Culture Smart guides help travellers have a more meaningful and successful time abroad through a better understanding of the local culture. Chapters on values, attitudes, customs, and daily life will help you make the most of your visit, while tips on etiquette and communication will help you navigate unfamiliar situations and avoid faux pas.
Estonia - Culture Smart! : The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
Description
Table of Contents
Brief History Politics - Economic Life Traditions - Friendships & Family Relationships Bureaucracy Religion Humour - Local Holidays Taboos Invitations Gifts Dress - Business etiquette - Punctuality & Appointments - Team working Communication Negotiating - Women in Society Tips - Eating Out - Traditional Food - Dos and Don t - Making Friends
Author Description
I was born in Islington, London, of a Scottish father and Estonian mother. I have a degree in English from Cambridge University (Jesus College), a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from the Institute of Education, London, and an MA in education from University College (UCL), London. I first visited Estonia in 1989, before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I returned with my Estonian-born mother the following year and this was my most memorable experience of travel: my mother met her childhood friend, who was deported aged 10 from Estonia to Siberia under Stalin, and was now back in Tallinn. It is the first time I heard my mother speak Estonian (she did not teach it to her children believing it to be a useless language) and also because, as a World War Two refugee fleeing Stalin, she focused on becoming English . To hear your mother from Notting Hill speaking her native tongue for the first time on the communal stairs of a dilapidated Soviet appartment block is a disorienting experience, but not a bad one.
Estonians are straight-talking. If you ask: How are you?, they may well say: Not at all well, as opposed to the assumed: Fine, and you?.
Having worked as a journalist and writier, I am now teaching piano and learning to play the organ. I am a parent governor at St Marylebone C of E secondary school in London, which our teenage daughters attend. They are still learning to speak Estonian and love cross-country skiing in the Estonian pine forests. We hope Putin will not gobble Estonia up.
My first book was The Singing Revolution: A Political Journey through the Baltic States (1991, Michael Joseph).