Mad Bad Nordic Little Girls

Or maybe I should just say girls, not only little ones. Or more accurate, women, because these are thoughts that start with Little My and Pippi Longstocking, but I can’t talk about them without also talking about their creators, Tove Jansson and Astrid Lindgren. I was distantly aware of Lindgren’s Pippi as a child but knew nothing about Moomin or Little My or any of Jansson’s other creations. I would have liked them, I think, the same way I liked the feisty girls created by E. L. Konigsburg for her books, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, who had adventures and imagination, and may have been a bit odd or perhaps too bookish, but who cared? They were too interested in their own thoughts to worry about what other people though or how they were judged by the world.

As I wished I could be.

So it was with curiosity that, as I became more familiar here with all of Moominlandia, I noted Little My’s permanently furrowed brow and expression of…anger? Irritation? Mischief? It didn’t surprise me, later, when I researched Moomins for a class at the Open University, to discover that Tove Jansson was queer and that she considered Little My her alter ego. The reason for that cranky mien, then? Well, Jansson shared a life with her partner, Tuulikki Pietila, for four decades. They split each year between an island off the coast of Finland and a home in Helsinki, and although they were the first openly homosexual couple to be invited to the important President’s Ball in 1992, and although both partners are now dead, Jansson’s books have continued to include the false claim that she “lived alone on an island”—at least, the copies I purchased in 2009 are still marred by this inscription. Cranky probably isn’t the right description; furious might be more apt.

Jansson represented her lover, Tuulikki, in her books as the character Too-Ticky, and wrote her own coming out story into her children’s novel, Moominvalley in November. This was her last book for children, but Moominvalley has been re-purposed as the name of a queer group in Helsinki, Mummolaakso (granny valley), which is a project for old lesbians.

And what was going on with Astrid? This Swedish woman was an unmarried and single mother in the late 1920’s, forced for a time by poverty to leave her child in foster care. She refused to marry the father of this child, and moved to Stockholm to work and save money until she could bring her son to live with her there. Quite independent, it seems, and somewhat like Pippi, who always does what she wants and has also been adopted as a lesbian symbol; look for her on lapels near you!

And Little My can be seen everywhere, from tattoos to hairstyles, and beyond. Mad and bad—the moods that are always in.

Investments, Democracy, and Communality

This week, at the opening celebration of the University of Helsinki, a formal affair in a grand room, at a throne-like podium flanked by marble busts, including of Queen Christina of Sweden, who founded this 400 year old institution, Pasio Hario, the “chairperson” of the Student Union of the University (HYY) got both a standing ovation (from students, mostly) and a smattering of polite applause (from professors, I suspect) for his statement. Posted online here, it is titled University of Helsinki Bolsters the Position of Professors. As a professor myself, my first thought, was, “That’s a good thing, right?”

Thus making Hario’s point for him.

In brief, the statement identifies the university’s positioning of students as “customers in university administration” rather than “members of the academic community” and outlines how recent shifts in rules governing representation—there will now be more seats for “professor representatives than for students and other members of staff” (all University employees, including professors, are considered staff), thus eroding “democracy and communality.”

The published statement notes the demand of HYY for equality, and closes with a pointed musing: “The constant under-representation of students in administration organs makes you wonder why the Student Union should still give its support to the current administration.”

This question packs punch here, because, unlike any student union I have ever been part of, HYY is fantastically rich. During its many years of existence, it has collected fees from students which it then invested, wisely, it seems, because it now owns real estate throughout the city center (keskusta). In fact, it is incorporated as the HYY Group, an entity which is owned by the Union, and operates a variety of businesses including internet tech, publishing, and hotel and restaurant. This group employs over two hundred people and in 2007 was worth $29.7 million Euros. So, how loudly will this money talk?

My colleague, Erica Meiners, has worked with a similarly wealthy group of US-based nuns. These women, many of whom as left-political as they are Catholic, also collectively invested well over the years, and now they can fund study and projects and many other things. While this work may still have to “fly under the radar” of the grand inquisitor, Pope Benedict, the model of community, as opposed to individual, wealth is inspiring—a version of the commons that all groups on the downside of power might consider. In the higher education context, this could include all faculty senates, graduate student organizations, collective bargaining units, and American Association of University Professor (AAUP) chapters.

