In the very early 2000s, only a few weeks after I had moved to Finland, I was walking my dog in Punavuori in front of the Aleksanterin teatteri when an elderly woman clad in a full-length mink coat and mink hat stopped to fawn over my handsome and friendly companion. I awkwardly smiled and nodded, as one does when you have no idea what is being said or how to respond, given that I knew very little Finnish.
When she said something I knew was a question, I replied rather sheepishly that I didn’t understand Finnish. She immediately proceeded to spit on me and shout at me, which my Finnish spouse would later translate for me as being hateful of foreigners at a time when the non-Finnish population of Finland was roughly 2%.
It made an indelible impression on me of how Finns view foreigners and is largely why I never feel as though I’ll ever be accepted whilst living here, especially now with the current government, even though I’m white, highly educated, have learned the language, have mostly integrated, have a number of Finnish friends, and even love salmiakki. I looked around corners for her for years whenever I was walking my dog, both wanting to avoid her and also to confront her.