大冷天不废话，芬兰人教你如何笑对严寒 / 四六文摘

When it snows, the flakes come at you like shards of ice.

这里当下雪的时候，雪花像冰片一样向你袭来。

There's a biting wind that freezes your ears off.

刺骨的寒风可以把你的耳朵冻掉。

Daylight lasts only a few hours.

白天只持续几个小时。

And no one talks much.

人们都不废话了。

Helsinki in the middle of winter sounds like a place to avoid at all costs.

隆冬的赫尔辛基听起来是一个人们不惜一切代价都要避开的地方。

A dark, brooding city that shivers under piles of snow.

一座黑暗、阴郁的城市，在成堆的积雪下瑟瑟发抖。

Maybe it was once, but not any more.

也许它曾经是，不过现在已经变了。

Somehow, against the icy odds, Finland has established itself as one of the happiest nations on Earth and, appropriately given the chilling grip of its winters, Helsinki is now unequivocally one of the planet's coolest cities.

不知何故，芬兰不顾严寒，将自己打造成地球上最幸福的国家之一，而对于寒冷刺骨的冬季，赫尔辛基无疑是全球最酷的城市之一。

So how do the Finns do it?

那么芬兰人是如何做到的呢？

How do they survive such punishing conditions and still emerge smiling?

他们是如何在如此严酷的环境中生存下来还能展露微笑的呢?

First travel stop to find the answer to this is the Nuuksio National Park, a beautiful stretch of snowbound pine forest about 30 miles northwest of Helsinki that's home to reindeer, a Frisbee golf course and acres and acres of something Finnish people treasure.

要找到这个问题的答案，首先要去的是努克西奥国家公园，这是一片美丽的松林，终年积雪，位于赫尔辛基西北方向约30英里(约合30公里)处，那里有驯鹿、一个飞盘和高尔夫球场，还有一英亩又一英亩的芬兰人珍爱的东西。

Silence.

那就是沉默。

"Finnish people are quiet," says comedian Krisse Salminen, who has gained celebrity in Finland by behaving almost in the exact opposite way to most of her compatriots.

“芬兰人很安静，”喜剧演员克里斯·萨尔米宁说，她的行为举止与大多数同胞几乎完全相反，因此在芬兰走红。

After a brief snowshoe expedition around the Nuuksio, Salimen tries to explain the Finnish character while grilling traditional makkara sausages over a fire built inside a kota -- a yurtlike tent used by the nomadic Samis who inhabit the Arctic region of Lapland.

在努克西奥进行了一次短暂的雪鞋探险之后，萨利门试图解释一下芬兰人的个性，同时在科塔包(居住在拉普兰北极地区的游牧萨米人使用的蒙古包状帐篷)内的火上烤着传统的马卡拉香肠。

As Salminen explains, it's perfectly acceptable for Finnish friends or family to meet up for drinks or meals and barely exchange a word.

正如萨尔米宁所解释的，芬兰朋友或家人聚在一起喝酒或吃饭，几乎不说话，这完全可以接受的。

"If you are with relatives, you can sit on a table and nobody says anything," she says.

“如果你和亲戚在一起，你可以就坐在桌子上，没有人说话，”她说。

"It's not weird. We just eat and then somebody says, 'Mmmhmm,' and then we eat some more.

“这不奇怪。我们只是吃，然后有人说，'嗯嗯'，然后我们就会吃更多。

"We don't have small talk you know like in America," she adds. "We talk deeply or we just don't talk."

“我们不像在美国那样闲聊，”她补充道。“我们要么深入交谈，要么干脆不交谈。”

Which is not to say that Finns have no sense of humor, hence the thriving comedy circuit that has seen Salminen to rise to fame.

这并不是说芬兰人没有幽默感，因此萨尔米宁在蓬勃发展的喜剧圈中声名鹊起。

She's even made an appearance on Finland's most talked about TV event -- a bafflingly popular annual two-hour broadcast on the country's national day which mostly consists of the president shaking hands with a line of VIPs before everyone goes off to dance.

她甚至还出现在芬兰最受欢迎的电视节目中——令人困惑的是，这个节目每年在芬兰国庆日播出，时长两小时，主要内容是总统在大家去跳舞之前与一排贵宾握手。

But if no one's talking, how do Finns manage basic social activities like dating?

但是如果没有人说话，芬兰人如何处理基本的社交活动的呢，比如约会?

"Tinder!" jokes Salminen.

“靠“火花”APP!”萨尔米宁开玩笑说。

Outside of the Internet dating scene, Finnish people nevertheless manage an impressive amount of socializing.

其实除了网络约会，芬兰人还会进行大量的社交活动。

In bad weather which would have most people hunkering down at home for warmth, they're heading for runs, swims, dances, saunas, skating and even legal graffiti art.

在恶劣的天气里，大多数人会蜷缩在家里取暖，而芬兰人他们会去跑步、游泳、跳舞、桑拿、滑冰，甚至是合法的涂鸦艺术。

While ice swimming isn't as common as sauna, it does reflect a trait proudly displayed by many Finns -- a fortitude in the face of adversities such as surviving dark winter months or, in the centuries before declaring independence in 1917, being ruled by Sweden then Russia.

虽然冰上游泳不像蒸桑拿那么常见，但它确实反映了许多芬兰人引以为豪的一种品质——面对逆境时的坚韧，比如熬过黑暗的冬季，或者在1917年宣布独立前的几个世纪里，被当时的瑞典和俄罗斯统治。

"Some of us hibernate, others do sports and then, I think, a lot of children are made over the wintertime ... and a lot of drinking as well," Stubb laughs.

“我们有些人冬眠，有些人做运动，我想，很多孩子都是在冬天出生的……斯塔布笑着说。

"It's a combo. I think you have to be outdoors a lot.”

“这是一个组合。我认为人还是必须经常在户外活动。

"That makes you survive."

“这样才叫活着。”