Dilara The Explorer

Was it me or are you obsessed with Minna Parikka shoes too! I remember the first time I was exploring around the shops in Finland, looking for some shoes I came upon Minna Parikka shoes. I was a bit confused back than since I hadn’t seen this kind of a design or name before so it was very odd to me. But I did straight away go for those shoes since they looked fun, unique and well…they resembled me! They looked so cute with the bunny ears! As the investigator I am, when it comes to shoes, everything stops for me so I decided to investigate more. Who was this Minna Parikka that I didn’t know about? Well, turns out that even Lady Gaga went to her shop to buy her shoes! Like how crazy is that! And I always wondered where her awesome shoes came from! Well I did find one store in London that designed shoes for her but finding another in Finland? Now that is crazy! So as I also heard the news of my idol buying from her, I was more interested. Minna Parikka brand was founded in...

When I learnt about Tapio Wirkkala, I was very surprised about the fact that he had designed Finland’s own banknote Markka himself. That was very interesting to learn. But, as I started to dig in more, I learnt some other cool stuff that he had done. Now, Tapio Wirkkala came from an artistic family to begin with. His mum, dad and siblings were artists themselves so he grew up in that world. So his work ranges from designs of plastic ketchup bottles and metal ware to glass, ceramics and plywood in a range of styles. That was very interesting to see. But the most interesting thing that made me smile was…he designed Finlandia vodka bottle. So, he was very good at using glass and bending glass into various shapes so he designed some very interesting and artistic bottles and other things. And here is a link for buying his amazing glassware for your house!  https://www.iittala.com/designers/tapio-wirkkala/c/tapio-wirkkala/intro

Now, there is one thing you cannot pass when you come to reside in Finland. That is Marimekko! You will definitely see the stores or the clothing or the most popular thing: the bags! On the bus, while you are walking, at school…someone definitely has it! I’m talking about Armi Ratia and her amazing design as a businesswoman! The products are so colorful! Marimekko is known to be so colorful after Armi Ratia started buying colorful fabric for a company in the name of Printex. Since it was after World War and everything was grey, she decided to add some uniqueness and colour, which led to Marimekko being found two years later. And from that time to today, it is still going on. Marimekko also went beyond and now is selling products over 40 countries around the world! So, if you see Marimekko outside Finland, don’t be surprised! And a fun thing…they even have a plane with their own design on it! Can you imagine a Marimekko plane? Watch out for it when you are flying!   ...

One of the places I really wanted to visit on my exchange was the Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki. Of course, because of the worldwide epidemic, everything went wrong so I had to bury my desire to visit deep down into my heart. Although I hope to and believe that I will visit it one day, why not write about it? It was one of the most exciting site I wanted to visit. It is very interesting that this church was designed by two brothers: Timo and Tuomo. How cool is that? Very fun fact about the church, it was directly built into solid rock, it is also known as the Church of the Rock and Rock Church. Another cool fact, the church has a skylight at the centre dome which brings in natural light. Also, because of the church being built into rock, it has some amazing and excellent acoustics. Which means, along the structure being a church, some concerts are held there! Also a secret, there are no bells in the church! So basically, you can go to the church whenever you want and it is bus...

Alvar Aalto has been one of the people I have been interested in ever since I started to learn about the Finnish design and architecture. It may seem interesting and I was surprised the first time too but you may have seen or even bought his products. Or…their replicas. So you definitely know his products. Now you can know that Alvar Aalto was behind it all. Now, one of the things about Alvar Aalto is that, his products have the exact but machine made version in IKEA. So, he was the first person to ever design the product and do it handmade whereas nowadays, IKEA is doing it machine made for cheaper prices. Although, Alvar Aalto is still selling the handmade products but…they are very expensive which is worth it since there is some real handwork there. If you have the money, go for it! He usually did designs that involved to curve the wood and bark of the trees. Alongside the amazing furniture, he also did design textile and glassware. Even at the time, the furniture he designed ...

One of the things I was very much interested in when I came to Finland was the culture. As we all know and as I have written about in my previous posts, culture differs from people to people. I find culture as a very important impact in my life and growing up, I have always been through many different cultures. I must say that I do have many different influences on me caused by these cultures. For me, a culture is a new person, a different character. So, this made me take in interest in Edward Hall’s Iceberg Model. In this model, we can see that many cultures have many important opinions about different topics. For example, some cultures have religion, some have people, and some have animals. It all differs and makes every culture unique in its own way. Along this, Edward Hall really pointed out how we have a surface culture and a deep culture. These all differ very much from people to people. I find it very interesting and think that it is a good way to reflect who we are to o...

Richard Lewis predicts that there are 3 plots that the countries should be categorized by according to the cultural facts. Here are the 3 different plots: 1-       Linear-actives — those who plan, schedule, organize, pursue action chains, do one thing at a time. Germans and Swiss are in this group. 2-       Multi-actives — those lively, loquacious people who do many things at once, planning their priorities not according to a time schedule, but according to the relative thrill or importance that each appointment brings with it. Italians, Latin Americans and Arabs are members of this group. 3-       Reactives — those cultures that prioritize courtesy and respect, listening quietly and calmly to their interlocutors and reacting carefully to the other side's proposals. Chinese, Japanese and Finns are in this group. Personally, I believe that as I person, I fit into being in the Reactives group myself too...

