Text Minna Suihkonen

A travel bag is standing in the hallway of Vivi-Ann Sjögren´s small flat. The writer has found a new home in various parts of the world on a number of occasions. Her latest home was located in Africa, Grand-Popo in Benin which Sjögren got to know as a holder of scholarship granted by Villa Karo, the cultural centre of Finnish artists, and later on her independent journeys.

Benin opened the globetrotter´s eyes to see her own restrictions. In advance, Sjögren had thought that she could make no real contact with any local person because the gap created by history inevitably separates a European from an African.

– I thought I would accept and forgive it. I was so tolerant, Sjögren laughs.

– It was there I discovered that the colour of your skin didn´t mean anything to them. The only thing that mattered was the human being under that skin. They were quite demanding in that. To me the experience was very instructive.

– Later I realised how unbelievably many prejudices I had. Before the journey I had decided at home that they were bound to have prejudices against me. The worst thing was that I was so noble-minded to forgive them!

Sjögren shares her experiences about her stay in Benin in her book called Kasvokkain. Muistiinpanoja Beninistä.

A selfish independence

According to Sjögren, we Finns and Western people have a frightening tendency to think that we are in possession of a great truth while the others at most get possession of small truths.

– The world is full of truths and each of them is equally big. They depend on the circumstances, Sjögren clarifies.

As an example she gives our attitude towards family and money. We take independence for granted: every adult has to learn to get along on his own. To many our demand for independence is seen as an immense selfishness. Many cultures would consider it incomprehensible not to give money to one´s own adult child or for the couple to have their separate bank accounts, Sjögren ponders.

– What is a good human being like varies a lot. However, our standards are pretty low.

What Sjögren appreciates is how living in other cultures can turn one´s own black-and-white concepts richer in nuances. A good example is the belief prevailing in Western countries about women´s position elsewhere. In Benin Sjögren learnt that the old mother is the absolute head of the family.

– A big businessman does what his blind illiterate mother tells him to.

Pippi Longstockings becomes a wise old woman

In Benin people tend to ask for the older people´s advice in their problems concerning working life, love and nearly everything else. Vivi-Ann Sjögren discovered she, too, played the role of a wise old woman. It was instructive.

–I had duties towards society. Even though I thought I was Pippi Longstockings, I had to be a wise, old woman because it was demanded from me.

At first Sjögren tried to ignore her task by pointing out that she couldn´t advise anyone because she wasn´t African in the first place. However, she found out in Benin that cultural differences weren´t at all considered as decisive as your experience of living as a human being.

Indeed, Vivi-Ann Sjögren has learnt that an individual mustn´t be lazy in a new culture. You can find a large number of unknown skills in yourself if you just keep on trying.

Food is an open diary

Sjögren often approaches life in a different culture through daily life and especially food.

– What and how people eat can tell us much more about a culture than any book or lecture.

Available foodstuffs are defined by history and power relations, Sjögren explains. Religion, too, has a great impact on the food culture. For instance, our shrove buns and dried stockfish indicate that Finland was once a Catholic country.

– A food culture is like an open diary.

Sjögren got stuck in her black-and-white thinking at table. She would have liked to eat local dishes, but at Villa Karo they served French food. Later she realised that the French kitchen is part of the Benin kitchen.

– In fact, all kitchens are transformed out of the kitchens in other countries.

Labelling is so easy

In her travels Vivi-Ann Sjögren has surely experienced what it is like to be labelled as a walking money bag. However, she has had to get used to being labelled in Finland too because she is a Swedish-speaking Finn.

– When I was young I encountered a lot of labelling. Any Finnish-speaking person could call me names, due to my mother tongue which was Swedish. Even though I told them my father was a labourer and my mother a market vendor, the same story of “you Swedish-speaking Finns“ went on. I wasn´t listened to at all.

As a child Sjögren spent several summers in Sweden, but it was even harder for her as a Swedish-speaking Finn.

– In Sweden a Swedish-speaking Finn doesn´t exist because he is neither a proper Finn nor a proper Swede.

She goes on to tell how a Swedish lady passed her a krona coin on the train because she “had learnt to speak Swedish so well“. The lady wouldn´t listen to the explanation of the eight-year-old girl saying Swedish was her native language.

Sjögren believes she can understand something of what it´s like to be an immigrant in Finland. They aren´t seen by the main population as individuals either.

The author also knows how difficult it is to live in a different world compared to the country where you come from. That´s why she didn´t join the chorus of those who wonder at an immigrant having a bathtub full of potatoes. Sjögren spent a hard time with her late husband Paco on a small oasis in the Sahara desert where they stayed for some time.

– We did so many stupid things that our hosts were in amazement every day. Things are done so differently there, Sjögren says and tells a story about the challenges of washing clothes on an oasis.

Villa Karo helps people meet each other 

Sjögren imagines that Finns are still very much afraid of what is alien, but a lot has changed during the last ten years.

– The situation is improving when people can get used to each other in practice and daily life. For instance, if children go to the same school, it makes things a lot easier.

In addition, projects such as Villa Karo are important, the writer believes. At Villa Karo artists from Benin are treated as being at the same level, she praises.

– Artists of various fields around the country have visited the centre. Many have never been outside of Europe. In Grand-Popo they immerse into real African life - safely. It is certain to have an effect on a person, sometimes at once, sometimes in ten years, but inevitably it will have an effect.