Campaigners in Helsinki are hoping to get Finns to see the value of small talk. The "Puhetta Suomi" campaign, run by Finland’s Union of Kurdish students and young people, has sent a group of ten missionaries onto the capital's public transport system to urge Finns to chat away.
The union’s vice-chair and project co-ordinator Seida Sohrabi says that the practice of small talk can have real, concrete effects.
“I believe that if you’ve had a bad day then it’s really rejuvenating if somebody is interested in you and comes to talk,” said Sohrabi, who moved to Finland as a refugee in 1996.
The campaign will run on public transport in the Helsinki region, with ten people decked out in campaign t-shirts traversing the buses, trams and trains trying to spark conversation.
Sohrabi recommends shy Finns looking to strike up a conversation avoid clichéd topics like the weather and instead try to talk about something more concrete.
“A good way to start a conversation on the bus is to say ‘excuse me, can I sit here?’” suggests Sohrabi. “It’s a natural and relevant question. Every discussion is unique and it proceeds along its own path.”
To foreign ears that might sound a little basic. However in Finland, such advice is needed—when the campaign had a trial run in Turku last week, there was some less than positive feedback.
“Someone on the bus said they didn’t want anyone to talk to them, but they were a positive surprise when somebody went to talk to them,” said Sohrabi. “The bus drivers also said that the atmosphere was totally different to the usual silence.”
The youngest chatting ambassador is 17, the oldest 46 and they all want to talk to strangers as much as possible. Sohrabi is keen to reassure Finns, however, that they do not have to talk if they don’t want to.
“You can be silent, read or play with your phone,” said Sohrabi. “Finns won’t bother people who want to sit in peace, because there could be many reasons for that.”
