Lessons in Finnish culture

Warning: this post requires more imagination than normal human beings possess.

I took a wonderful hot bath yesterday and asked my daughter to wash my back, a sudden impulse I didn’t know my ancestors had left in me. When Finns go to sauna, they always ask the person they go to sauna with to wash their back. What’s this big deal about washing the back? If your back needs special attention I think you have a problem with personal hygiene.

So I have been wondering what the explanation for this special back-washing business is. I think I know now. In the old days when people in Finland were still wearing birch bark shoes (in the 1980’s) and didn’t have toilets, they had to go to the woods to empty their bowels. As you can see on the picture, the birch bark shoes are not exactly rubber boots and people didn’t want any accident to happen when being at the nature’s loo. To avoid the shoes being disturbed, people decided to stand on their hands instead, shoes well safe in the air. In the process the back might have gotten little dirty, but it was easier to wash the back than making new shoes.

As Mademoiselle A says, I need no booze to entertain myself.