Culture Splish Splash

After writing my post on Bandung, Singapore, and Sodankylä, one of the comments reminded me of something else that I've experienced on my trip to Indo and Singapore last October.

First of all, let me tell you our flight schedule:

Rovaniemi - Helsinki - Hong Kong - Jakarta

Jakarta - Singapore - Jakarta

Jakarta - Bangkok - Helsinki - Rovaniemi

Well, on the first leg of journey, once we landed in Hong Kong, we only had about 1,5 hours there, so we didn't have much time to browse around the stores. The minute we arrived at the airport, it felt surreal to see SO MANY Asians and especially to hear Indonesian language being spoken by many passengers boarding to Jakarta. Why? Because I was so used to hearing Finnish all the time during the 1,5 years of my life in Lapland. Arttu kept on joking, "Look, YOUR people!" LOL LOL LOL!!!

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Oh yeah, I also felt the pace of the life changing so drastically when we arrived in Hong Kong. As usual, we had to go through baggage check before we could find the boarding gate to board the plane to Jakarta. There were two baggage check points, but the aisle to queue was so narrow. I stood behind R2 and I noticed that on the other baggage check point there were two people in line already. However, the woman right behind me just couldn't wait to go there, so she said "excuse me" and bumped me a little bit to queue there.

I think I must've been so used to the Finnish mentality (or Lappish mentality?) 'coz right then and there I thought to myself, "Hello? It's not like somebody else is going to STEAL that spot, you know? Especially since the aisle is so narrow. If I were in Finland, those people queuing behind me wouldn't have done such a thing. They would've waited patiently."

Funny thing was that I think if I hadn't lived in Finland, I would've thought that it was a normal thing to do. Why? Because in Indonesia, for example, if you want to go to the toilet in one of the malls, you don't really queue according to who comes first. You just stand in front of one toilet booth and if you're lucky, you'll get in quickly. If not (maybe if the person inside the toilet in front of you is busy making "bananas"), then somebody else who comes later might be able to get in the toilet right in front of her more quickly than you do. And sometimes some people might try to steal your toilet booth, even though they come later than you do!

In Finland, NOTHING like that ever happens! If there are so many people who want to go to the toilet, you'll find a very neat line of people, so whichever toilet booth door is open first, the first person on the queue will go there. So you don't have to "fight for your toilet booth" like in Indo.

Another thing that I had to remind myself and R2 before we landed in Jakarta was TO BE ALERT. We were so used to walking around feeling safe in Lapland and we CAN'T do it in Jakarta or Bandung. We really have to remind ourselves that there are pickpockets out there and some of them are SOOOOO good at what they do that you won't even feel it.

When R2 and I were in Singapore, I found that plenty Chinese there talked to me in Chinese. And I always replied in English, whether or not they would respond in English ha ha ha ha ha...

And on our way back to Finland, when we board the flight to Helsinki, the Thai flight attendant spoke to me in THAI!!! I think she offered me Thai newspaper to read during the flight. I was flabbergasted and speechless for a while until I could finally spoke to her in English, "I don't understand."

This experience reminds me of when I was doing the training at the local tourist info office. It was sometimes DIFFICULT to find out whether or not the tourists were Finnish or not. Sometimes I made the mistake of speaking to them in the wrong language (either Finnish or English).

Funny thing was that my brain was still in "Indonesian language mode" when we were stranded for 10 hours in Bangkok airport. There were a few times when I ALMOST blurted out something in Indonesian. The thing is that Thai people resemble Indonesian people in appearance. PLUS remember that we were still SO sleepy back then, so my brain wasn't working properly.

When we were on board the plane to Helsinki, I was again transported to "Finnish land" as most of the passengers were definitely Finnish. The first and second time I flew to Finland, I didn't experience this kind of thing, since I was still in "Indonesian language and culture mode" all the time, I guess. But it's changed ever since I've lived in Lapland.

Okay, I think that's all about culture splish splash for now. It's been VERY interesting indeed he he he he he...

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