paatoimittaja@oyy.fi, kohteen Oulun ylioppilaslehti tekijä

OYY’s new community specialist Viljami Viinikka wants to unify the university community

Student Union of University of Oulu (OYY) selected Viljami Viinikka as their new community specialist. During his two-year long post Viinikka hopes to be a specialist for the entire university community. Viljami Viinikka, 25, started as OYY’s community specialist in the beginning of 2023. However, Viinikka is not a tenderfoot at the OYY office. He […]

Ihmiset In English

TEKSTI Tuuli Heikura

KUVAT Tuuli Heikura

Student Union of University of Oulu (OYY) selected Viljami Viinikka as their new community specialist. During his two-year long post Viinikka hopes to be a specialist for the entire university community.

Viljami Viinikka, 25, started as OYY’s community specialist in the beginning of 2023. However, Viinikka is not a tenderfoot at the OYY office. He acted as vice president in OYY’s board during 2022 and was in charge of the community sector. “Work environment and assignments were quite familiar already, which aided in orientation”, Viinikka mentions. “Last year as the previous community specialist Eetu Leinonen’s journeyman he accustomed me to many tasks, but still the transition gets confusing from time to time”, he adds.

Fresh specialist instantly got off the deep end of work when he was assigned two major events both taking place in the first month of his employment.

The Student Union educates its societies’ active members in Active Clubs February 1st and 2nd. Since the community specialist acts as a link between OYY and societies, organizing the Active Clubs is his responsibility.

The second event, Löyly, targets the other significant stakeholder group on community specialist’s job description – international students. Löyly is a working life event held 25th and 26th of January aimed primarily towards international degree students, but open for everyone. The aim of the event is to offer practical guidance and tips in seeking a job in the Oulu area, and to provide information about Finnish working life. Another aim is to bring together employers in Oulu and international degree students. The event is fully in English. The program consists of keynote-speeches, workshops, panel discussions and cv-photography. OYY organizes Löyly in collaboration with OSAKO.

Viinikka ended up as community specialist after a deliberation of his own strengths. “Reasons for applying were quite the same as why I ended up applying to study chemistry back in the day: I considered how I could help people and what were my personal strengths. Naturally, societies and advocacy work are close to my heart as well.”

Societies really are familiar to Viinikka. Since moving to Oulu from Lumijoki to study chemistry in the summer of 2017, Viinikka has been a familiar sight not only in his subject organizations’ board presidiums but also in recreational associations’ boards. “Recretional associations luckily have a good footing in Oulu University, you can really witness the communality spirit here.”

Easy to approach yet easily approaching

Viinikka portrays himself as a project-person who enjoys learning new skills. “Continuous development is fun and so are new skills”. When he’s not playing karelian gorodki (kyykkä), he might be doing crafts or exploring new recipes in the kitchen. He tells a story about a time he made appleless apple pie. Reportedly people eating it had a really hard time believing it really didn’t contain any apples, so much it tasted like a real apple pie. “Baking links up with my interest in chemistry”, he says.

Viinikka also plays the accordion, and sometimes visits to play for albums for various projects. “Recently, I was even asked to go sing for one!”, he laughs.

Community specialist meets various, colorful people in his line of duty. Viinikka hopes to be the whole university community’s community specialist. For student organizations, a community specialist is a pillar, someone to ask guidance from and seek positive reinforcement. “I’m here to tell that very few things are the end of the world”.

Community specialist’s job description is divided roughly into two sectors: societies and international affairs. Social work demands for an easy to approach -kind of person, and exactly that Viinikka hopes for himself to be. Not only wishes he to be easy to approach, but has already instigated an ‘easily approaching’ -method for conducting business. “During my brief career I’ve already managed to personally walk straight to a guild room to solve one organization’s problem. I don’t know if previous society specialists have been so forward in their actions”, he laughs.

As one of the biggest challenges in the University community, Viinikka mentions the divide between international and other students. “The integration of international students to the rest of the student community is an on-going challenge that we must work on”. Especially Covid-19 put a set back to this work, according to Viinikka, and now extra attention must be paid to it.

As greetings Viinikka urges students to go to exchange. “It is a fine opportunity that vexatiously few students exploit”.

WHO’S THIS?

