A Finn Who Teaches Filipino
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Riitta Vartti has written a Finnish-Tagalog-Finnish dictionary. (Photo courtesy by Riitta Vartti)
Vartti is a native of Finland. She grew up in the capital city, Helsinki, before moving with her mother to her grandmother’s cottage in the countryside on the shore of Lake Päijänne. There, her love of nature and the basis of her aesthetic values were nurtured as she spent time on the lake rowing, fishing, and getting a front seat to the beauty of nature’s wildlife and changing seasons. “I would walk or ski with other children the five-kilometer path to go to school,” she remembers. “We would go through a forest, sometimes fearing to see bears and wolves old people told stories about. Or we would cycle on the longer dirt road.”
She has a master of sciences degree majoring in developing geography from the University of Helsinki. But deep inside, she always wanted to be a writer.
“Vartti teaches basic Tagalog to Finns. Most of her students have Filipino family members, and they want to learn to understand better their loved ones’ culture.”
The aha moment happened in the most exotic place-- Bali, Indonesia. Vartti came across a writer-looking man, who was tapping on a typewriter, sitting on a terrace under a spinning ceiling fan near the seashore. She found the scene romantic, especially because she had always dreamed of being a writer.
Right then and there, she decided to write a novel. She started planning to take a sabbatical leave from her job as an advertiser in a travel agency. But where would she go to write her first novel in a romantic setting just like what she saw in Bali? She focused on the Philippines because of the ease of getting a visa and because English was widely spoken. She also had Filipino friends.
A year-long stay turned out to be an endless love for the Philippines. She and her husband, Pekka Borg, stayed in Mindoro in 1989, and she found the countryside living to be similar to her childhood in Finland, such as wonderful scenery, oil lamps, and total darkness at night to appreciate the stars in the sky. What she liked best were the nice people who were interested to know what kind of a country Finland was.
Pekka Borg and Riitta Vartti had a great time in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro, in 1989. (Photo courtesy by Riitta Vartti)
One dawn, she and her husband woke up to a noise, and the nipa hut shook. She complained to their landlady in the morning about the noise, expressing her suspicion that one of the noisy drunkards the previous night might have fallen on the wall of the hut. To her surprise, the landlady said the noise was a small earthquake!
The Philippines is prone to natural disasters, and it is no wonder that Vartti’s Taifuunivuosi (Typhoon Year; 1998), reflects that. The novel is about two Finnish women spending their sabbatical leave in the Philippines, trying to get away from their problems. They experience a typhoon, and it transforms them.
Not only has she become fluent in Tagalog, but she has also written a dictionary: Finnish - Filipino/Tagalog - Finnish Diksyonaryo/Dictionary (2010; second edition, 2015). A voluminous endeavor, it has a total of 30,000 entries. Also, she has written lesson books for Finns learning Tagalog and Filipinos learning Finnish.
Vartti teaches basic Tagalog to Finns. Most of her students have Filipino family members, and they want to learn to understand better their loved ones’ culture. Some of them plan to go to the Philippines to work or study there. Others are simply interested in learning Tagalog.
Vartti always warns her students that Tagalog is as difficult as Finnish. “However, there are similarities,” she adds, “because both are phonetic, that is, letter and sound have correspondence.” For the Finns, Tagalog’s varying stress of the syllables is hard. On the other hand, Filipinos have difficulty with vowels and diphthongs.
Filipinos in Finland can easily practice Finnish because they live among Finns, making them hear the language every day. But Finns have fewer chances to see and hear Tagalog outside of the classroom. Accordingly, Vartti encourages her students to join the closed Facebook group, Magfilipino Tayo!, so they can have a Philippine state of mind. Discussions are conducted in Tagalog, and there are posts on Filipino culture.
In teaching Tagalog, she uses the children’s book, Ballesteros sa Aking Kaisipan: Ang Aking Bayan sa Pilipinas (Ballesteros on My Mind: My Hometown in the Philippines; 2016). She tells me: “We learn new words and add them to our vocabulary, starting from the title. We use the book in learning grammar. What is the root word of kaisipan (mind))? How can we make a verb from it? We search for Ballesteros, Cagayan, Philippines, on the map. We review how to ask ‘Where is Ballesteros?’ and answer it. I use the book several times during our lessons, teaching them so many things, like foods, games, and childhood in the Philippines.”
Riitta Vartti teaches Tagalog in Helsinki. (Photo courtesy of Riitta Vartti)
Vartti is prominent in the Finnish-Filipino community. She has been active in the Finnish-Philippine Society (FPS) as a board member, secretary, information officer, and language teacher. The FPS has a myriad of activities, including seminars, cultural events and book publications.
As a writer, teacher, and community leader, Riitta Vartti has devoted her life to becoming a bridge between Finnish and Filipino cultures. Despite disparate locations and contrasting cultures, she has made Finland and the Philippines into one — where diversity is shared, embraced, and celebrated!
Riitta Vartti can be reached at riitta.vartti@kolumbus.fi.
Christian Gabriel Pareja
Christian Gabriel Pareja writes from Chicagoland. He enjoys sports, the sciences, and life!
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