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Anonymous
To be honest, while I love to complain about how Finland is the darkest buttcrack on the planet, I still find that talking about the Scandinavian countries and their inhabitants as joyless, dour and boring is a somewhat myopic view. They're a subtly different lot from most of the western world - as obviously all cultural niches differ from eachother. It's just in our tradition to prefer subtle and subdued expression of emotion to anything temperamental. Also, we possess one of the more solid work ethics on the planet, which equally seems to enhance our appearance as boring squares to outsiders. These things take adjusting, and you should consider it just as obvious as you'd expect culture shock in Iraq. There's no place like home, as they say. If you look at it objectively, any of the Scandinavian countires are among the best places to live in apart from the climate, and the most of people who fail to adjust are people who either fail to give up locally unacceptable or counter-productive cultural and social behavior, or possess mental problems - ranging from homesickness, difficulty to relate to the locals and loneliness on to genuine disorders - which they unconsciously polarize towards the enviroment and the country.
Yeah, so, all in all, Sweden's a nice country. We Finns are just rather tsundere for you.
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