Reel 2 Reel’s I Like To Move It (insert giggle of recognition here) similarly clearly has traditionally non-European influences and performes, and who cares? That doesn’t mean much to me, or most of the Europewide listeneers either, I imagine. It’s our song, simply because it was a hit.

More recently, there’s Boom Boom Boom. The video has people in Illinois basketball jerseys and various American pop culture, but I’m fairly sure that it’s safe to say it’s not an American song. They’re just using the American stuff as props to make it look more international and new, but given how you can identify your taste in music by saying ‘electronica’ and that makes sense to people here (as opposed to rock, country, r&b, rap, or hip-hop), I would assume that most of these songs were always meant for local consumption. Here, you can see fairly clearly how what Americans might consider black music speaks on behalf of the US as a whole. (For those who are thinking about Rednex, think about how we laugh at that song compared to most Europop.)

Look at the comments under all these songs on YouTube in various languages. We’re all feeling united by the music, rather than divided. That’s just what happens in an era of globalization. People move around. They bring music with them. They get influenced. That doesn’t mean we’re all the same. It just means new things are happening.

I feel a little alone again – very few of my friends might know what any of those songs are. Even the largest club or Europop anthems never made it here, and neither did the unifying and open music culture.

My boyfriend, however, remembered nothing at all, because he’d never heard it before. Never. Not once. A quick look at the comments under the clip shows I’m not the only one going “Ohhh.. it’s THAT song! I remember that from when I was a teenager!” It seems I’ve uncovered another song that never made it Stateside. Like No Limit by 2 Unlimited.

I loved 2 Unlimited, and like most people (in Europe), the first song of theirs that I heard on the radio was No Limit. Even after buying all of their other albums, that was still my favorite song. Again, judging by the comments on YouTube below the clip, I’m not alone.

Example comments:

thorinho1 (8 hours ago)

How do you know you are getting old.

When songs from your teenage years are categorized as an oldie

BTW, had a major crush on the female half of 2 Unlimited.

Akaitsuki85 (1 day ago)
haha a good oldie! I remember loving this song so much when I was younger well nostalgy is a beautiful feeling!
On the other hand, often a song will come on the radio, and he’ll turn it up and say “This is such a good song” and I’ve never heard it before.

savke87 (1 day ago)
This is one of the best songs ever. Hello from Serbia

vegunited06 (2 days ago)
all i can picture in my head now is school discos i had in the 90s

smartXtart (3 days ago)
ahhhgg brings back soo many memories, this song was huge in its time!

These old Europop songs are remembered by people across Europe and probably Australia. Even in Serbia, with everything that was going on there at the time. They’re shared culture, really. Global culture. Another one I’m quite sure never made it across the pond is Blümchen’s Heut’ Ist Mein Tag.

Not even Hey Boy! Hey Girl! (Chemical Brothers) made it over.

The summer that that song was big, I was on IRC a lot. One day when I was listening to the song, an Israeli guy said “Hey girl” when I came into the IRC channel. To which I of course replied “Hey boy”, he said “Superstar DJs” and I finished it off with “Here we go!” I’d bet 50 Euro that would never happen with an American.

Sometimes I feel so alone, knowing that no one who’s actually here recognizes these songs. They’re a distant proximity to me, and they’re just weird songs to the people around me. Sometimes it feels like they’re not real because they’re not real to the people around me like they’re real to me. It makes you wonder if maybe you’re wrong, even when no one’s saying that you’re making it up. (However, I have been accused of making up car brands, like Pontiac.) But perhaps what makes me feel the loneliest isn’t that no one around me knows these songs in particular, but that virtually no one knows what a distant proximity feels like in the first place. Very few people around me can feel like something right across the world is down the street, and that really makes me feel lonely sometimes.

