Orienting to a new life in Finland

We had the good fortune to host a young Indinn student for about two months on his arrival to join Oulu University. The Northern Finland Housing Fund (PSOAS) could not offer him accommodation. 

A friend from Tampere asked us for assistance to find some accommodation for this young 17 year old boy.

We have had considerable experience in looking after visitors as over 10000 Indian IT engineers have been with us, as a commercial enterprise between 2006 to 2016.  

I remember how  IT engineers from LnT arrived in Oulu without even proper clothing. The team leader found one of our web pages and there was a call for help. 

We helped them find accommodation, (which later became known as , India House) introduced them to the flea market culture and helped them settle in. 

After that we started a commercial enterprise and it spread from Oulu to Espoo, Tampere, Helsinki, Vantaa, and also Kuopio and Raahe.

We knew they had several problems and helped most of them get through the initial phase. Simple tasks like finding and changing a fuse in an apartment could be a daunting task for someone who has no experience of the systems in Finland. 

The language was another big problem.  Opening a bank account, using cash machine machine and even filling petrol at a petrol station were new tasks for many of them.

Now we are too old to provide that sort of physical support and we are also too old to start and run a business.

I talked to Annikki about this. 

As our son had moved to his own apartment and his room was free, we offered his room for a period of two months so that the student could get his own apartment. 

As one of our guiding principle states, is to offer a helping hand to anyone who reaches out for help.

We thought that could help him in many ways as we could enjoy his company and at the same time find out how such youngsters should learn about Finnish life. 

We are two generations away and have to change our thinking frequency to understand their mindset.

We found that  youngsters are ill -equipped with information on how to cope with life in Finland.

We gave this student a copy of our out-dated 1994 book “Handbook for Survival in Finland”. 

A second student arrived soon after to stay in a nearby apartment. He had accommodation but still was raw in many other ways. 

We also gave him a copy of our book.

 But I knew the data was not complete. I also realised there were huge gaps in the information.

For instance, the very simple tradition of taking off the shoes when one enters a house, is not one that young people know or understand. 

Finnish children get educated in life as they grow up. They have school classes which tell them the essentials. Many children go to summer camps where they learn to interact with others positively.

Annikki and I decided we would put together a book about how these youngsters should be informed about important aspects of Finnish life and culture so that they do not face problems when they start their new life in Finland.

I have set up the peliminary list of chapters for the book. 

We are interested to know if any of our ethnic minority students and residents who have established themselves in Finland would like to share in this task by writing their own experiences. 

The more the merrier.

I read today that because of the spat between Canada and India the number of students likely to come to Finland is likely to rise dramatically in the coming years.

Please contact us with your offer for contribution. Whatever comes will be edited by me to fit our style. Many subjects have to be presented in a manner which is not harsh or derrogotary.

We look forward to your active participation in this project which we think is important as every arrival is an Ambassador for his country and it is important to put a good foot forward to be readily accepted into Finnish life.

Here are the India House events which helped build our community 15 years ago.

Oulu buses and prices

I had not travelled as a paying passenger in a bus for a long long time.

My first seven years in Oulu, when I was working at the University, I travelled by bus.

When I arrived here in 1984, the fare from the Kampitie doorstep to the University (route 33), right across town, was just 3 marks (about € 0,50). Then I started to use a bus pass and the cost per journey was hardly € 0,10 as I used the pass many times a day.

I was not very happy with the weekend service and wrote a blistering article about it way back in 1991.

When I started using the car, first a VW Beetle, then a great Opel and then several other wonderful cars till my latest 1992 VW Vento, I hardly used the bus.

I used the service extensively when grandson Samuel was a toddler (1998-2000). But, in Oulu, we have a great rule that when accompanying a toddler in a push chair, neither has to pay the fare. I used to criss cross the city with him looking at all sorts of things as machines, cement churners, road rollers, dump trucks, cranes, as he used to be fascinated by them.

Finally, the other day, I gave my car for some work. I realised the bus stand was just outside my favourite garage, and there is a direct bus home.

Once on board I paid the fare - € 2,90.

An increase from € 0,50 to € 2,90 in 25 years seemed a bit steep to me. My pension vis-á-vis my salary in 1984 has not gone up by the dame ratio!

I cannot say whether the bus service has improved or not based on a couple of trips.

I can say the new technologies that are in play - bus arrival schedules at major bus stops along the route, the RFID bus cards (I was the actor in the first video of BUSCOM, reading the Financial Times in the Technology Village Cafe), and the modern bus fleet, certainly seems to indicate that it is a good service.

But worth the € 2,90 for a trip. Certainly not!