Susan Fourtané is a freelance journalist, writer and Philosophy student living and working in Finland.

When I moved to Finland five years ago, one of the Finnish characteristics that I immediately loved was the absence of boring, unnecessary small talk. Starting a conversation with a Finn was fascinating. It always implied something interesting, an anecdote of some sort or a comment about something as if we had known each other for a long time. I particularly enjoyed the thoughtfulness and the moments of silence in between, giving space for observing our own thoughts before speaking.

Yes, you have heard it right. Finns don’t do small talk. They don’t think a moment of shared silence is awkward. On the contrary, it is part of the conversation. A direct question gets a direct answer. There is no nonsense talk about nothing. There is no asking “How are you?” ten times until someone says something else, or stating the obvious. Finns are more interested in how you think, how you perceive Finland or what keeps you in this small and cold country, as they refer to beautiful and peaceful Finland.

Before coming to Finland I never liked any small talk. It made me feel I was wasting my time and I, who never get bored, used to get terribly bored when trapped in those pointless, endless moments. The lack of small talk in Finland was paradise to me.

One day I told one of my good Finnish friends that I loved the fact that she never made small talk and our conversations went always right to the point in person, email or phone. She looked at me, surprised. “Really?” she said, and went on telling me that when she was a child – she has lovely stories from her childhood – they were taught at school that they had to make small talk in English because foreigners do. And that actually they didn’t even know about small talk outside the English lessons.

Finns are taught in English lessons how to make small talk? I was astonished. I went on and did a little research. Apart from those English lessons at school that everyone has, private English instructors and language schools offer courses on Small Talk. They take the small talk Finns learned at school to the business level. I see more than one problem here. First of all, why would foreigners, more precisely those teaching English, be domesticating Finns to make them behave like them in their own country? Do they think small talk is something that makes them look smart or cool or friendly?

Why do they tell Finns it’s polite to make small talk when it’s simply a way to avoid a real conversation, silence or because they don’t have anything of say? Small talk is a way of not getting really involved with the other person. Finns, who are said to be distant, are more honest and get closer to people than those who make small talk and give a false image of friendliness. The fact that Finns don’t make small talk doesn’t mean that they are not communicative. It only means they have a different way of approach. It means if they have connected with someone they will deeply open their hearts.

Even if I were to consider all the small talk teaching could be somehow useful when Finns go to do business abroad; I wonder why when being in Finland they have to adapt to foreigners, instead of foreigners adapting to Finland’s non-small talk culture. What happened with that old saying “When in Rome, do as Romans do?” In this case shouldn’t it be: when you are in Finland, do as Finns do?