NAME Viljami Viinikka

AGE 25

STUDIES Chemistry

FROM Lumijoki

Julkaistu 23.1.20231.2.2023

Tuuli Heikura

Oulun ylioppilaslehden päätoimittaja ja kauppatieteiden maisteri, joka nauttii syväluotaavista ilmiöjutuista, kuluttaa lenkkipolkuja kahden koiransa kanssa ja haaveilee mankelin omistamisesta.

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Moving North – Part 2. Borrowed Miles and Lush Hills

Rishikesh Raut went on a journey to the essence of Finnish state of mind: Riding his bike towards the Northern Finland, exposing himself to the elements of the nature as well as its tough love. This is Rishikesh’s journal of his six days on the road. Day 4, Part 1: The Many Routes to Soil […]

In English Kolumni

TEKSTI Rishikesh Raut

KUVAT Rishikesh Raut

Rishikesh Raut went on a journey to the essence of Finnish state of mind: Riding his bike towards the Northern Finland, exposing himself to the elements of the nature as well as its tough love. This is Rishikesh’s journal of his six days on the road.

Day 4, Part 1: The Many Routes to Soil

As I was now riding towards Ylitornio the road began snaking through lush little hills. Like sleep sneaks in on a classroom-under-performer who has just started studying, Lapland pulled me in its lap without clear notice. The roads contributed to their act; they equally climbed and dropped, over and over. In retrospect, they climbed more.

I was thanking and cursing their architects on an hourly basis, for the 40 km/h downhill blurs and the 8 kilometre per hour uphill battles. In retrospect, I mostly thanked.

*Somewhere in the woods, enroute to Ylitornio.*

Google Earth guided me through an unpaved path through a forest, as I stopped once to speak with uninterested horses and then to wet the weeds with personalized minerals. The little gamble had paid off as I avoided the extra miles. For an hour or so, I rode through the trafficless road’s median – as one does when they own a highway.

After a million pedal rotations and 30 odd kilometres, signage showed I was approaching the Arctic Circle. This was the stuff of my geography lectures as a kid. As a grown up kid, I read about Mike Horn, the maverick explorer who circumnavigated 20 000 kilometers worth of this circle. And now I was going to touch it.

It is my suspicion that the Earth doesn’t care much for human ambitions. Mike Horn, Bill Gates, and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari will all taste the same to the soil that will devour them.

So I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t see red ribbons and scissors, as I biked through the forehead of our world.

Day 4, Part 2: Borrowed Miles

He was on the other side of the road. He crossed and overtook. Thereon, he raced me for a few kilometers as I neared my day’s quota of 100. We spoke no words with the other biker; the language of competition was enough.

During these six days of living by the E8 highway, I got addicted to letting strangers take charge of my bike. Motorbikes, cyclists, walkers – whether it was a thumbs up, a wave, a nod, a smile, a greeting. They had their own distance ratings. If only briefly, these exchanges with fellow beings were like a balm for the mind as the physique grinded.

When a lone traveller traveling waterless through a desert has the liberty of sipping water only once every five hours, he will drink differently. He will swallow it instantly, but in that little instant when it is moving throatwards, he will know the quality, the essence of it.

For hours on end, I would not see anyone, assuming all passing cars were passengerless. So even though I exclusively romanced the wilderness, whenever my eyes met another human, I bathed in the oasis of that fleeting connection, and let them ride my bike for me.

Day 5, Part 1: Opening Negotiations

I have a love-hate relationship with sleep. It’s like having a permanent toxic friend. She’s a pain, but I need her.

Some nights I don’t want her at all. I want to skip all the time I’m supposed to spend with her; being alive is just so much fun. And other days I want her for all-time. For reasons unknown to me, I want to be in her embrace until she has no more dreams to show. On those days, mornings become afternoons, and into evenings, after I have forced her further, she shoves me away, and leaves me to deal with the chunk of life I just missed. That’s what had happened on the first night out in Simo, when I had slept until 5pm, 14 or so hours.

Every day after that was different. I planned to wake up at 8 in the morning, so I did. I wanted to do that and this, so I did. With no effort.

But on this day, starting from Pello, the ride had begun with exertion. The sun concealed the little city with fat clouds, and the extravagant ball overloaded with flaming red could only penetrate a beggarly gray into the landscape. Its failure to show itself meant that mortal souls – especially those indulging in unreasonable unsheltered endeavours – would make music using teeth. So, I began bargaining.