On the other hand, I’ve felt for a long time like my understanding of how racism works in the US is rather poor. I feel like the foreigner who sees a system of symbols going on, but isn’t sure what all the symbols are nor what they mean. I can follow some of the most common ones, but my ability to imagine what the world looks like for either w/White or b/Black (Why do Americans capitalize the colors when they refer to skin colors? Anyone know?) Americans is rather poor. In contrast, I can imagine very well what regular Europeans feel as well as the exasperation immigrants feel when Europeans see them as Other and do various irrational, unproductive and unpleasant things. I can understand why Europeans feel threatened and why some might feel as if their countries are dissolving into Euromush or Global mush. I think they’re wrong, but I can empathize and I have an idea of what to say to someone who feels this way to build a bridge. I also know what it feels like to be rejected by a society because of something superficial and what it feels like when people assume your life started the day you set foot in their country. I can amplify that with my professional pride today, to imagine what it would feel like to first be successful and then assumed to be a lazy welfare bum who simultaneously steals people’s jobs. But I can’t say I can imagine why white Americans might be threatened by black Americans. I can understand why black Americans would resent white Americans, but often there is so much emotion expressed about that that I don’t know what specifically it’s referring to. I feel like I’m on the other side of the looking-glass, in the position of the men who are so blind to sexism that they have no idea why I’m so mad at something “trivial”. I’ve also often found it easier to get to know black Africans or second-generation black immigrants from Africa than black Americans. Part of it might have to do with that it’s clear that we are working with a culture divide that must first be crossed in those situations. But part of it is also that I do not get scooped up as an actor in a race dynamic I do not understand.

It seems that the race dynamic between blacks and whites in the US is very, very inflamed. There seems to be very deep, systematic mistrust of each other that is taught in the family. Racialicious has a very brave post by Latoya Peterson about how difficult it can be for black Americans to be relaxed around white Americans. Assuming this isn’t an uncommon experience, the black-white racial divide in the States is deep indeed. Ms. Peterson’s post has helped me to understand the dynamic a little better. However, I still don’t know what white Americans think of the situation. I know from history classes what white Americans used to say about black Americans, but frankly it seems a little absurd that they could still believe that. (It wasn’t exactly logical the first time around.) But if it isn’t that, then what is it? Is it that all black Americans are street thugs? I’m hoping to find out more at Racialicious. Some of the people posting have a lot of experience and have clearly given the issue a lot of careful thought. I can’t follow all of the lines of thought, but with time, I hope to become better.

TASAVALLAN PRESIDENTIN ITSENÄISYYSPÄIVÄTERVEHDYS

Ulkosuomalaisille yhteisöille 6.12.2007

Kuluvana vuotena vietämme Suomen itsenäisyyden 90-vuotisjuhlaa. Voimme olla ylpeitä siitä, että pohjoinen, lähtökohdiltaan hyvin köyhä maamme on vuosikymmenien kuluessa kehittynyt sitkeällä työllä pohjoismaiseksi hyvinvointiyhteiskunnaksi, joka selviää kovassakin kansainvälisessä kilpailussa. Suomalaisten on syytä olla myös kiitollisia sotiemme veteraanisukupolvelle, joka puolusti itsenäisyyttämme ja jälleenrakensi maatamme.

Tänä päivänä Suomi on osa yhä kansainvälisempää maailmaa. Olemme jäsenenä Euroopan unionissa ja aktiivisesti mukana kansainvälisissä järjestöissä, kuten Yhdistyneiden kansakuntien toiminnassa. Kuluneiden vuosikymmenien aikana myös talouselämämme on kansainvälistynyt. Suomalaiset yritykset ovat lisänneet ja laajentaneet toimiaan ulkomailla, samalla kun ulkomaalaiset yritykset ovat tuoneet toimintojaan Suomeen.
Kansainvälistyminen näkyy ihmisten lisääntyneenä liikkuvuutena. Suomesta mennään ja Suomeen tullaan työtehtäviin, opiskelemaan, eläkepäiviä viettämään. Ihmiset liikkuvat maasta toiseen jokaisessa elämänkaarensa vaiheessa.

Te, suomalaiset maailmalla, olette keskeisessä asemassa vaikuttamassa siihen, millainen kuva Suomesta muodostuu. Riippumatta siitä, oletteko asettuneet ulkomaille pysyvästi vai määräajaksi, te kaikki teette tärkeää työtä Suomen ja suomalaisuuden lähettiläinä. Te myös välitätte Suomeen ulkomailla saamianne vaikutteita ja rikastutatte näin suomalaisuutta. Teidän tekemänne työ ja luomanne verkostot ovat korvaamattomia.

Suomelle on tärkeää, että teidän ulkosuomalaisten siteet kotimaahan säilyvät. Kaikki te elätte, työskentelette ja toimitte kansallisina vähemmistöinä nykyisissä asuinmaissanne. Toivon, että voitte tässä ominaisuudessa kertoa kokemuksistanne
Suomelle, joka on yhä varsin yhtenäisen kulttuurin maa hyvin pienine etnisine vähemmistöineen, mutta vääjäämättä muuttumassa yhä monikulttuurisemmaksi. Te tunnette sen voiman ja mahdollisuudet, joita taustaltaan erilaiset ihmiset voivat yhteiskunnalle antaa. Meillä Suomessa voisi olla siitä opittavaa. Lämmin tervehdykseni Suomen 90. itsenäisyyspäivänä!

