What is wild about this is that, and really fucking rich of the bat shit insane finnish nationalists for this, is that there is a thing called "Finnish eyes"
See the Finns are an Uralic people that came from north Asia. Them and their closest cousins, the Sami, have the highest rates of epicanthic folds in Europe.
A sizable chunk of their own people have the eyes that they think they are mocking. A complete shower of racist morons, and imbeciles.
It is said eye slants are a genetic feature that is prevalent in harsh climates. In this case, cold. So it is a ubiquitous factor that can surface in any race.
Which makes it even more ridiculous as a topic to mock people about because it isn't tied to Asians as a scientific fact.
While it's true that it's ridiculous to do the eye-pull thing because epicanthic folds are fairly common here, it should be noted that "Finnish eyes" is an entirely foreign concept. Even people who are aware of our eastern heritage may not even register that some of our eye types might look Asian outside Finland.
But back to the racism issue, it's still a large problem in our society that we've spent many centuries sweeping our DNA under the rug and still feeling like outsiders in Europe. It's an absolute mess of downplaying our Siberian heritage to become more European, while foreigners keep commenting how weird and alien we are because we're so un-European. And unfortunately, some weak-minded people react by being racist against Asians: "See? At least we're whiter than those people!" (Shamefully, this is how we've treated Sami people as well.) I wish we could finally start tackling this ancient problem as a nation and stop feeling so insecure about our past. Fostering more kinship towards Asia would be wonderful. Well, would be, who knows how it'll work out now.
We had such a gentle, warm relationship with Japan. It hurts my heart that these idiots could damage it to this extent.
I have asked this same question. Why would they do this? And also, especially, why would they do this brazenly on video? Who is the intended audience? What message does it convey to them?
The politicians are finnish maga, populist far right conservatives. They never miss the opportunity to jump the gun to "own lefties" and cause a scandal to create a smokescreen while the policies they pass stab their voters in their backs. This time they took these photos "as support" for the recent Miss Finland photo.
Her friend took a photo of her apparently having a migraine and massaging her temple in a restaurant, and added the caption "eating out with a chinese". The friend posted this to her private Snapchat as a joke but it leaked from there. This could've been shrugged off if Miss Finland and her friend had posted an explanation and apologized. Instead she decided to double down by posting something like "haters gonna hate while I'm flying business class", apparently flaunting her wealth. This caused more outrage and that's when the politicians saw the opportunity to "support" her and show that this outrage is just stupid nonsense cancel culture by woke leftists. According to them anybody could "have headache and have an unfortunate picture taken".
The audience is their idiotic supporters who fall for the populism. They are working class people from the countryside who only hear news that immigrants are doing crime etc and feel slightly inconvenienced that they can't spout racist or sexist jokes like back in the good old days because of the woke leftists. The politicians have not apologized at all. One of them said to Asahi Shinbun that "he is sorry if someone misunderstood the joke". The woman said "she doesn't know what she should be sorry about". One of them said "he and his party tolerate asian slant-eyes" (slant-eye is a derogatory and racist term in finnish for asian people), very typical double speak that their followers love. Like saying "we tolerate ni****s". Their party leader "addressed" the issue yesterday saying she knows 100% these were not meant to be racist gestures. And that one of the people in the images has a black child so he cannot be racist. Their goal is to normalize this by downplaying it, nothing they ever do will ever be racist according to them.
The Finnish PM is a right-wing politician from a different party, and he is a cowardly, toothless, lying sack of shit. His words do not mean anything at all, there will be no repercussions. Two years ago he announced that the parliament "resigns from all sorts of racism" and it will not be tolerared at all, and that they are doing more anti-racist work than anyone before. This is probably the fifth racism scandal after that with the finnish magas (PS), and every time the PM has only given a "stern warning".
The general consensus in Finland is that people are absolutely embarrassed of the whole situation, and want the politicians to be fired. People are disappointed in the PM and completely lost trust in the government. It is an absolute shitshow. I am really sorry that these people exist and that the situation has come to this.
