In-Your-Face vs. You-Find-Out

I come from an In-Your-Face culture. In the U.S., you get told a lot: I am used to having information shoved at me in many different ways so that I always know what is going on. I am used to bigger signs, to louder announcements, and to people who talk to me much more often about everyday things. Information comes directly to you.

Something important may have happened here

Finland is a You-Find-Out culture. In Finland, you need to actively seek out information. Signs are smaller, announcements are subtler, and Finns don't want to embarrass you by telling you what you already should know. You need to find out.

For example, if an American grocery store were going to be closed all day on a Saturday (even on Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, or Easter) it would be big news. You would be informed before the event by unmistakable large postings placed on a store's doors where you could not possibly miss them. Then, while shopping, you would be told several times over the intercom. And finally, at the checkout lane, the cashier would remind you, and perhaps so would the person in line next to you because that person is your designated new American buddy for a few moments.

In Finland, I foolishly tugged on the door of my closed neighborhood grocery store on November 2nd. No one bothered to tell me it would be closed on All Saint's Day, a National Holiday, because I should already have known that; no one wanted to express doubt in my competence. And signs, if they existed, were quiet enough to blend into the few others I could translate. Of course, if an announcement had earlier come over the intercom in a Finnish grocery, I perhaps would not have been able to tell the difference between "Bananas are now on sale" and "Please evacuate the building." But I am sure no such announcement was ever made.

What does a person raised on In-Your-Face behavior miss over a few months? I did not know that I had the secret code to get into certain buildings on weekends, keys that would open wondrous doors, discounts on cruise ships, subsidized public transportation, access to a gym, and much more.

So now I am becoming a You-Find-Out person in my remaining time here. Every day I am keen to ask more questions about things that I just might want to do or have. Maybe someone is giving away free candy somewhere. I just have to find out.