Nobuhiro Sawano, Doc. Sci. Associate Professor of Inaoki Educational Institute, stayed at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland from August 2007 to February 2008 as a visiting professor sent by the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS).

Last year, 2007, was one of the luckiest years of my life. I have been concerned with marine pollution in the Sea of Okhotsk. This area will have one of the world’s largest offshore oil and natural gas production facilities in the near future. However, the Sea of Okhotsk is one of the best fishing grounds in the world and the local economy of Hokkaido (which is the northern island of Japan) is strongly dependent on the marine environment. Thus, how we preserve the marine environment will be a critical issue.

The Ministry of Science and Education approved my research proposal and allotted a significant research budget. Moreover, I was dispatched to the VTT in Otaniemi as a national delegate of the international scientific exchange program between Finland and Japan. My life in Finland started last August

I had so many shocks and surprises while I was living in Finland. The first one was a commercial film of Fazer’s Geisha chocolate I saw in a movie theater near the Kamppi bus terminal. True Japanese women never wear their kimonos in such a manner! Her way of piling collars are for men, not for women! The furniture resembles Chinese or Korean, not Japanese. The geisha should be a typical example of a stereotyped image of Japan and the Japanese from a Finnish point of view. Do you think they are always with us whenever we have a banquet?

Ask Japanese people around you and ask what their general image of Finland was before they came. Their answer will be categorized as the following:

1) A country of sauna with lakes and forests where Santa Claus and the Moomin live.

2) A country with a high level of social welfare with high taxation.

3) A country of Nokia with advanced IT technology and also holding the highest performance of the PISA test conducted by OECD.

4) A country of free time and relaxation. This image is mostly built up by a popular Japanese movie named Ruokala Lokki.

5) A funny country with an “air guitar international competition”, which you may never know.

Anyway, most Japanese think Finland is a country of sauna. I have found much similarities and differences between the bathing custom of the two countries. First, similarity; “naked commutation” is quite common. You go to the sauna before some kind of party. I took sauna with my VTT colleagues just before the Christmas party. While we are in the sauna, and after getting out, we have very good communication. Yes, we Japanese also do that. We often bathe together with our colleagues in a ryokan, a Japanese style hotel. While bathing, we do not have the usual relation between the boss and his followers, just a “naked” relation. It is quite a contrast to most western people; they are awfully shy to expose their naked body in public. So we Finns and Japanese are sure to create better and better relations if we can share a sauna or bath.

However, be careful when you take sauna in Japan. We have so many “Finnish saunas” in our country, but they are never truly Finnish! If you pour water on the heating stones, you will be punished or will have to pay a fine. Also, we never drink beer while taking sauna and bath. We drink after the bath and sauna.