Thank you so much for explaining this in detail. It is full of nuance and Finnish cultural aspects that an outsider might not be aware of but you elucidated it in a clear way that this Japan person could understand. 😊
No problem. This is an awful situation but in a way I am happy that it occurred because now these racists are facing international backlash and it has spurred lot of discussion about racism in Finland. Because of this, they cannot simply cry that canceling them is just a fabricated plot by the woke leftist. Usually they love to say that their racist opinions and SNS posts only hurt the "woke" who want to be offended on behalf of imaginary minorities. Because it made international news, this has had real impact on people from other countries, instead of just the ethnic minority groups in Finland. So I hopenthis would make at least their voters to see what idiots they are, and that this kind of behavior is a real problem. Of course now they are trying to say that this backlash is fabricated by Russia and China to weaken Finland and the whole Western Europe 🙄
Things like this have become more common because of Donald Trump and the maga. American politics is on Finnish news all the time and their propaganda has direct impact on Finnish voters. Same influence is happening all over the world, in southern america, europe, australia and asia too. 😵
In France it's because Asians tend to not speak up and, thus, are easy preys. There's very little backlash when people are openly racist towards them. When caught red handed, you'll often hear the racist cunts say "it's only a joke". Sadly, this defence works extremely well.
This is still an extremely risky gambit because that "short" Asian can potentially Judo slam you into the concrete ground in a moments notice.
I've seen a case where a racist was thrown on the ground, held in a submission choke and when that person said "I surrender!", the Asian said "Sorry. I don't understand English".
As typical might be, Karate is extremely dangerous since its most basic move as a punch has science in it to put the entire weight + momentum of the person on the small tip of their knuckles.
Just the knowledge alone turns the person's body from an instrument to a weapon.
That miss Finland did that apparently as a "goofy joke" on social media. She got canned rather fast, but then some MPs from the rightwing party of "racist uncles" and other bigots charged to her defense by posting similar pictures. Some apologized kinda fast, some denied ever having done anything wrong and made excuse that they just had migraine.
Government tried to brush this under the carpet as they are a collaboration government and collab fails if these racist are not in government and its the most right wing government in our history and the business party REALLY wants to give tax breaks to rich and cut welfare benefits, educational spending etc.. Prime minister also REALLY REALLY wants a new bullet train.
So now the racist party had to do something so they "apologize that feelings were hurt" and gave a stern notice to the MPs involved. They do not consider the act racist as they claim it wasn't intended as racism and therefore isn't. Prime minister says that the matter is resolved with this and he's moving on.
Political situation is that the racist party is trying to normalize racism here and they absolutely as a party cannot ever admit to anything being racist as it's a matter of life and death to their party. PM cannot condemn them too hard or call them out because they would lose opportunity unique opportunity to make policies that they want. Rest of us Finns are furious about this as this isn't first or second time that racism has been an issue with this government.
As a Finn I sincerely apologize on behalf of my country. This is not the values Finland was built on and I hope that this will not become the new normal.
I was shocked to see Finnish politicians who made the slanted eye gesture and defended Miss Finland, but I hope that Japan and Finland once again become friendly nations
I'm not defending her at all, but I think it is possible that she is telling the truth. Also she wasn't the one who posted it, it was posted in her friend's private snapchat and it leaked from there when some of her friends took a screenshot. However, the Miss Finland doubled down on it and didn't apologized. Instead she posted something like "haters hating on me while I'm flying Finnair business class" from an airplane, flaunting her wealth. This is such stupid and childish behavior that she doesn't see the issue with it so absolutely she deserved having the title taken away. Still waiting for any sort of repercussions for the racist politicians but I'm doubtful because our prime minister is like a soggy noodle who can't get anything reasonable done.
As a Finn I really wish this would be over with already. The beauty queen apologized for her stupid picture and was removed from the position very quickly. She's done.
Too bad the knuckle-draggers in our populist Basic Finns party decided that this was an important battlefield in the culture wars. Due to the precarious situation of our government coalition, which the Basic Finns are a part of,, all any of us are going to get are a tepid Twitter apology from our prime minister and a "severe notice" (not even a warning) to the chief idiots within the Basic Finns party
I wish things would change. When this discussion whittles down, the racism will still exist. We all in finland have to do active work for a long time and bring the topic up or else racism will keep prevailing here.
The party that the politicians belong to is far right conservative, like finnish maga. They make news all the time because they do and say racist things, have ties or attend neo nazi events, and people find their old blatantly racist online posts. There have been photos of these people doing blackface and worse stuff too. But nothing they ever do is racist according to them. It's just woke leftists crying and getting offended on behalf of imaginary people and taking things out of proportions. I truly hate having them in my country
It's baffling how some politicians still think it's acceptable to make such offensive gestures, especially given the history of racism, time for a serious wake-up call.
