14 Finland, wappu's up? (EN)
(This is the translation of my blogpost from May 7)
Finland is a country that always manages to outdo itself. Be it one more löyly in the sauna, one more unexpected snowstorm in May, 10 more beers in the bar, people wearing shorts and t-shirts at temperatures around freezing point, the sauna Klonkku (explanation only on request, not for the faint of heart) - in the face of the legendary, highly strange, wild, strict collection of random activities, events and traditions that fall in the Wappu period between mid-April and May 1, all this crumbles into sand dust. During Wappu, the Finnish students show a completely different side of campus culture. But more about that later. First of all, what is Wappu all about?
More precisely, Wappu includes only the night of April 30 and the day of May 1, which herald the beginning of spring. The name of the holiday is derived from the Catholic Saint Walburga, thus in reference to Walpurgis Night, which is celebrated on the night of April 30 to May 1. In the 18th century, Wappu was celebrated mainly by the Finnish upper class, who used May Day to picnic outside in the countryside and simply enjoy themselves. Fortunately, Wappu's pleasures were reserved only for a short time for the upper ten thousand. During the 19th century, Finnish school leavers began to adopt Wappu celebrations. It was during this time that students first began to wear the white hats that are still given to young people in Finland when they graduate from high school. May Day also became an increasingly important day for the workers' movement. Primarily, Wappu is now closely linked to student culture in Finland, and especially so in Tampere. Already on April 13, the warm-up for the actual celebrations started. Suddenly, during Wappu, the colorful overalls of Finnish students "decorated" with patches were everywhere, with each guild having its very own color. I don't own a jumpsuit for minimalist closet reasons, but as an exchange student I could have worn a blue jumpsuit from ESN, the Erasmus Student Network, for example. In Finland, student guilds occupy an important place in student life, and during the Wappu warm-up and the actual Wappu celebration, these guilds organized a lot of bizarre, funny, and entertaining activities and parties. The activities calendar was posted all over campus, and you could theoretically party non-stop or just chill at the Hervanta Campus during the second half of April. The Hervanta campus was practically the hub of the world during Wappu, as the Teekaris (students in technical courses) studying there were responsible for pretty much everything around Wappu. I, as a politics student, on the other hand, am at the City Center Campus, but of course that doesn't mean that I can't have my fun at Wappu, too. ;) So here's a small selection of activities that my friends aka the Wasties and I checked out during Wappu, including media documentation, because otherwise no one would believe me anyway:
- The academic sauna infusion European championship at the Hervanta Campus. It's obvious that there has to be an event related to sauna. Jeannette and I participated and even made it to the play-offs (although we didn't compete :D). Under competition conditions you are not in a real sauna, but you have to try to scoop water with a ladle into a measuring cup, which is placed inside a box. Random as fuck. By the way, on this occasion we discovered the sauna song, culminated Finnish weirdness simply. Ah yes, there was of course a small sauna trailer including a whirlpool next door anyway, in the middle of the campus. Everything else would have surprised me also heavily.
- The Tupsala Open-Air. Squat flair meets live bands whose members neither know how to play their instruments nor sing, but have all the more fun (and promille) making music.
- Paw Therapy. My highlight. A park, a bunch of pet-owning students, many, many great dogs and occasionally even cats! I touched a lot of fluff in a short time and probably made more acquaintances than in my whole time in Tampere, but exclusively with fur noses. Towards the end of the event, I actually felt therapized, knowing many biographical details about the four-pawed people present, but next to nothing about the corresponding two-legged friends. But the latter was not my goal anyway ;)
- Kyykkä Tournament: True poetry: This sport combines wood-bat-throwing-through-the-air with daydrinking. So it's understandable that Finnish students are into it. Together with Jeannette and two buddies, we also tried our luck, playing against a team called "DDR:n Naisvoimistelijat" (translated: GDR Women's Gymnastics), among others. However, the team consisted mainly of guys who were quite professional. We lost by a landslide, of course, even though we were sober as a board and "well buzzed" was probably more of an understatement with regard to the condition of the GDR ladies. When asked about the... well, special choice of name of our opponents, we were told that the team name is derived from the fact that they are similar to women's sports teams in the GDR: Namely on steroids. Yeah, right, why didn't we think of that ourselves, we silly kids.
- The Rave Container. Friday afternoon, 4 pm, a bunch of sweaty people, strobo lights, techno beats, all in a container located in the middle of the park by the river next to Pinja, 15 minutes of raving bliss.
The whole thing was accompanied by the Teekkari anthem and a champagne shower. And we were right in the middle of it! Nice.
Sticky from the champagne and with cold feet, we went to bed that night between April and May, to immediately buzz back to the river the next day to marvel at the Teekkari dipping. The Teekkari-Quietschies (Uni Passau <3 slang for 'freshmen') are traditionally baptized on May 1st. Of course, they are not called Teekkari-Quietschies here, but "Fuksis". Starting at noon, the Fuksis paraded through Tampere in their different colored overalls, ending at the riverbank. And that's when the real spectacle began. In 1966, a couple of electrical engineering students in Tampere had the idea to build a huge container called "Amontillado" in order to be able to properly christen several Fuksis at once in the river. Over the years, this developed into a crazy event in which all Fuksis were loaded into the Amontillado one after the other in groups of 12 people each, lifted into the air by a crane and then dipped several times in succession in the river water up to about chest height. Accompanied by renewed champagne showers, of course. So the Fuksis lined up like lemmings to be baptized into true Teekkaris in the river. Okay, I just realized, if I tell it like that, it comes across as if I had taken something. But it is reality here. The teekkari dipping on May 1st, last Monday, went on for four hours, and as non-teekkari students we could watch the whole thing sitting in the grass. With munkki break (traditional pastry during Wappu, in progressive Finland fortunately also available in vegan) included.
If someone had told me before my trip to Finland that I would be participating in sauna infusion competitions here, watching people do a very special kind of river baptism, and playing Kyykkä against the GDR gymnastics ladies, I would have flipped that person the bird. Wappu was a very special and very funny time during my semester in Tampere, but it was also good to get back to "normal" afterwards ;) If there's one thing I learned from Finland and especially from Wappu, it's that it's totally okay to admit your weirdness, to live it out and to give zero fucks about what others think of you. Jo, I guess that's the moral of the story for today. In fact, soon I have to say goodbye to Finland, to Tampere, to Pinja, to the wonderful friends/wasties, to the sauna lifestyle, to the fabulously beautiful nature, to everything that made the last months so unforgettably beautiful. And of course to the Finnish "yes" to weirdness!
As always, I say goodbye with one laughing and one crying eye. In the case of Tampere, however, it's more like saying goodbye to friends that I'm pretty sure I'll see again, since Europe is very well connected. Nevertheless, it means saying goodbye to everyday life together. From shared meals in the still fabulously siffy Pinja kitchen (which I will definitely NOT miss), the multitude of insiders with whom one can already have entire conversations. From complaining together about the cold (my body is really not made for this climate!!!), the Pinja kitchen, the wind, the Pinja kitchen, the Finnish caginess, the Pinja kitchen, the food of the Mensa, and just not to forget the Pinja kitchen. About raving about hundreds of incredibly beautiful sunsets at thousands of lakes, sauna visits, about the adrenaline rush after ice bathing, about Finland's silent, dark green forests, about cuddly mummin merch everywhere. Of the most beautiful walking and running routes I've explored in the last few months, of the bouldering halls I've frequented and grown to love. Of laughing until you're sore in the belly. Of cozying up in my dorm room. Of long afternoons in the university library. Of dancing the night away and going to pubs. About these last precious months, in which I really enjoyed being a student.
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