Brunnen

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Travel by Scrotum

Kainuu is a region in Eastern Finland, one of the former provinces and a rather rural area covered by forests, swamps and hills. Compare it with Sogn og Fjordane fylke and you get quite close: a rather distant, hard-to-travel-to-from-the-biggest-cities -type of district with no bigger towns nearby. Still, it's extremely beautiful, with awesome landscapes and a rather slow tempo of living.

But unlike Sogn og Fjordane, Kainuu is -by looking at the map terminology- a real macho Reich.
When I first visited a town called Sotkamo, I soon figured out I had entered the ancient lands of hunters, a masculine society that wasn't ashamed of its testosterone-filled terminology.

Just before arriving at Sotkamo (if you drive from Oulu from the West), I was amused by several macho names given to villages, valleys and lakes. There is a region where the usage of word 'kives' is extensive. 'Kives' literally (and medically) means testicle. And here is a lovely story to tell you.

There is a joke in Kainuu about the unproper way to pronounce soft consonants combined with the ambition of adding 'kives' to many names of places.

Here is the joke:

Q: How do you get to Kivesjärvi? (Miten pääset Kivesjärvelle?)

A: Kivespussilla, tietenkin. (With Kivespussi, of course.)

For those who know the Finnish way of pronouncing words, this joke might be easy to reveal.

Firstly,

kives means testicle.
But unlike in English, Finnish doesn't recognize a separate word for scrotum but instead combines two descriptive words: kives and pussi, testicle and bag, respectively.

Thus, kivespussi, scrotum is literally translated as a testicle bag. Sounds very logic, indeed.

And now to the alas-so-funny answer:

"Kivespussilla, tietenkin."

Finns, especially the elderly, do not necessarily care to distinguish between b and p, d and t, g and k, when speaking.
Bear and pear, Alabama and Alapama, radio and ratio... it's not a big deal to use either version.

Thus, the word 'bus' in Finnish is 'bussi'. But as you probably by now have guessed, Finns can equally well just say 'pussi'.

And the funny word play is complete:

Kivespussi, concretely meaning just Scrotum (literally testicle bag) turns into 'Testicle Bus' - a vehicle that transports you to Kivesjärvi (Testicle Lake), Kivesvaara (Testicle Hill) and other masculine-related places in Kainuu heartlands.

It's hilarious to think this would not work in English at all.

Or would it? :)

-How do you get to Kivesjärvi?

-By taking the Scrotum, of course.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Umwelt

EVEN the prime minister Vanhanen, who (I believe) loves our nature, forests, winter, snow, ice, seasons and ecology, said last night the government needs to guarantee Finland's economy prior to stopping climate change.

Many people and organizations are taking action to stop CC: Al Gore, Greenpeace, green parties, my previous elementary school teacher (she is a freak in the positive sense of the word).

But all I keep thinking of as news of tornados, rains, losses of harvest and increasing immigration arise is... what Alistair said once in bio HL class.
I do not remember it literally but the idea was, we do not have the moral right as western people to say developing countries should focus on thinking green. And do we really need to worry about climate change? It will make us feel uncomfortable sometime very very soon and we are not necessarily the ones surviving on a basically new globe. So what? There will be something surviving, even flourishing better than now. It could be a rat, it could be something else.

Evolution has been the success story where a species must change to adapt to a new environment. Until now, year 2007, we have succeeded thanks to evolution. And suddenly, we want to be the same lazy comforted fellows are always before and command the planet to stay the same whatever we do. But dear us, our voices are not heard by anyone else than ourselves and they don't have the capability to change anything but our own behaviour.

Aaahh.. I have the feeling I could almost write the history books of year 4000 and get plenty of things right for years 2000-2700.

Monday, March 12, 2007

The Independent Hammock

Finnish is generally a rather expressful and rich language, able to specificly describe actions, qualities and being as such. But due to the large amount of cases, for singular and plural, there are words that, when conjugated, become something else.

This one I found in an ad today:

riippumaton

Before telling what it means, let's do some cutting:

riippua (v) means 'to hang'
-ton as an ending means -less (as in 'careless')
-n in the end means 's and of sth (as Charles's, news of the day)

Now, 'riippumaton' can be understood two ways. It is an adjective and a noun.
If noun, its basic form is

riippumatto, 'a hammock'

where, again riippua (to hang) --> riippu
and matto = 'mat', thus 'carpet', 'rug'

riippumaton is the genetive (of the hammock), since to make the word easier to pronounce the double t turns into a single t: riippumatto --> riippumatton --> riippumaton.

Coincidentally, riippumaton means something else, too.

riippua = 'hang', 'ton' = less

What could that be? Does a direct translation 'hangless' ring a bell?
Guessing becomes easier when I tell you riippua means both 'hang' and 'depend'. In English, too, they are basically the same thing, right?