Former miss Finland 2025 wasn’t really sincere in her apologies. She still reasoned from recent interview that she did the photo because of a headache and posted on ig about her travel in Dubai saying “ like haters gonna hate blah blah blah”. Like duh, total nonsense. Racisms against Asians seems to have been tolerated bcoz they’re white and hasn’t experienced it themselves. But have you seen a more racist TV content in Finland yet? Search Iina Kuutonen as Sui Hing https://youtu.be/H7yRNn9GWsk?si=VvYo9lI9YvR3SA28
They didn’t say it wasn’t racist. They are merely pointing out that racism is deeply ingrained in the three countries themselves, and their societies are pretty OK with it.
Quote me where i said that. I never once defended these people. I said they have no right to lecture anyone about racism when they never cleaned up their act themselves. I never said this was acceptable.
The Finns Party's usual juvenile idiots once again find a new way to disappoint, but this time they've been stupid enough to cause damage to our foreign affairs with their childish outbursts.
What is wild about this is that, and really fucking rich of the bat shit insane finnish nationalists for this, is that there is a thing called "Finnish eyes"
See the Finns are an Uralic people that came from north Asia. Them and their closest cousins, the Sami, have the highest rates of epicanthic folds in Europe.
A sizable chunk of their own people have the eyes that they think they are mocking. A complete shower of racist morons, and imbeciles.
The dude who did it has slantier eyes than the vast majority of east Asians. He doesn't need to do the gesture at all.
https://i.media.fi/incoming/ah0eb4/22725311.jpg/alternates/WEBP_FREE_1440/22725311.webp
It is said eye slants are a genetic feature that is prevalent in harsh climates. In this case, cold. So it is a ubiquitous factor that can surface in any race.
Which makes it even more ridiculous as a topic to mock people about because it isn't tied to Asians as a scientific fact.
While it's true that it's ridiculous to do the eye-pull thing because epicanthic folds are fairly common here, it should be noted that "Finnish eyes" is an entirely foreign concept. Even people who are aware of our eastern heritage may not even register that some of our eye types might look Asian outside Finland.
But back to the racism issue, it's still a large problem in our society that we've spent many centuries sweeping our DNA under the rug and still feeling like outsiders in Europe. It's an absolute mess of downplaying our Siberian heritage to become more European, while foreigners keep commenting how weird and alien we are because we're so un-European. And unfortunately, some weak-minded people react by being racist against Asians: "See? At least we're whiter than those people!" (Shamefully, this is how we've treated Sami people as well.) I wish we could finally start tackling this ancient problem as a nation and stop feeling so insecure about our past. Fostering more kinship towards Asia would be wonderful. Well, would be, who knows how it'll work out now.
We had such a gentle, warm relationship with Japan. It hurts my heart that these idiots could damage it to this extent.
Good, racism against Asians has been tolerated for too long
I have no idea the rationale towards "why" they do this.
Apparently they do this because "Asians are successful at businesses and intelligent" and they feel inferior, so this is the only way to attack them.
―By pulling off a face that doesn't even resemble modern Asians.
I have asked this same question. Why would they do this? And also, especially, why would they do this brazenly on video? Who is the intended audience? What message does it convey to them?
The politicians are finnish maga, populist far right conservatives. They never miss the opportunity to jump the gun to "own lefties" and cause a scandal to create a smokescreen while the policies they pass stab their voters in their backs. This time they took these photos "as support" for the recent Miss Finland photo.
Her friend took a photo of her apparently having a migraine and massaging her temple in a restaurant, and added the caption "eating out with a chinese". The friend posted this to her private Snapchat as a joke but it leaked from there. This could've been shrugged off if Miss Finland and her friend had posted an explanation and apologized. Instead she decided to double down by posting something like "haters gonna hate while I'm flying business class", apparently flaunting her wealth. This caused more outrage and that's when the politicians saw the opportunity to "support" her and show that this outrage is just stupid nonsense cancel culture by woke leftists. According to them anybody could "have headache and have an unfortunate picture taken".
The audience is their idiotic supporters who fall for the populism. They are working class people from the countryside who only hear news that immigrants are doing crime etc and feel slightly inconvenienced that they can't spout racist or sexist jokes like back in the good old days because of the woke leftists. The politicians have not apologized at all. One of them said to Asahi Shinbun that "he is sorry if someone misunderstood the joke". The woman said "she doesn't know what she should be sorry about". One of them said "he and his party tolerate asian slant-eyes" (slant-eye is a derogatory and racist term in finnish for asian people), very typical double speak that their followers love. Like saying "we tolerate ni****s". Their party leader "addressed" the issue yesterday saying she knows 100% these were not meant to be racist gestures. And that one of the people in the images has a black child so he cannot be racist. Their goal is to normalize this by downplaying it, nothing they ever do will ever be racist according to them.