Day 5, Part 2: Something Changes

“There’s no way we are doing a 100 today. No way. You’re cold and hungry. You didn’t finish your breakfast; you were impatient to get going. As you are riding on low fuel, the granola oats soaked protein powdered milk isn’t letting the oaty bits get to you through the bottle’s mouth.

"Let’s just do 80. It seems right. 100 is a reach, it takes something extra.” 
“Okay... we’ll do 80 then.”

When I had biked 15 kilometres from Pello, I was going to do 85 more. I remember reaching the crest of a bridge which stomached a railway line, (underly/overly) when the deal was struck. Like two egoistic men racing each other to an elevator button at-once – two thoughts arose.

“Nice view, would be nicer – We are doing 100 – to see a train pass by.”

A switch had flicked.

Day 5, Part 3: Eroded Possibilities

Exploring new corners on my bike, I thought about how much of my life is governed by my brain. The bastard has its own mind. By a mere whim, on mere impulses, it decides what I can and cannot do. The difference between possible and impossible is decided by which side the brain flicks the switch.

If a mathematician was to solve the equation of a man’s life up to a certain point, of course, he can foretell what the man is going to do next based on the variables of his past experiences. But until such a boring technology is born it is safe to assume that the flicking of the mind switch can be manipulated.

Our minds are masters of negotiation when dealing with ourselves. Whenever you negotiate with someone, you always aim for the highest value – by gains or savings. But when your mind negotiates with you, it always aims to lose value; unless you consciously push for higher value.

“100 km sounds hard. Let’s do 80 km instead.” 
“This sounds hard. Let’s do only that instead.”
“Starting today is hard. Let’s do tomorrow instead.”

Like expert negotiators do, the mind, armed with logic and science, tells us why the aimed value must be decreased. Whether to accept it, is a choice we get to make. If you accept the deal, no one will notice. No one cares. It’s like an Ocean eroding a beach, one sand speck at a time – separating it from Earth’s embrace for its ulterior motives. No one will care except the sand specks who dreamed of sunbathing.

So, knowing its nature, the Mind’s, is it possible to never negotiate?

Day 5, Part 4: Obvious Welcomings

As I swerved into the trail leading to lake Tapojarvi, the land smelled foreign. As every land always is, for its always changing, only too slowly for our unperceptive eyes. But with its sparse civilization and boundless woods, this land was more foreign.

Towards the end of every day, as I neared the target distance, the air would invisibly inject me with a serum of anxiety, using a syringe of anticipation.

These feelings arose due to the complete lack of assurance. “Soon I will rest”. And it meant putting faith in the graciousness of a major river, or an unnamed lake, as it would give me space to lie for the night.

*Before the customary dip into a gracious lake.*

Men of the Sahara Desert, if forced at gunpoint to sleep and dream a fantasy of a homeland littered with a certain life-giving liquid, would perhaps imagine a typical Finnish landscape. So, finding a gracious water body in Lapland was always a game of promising odds.

I was led by an unpaved trail through a jungle, and as I showed myself to the lake, a flock of swans or ducks or messengers of someone who wanted to say, “you can sleep here” flew off from before me, leaving for me, a little of their vast silver-grey kingdom of water, a little of their dew-laden soil and a little of their woodland’s breath…

Julkaistu 29.9.20221.2.2023

Rishikesh Raut

Rishikesh captured his biking journey towards Nothern Finland in Autumn 2021. Now, he shares his thoughts.

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An unforgettable studying experience in Finland doesn’t guarantee a career here

Pursuing a higher degree in Finland is indeed an attractive and promising prospect for foreign talent. Why wouldn’t it be? The Finnish education system isn’t one of the best for nothing. This plays a major factor leading many students to also consider a career in their respective fields in Finland. Speaking of personal experience, as […]

In English Kolumni Mielipide Opiskelu

TEKSTI Moaadh Benkherouf

Pursuing a higher degree in Finland is indeed an attractive and promising prospect for foreign talent. Why wouldn’t it be? The Finnish education system isn’t one of the best for nothing. This plays a major factor leading many students to also consider a career in their respective fields in Finland.