Thus, depend + less --> dependless, and with better English, naturelment,

independent

riippumaton, it's up to you to choose: either 'of a hammock' or 'independent'.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Inherited Degree

You would guess it's the entrance exam that leads you to medical school. Or rather - you know it is that way. But a short sum up among med students and a questionnaire concerning their parents or grandparents professions and you'll soon notice medical profession could be stronly inherited, too. And I guess the gene is rather dominant than recessive. Any thoughts?
Well, you could think of this two - and certainly more - ways. So I won't go to that endless philosophic discussion.

However,

I muss confess med school has changed my view dramatically what comes to desired nature and character of a doctor.

Before I used to think this way:

Doctors are there to help people. Generally, they are the last hope for many and they save lives. Too often people do not take care of themselves, don't go for sports and finally end up lying on the operation table ready for coronary artery fix. Doctors help them, too.
They feel obligated but also delighted to help different kinds of people.
But it is more than that, the nature of doctors.
They do not gossip.
They do not swear.
They do not get angry - at least they do not want to hit, hurt, embarrase, envy, put down or ignore anyone.
They see health everywhere and they want to promote it. They also take these healthy steps personally. They life in dignity, with a good, pure conscience and descent manner. They never hurt anyone with words since they know that might lead to depression, stroke and even choma.

But this seems more realistic:

Doctors seem to gossip, envy, swear and fight. Their motives to help and save people seem to have two sides of a coin. They want fame and personal satisfaction to reach their goals as helpers, and they are ready to put people down to get the cardiology position in the uni clinic. They don't take into account that their actions 'outside hospital' might as well cause mental and physical unstability in people around them. It wouldn' t be bad at all if their intentions were good, always for everyone and for understanding. But their intentions are not necessarily good, either.

I really don't know why I thought doctors do not, say, tease people or ironically laught at some desperate cases. Even though this image has changed now, I still refuse to watch any American hospital soap or drama. The 'doctors' might save people suffering from serious cancer, but they do not promote health in 10 other aspects of their daily life.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Reason of the Reasons

Nearly one-third of all Finns could be living in poverty if not for state financial support, according to a report by the European Commission released on Monday. The report compares the social inclusion and social protection of EU member states. Finland has fewer poor people than the EU average. However, without the safety net of income distribution, that number would be higher than the EU average. In Finland, 29 percent of the population would be at risk of living in poverty without income distribution; the EU average poverty risk is just 26 percent.(YLE)

Yeah... why, again, do I raise this issue? Well, my thinking is complex.
For years, I've tried to convince myself that all people in the world have the ability to live in a civilized country and all people in the world can develop a society that is modern, functioning and safe. Then, when a insignificant group of my fellow citizens claims that it is not so but a question of IQ, I've felt sad. It's been hard to keep the opinion I've had since, when you look at the map of the world, you can draw a rough parallel: the northern you get, the wealthier you get. The southern you get, the wealthier you get. So. There are lots of 'facts' for people who believe in IQ differences of races. And they are hard to oppose.

Thus, this article seems to provide some comfort. Naturally, it's a sad topic but I'm reading something truly different in between its lines. Namely, nearly 30% of Finns are not MAKING IT! We are not a nation that consists of "top-wealth-IQ-individuals", the actual percentage of such people is in fact lower than in the rest of Europe. The social network is supporting my fellows more than the social network in supporting one's fellows in, say, France.

When some patriotic politicians, workers and street men discuss nationalistic issues, they inevitably claim Finns are wealthy due to 'hard work, intelligence and individual motivation'. It now seems that we have less of those adorable 'working-my-butt-off-and-knowing-how-to-make-my-own-economy-grow" people. For me, that is good news, for most Finns bad news. Why good? I thought the success story of Finland was simply too good to be true.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

A Victory

For those who know Swedish, I recommend this article:

which is about homosexual animal species and the evolutionary reasons for that

Not surprisingly, the article was first published in this SWEDISH newspaper Dagens Nyheter. I guess it's easier to publish something so radical in a lutheran (or even an atheist) country.
Homosexuality has been described as 'unnatural' among its opponents. Now that this argument cannot apply anymore, I assume the church has to think of new ways promoting its view. To be fair, I think the church still can keep its view as it is - after all, if the bible is the word for them, they don't need any supportive arguments and can (and will always) lean on its word.

For those who don't know Swedish, here is a short summary of the article:

* Homosexuality is common among many animal species, including lion, zebra, dolphin, elephant (both African and Indian), wolf, flamingo and swan. Also parasites that live in mammal guts have been found having sex with the opposite gender.
* The evolutionary or Darwinist reason for homosexual behaviour was unknown for a long time. It's now been discovered that for the survival of a species, homosexual parents can actually be more beneficial than heterosexual.
* For instance, the survival rate of a new-born flamingo baby, raised by two male flamingos, was almost 10 times higher than of a new-born to male and female. The reason is simply that two males are stronger together and can attack the enemy with better success.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Mitt hus

A cool idea to be neighbours again - along the same (virtual) street. Ok, it's not like any corridor on campus, but reminds me of Sweden House. Thanks to Mads for the link.
UWC-fellows, draw your house here!