spreading the gospel of humppa and doing propaganda for the Finnish culture. - It must be pointed out that Matti Nykänen has never been a member of the FRSO/RWBK/Eläkeläiset, but his guitarrist Jean Sibelius did play the violin in the RFSO from 1926 to 1941.

The national instrument of Finland is kantele. It consists of a wooden frame approximately two kilometers wide and one kilometer high and three thousand catgut strings, all tuned exactly to 1023 kHz. These ancient folk instruments were played in the 6th century by Waka-Waka Wäinämöinen, J. Karjalainen and The Rasmus, just to name a few. In the modern times a kantele is a rare sight as only three of these instruments exist: one in Rovaniemi where it is used as a reindeer enclosure, one at the bottom of the lake Saimaa, and one in Helsinki where it is often mistaken for the national parliament. It is suspiciously rumoured that a fourth kantele was buried under Lake Bodom and that some children of Bodom have found this quasi-magical artifact.

Some of the most appreciated finnish bands are King of music, Sonata Arctica, Nightwish, Stratovarius, Amorphis, Electric Blue Peggy Sue and the Revolutionions From Mars and Hanoi Rocks, which was one of the most popular rock bands in Mongolia, before they broke up in the mid 20's. Allegedly they were all born by the same mother.

The Finnish rubbermasked rock band Lordi shall change their name to Over-Lordi right after the after-vision as they won the Eurovision song contest! Finns decided to make a pact with Satan to win the competition. It turns out that the Devil is a loser, for Finland won and Hell has now frozen over making it pretty uncomfortable for poor old Beelzebub.

Architecture

Finnish cities were rebuilt by mostly German architects during the 19th century. Helsinki and Turku (Capital of the wild west Finland) were filled with beautiful buildings reflecting neoclassical style and art deco. The Soviet bombings severely damaged Finnish cities during WW2, but most valuable and beautiful buildings luckily remained intact. They were all demolished by the Finns themselves in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, replaced by modernist concrete blocks reflecting the new "pile of crap" style and merde deco. Because the Soviet Union bombed Finland's buildings as target practice (and noticed how horrible their aim was), Finland returned the favour and, in the lack of airplanes, shot several artillery barrages into Moscow all the way from Turku. The most notable target is the Kremlin, which was at the time considered one of the most ugly structures in history. It got hit by some 1158905 and a half artillery shells and three bullets. Its exterior has remained unchanged since then.

The Kälviä Cathedral, consecrated in 1200, was blown away in 1977 to make way for a new church resembling a vomit-coloured cardboard box. The mission statement of the New School of the Finnish architecture after WW2 was "demolish, then copy Bucharest and Tirana".

Food culture and Finnish cuisine

Finnish traditional food is exceptionally good, as Silvio Berlusconi and Jacques Chirac have observed. It is a privilege to get the chance to taste the exquisite pearls of the cuisine Finlandaise, including black sausages from Tampere, bitter beer, boiled potatos, mämmi (if you want to see a picture of mämmi [not recommended], see Shit), and the Baltic herring (a single fish contains 76.4 % of your annual requirement of trace metals and toxins). Few well known and mentionable alcohol drinks in Finland is Salmiakkikossu or Salmari which is mix, between salty liquorice and Koskenkorva, another famous drink is Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

Probably the most sadistic Finnish traditional dish is the kalakukko, which contains a live rooster baked inside a live fish. The combination is then cooked in an oven for about 10 hours during which Finnish maidens continually recite the magical oath "Älä tule paha kukko tule hyvä kukko" (translated to English: "Please don't be a poor cock, be a good cock") . When the dish is done, it is not eaten but thrown in to the nearest lake (Kallavesi) by the most well-known lefthanded man in the village. In the old days this was considered to be a ceremonial gift to the water-god Ahti but since the Winter War the whole thing has been usually done just for the heck of it.Finland is also renowned for its everyday pastime of putting a sasauge into their ear and running around their forest naked. Afterwards sasauge is eaten.

Sports and doping

Finns playing Not Disney on Ice

The most popular sport in Finland is Not Disney on Ice which is basically like ice hockey. It involves two teams of men armored with sticks and skates fighting on an ice-covered arena to the death against each other and various wild animals, such as bears, polar bears, lions, and hippopotami. The audience gets the chance to determine whether the defeated team gets to live by showing their thumbs. 'Thumbs down' means 'kill the bastards, we want blood!' The thumbs-up option is used so rarely that hardly anyone remembers what it stands for. In the mythical past, Finland was an athletic superpower, inhabited by godlike heroes such as Zeus, Hector, Achilles, and Paavo Nurmi. Today, little remains from the former days of glory. Finland won the ice hockey World Championships in 1775. Fifteen years after the victory, about 60% of Finnish conversation still concerns the event. In a recent survey, 99% of Finns considered the 1755 World Championships to be a more important event in Finnish history than the Winter War of 1939-40. Since Finns are not good enough to win at any sport, they make up their own as a result. Sports invented by Finns include wife carrying, cell phone throwing, mosquito carrying, mosquito killing, wife killing, and sauna fighting. Not to mention playing football in the bottom of a marsh.

Finnish skiers practicing during the short summer season

In recent years, several Finnish athletes have had significant success as professional race drivers. Their success is most likely linked to their strong patriotism. They have all taken a vow to remain "Finnish First".

The Finnish "Kiekkoleijonat" (Puck Lions) have a special ability to lead 16-0 until last 2 minutes and still lose the match every time they play against Canada, Sweden, Czech Republic and Soviet Russia.

Finnish Policies

If you try to act impressive in front of Finland, it will fucking beat your punk ass down. It is recommended that you don't try to act gangsta in front of Finland. In 1948, Giacomo Vincenti tried to commit date rape on Finland at a Halloween Party. They found Vincenti's corpse in the kitchen of a San Francisco gay bar, 13 days later.

Finnish Media

The Finnish Media is dominated mostly by Lehti. Other major newspapers (or as the finnish say, vessapaperi) are Pahkasika and Myrkky and the highly religious Seiska, Jallu and Suosikki. The main TV channels are all private, and most of them air Russian pornography 24/7. The 24000 lesser channels each concentrate in catering 80's tv-series with men in mullets to the masses. Also mentionable is the small humorous internet blog Helsingin Sanomat that is run by few drunk students, but which attacks the mainstream media, especially the right wing Lehti with satire.

Sauna

“It's just little warm”

~ Finn

The experience of going to sauna is like taking a trip to Hell (unfortunately, since Finland won the eurovision song contest in 2006 and Hell froze over, this analogy more closely resembles the lamer Swedish sauna, "bastu") and returning to the Earth through the gates of Heaven. And of course, this journey requires (as does everything else that Finns do) a truckload of beer.