Riding for Free

As I waited for the number 68 bus from Viikki to keskusta, I watched any number of parents hoist their strollers through big doors like these, and then plunk themselves down on the little folding seats that flank the baby space. Everyone riding with a stroller rides for free.

This is a simple gesture, but it's only one part of a system that buoys up parents and children; in fact, people in Finland are supported before birth and all throughout their lives. They can, if they need to, get housing from their home city (very nice housing, not just comfortable, but also often beautiful); of course, it goes without saying that they have health care when they need it; at birth their parents will be given a box (converts to a cradle!) full of baby goods; parents are paid while they stay home with their children; and on and on. And did I mention that there is state-supported day care, and pre-school, and the schools here are uniformly (really) excellent? And that higher education is free, too?

Any parent living in the United States who is reading this will no doubt feel a bit bitter now, as s/he faces job cuts and dwindling unemployment funding, and non-day-care, and difficult school choices, and, do you still have health insurance?

Well, there are changes afoot here in Finland, too, of the sort that hit the United States quite a few years ago.

Here's one example; the University of Helsinki, and all higher education institutions here, are undergoing "reforms" mandated by the new government. These include mergings (of programs, faculties, and as I will explain below, even entire universities), a focus on "internationalization" (this has several connotations, such as attracting international and paying students, and another is to attract international research funds and investments), and ominously, the new designation of the University of Helsinki (one of only two universities in the world founded by a woman, Queen Christina of Sweden) as a "person," according to the Ministry of Education spokesperson who gave the Fulbrighters a talk about all this. The bottom line with "person" status is that beginning in January 2010 the University of Helsinki will be autonomous, no longer supported by the government; it will have to raise its own funding, in other words. The focus is shifting, and entrepreneurial is the new name-of-the-game. Can student fees, and then loans, be lurking right around the corner?

As another example, three Helsinki-based higher education sites, the University of Art and Design, the Helsinki University of Technology, and the Helsinki School of Economics are being merged under this plan to form one new institution, Aalto University. Creative industries, here we come! But what happens to the unpopular and non-lucrative in this scenario? As, frankly, so much (hey, nearly all) art is?

Riding for free might be part of the ephemeral beauty of this place. I'm glad I was here to see it.

Inevitable Errors of Newcomers

Mona, from whom I have learned practically everything I know about Finland and Helsinki, gently informed me that this blog's name (Olla Auki), which google translator and a book told me meant an evocative, "Be Open," practically means, in actual Finnish use, "To Be Broke"!

Of course.

To get at the sense of personal openness that I hoped to, Mona said I should have used the phrase, "Ole Avoin."

So, that pretty much sums up why it's important to get out of the cyber, the book, the chair, the library, the city, the country...to "get" the words you have to say and hear the words within contexts, from actual people who breathe and live the deep meanings into their cultural forms, from language to art, and everything else.

For a flash, even though Mona was gentle in her correction, I was embarrassed and thought right away, I'll just fix that mistake, rename the blog, and make my "expert" image as seamless as possible. But that was just foolishness, hubristic. This goof is a good one, and it's the real reminder that I wanted to offer myself anyway. So I'm keeping the error, thanking Mona (again), and putting it out there: Like bent, and twisted, and any number of other reclamations, sometimes broke is fine to be.

Summer Gardens, Sunflowers, Peas and Other Delights

There are many, many things I like about Finland (Helsinki) so far, but among the most wonderful I've discovered are these:

• Trails into forests, alongside rivers, and through fields: These are nearly everywhere, and they are as much for bikers as hikers.
• Summer gardens, which are also tucked back away from main roads, and are filled with flowers like these hollyhocks, vegetables, fruits trees and bushes, and many people enjoying their time in the sun and dirt.
• The free pea and sunflower fields (huge whole fields) near bike and walking trails in Malmi: These have signs that invite passers-by to pick the peas and flowers, but not to sell, only to eat and share with family and friends.
• Cherry, raspberry, plum and other fruit planted along paths (even in the cemeteries); the Finnish have a law that all people have a public right to access; they may pick berries, flowers, mushrooms and other delicious and beautiful things as they travel the land.
• Moomin. Cartoon characters by the queer artist Tove Jansson.
• The big rock boulders, pink, grey, and speckled, that form the sides of roads, the edges of paths, and the places people perch while basking in the sun.
  
• The lettuce that comes wrapped with a little root ball moistened with soil and a little mesh container, so it stays nice and crispy.
  
• Marimekko. I know, it's been said and nothing new, but I still love it; I can't ever get too many dots and stripes, and bleedy-edged rainbow colors.
• However, I also love Nanso, a Finnish brand still made in Finland (word is that Marimekko is often sewn in Croatia and China); beautiful bright all-cotton clothes.
• Public rug-cleaning places. This seems so very perfect, making the drudge of cleanliness communal.
• The skinny little trams that bend as they swoop around street corners.
  
• I'm sure I've already mentioned the bike trails, but--the real bike trails! Could someone please tell Daley what real bike-riding safety and access is all about?
• The many, many, many good breads. None bad, all brown and chewy. Yum.
• Reflectors, which one must, by law, wear in the winter (it's dark!). I have three already--Moomin, snowflake, Marimekko VeeDub.
• The illegality of spanking.
• No one-cent coins; everything gets rounded.
  

Oh, really, I could go on, but will save some fawning attention to Helsinki for another day.

Caring for Strangers

Here's where it starts for lucky international scholars and students at the Department of Applied Sciences of Education at the University of Helsinki, with Mona-Liza Eid.

A place, it's said, should be judged by how it cares for its strangers. That task can be large; where to start? What will a new person in a new place need, and how would we, who are so familiar that we no longer really see the place, begin to know what to share with strangers?

At home in Chicago, where I have lived since 1979, I still have two views of the place: It's the daily path I can walk without looking, and the massive grey and brown place I rolled into 30 years ago, and then needed a guide book to show me where to go. I still use the guides sometimes when family and friends visit, and I also have my favorite places to show off and visit—Emma Goldman's grave, Malcolm X's car, Pullman, the river, the rows of bungalows to the northwest.

So that's what Mona is helping me with here, how to know where to go. Maybe, as the daughter of one of an early immigrant to Finland (Mona's father is Egyptian by birth and a Finnish citizen), or because she has also traveled and studied in several parts of the world, including a year spent in Egypt, she has a clearer sense of what it means to be not-from-here, and more patience with the inevitable goof-ups and confusions.

In any case, Mona has given me a stack of already well-thumbed papers, from maps of the city and guides to the university, to festival programs, class listings, and books by colleagues in the Department of Applied Sciences of Education, that are helping me find my way. Even better, she has showed me the showers and sauna, the place in the old building people go to share tea and coffee, even the public pool with free water exercise classes. It's that humans-together stuff that makes strangeness easier to bear, and not so alone.

Thinking About School

I’ve only been in Helsinki a week, Sunday to Sunday, but I’ve seen a lot of schools during my bike rides—all closed for summer vacation, no year-round schools for the Finns! In fact, children don't start school (basic education) until they are seven years old, though they may attend pre-school before that.

Helsinki is in the midst of a baby boom, according to Statistics Finland (I love this place, the oldest governmental agency in Finland, and the source of all things factual about the country, in English and Finnish). It does seem as if every third woman is pregnant and there’s a lot of stroller pushing going on.

New parents get to stay home with pay for at least 105 days, and receive a “child benefit” allowance until each child is seventeen, as well as a “maternity” grant of either a box of baby goods or a cash grant.

This all indicates something of the support that parents and children can expect. It’s a context that makes a baby boom reasonable.

And this leads me back to the schools. There are a lot of these, too, often very close to each other—schools for the very young, like day-care centers, are near the schools for the slightly older, and so on. So, a few observations—the buildings are beautiful and well-cared for; they have big play yards; and they all have well-tended green areas. In addition, many are sited within green areas—in Viiki, for instance, schools are near birch forests and hiking trails: take a look at the view of one here. The schools bring the term, kindergarten, to life!

Seeing these schools makes me happy—all children should be near other growing things and surrounded by beauty. And it also makes me want to weep—Chicago’s schools are more likely to be surrounded by seas of asphalt and broken glass than gardens. I’m not sure when it happened in Chicago, that so many playground were turned into parking lots, but I’d like to know the history and see the policy (there must be one) reversed.