5 Things I Learned Up From My Finnish Heritage
In honor of St. Urho's Day, I thought I would enlighten some people about the Finnish people. Most of this stuff has been passed down to me by my father, aunt, and grandma, so if it's a little shady, it's there fault.
1. There are way too many vowels in Finnish Names. That's how you can always tell if it's a Finnish name. Kornonen, Laskinen, Ojala, Heinoenen, Vuorninen. See what I mean? My real last name (spoiler alert) is Leiviska. They took one look at it when I started radio and said, yeah that's not gonna work.
2. Toivo isn't just some guy from jokes. There was a guy named Toivo that was my parents neighbor. There were also a few Einos in there too.
3. There's a reason there isn't a lot of Finnish themed restaurants. There's Italian restaurants, Mexican Restaurants, Chinese Restaurants, Indian Restaurants, etc. Finnish food isn't all that appealing to most people. Just try Kalla Moijka- Translation: Fish head soup.
4. Swearing in Finnish is really hard. Can't even repeat the things my father swore at me. They don't even make sense. All I can say is Aista Nappa. (Smell my belly button.)
5. Weirdly enough, Finnish people tan really well. Never met a full blood Finn who wasn't really tan in the summer. Why? I don't know. I know a lot of them fish a lot in the summer? I rarely burn, and when I was little I was dark brown skinned with blonde hair. Years later I found a picture of my grandpa and I asked who the dark skin kid was in the picture. It was my grandpa. I looked the same 60 years later.