Speaking of personal experience, as I have studied both in my home country and in Finland, the difference is quite noticeable. In many countries, the students are forced to memorize a massive amount of information, and then take exams based on their ability to recall that information. They could get good grades, but if you ask whether they learned anything, it probably wouldn’t be much.

That’s not the case in Finland. During my studies here, I’ve never felt any kind of pressure from teachers. They have always been supportive and flexible. They’ve also made sure to design the assignments in a way that the student would actually learn from them, rather than rotely memorizing.

The exams were never a verbatim copy of what the teachers taught in the classroom. I think their purpose was to ensure that the students were paying attention. Even if you failed, you would get a second and third chance to make it right, which kind of takes a load off the students’ mind.

I think it is great that the system was designed to give second chances since you can never really know why a student performed badly in an exam. Another positive aspect is that second chances aren’t just in exams, but in the courses overall. During one of the courses I took, I remember being just a few points away from the next grade. To help with that, I negotiated with the teacher to do some additional work to get those points.

Some courses offered alternatives for passing them, like writing an assignment or taking an exam. In the case of a student not doing well in an assignment, they can choose to take the exams, and vice versa. Such alternatives can be found listed in the University of Oulu’s Policies for the Recognition of Learning, for example. So, to those of you who are studying in Finland at the moment, you’ve come to the right place.

However, if you’re seeking a career here after that, I would advise you to think again and do your research.

Many of the foreign students coming to Finland want to stay here and pursue a career. But how useful is it to bring foreign talent here? Foreign employment has been promoted widely through frequent career fairs and workshops, but nonetheless, a lot of the talent goes to waste.

I know many people, myself included, who graduated here, but are unable to secure employment with their Finnish degrees for one reason or another. The most common example of such reasons is the “insufficient language skills”. As a person who speaks Finnish well enough, I don’t think that’s a good reason.

In many cases, we are rejected for no apparent reason, or are simply “ghosted” by the employers. We never get invited to interviews, and we always get the standard rejection message “Thank you for your application. We have received many great applications, but you were not selected this time”. Because of that, we lost the motivation to seek meaningful careers, and by that I mean careers corresponding to our education and acquired skills through that.

We had to settle for menial jobs like cleaning, paper delivery, and food delivery, just to live day by day and meet our financial obligations. I honestly see no sustainability here in terms of ensuring that these foreign job seekers get to contribute to the Finnish job market in their respective fields.

A master’s thesis written by Anthony-Claret Onwutalobi from Lahti University of Applied Sciences talked specifically about unemployed immigrant graduates from Finnish higher institutions. In his work, he indicated that 58% of the participants in his surveys said that they haven’t met their career expectations in Finland. Furthermore, the study showed that 56% disagree on the fact that the job market is welcoming for internationals, and 28% strongly disagree.

Onwutalobi also highlighted a very critical point, which was in regards to the factors that helped in securing employment in Finland. A very small percentage were able to land jobs through applying or through career services (7% and 11%, respectively), while a total of 77% got their jobs through networking or personal reference. Employers say they are open to foreign employment, but are they? If a foreign student can’t even land an internship with these employers, or simply an interview, how can they land a job?

A very important question needs to be asked; are international jobseekers not needed, or not wanted?

We unfortunately have heard of true stories regarding discrimination and injustice experienced by people with not just one, but two or three degrees and a proficiency in many languages, including Finnish. This leads many to believe that the latter is to be true: international job seekers are not wanted. Of course, there are some success stories by people who have made it, but that does not mean that the issue is nonexistent.

If highly educated foreigners involuntarily see a need to deliver food and newspapers, rather than working in their respective fields, then there is a major issue. Many individuals, Finnish people and foreigners alike, have highlighted this issue on a plethora of social media platforms, most notably on the employment-oriented LinkedIn. Hence, the issue’s existence is being acknowledged widely. However, has it been addressed sufficiently? Has there been extensive efforts to alleviate this issue?

We have yet to be proven wrong, but I sure hope we do.

Julkaistu 31.8.20221.2.2023

Moaadh Benkherouf

A master's student in Northern Tourism at the University of Lapland, with a background in Environmental and Civil Engineering.