Tarja Halonen
Tasavallan presidentti

Translation:

THE INDEPENDENCE DAY GREETING OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

To the overseas Finnish community Dec 6, 2007

During this year, we are celebrating the 90th anniversary of Finland’s independence. We can be proud of that our northern, originally poor country has developed over the decades with long and enduring work into a welfare society [difficult to translate - a society that is rich enough to take care of all its citizens] that is surviving even in hard international competition. Finns also have reason to be thankful to the veteran generations of our wars, who defended our independence and rebuilt our country.

Today, Finland is part of an increasingly international world. We are members of the European Unions and are actively involved in international organizations, such as the United Nations. During the past couple of decades, our economy has also become more international. Finnish companies have added and expanded their activities abroad, while foreign companies have brought their business to Finland. Internationalization manifests itself as increased mobility. People move in and out of Finland for work, studies, for retirement. People are moving from one country to another in every phase of life.

You, Finns in the world [implied: outside Finland, but less alienating overtones than 'abroad'], are in a central position to influence what kind of a picture people have of Finland. Regardless of whether you live abroad permanently or only for a time, you are all doing important work as ambassadors for Finland and Finnishness. You also transfer the influences you have encountered abroad to Finland, and thus enrich Finnishness. Your work and the networks you create are irreplacable.

It is important to Finland that the bonds of you Finns abroad to Finland remain. All of you live, work and act as national minorities in your current places of residence. I hope that in that capacity you can tell us about your experiences to Finland, which is still really a monocultural country with its very small populations of ethnical minorities, but is unavoidably becoming more multicultural. You know the power and the possibilities that people of different backgrounds can give to society. We in Finland could learn from that. My warm greetings on the 90th anniversary of Finland’s independence!

Tarja Halonen
The President of the Republic

After a few days in Helsinki, we went to see my grandfather near Vaasa and then to the opera festival in Savonlinna, then back to Helsinki. What felt so familiar and comfortable, despite that it sometimes annoyed me before, was how simple everything is there. How natural. How clean. Women walk like real women and smoke and drink. Everyone cooks at home, from simple and fresh ingredients, and wouldn’t consider anything else. Everyone cleans. The simple things in life make people happy, and me with them. People can walk without effort. People have energy. People form a society, a community. There is simple beauty. Nothing is so far twisted or processed from its original that there is nothing left of it. If you don’t feel like smiling, don’t. There is no show. Don’t ask a Finn to put on a spectacle for you, but you can count on one to keep it real. And to have sisu, of course.

We got tickets to a new Finnish opera about modern Finnish society by Olli Kortekangas called Isän tyttö. (Daddy’s Girl) It was great. The music was moving, but above all, it had a lot to say about people and about the past. I recognized a lot of it in my own family history. The main character Anna has a mother who is a seamstress, like my grandmother. Anna herself has run away far to the south, where “the nights are nights, and the sun is right above during the day,” from a family situation (I won’t spoil the story, if you see it) and sings that she is younger than when she left. While Anna’s family problems aren’t ones I share, I can see my own relationship to Finland mirrored to some extent in this. Anna’s father died in the war, and she longs to know who he was and get his support. This is a recurring theme, and having just come from my grandfather’s house, where there’s always a lecture on the wars being served up, lots of pictures of dead soldiers on the wall, and obligatory tours of the local veterans’ graveyard on the agenda, it sure struck a chord on the behalf of my relatives. Anna’s mother Siiri moves them to the city after her husband dies, in order to earn enough money sewing to send Anna to college and give her a better life than Siiri herself has had. (Just like my grandmother did with my mother.) Anna becomes a communist in university and thinks that her mother is causing suffering by employing women to sew for her. Siiri is aghast, because she herself has worked hard for Anna and her husband died fighting the Russians for freedom. The duet ends with both singing “Whose suffering?” Anna’s partner Axel is a drunk, and after a few kids, they split up. Skipping some dramatic parts of the story, at the very end, Axel and Siiri have become friends despite their earlier ideological differences.

