Describe
One day last winter, when I was going out
from library, I saw one lady pushing a baby carriage and trying to come in. I
saw her trying so hard to hold the door and at the mean time pushing the baby
carriage in. So I run to the door and trying to hold the door for her. But
surprisingly, she said “I can do it” in Finnish with very angry voice and showed
the sign “go away” with her hand to me. I was just shocked there and really did
not understand why she was so angry, and don’t know what I did wrong.
Interpret
From what I lean about Finnish culture,
this is the typical individualism
characteristic of Finnish culture. Finnish people tend to be more
individualism, this always make them more independent. I think this is the main
reason why that lady was so angry when I try to help her at something that she
is totally capable of doing. So in that case she felt angry about it instead of
feel the kindness of me, because her self-esteem is attacked.
Evaluate
At that moment I had all the negative
feeling about this lady’s behaviour. In my country, helping others is always
accepted and very much appreciated. I felt she is rude and impolite, because I
offered my help nicely but she rejected in a very impolite way.
In my opinion, such behavior can not be justified even by national tendency to be as independent as possible. Help is help in all countries and languages.
ReplyDeleteI think I was so serious with this thing at that time, and also I heard one of my friends experienced something like this, she saw one Finnish girl fall down on the ice and tried to help her, but that girl just showed a very unpleasant face to her and get up by herself and went away. So I discussed these thing with one of my Finnish teacher, she said Finnish people mostly just don't like people help them with something they can do.
DeleteWhen I was in Helsinki for the first time walking around and holding my phone with a map, I accidentally came too close to a person who was waiting to cross the street. I apologised and stepped back quickly but she arrogantly said something in finnish and gave me the *i'm-gonna-murder-you* kind of look. It felt very unpleasant because if I were her I would have just smiled and said it was okay
ReplyDeleteI hope we have just met the wrong people haha