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Moving North – Part 1. The Beginning

Kulttuuri

TEKSTI Rishikesh Raut

KUVAT Rishikesh Raut

Rishikesh Raut went on a journey to the essence of Finnish state of mind: Riding his bike towards the Northern Finland, exposing himself to the elements of the nature as well as its tough love. This is Rishikesh’s journal of his six days on the road.

Where do birds go to die? In most silent forests and in most secret soils, they bury themselves – far from all sight. Last autumn, I imagined – Starting from Oulu, can I ride my bike as north as possible, and touch the North Cape, Europe’s northernmost piece of land? I tried and was asked to turn back after half the distance.

In my ride through the lap of land and water, I discovered that global warming is hoax. I slept in rooms with no roof, and where trees were kings. Nature showed me views of my outdoors and indoors, views that my four-walled home in Oulu kept hidden. The following account of those six days on the road is an attempt to share what I saw and how I felt, in my journey to the North.

// Picture 1. 10 kms from the Arctic circle (Aug 24, 2021) .

Days 1 & 2: Gray Life

The weather was ominous. By the time I rode 80 kilometers to arrive to Simo, it had started to drizzle. The town shares its name with a sniper nicknamed White Death. In the whiteness of sub-zero winter, the man earned the title by erasing 505 sorry souls who had the misfortune of being born on the other side of the border in Russia. The war lasted for about hundred days.

After dinner, I washed my biking clothes in the humid reaches of Simojoki’s bank. And as I slept, Nature thought my sleeping bag, mattress and everything else needed washing too. So, she made sure it rained all night.

I woke up to see tears of rainwater trickling down into my tent, to noiselessly feed a puddle. After adding some of my own,I decided to take the day off to warm up, dry down, and start fresh. That cold, wet day was the last one when I had wet clothes, because I never washed them again. I fell asleep to chocolate and hazelnuts in my teeth and Walter White from Breaking Bad on my phone.

Day 3, Part 1: Conspiring Givers

Moving from Simo, the weather outside and inside me had transformed for the warmer, for a change. The heater in the cottage I had rented dried my gear and clothes – wet by forces of earth and stupidity. The temperature showed single digits, but the sun was hinting arrival for the first time in two days. As the big star carved its way in through reluctant clouds, parts of me too were on their way out.

When I get out, I try to leave my ‘self’ inside. Everything that I’ve allowed to merge with my identity – I try to leave it at home; for only an empty cup can drink anew.

For the first two days, the landscape coloured by the unwanted baggage I was carrying, mirrored my dullness. But now, like the sky, the grayness within was making way for something new – like a snake shedding old skin. The sun’s warm fingers caressed my back, with the tenderness of a mother waking her favourite child. As the distant star oranged the asphalt ahead, I could feel it. The immersion – I could taste it.

Today I’d resolved, was going to be a hundred-kilometre day. At fifty, I would reach Tornio, which shared its border with Sweden. There I would see Suvi, who’s been my pen friend for a year now. We would have lunch, and she’d surprise me with a diary and a peacock box-full of stuff, decorated by her.

If you ask me, it was a conspiracy to paste a smile on my face every time I look at these things… but I could be wrong. My suspicion arises on account of her being a giver. It’s an art alien to many, because the lot of us – we never really give.
We calculate returns and invest.
We deal.
After taking from Suvi, I moved further north.

// Picture 2. Gift from Suvi.

Day 3, part 2: My Game, My Rules

I got back to pedalling. The day’s designated sleeping-spot was 50 kilometers further down the Tornejoki (Torne River). I thought, “50 is too much. 5 kilometers, ten times – doable. The last 20 kilometers, I would allow Eminem and other rappers to scream energy; so actually, only 30 kilometers to go. It’ll take me about 2 hours to make 30. 2 hours is nothing.”

After five gruelling hours of uphill-downhill riding, I set up camp by the river. On the other side, a stone’s throw away was what they call Sweden. Many years ago, one group of people stopped identifying with another group, and began strongly identifying with their own. An imaginary line was drawn, and a real river was dissected.

The dying sun watched my naked body shiver, as I neared the river it had so miserably failed to warm up. The sun might as well have been a spectacular photograph hung over the canopy of distant trees. And the waters might as well have been that way because a truck carrying golden paint crashed up-river. I dipped into the river, staying on the Finnish side – not out of reverence for borders, but only because it was too damn cold. “This is actually not that cold,” I said to myself before my feet grazed the surface. The showpiece sun watched my lying mind settle.

ggs alone were enough to earn a feature on Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, but the noodles were the stuff of his wet dreams.