I thoroughly enjoyed the opera. As we were waiting for the crowds to move out, the American woman behind me, who rather rudely asked me if I had a cell phone, then borrowed someone else’s phone, and continued talking business and complaining about being tired very loudly while the orchestra was tuning, really started to shine as an ugly American. Very loudly, she proceeds to talk to a friend involved with organizing the event about the opera, talking about the Vietnam war, American history and communism, all under the (explicitly stated) thesis that she has to understand the opera through what she knows, namely U.S. history. After a lot of clueless jabbering, I was extremely tempted to turn around and say “Listen, lady, if you don’t get it now, what you need is a book on Finnish history, not to lecture Finns on YOUR history. Shut the fuck up.” She didn’t understand that the reason it was so hurtful for Siiri that Anna was a communist wasn’t only or even mainly politics or economics – it was the symbolism.

Russia has been trying to take Finland for centuries. In recent history, huge parts of the population have take on the Russians – a force much more powerful than they will ever be, and they know it – twice and have managed to stay independent. Thousands of people have come home missing arms and legs, thousands of people have died. Finland just barely escaped becoming part of the Soviet Union after World War II, and a constant reminder of how lucky that was has come from Estonia, which wasn’t as lucky. Finland still lost Karelia to Russia, and had to pay massive war debts to Russia – most of Finland’s industrial production went to Russia for a long time. To be a communist can’t be wrong on absolute grounds – after all, what could be wrong with the aim of trying to improve life for the down-trodden? – but there is certainly something a bit disloyal to take Russian ideals when so many people have sacrificed so much so that you can be free, and when your own mother has worked very hard to give you the freedom to choose, to succeed, to give you a better life than she had in the shadow of the war and poverty. Americans have never, ever had to raise a single, real, physical gun to defend themselves from Russia or communism. No Americans have died or been maimed defending their country’s independence from invading Russians. America has never lost land to Russia. No Americans have skied over the border with Russia by mistake, to return too afraid to speak a word of what they’ve seen. A cold war may be nasty, but it’s even nastier to fight both hot and cold wars with your neighbor. And I can guarantee you she didn’t even catch the slant on how the communism was presented – the subtle pointers to the mindlessness and ultimately meaninglessness of the slogans and the key words (We’re protesting imperialism!”)and what they meant in societal context. I’ll also bet she didn’t feel the sense of moving forward when the characters choose to value human relationships over ideology. It’s quite possible that she would have though it weak to love your family instead of sticking to ideology, like many Americans do. It was a real bummer to have to listen to her after such an uplifting and personally relevant opera.

While at the festival, we stayed at a farm that’s running a hospitality business on the side called Lomamokkila. (Several other languages available on the website.) No, that’s not a typo, it’s an o. It’s 12 km from Savonlinna, but all the hotels were booked, of course. It turned out to be very nice – almost like at our old summer house, but with some extra perks. I highly recommend Lomamokkila if you’re looking for a special place to stay near Savonlinna. If you don’t speak Finnish, we heard the owners speak excellent English with foreigners, and they responded quickly to email. All the buildings and equipment were clean, solid and of good quality. They have many kinds of lodging (including in old liiterit, uh, a kind of old-fashioned grains storage barn), both close to the farm houses and cottages by the lake. (Mosquito warning by the lake.) There’s a common fire teepee where you can grill (good place to grill some sausages), two row boats and fishing rods for common use, and a common kitchen if you want to cook yourself. You can bet we did, we made poronkäristystä (a reindeer dish). You can also pay for meals at the farm. We ate breakfast there, and it was like the rest of Lomamokkila – simple but sublime in its simplicity. Oven-baked porridge with whole wheat kernels, baked milk, fresh bread, yoghurt, fresh eggs, fresh coffee. By the time you’d eaten some of almost everything, you were stuffed. It was a lot like being at a summer house, and that area of Finland is very, very pretty.

I’ve spent so much time in itä-pohjanmaa (east botnia) that to see järvisuomi (lake finland) was very refreshing. It was also nice to get away from the east botnia dialect. My step-grandmother goes a bit nuts with the local identification and she’d got an east botnia dialect-Finnish dictionary she likes showing everyone. As a TCK, that’s somewhat awkward. Every time she reall pushes the regional dialect I can’t help but think “Lady, it’s a big world out there beyond itä-pohjanmaa… Guess where we came from? We just flew from Chicago across an ocean to Germany to Finland to come see you. We switched from English to German to Finnish without much effort and you’re stuck on a dialect of Finnish? Just let it go.”

Back in Helsinki, we went to Ateneum to see the exhibit Music and silence. Finnish symbolism. Very interesting, as I recognize the feelings from the exhibit relating to Finland, but didn’t have a way of describing them. It also suggests a different perspective on some of Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s work that I hadn’t considered before. We also stopped by the Academic Bookstore and picked up a huge technical English-Finnish dictionary for a mere E160.

