I'm going to come totally clean, I'm a lazy blogger. I can guarantee that right now, because this blog is like, 20 minutes old, and I'm already pissed at it. I like to think I'm technology forward for my 48 years, but I'm coming to realize I'm not. I could go on, but, brevity calls.
I'm kicking off my first ever blog with a rip off from a lengthy Facebook post a few days prior. I'll expound on my blogging reticence in due time, but to kick it off, I'm starting where the blog idea started--with this post on Facebook.
As a new Finnish resident, I've decided to periodically highlight a cultural difference. I'll very probably spin every single one of them, so in other words, I report, you decide...
Cultural difference #1: Clothes dryers
Jason Cork has highlighted this to me several times as he and his US Ski Team colleagues start every world cup season in northern Finland for a healthy, laundry-heavy period of time.
Finns, by and large, do not own nor use clothes dryers. They are obviously available to purchase but my wife assures me hang-drying is the norm, and the fact that our very modern, hip apartment doesn't have one underscores that. That, and my father in law has had one for at least 3 years now and still doesn't use it.
Living without one seemed ridiculous to me, and maybe it is. I'm still not sure I like it as I am kind of the laundry person of our family. The size of the washer and the space in the apartment and on the drying rack we set up to hang-dry require that we pretty much constantly have a small load of laundry in the process of washing, drying, or folding.
A couple of points that have come to me in this process. 1. Laundry is less of a weekly event and more of a near-daily ritual. 2. Hang-dried clothing are way less wrinkly and fold really nicely. 3. I "need" way less clothes this way.
Breaking down #3 is kind of where I think things are really interesting to my analytical senses. I came here with about 1/10th to 1/15th the total clothing I own and that I hang onto in Duluth. I'm really missing only a warm winter coat, multiple specific footwear options (bike shoes, ski boots, sandel options, and dress shoes) and maybe a dress shirt or two. Still with this laundry cycle and nice weather to date, I feel I have essentially over packed on seasonal summer clothes and could've used room for more diverse needs when packing. For example, I have yet to come close to running through my underwear stash, whereas I ran through it completely, regularly at home.
This leads me to believe that clothes dryers by nature boost the clothing retail industry. If I were a clothing manufacturer that services the Finnish market, I might strike up a strategic marketing campaign with companies who manufacture clothes dryers to normalize the drying of clothes, thereby creating the "need" for a deeper closet of clothes.
Damn capitalist...