// Picture 3. The showpiece sun along Tornejoki

After feeding the noodles to the fungi, bacteria, worms, squirrels, and all those who sleep in soil, I slept.

Day 3, part 3: Sleeping wild

I did not sleep before scribbling into the diary my friend gave me. It reads, “First night in wild. Chaos inside… The silence of being alone, utterly alone, is terrifying…There is also an unmistakably immense sense of calm…” I have been alone in a forest before, but never for the night. The mind, when faced with the idea of the unknown, goes berserk. Like an untied horse surrounded by ghosts, the mind gallops without direction, wanting to clutch to the safety of familiarity.

“What if something goes wrong? – Calm down, what will go wrong, there are no snakes here like in India, no leopards too. Calm down.
What about bears? – There are no bears here, and we have the phone and knife, just in case.

What if everything that can, goes wrong?”

I nearly dialed a friend back home, so she’d tell me that it’s okay. But like the hero who silently transforms as he persists through perceived impossibilities, and in that persistence becomes the movie’s hero, I did not pick up my phone. Through all that drama stirred up by the frightened mind, I decided to stay with myself a little longer… and suddenly, I was at home. I slept like a baby, who’s just thrown the biggest tantrum it could manage.

Every day out, I woke up to pee, because it was always cold. Our body has evolved since millennia; when cold, it does everything to preserve its own warmth & energy. Then why did I have to wake up, wear socks & shoes, get out, and part with my warm fluids… Without investigating further, I unzipped the tent door.

As if the sky had dropped to taste the grass, clouds of mist swallowed the forest whole. Eerie, moist, haunting. The river still raged – indifferent and intrusive.

A deaf man would have assumed that he was on a mountain, and that the thick fog above the river, stomached a valley. A blind man would have tasted the air’s water and by water’s music, he’d deduce that he stood by a waterfall. A poetic man would have begun stringing words that would poorly describe what he saw. A tired man would have returned to his sleeping bag.

Julkaistu 19.8.20221.2.2023

Rishikesh Raut

Rishikesh captured his biking journey towards Nothern Finland in Autumn 2021. Now, he shares his thoughts.

Lue lisää:

Part 2. Cultural Shocks: Is the grass always greener?

One of the most common challenges for anyone moving to a new country is adapting to the new culture, traditions, and habits while retaining their identity at the same time. Being an international student coming from an Arabic country outside of Europe, I had a lot of thoughts regarding my identity moving to Finland for […]

Ilmiöt In English Kulttuuri

TEKSTI Moustafa Khairi

KUVAT Maiju Putkonen

One of the most common challenges for anyone moving to a new country is adapting to the new culture, traditions, and habits while retaining their identity at the same time. Being an international student coming from an Arabic country outside of Europe, I had a lot of thoughts regarding my identity moving to Finland for studying for a master’s degree. Based on my personal experience, I can say it is quite challenging to retain your identity but it is doable, and at the end of the day, it is a choice!

It is hard because of many different reasons that make the two countries almost completely different. Differences starting from for instance the core beliefs to even the food, making a living in a foreign country, not an easy job. On the other hand, no one can force you to do anything that you do not believe in. You have the freedom to choose whatever you want to do without being judged, which also makes it a tough responsibility.

I could write a lot about the different traditions and habits I have experienced living a year in Finland, but I would like to focus more on the Finnish people. Unlike the stereotype, most of the Finns, from my point of view, are friendly but you just need to start the conversation. I have been involved in quite many student associations and communities and have always felt appreciated being just present. Sometimes, I am the only international person in a room of more than 20 people and all of them just switch to English to keep me engaged with them while they do not actually need or have to do that. A few are even fine with struggling to speak their non-native language for the same purpose mentioned.

In supermarkets, for instance, people welcome you with a heartwarming smile, not only when you enter the place but also when you are done and leaving. In buses, it is kind of a tradition to wave to the bus driver thanking him/her for the ride before you get off the bus, and at the same time, he/she waves back and yes, this happens with almost every single passenger!

