KEY POINTS:
It is Saturday night. In the corner of a small bar in Helsinki sit two young, Finnish men. They are talking to each other in their mother-tongue: Swedish.
While talking, they notice three men sitting at a table nearby, glaring at them. Aside from the two groups, the bar is almost empty.
After a while, one of the three stands up and approaches the Swedish speakers. As he draws near, both groups grow silent.
"This is Finland" he says in Finnish, when he reaches the table. "In Finland, we speak Finnish."
After sizing him up, one of the Swedish speakers smiles, and replies in Finnish "You speak what you can, we speak what we like."
On Monday morning one of the two Swedish speakers is late for class. When he arrives, his hand is in plaster and his eye swollen almost shut. "What happened to you?" his professor - a new friend of mine - asks him after class.
"Well, there were three of them..." he begins.
Although Finland presents a peaceful face to the world, such stories are not as uncommon as one might think. Beyond the legends of Santa Claus and Nokia, lies a darker side of Finland. It is a Finland divided. The rift is inescapable - you cannot walk along any street without confronting it.
The shocking truth is that, in Finland, there are not one, but two official languages: Finnish and Swedish.
My girlfriend Sanna's mother-tongue is Swedish. Her close friends and family are all Swedish speakers as well. At school she spoke Swedish, at university she speaks Swedish and she also happens to work for a bank that communicates in Swedish.
Because of Sanna, the Finland I spend most of my time in is also Swedish speaking. I socialise predominantly with Swedish-speaking Finns and participate in cultural customs which are sometimes slightly different to the Finnish norm. I know how to say basic words in Finnish, but aside from thanking checkout operators at the supermarket, I have little opportunity to practise the language most associated with this country.
I am an insider of what may be the most privileged minority group in the world: The Finn-Swede.
Finn-Swedes are identifiable primarily by their mother-tongue. Customs, social structure and ancestry are also factors, but language is of such importance that they are also called "Swedish-speaking Finns."
It is a simple concept, but I find it confusing in practise. As language is such a defining element of any culture - especially for the Finn-Swedes - I initially assumed that Finn-Swedes are in some way Swedish.
It is the names that are the problem, I think. In the back of my head I think Finns speak Finnish, Swedes speak Swedish and Finn-Swedes - as their name implies - are a mixture of both.
After being told off a few times, I know now to keep this thought to the back of my mind. I guess I would find it similarly annoying if someone suggested that I was in some way English because of the language I speak. Finn-Swedes might prefer to speak Swedish, but they consider themselves 100 per cent Finnish.
The separate Finn-Swede culture has been around for a long time. For 700 years until 1809, Finland was part of the Swedish kingdom. During this period many Swedes migrated to the southern and western coasts of Finland. Under Swedish rule, most of the "in crowd" - the nobility, priests and most upper class peasants - spoke Swedish.
Over the course of hundreds of years the Swedish immigrants and their language became part of the Finnish culture and created what is modern Finland. They are as essential to Finland's culture as the Pakeha is to New Zealand's.
But the similarities with New Zealand only go so far. Today Finn-Swedes comprise only 5 per cent of the population of Finland, yet as an official language Swedish has the same status as Finnish. Unlike in New Zealand - where Te Reo Maori's official language status does not have a great impact in everyday life - this has far-reaching implications.
It means that all children must learn both languages at school - even in areas like Lapland where almost no Finn-Swedes live. It means that every road sign must have both a Finnish and Swedish translation on it. It means that every movie will have subtitles in at least one language, often two.
For an inside observer like myself, it means that I get lost around town more easily, can barely see movies behind a jumble of meaningless letters and have little chance of ever learning to speak Finnish. I feel almost like a minority within a minority.
It is not surprising that all this hassle for group as small as the Finn-Swedes is bound to cause some resentment - just think of the cost to the Finnish taxpayer of the additional lettering alone. But it is not the only reason for occasional animosity between the two cultural groups.
In an effort to protect the Finn-Swede culture, there are a range of generous organisations, scholarships and university quotas available only to Swedish speakers. Such benefits contribute to the idea that Finn-Swedes are favoured. It is an idea that I think most Finns would dispute, but that some Finnish-speaking Finns complain of and some Finn-Swedes enjoy.
This friction does not mean that the streets of Helsinki are soaked with blood. In every country with different cultural groups there will always be some related grievances.
And despite hearing the very occasional story about young Finns arguing over which language they can or should speak, the reason that Finland is not known for any cultural problems is because, compared to almost every other country you can think of, there really aren't any... At least, not until now.
The injustice has gone on long enough. As founding member of the New Zealish Finn Swede Movement for Change, I have big plans...
- Matt Kennedy-Good
Pictured above: Signs in both Finnish and Swedish are plastered all over Finland - even movie subtitles are bilingual. Photo / Matt Kennedy-Good