We stayed a night at the Kempinski Hotel Airport München, since we were flying Lufthansa and our Chicago flight was early in the morning from München. Great chance to practice German! I started on the outgoing flight, of course. I asked the stewardess how they decided which language to speak with passengers. She replied that (of course) they had a system: if a passenger’s last name was German, they spoke German, otherwise English. Then she peered at me and said, “Aber mit ihr ist es anders.” (But with you it’s different.) That made me proud! It should indeed be different with me. I’m glad to see I’m still above that barrier of ease in German where people respond naturally in the language you’re trying to speak. I wouldn’t let my mother get away with English after 25 years of language propriety exhortations, but I have to admit, people did respond to her in English or addessed her in English. I found a biergarten at the airport and got to have some real beer and German sausages too! Very tasty. The return flight was first class and therefore very pleasant. I managed to get the flight attendants to address me in German all the way.

Then there was the return shock. When I arrived in Finland, I thought the hotel coffee was good and that everyone was skinny as a stick. When we left, the hotel coffee was incredibly watery and barely worthy of the name ‘coffee’ and there were overweight people here and there. I miss rye bread again.

Unlike religious or spiritual experiences in the United States, these feelings are intensely personal. My mother and I feel the same about the forest and its spirits. I can see that my mother doesn’t care that I don’t believe in the Christian God, and I don’t particularly care that she does. We don’t need to, because we can share spirituality about the forest. It is an experience of exchange between you and the forest. A congregation would only destroy it with its noise and human activity. That doesn’t belong in the forest. It is disrespectful, in fact. When we move in the forest, we do so on its terms. Silence and respect are appropriate behavior. Talking and thinking about it, it seems like people who live physically close to nature often regard the forest as almost sacred space. Here in the US, I conspicuously lack culturally appropriate respect for the church and Christianity. But I cringe at people shouting in the forest, people walking too broadly, in a too imposing kind of way, or people taking things from the forest without thanking the forest, and a host of similar behaviors that just feel irreverent. The guardian-goddess of the forest (Metsänhaltija) will punish you! Can’t you see that her wrath could be devastating? Without nature and the forest, we will be reduced to nothing!

This last line of reasoning is perhaps a spiritual formulation of the need to protect the environment. But to me, it isn’t just an intellectual argument, it is an emotional one, too. If the trees and the animals are dying, we will be, too. Our fates are the same, because we belong together. In the forest, there can be no doubt of our oneness. Conversely, Christianty doesn’t mention those feelings of oneness. In the traditional mythology (that in the Nordic countries has been mixed with Christian beliefs, but never abandoned), both male and female entities exist. That feels natural. Androgyny and/or a mix of genders is the only normal state. Simultaneously, it feels natural that the guardian-rulers are almost all female. (Perhaps this is a leftover of the original Goddess worship?) I have never been able to feel a male-only deity. I tried, but I just can’t feel it. It feels… alien. God just cannot be a man. She can’t. What is considered ‘male’ (aggressivity, domination, etc) isn’t the forest at all. Power flows through all circuits of life, and life is not aggressive. Life is a flow, a complex web of life and death, pain and joy, loss and gain. To pick one strand and say “Look, how viciously the wolf is killing the deer! Life is brute force and aggression!” is misguided. The spirit of the forest is not like that. She/it is wiser and calmer and nearly eternal. (It may not be surprising I find Buddhism a great deal more approachable emotionally.)

Going back to more practical apsects of this, the hippie imagery here is also difficult for me to understand. I don’t understand the connotations of ‘treehugger’ very well. What moral person isn’t? That’s not about politics. That’s about the basic truths of life. I know what it’s supposed to connote, but I don’t think it can for me. Without the forest and nature, arguing about politics and clothing choices are moot, because we will disappear.

In a sidebar to the technology article, I saw that the BBC reports that Nordics show way in sex equality. Yet another matter that the US is assuming they are leading the world in, when they are in fact in need of playing catch-up and don’t even realize it. As the Swedes would say: Högmod går före fall.

The US military could be a wonderful, positive force in the world. If it were used to save civilian lives in places like northern Uganda, to save children from being child soldiers, to save women from rape, to enforce the arrest warrants of the International Criminal Court to bring perpetrators of crimes against humanity and genocide to justice in a legal due process, its capacity for death could be used in the most constructive way possible. Alas, this will never happen as long as nation-states and their military organizations conceive of themselves as agents only of their own national good.

Every country needs to understand that our fates are all linked together, and we need to behave accordingly. Some countries have understood this better than others, but none as fully as I think is needed in the future.