Most of the people are willing to help whenever they are asked and sometimes they even take initiative. Through my early weeks in Finland, I was waiting for my train at the railway station at it’s expected track and it was almost 4 minutes before the scheduled leaving time and it had not arrived yet. Then, people started leaving the track slowly and I was not sure what was happening. Before heading to someone to ask, three guys standing on the opposite track noticed that I did not start moving as well and most probably I did not understand the Finnish instructions. They reached out explaining that the train changed its track due to a storm that happened and it is going to arrive at a different track and in addition, they offered to guide me to the new track due to the time limitation.

Being appreciated and welcomed, most of the time, is one of the best feelings I experienced living in Finland.

Julkaistu 14.3.20221.2.2023

Moustafa Khairi

A Machine Learning thesis worker at Nokia and a Computer Science master's student at the University of Oulu. Also, I am the Founder and Lead of Google DSC in Oulu, Slush group lead, and next president of AIESEC in Oulu.

Lue lisää:

Part 1. Cultural Shocks: Is the grass always greener?

(Mis)understandings amidst the endeavor of a foreigner adapting to Finnish culture. “Place where you be, do as you see” says a Peruvian saying. It is quite useful to blend into any cultural environment by being aware of the differences, to identify them and replicate them. Better to ride the beast than letting the beast ride […]

Ilmiöt In English Kolumni Kulttuuri

TEKSTI Pablo Santur

(Mis)understandings amidst the endeavor of a foreigner adapting to Finnish culture.

“Place where you be, do as you see” says a Peruvian saying. It is quite useful to blend into any cultural environment by being aware of the differences, to identify them and replicate them. Better to ride the beast than letting the beast ride you, isn’t it? I mean, either you are an international student or a local with international friends, this close contact with someone from a different culture for sure would have some impact on you.

This change is not accidental, neither exempt of conflict. Since we are social beings, we try to mix with the people surrounding us. At the same time, when hitting a new place, we are carrying our bag of beliefs and perceptions. In my own experience, after living in Buenos Aires for some years I went back to Lima with my voice volume a few levels higher, and a more straightforward attitude. If I left Peru being a quiet and reserved person, I came back as a loud and straightforward one.

What is happening to me here in Finland? A mix of everything. First living in Oulu and now married to a Finnish woman, I have Finnish culture in and out of home. And that has created some interesting, funny, or awkward moments. In any case, they helped me to learn more and get a deeper sense of how to behave in the local environment.

Trust above all

Sometimes I tell my wife that to take her to Peru I must train her, to change her trust beliefs. I mean, it has many lovely traditions and people are warm and celebratory, but it also has a problem with respect and trust. And same in most of Latin America. To give you an example, when I was 17, I was robbed two blocks away from home. Concerned, my mom called the police, and then I had this dialogue with a lady police officer:

OFFICER      Did you try to run?
ME                No.
OFFICER      (a little bit surprised) But you tried to knock on someone else’s door?
ME                (shier) Mmm… no.
(Long and uncomfortable pause)
OFFICER      You need to learn how to defend yourself, young man.

I was embarrassed. Double embarrassed, for letting myself be robbed and for the later reprimand. It was my responsibility to take care of myself, which also included being aware of the potential robbers. Something similar happened in my university. If my belongings were robbed, it was my fault for not watching them. So, I learned how to go around the city, always aware of the surroundings.

With that background, you can imagine now what a big deal it was for me to leave my jacket on the hangers during winter. Yep, leaving them unguarded, in no locker. Free for anyone to take.

It took me almost half a year to gather the confidence to leave it there. It was a cold day, and I could barely focus on class, imagining myself going back home just with my shirt. Walking down back to the green rack, my heart was pounding. When I found it, I felt like a parent picking his child after the first day at the daycare. Joyful and relieved.

Since then, I am more confident about leaving my clothes in the common areas or leaving my backpacks on my seat while going to buy food on the train. However, I still lock my bike. Several posts on Facebook suggest robbers here do not care about money or laptops, but their obsession is those devices with two tires.

The nuances of the system

When I go to the hospital emergency room, I know where I must go just by following the lines on the floor (red, green, yellow, black). I know what percentage to pay for taxes and what my retirement fund is. In need of a bus, I know at what time it is coming.

