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.

Mumbai landing

Before we landed at Mumbai, we were given two forms to fill in. The first was a statement to be filled and signed by us about our possible contact with Swine Flu. the second was the Immigration landing form.

It really showed that I was completely out of touch with India as I filled up the Immigration form. There was a point about "ECR" to be filled in by Indians. For the life of me I had no idea what was an "ECR". After racking my brains, I thought it best if I asked on of the Indian youngsters who was sitting in the row in front of me.

I tapped on his shoulder and asked him what was an "ECR". He looked at me incredulously, thinking where this old goofy guy had come from and something in an American accent, which I could hardly understand. Then the guy sitting next to him said it stood for "Emmigration Clearance Required".

I was so naive, I asked what that meant - when he told me to look in my Passport. Sure enough, there it was stamped that I did not require emmigration clearance!

We landed on time at Mumbai International Airport at 25 minutes past midnight on 19th November. As the aircraft doors opened, the feeling was exactly like being in a sauna, the temperature being around + 30 C. We were pouring with sweat as we walked a long long walk from the aircraft to the Health Registration counter where we were expected to give up that form we had filled on the aircraft. Along the way I read a placard that said that Finland was one of the countries on the list where there was swine flu, and our ear temperature would be taken.

Obviously the guys and girls at the counter did not have much faith in such placards placed on the way from the aircraft, so as soon as the took our forms, they waved us on to immigration - which was another long walk.

As we were walking slowly, we were among the last at the counter. I handed all three forms, Annikki's, Mika's and mine, to the officer. He asked me to stand in front of him. Then he went through my passport, issued in 2004, which was pristine clean with only one entry, my Finnish residence permit. Not a single other entry - except the stamp showing I had left Finland on this journey.

The officer looked at me and asked how long I had lived in Finland. when I told him it had been my home for 25 years, he said he was proud of me as I had kept my Indian nationality.

(I wondered which other country would give a dumbass like me their citizenship!)

We finished immigration and we were waved through customs to again make a long long walk to the terminal exit where we hoped our car and driver would be waiting for us. It was past 1:30 when we reached the exit!