Coming to directly Hofstede’s Cultural Onion, for him there are six dimensions for this. Hofstede studied people who worked for IBM in more than 50 countries according to these dimensions. These are: 1-       Power Distance Index (high versus low). - This refers to the degree of inequality that exists – and is accepted – between people with and without power. 2-       Individualism VS Collectivism. - This refers to the strength of the ties that people have to others within their community. 3-       Masculinity VS Femininity. - This refers to the distribution of roles between men and women. 4-       Uncertainty Avoidance Index (high VS low). - This dimension describes how well people can cope with anxiety. 5-       Long- VS Short-Term Orientation. - It refers to the time horizon people in a society display. 6-    ...

When we say Hofstede's model, my mind immediately goes to the Cultural Onion. As a person who has travelled all their childhood, although it has some limitations and it may vary from person to person, this model is a very relatable model to look at and understand. A cultural onion is just like an onion with many layer. The inner layer shows what you value the most, what is the most important and the last layer shows what you value the least. So, this model doesn’t have any right or wrong since if differs. Here comes in the culture part because as I have even seen in my exchange process, we all come from different cultures. So you can easily pick a friend you met and sort of make out their onions in your head by the way they act, talk and do stuff. It only takes a bit of time to understand their greatest values. I would also at this matter talk about a Ted Talk that I had watched which made me think about this model along with our cultures. In his ‘’Where Is Home?’’ talk, Pico Iye...

One of the main reasons on why I wanted to do my exchange in Finland was because I knew that it would be a perfect place for me since I like quiet places. I’m a very calm person and I knew that Finland was a very calm and quiet place. I wanted to escape from my environment to actually be by myself, meet new people and focus on stuff that I couldn’t really focus on. So, as I set off for my journey, I knew that I had a goal and I had to get it done before leaving. The problem was, I was so overwhelmed and just so excited, I started failing my goal of writing a book. I had to write, I had to get back on track but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t even read what I had written to continue writing. But, I decided to get some help from my tutors and I was set off to write since I now had deadlines for the book. Sometimes, you just need to be pushed I guess. Also, for me something magical happened. Quarantine striked and now everything turned into online schooling. So, this meant that I had to sta...

During these hard times, I like to stay home as we all should and spend time with myself. I have found myself relaxing from the busy schedule we had and to focusing more on myself and what I wanted to do. So, I started focusing on who I am. What I wanted to do. I must say that it isn’t easy to stay locked inside all the time but I do invest my time in going out for a walk in the forest or to the lake. That makes things better and somewhat easier. It gives me time to think. A typical day for me would be to wake up around 9-10 and start my day. I have found myself making healthier breakfast options. So, I tend to have a nice breakfast until maybe 11 since I watch some videos while eating. It depends. Later on, if I don’t have stuff like laundry to do, I like to go back and make my bed and think about what to do next. Usually, I take some pills I need to take, have my cup of tea and bottle of water ready by this time. I first like to put on my headphones and really focus on music and ...

As I moved to Finland for an exchange, I decided that I wanted create a YouTube channel. I must say that I had it in mind for a very long time, but for some reason always felt shy and not so open about it. It felt scary and for some reason, it felt awkward to talk in front of the camera outside. People would give weird stares. But when I moved to Finland and got engaged with school, I had this feeling of change in a good way. It was as if I was waiting for this moment because everyone was so encouraging and supportive. It almost felt surreal. I wasn’t so sure about it at first but I finally said ‘’let’s do this’’ and created a channel. I didn’t really know what to do really, it was almost like the same urge I had when I started doing the radio show. I had a feeling of ‘’I can do it’’ and so I did. It felt amazing. Within a couple of hours, my account was set up and I was ready to go. To be honest, the first videos were me being so shy but then I somehow started to be much more conf...

Unfortunately, there is a worldwide epidemic going on at the moment. So, our universities have also shut down I would say physically but we are still continuing our lectures online. To be honest, I didn’t know how to feel about this matter before, since I’d never ever imagine for such a thing to happen. I must say that it was very surprising and I was pretty much scared of what would happen next since nobody really knew, this was a situation out of movies. Well, turns out that I was capable of doing online classes like anyone else. We still had everything going on expect from the fact of having to go to school. I must say I do miss the campus and going there to meet people and go to classes physically but I cannot rant about it, the whole world is in the same situation. So to keep everything safer, we are all under lock down. In this lock down, I have actually felt more like I could focus on schoolwork. Since we are home and there isn’t really anything keeping us busy such as going o...

When we first came here, I had been doing this radio show back at my home university which they didn’t really believe was a good idea. I always thought that it was a great idea so I decided to carry it on here in Finland. Of course, I had also found the perfect partner that I had met here who also was into this idea. We started off, I was a bit scared I must admit when we went to the meeting and presented our show. I didn’t know how they would react, I believed that it was a very different idea. It also made sense here more since we had the format of travelling around the globe and meeting new people. So, as exchange students this would also be perfect for us to meet new exchange students, learn about their countries and tell it to people who were interested to listen. They liked the idea but since it would be more of a pretend show, weren’t so sure if we could do it every week. We were glad and so we started to work on it. I remember how nervous we were when we had first started it....

One of the things I got to spend in Finland was Easter. I must say that it was a very interesting experience for me here, since I learned that they didn’t have egg hunting. But they had something much more fun and almost like Halloween, Palm Sunday. Although I couldn’t truly experience it this year due to the current COVID-19 situation, I did see some decorations as I took a walk around the area I live at. It was fun and well…I was scared to see this decoration since I thought that a child was stuck in a bush. Turns out to be a very Finnish ‘’Happy Easter!’’ decoration. I did want to see the children going around in witch costumes but maybe another time. Apart from that, since we have minimum contact with everyone around us, I did have a very interesting day. I and my friends decided to paint some eggs and they might have went a bit wrong but we tried our best. Than we started cooking for Easter and made a lot of food…and well like that was not enough we also decided to gobble down o...