The system here is planned and effective. So, when I got appendicitis and was taken to the hospital, I thought that everything was settled just by giving them my personal ID. Convinced of this, I had a pleasant stay at the hospital, thinking of how well articulated the system was: just with my ID they were able to contact the insurance company that I put in my migratory application. Success. I left the hospital with this feeling. But unluckily it did not last forever.

It was a day like any other when I received the bill. It was not only for the operation, but also included the penalties for late payment. I was perplexed. I left the hospital with no one telling me anything about a bill. Now I also had to cover extra costs. Why did the nurses not tell me this? I asked this to the people in charge of the bill. “It is not their job”, they replied. And I got perplexed again.

In my previous hometown, although there were abysmal differences between the private and public healthcare system, they both shared something: if you owe them something related to your treatment YOU MUST PAY before leaving. With this background, I was struggling to understand how here everything was so different.

Although grateful for such a lovely attention, I felt a little bit bitter because of the misunderstanding. I mean, after receiving an explanation in the integration course about sexual consent and that I could not circumcise my children without the doctor consent, I was expecting something a little more detailed. Especially when there was money involved. Anyway, I paid straight away and began the process with the insurance company. However, some weeks later, there was another bill. And in this case, it came after they took the money from my bank account. This time I was just furious.

By the point I got the bills, I came back from another country after declining a doctorate position offer. What if I would have left Finland and stayed there? The local services would have lost the money. Maybe even got the impression that this guy with a foreigner name did not want to pay it, when in reality I was not even aware of how the system worked and no one explained to me.

After that I make no assumptions. Even if I sound dumb, I always ask all questions to avoid problems. It feels a little bit like back in school, when asking teachers the questions that my friends did not dare to ask to keep looking cool. Since there is enough cool here, I don’t have to worry about that.

Around flexibility

Studying my Bachelor, I used to have a friend who invited me to go for a beer whenever we met. “Now?” was my usual response, and it always preceded her laugh. For her I was a manic who had to plan everything at least a couple of days ahead. And in that sense, I feel that Finland and I had a wonderful relationship.

Do you remember that application that I said I declined? Well, one of the main reasons that led me to make that decision was the lack of planning. I could not get paid, because I did not have the local ID. To obtain it required around two months, but I only received the acceptance letter from the university two weeks before. After having lived in Finland for a couple of years, that was just impossible to bear.

However, during my studies I also unveiled some other aspects that differ from the usual Finnish thorough planning approach. I explain, before coming to Finland, I used to work as a university teacher in Peru. Mostly with experience in profit-oriented organizations, I was required to grade students several times during the semester. More exactly, three to four grades for practical exercises, and two for mid and end-term tests. And the administration assessed me, according to my compliance with the academic calendar. So, if I was late entering the grades, I would get a call from the coordinator to have a “nice chat” about my performance.

After these experiences, I was somehow manic to deliver all my assignments on time. I could eat or sleep later, but it had to be a well done and punctual delivery. So, you can imagine my surprise when hearing a teacher saying:

TEACHER     Just deliver it when you finish it
(Long pause of disbelief)
ME                 What?
TEACHER     Is it not clear?
ME                 So, no deadline?
TEACHER     No, just finish it.

And those words bring pure joy and bliss to my heart. I disliked that course from the bottom of my heart, but now I had until whenever I pleased to complete the final task. Not next week, neither the end of the semester. No, it was just me and my free will to deal with it. Well, kind of, because I still had to finish the university in two years or pay the corresponding fees.

I did not think about that task again until my classmates started to wonder why we did not get the grades yet. Then, I made peace with the course and deal with the assignment. I finished it during the weekend and send it. It was 67 days after the course finished (I just counted them again for the purposes of this article). The next day we all had our grades. I got a 5, but the guilt of delaying everyone else’s grades made me promise never to delay an assignment again.

With this article I do not pretend to make a generalization of the Finnish society, I just share things according to my own experiences during my time here.

When I came here, I thought that Finland was heaven on Earth. Now, I realized that as any other society, it has its pros and cons. Most of my experiences here had been sweet, and the few bitter moments did not alter my perception that this is a really organized country that cares for people. I am now curious to see how Finland would look in a few years, when more and more foreigners settle down on it.

Julkaistu 7.3.20221.2.2023

Pablo Santur

Learning specialist in thesis writing mode. Former TV scriptwriter. Foodie. Anime lover. Twitter: @pablodsantur