There’s a similar comfort with silence in Nordic countries, most notably Finland. Like the Japanese, Finns place greater value on listening, modesty, and privacy than Americans and many Western Europeans. There’s some truth in the joke about two Finnish men on their way to work and one says, “It is here that I lost my knife,” and on the way home that evening, the other man says, “Your knife, did you say?” It’s considered impolite and overbearing in Finland to be too quick to jump in when someone finishes a thought, much less to interrupt. Silences are not only okay there, they are basic
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