The Finnish PM is a right-wing politician from a different party, and he is a cowardly, toothless, lying sack of shit. His words do not mean anything at all, there will be no repercussions. Two years ago he announced that the parliament "resigns from all sorts of racism" and it will not be tolerared at all, and that they are doing more anti-racist work than anyone before. This is probably the fifth racism scandal after that with the finnish magas (PS), and every time the PM has only given a "stern warning".
The general consensus in Finland is that people are absolutely embarrassed of the whole situation, and want the politicians to be fired. People are disappointed in the PM and completely lost trust in the government. It is an absolute shitshow. I am really sorry that these people exist and that the situation has come to this.
Thank you so much for explaining this in detail. It is full of nuance and Finnish cultural aspects that an outsider might not be aware of but you elucidated it in a clear way that this Japan person could understand. 😊
No problem. This is an awful situation but in a way I am happy that it occurred because now these racists are facing international backlash and it has spurred lot of discussion about racism in Finland. Because of this, they cannot simply cry that canceling them is just a fabricated plot by the woke leftist. Usually they love to say that their racist opinions and SNS posts only hurt the "woke" who want to be offended on behalf of imaginary minorities. Because it made international news, this has had real impact on people from other countries, instead of just the ethnic minority groups in Finland. So I hopenthis would make at least their voters to see what idiots they are, and that this kind of behavior is a real problem. Of course now they are trying to say that this backlash is fabricated by Russia and China to weaken Finland and the whole Western Europe 🙄
Things like this have become more common because of Donald Trump and the maga. American politics is on Finnish news all the time and their propaganda has direct impact on Finnish voters. Same influence is happening all over the world, in southern america, europe, australia and asia too. 😵
In France it's because Asians tend to not speak up and, thus, are easy preys. There's very little backlash when people are openly racist towards them. When caught red handed, you'll often hear the racist cunts say "it's only a joke". Sadly, this defence works extremely well.
This is still an extremely risky gambit because that "short" Asian can potentially Judo slam you into the concrete ground in a moments notice.
I've seen a case where a racist was thrown on the ground, held in a submission choke and when that person said "I surrender!", the Asian said "Sorry. I don't understand English".
I'm tempted to say it's stereotypical, but then again my wife is Japanese and she does karate... ;)
As typical might be, Karate is extremely dangerous since its most basic move as a punch has science in it to put the entire weight + momentum of the person on the small tip of their knuckles.
Just the knowledge alone turns the person's body from an instrument to a weapon.
I'm always humbled when I realize that our sensei could punch through me.
That miss Finland did that apparently as a "goofy joke" on social media. She got canned rather fast, but then some MPs from the rightwing party of "racist uncles" and other bigots charged to her defense by posting similar pictures. Some apologized kinda fast, some denied ever having done anything wrong and made excuse that they just had migraine.
Government tried to brush this under the carpet as they are a collaboration government and collab fails if these racist are not in government and its the most right wing government in our history and the business party REALLY wants to give tax breaks to rich and cut welfare benefits, educational spending etc.. Prime minister also REALLY REALLY wants a new bullet train.
So now the racist party had to do something so they "apologize that feelings were hurt" and gave a stern notice to the MPs involved. They do not consider the act racist as they claim it wasn't intended as racism and therefore isn't. Prime minister says that the matter is resolved with this and he's moving on.
Political situation is that the racist party is trying to normalize racism here and they absolutely as a party cannot ever admit to anything being racist as it's a matter of life and death to their party. PM cannot condemn them too hard or call them out because they would lose opportunity unique opportunity to make policies that they want. Rest of us Finns are furious about this as this isn't first or second time that racism has been an issue with this government.
As a Finn I sincerely apologize on behalf of my country. This is not the values Finland was built on and I hope that this will not become the new normal.
I think racism period has been tolerated too long. I mean look at the world we live in
True. Look at this old TV program in Finland. The most racist content against Asians ever. Iina Kuutonen as Sui Hing. https://youtu.be/H7yRNn9GWsk?si=VvYo9lI9YvR3SA28
As if Asians are generally not the most racist people that exist
I'm not racist and should not suffer from other peoples racism.
Everyone suffers from racism
She should be dismissed from her position else Japan should talk about why should they do business with a populace that tries to degrade them.
She was dismissed from her position.
I was shocked to see Finnish politicians who made the slanted eye gesture and defended Miss Finland, but I hope that Japan and Finland once again become friendly nations
that miss Finland tried to cover up by deleting the original message and claimed it it was massaging a headache lol. She's only sorry she got caught
I'm not defending her at all, but I think it is possible that she is telling the truth. Also she wasn't the one who posted it, it was posted in her friend's private snapchat and it leaked from there when some of her friends took a screenshot. However, the Miss Finland doubled down on it and didn't apologized. Instead she posted something like "haters hating on me while I'm flying Finnair business class" from an airplane, flaunting her wealth. This is such stupid and childish behavior that she doesn't see the issue with it so absolutely she deserved having the title taken away. Still waiting for any sort of repercussions for the racist politicians but I'm doubtful because our prime minister is like a soggy noodle who can't get anything reasonable done.
This is the age of anti-intellectualism and populism. It’s not going to go away soon.
Yeah. Sadly, it has been on the rise for the past few years.
As a finnish person, I am sorry about these clowns and I feel shameful for them.
Can I come live with you guys instead? I don't want to be with these clowns anymore.
As a Finn I really wish this would be over with already. The beauty queen apologized for her stupid picture and was removed from the position very quickly. She's done.
Too bad the knuckle-draggers in our populist Basic Finns party decided that this was an important battlefield in the culture wars. Due to the precarious situation of our government coalition, which the Basic Finns are a part of,, all any of us are going to get are a tepid Twitter apology from our prime minister and a "severe notice" (not even a warning) to the chief idiots within the Basic Finns party
I wish things would change. When this discussion whittles down, the racism will still exist. We all in finland have to do active work for a long time and bring the topic up or else racism will keep prevailing here.
Maybe for their next trick they could plaster on black face and sing maaaaaamy
The party that the politicians belong to is far right conservative, like finnish maga. They make news all the time because they do and say racist things, have ties or attend neo nazi events, and people find their old blatantly racist online posts. There have been photos of these people doing blackface and worse stuff too. But nothing they ever do is racist according to them. It's just woke leftists crying and getting offended on behalf of imaginary people and taking things out of proportions. I truly hate having them in my country
How could any person in any government office conceivably think that this would be something to even considering doing.
Meanwhile in Japan, caucasians are depicted with huge noses and black people are depicted with big lips and afros.
Pot calling the kettle black. Get real Japan.
Funny to see how hard it hits when you get the online Japanese, Chinese and Koreans riled up as one.
Angry birds are racist ?
It's baffling how some politicians still think it's acceptable to make such offensive gestures, especially given the history of racism, time for a serious wake-up call.
Former miss Finland 2025 wasn’t really sincere in her apologies. She still reasoned from recent interview that she did the photo because of a headache and posted on ig about her travel in Dubai saying “ like haters gonna hate blah blah blah”. Like duh, total nonsense. Racisms against Asians seems to have been tolerated bcoz they’re white and hasn’t experienced it themselves. But have you seen a more racist TV content in Finland yet? Search Iina Kuutonen as Sui Hing https://youtu.be/H7yRNn9GWsk?si=VvYo9lI9YvR3SA28
Will they tackle racism in their own countries too or can only whites be racist? Asking for a friend.
That is a whataboutism argument.
Ty is was obviously racist. Claim it or stop trying to BS.
They didn’t say it wasn’t racist. They are merely pointing out that racism is deeply ingrained in the three countries themselves, and their societies are pretty OK with it.
I don’t care if it is whataboutism, they never apologize for their racism so they have absolutely zero right to lecture Europeans about it.
Ah yes, if everyone is racist, then Europeans cannot be punished for their racism
Quote me where i said that. I never once defended these people. I said they have no right to lecture anyone about racism when they never cleaned up their act themselves. I never said this was acceptable.
They obviously only care when it’s about them
The Finns Party's usual juvenile idiots once again find a new way to disappoint, but this time they've been stupid enough to cause damage to our foreign affairs with their childish outbursts.
As a fellow SEAsian F**k you Finnish asshole!
Nobody cares what weird gestures you make, Caucasian faces always seem to age so quickly.