Hyvää Vappua

© MissReads

A short introduction to the Finnish Language: hyvä means good, and Vappu is the Finnish name for May Day (May 1^st). The endings -ä and -a signify the partitive, and in this case it has to be used because Hyvää Vappua is a greeting. (If you want to know more about the partitive or other fascinating aspects of Finnish Grammar go here). Hyvää Vappua therefore means Happy May Day.

Other useful holiday greetings are: 

Hyvää Joulua = Merry Christmas.

Hyvää Pääsiäinen = Happy Easter.

Hyvää Itsenaisyspäivää = Happy Independence Day.                  

Just in case you happen to be stranded in Finland for any of these occasions. The Finns will love you when you're able to say the appropriate greeting (btw. the ä is not pronounced as [ɛː] (like the German ‘ä’), but as [æ]).

But let’s leave the linguistics alone for now. Why am I writing a post entitled 'Hyvää Vappua'? Because Vappu is the holiday for students and workers in Finland.

But mostly for students.

The day before Vappu, a fair opens the market place in Tampere, and all the students of the city will gather in parks and other open spaces. Most meet alongside Tammerkoski rapids, and all of them will be wearing their student overalls and student caps (Yliopilaslakki). Unfortunately, as we were all busy eating and drinking last year, I couldn’t find any good pictures of the park on Vappu. Just look at the one below and imagine it packed with people in all stages of debauchery.

  © MissReads

Student overalls are a pretty cool invention. Basically, every department has its own color of overalls, and every student at the department can buy an overall from the department’s student organization. In Tampere, for example, the color for all the languages is bright red, while med students have white overalls and business students wear dark blue.

You might be wondering 'Why would people want to wear overalls?'

Most students only wear overalls for parties (especially Haalaribileet – ‘Overall Parties') and of course Vappu, and for these occasions they are pretty handy, especially because it doesn’t matter if they get dirty. My very own theory is that Finns love them so much because it helps them to avoid small talk. You only need to look at someone's overall, and you know which department they belong to (and really, most people probably don't care if someone studies political sciences or international relations, except for the people who do study it, of course). Also, you can tell by how someone wears their overall whether they study at the 'normal' University or at the University of Technology.

How?

Students from the University of Tampere only wear the overall halfway, which means they roll up the top part and knot the sleeves around their waists. Students from the Tampere University of Technology wear the full overall (their yliopilaslakkit also have a tassel, which the caps of UTA students don’t). Besides simply wearing it, most students decorate their overalls with patches (haalarit merkki), some of which are distributed at parties, along with other paraphernalia. Like this, for example:

© MissReads

If you were in the know about overall colors, you’d have figured out by now that I was officially enrolled at the department of Political Sciences during my time in Tampere (the ‘Iltakoulu’ (‘Evening School’) logo would have been another dead give-away.)

Now, to get back to Vappu: as I said, every student wears his or her overall the day before Vappu and on May Day itself, and most wear their student caps. People that have already graduated wear their student caps only. (Your right to wear your halaarit ceases once you graduate and start working.). And honestly, it's a pretty nice feeling to sit around picnicking, surrounded by other people proudly displaying their student-status. Even the Suomineito statue on Hämeensilta bridge wears a student cap at midnight between April 31st and May 1^st; you can see the result in the picture below.

© K. Marcyniuk

Now, while the day before Vappu is basically a large picnic that consists mostly of students, Vappu is more like a family picnic. But besides another day spent in the public parks, there’s also the parade at which the students from the University of Technology show off their rafts. These mostly include some kind of commentary on current social or political matters, or things that have something to do with the students’ field of study. The one below for example is a comment on Nokia’s failed attempt at launching new Windows smartphones.

© MissReads

There is one more thing that happens on Vappu, besides more eating, drinking and parading; the freshmen of the University of Technology are dipped into the river. This charming tradition is called Teekkarikaste, which roughly translates as ‘Baptism of the Students of the University of Technology’. This means that they sit in an iron cage and are dunked into the river three times. Three times. And if they're unlucky, it's a cold Vappu with wind and snow like last year.

By now you are probably thinking the Finns are crazy? Well, let me tell you, my Finnish friends looked at me as if I was crazy when I told them about the Bavarian/Austrian tradition of the May Pole and all the activities surrounding it, so I guess it all depends on where you’re standing.

A Fun Fact about Finland: The longest Finnish word is lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas.