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.

Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday

What do these three days mean to you, as a Christian and a non-Christian?

I am a Christian by birth and tradition. But I am a secularist by upbringing as the Christian schools and college that I went to told me that that there was no differnce in the religions, except man-made ones.

But some traditions that I followed as a Christian have stayed deeply engraved in my mind and although I do not practice all of them today, they are part of my heritage.

The first relates to Palm Sunday. It is the day Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem sitting on an ass. He was greeted by crowds waving palms.

The tradition that I remember from this dates back to my childhood days in Bangalore.

From Jacob's Blog

When we went to church on Palm Sunday,  we received this cross made from a palm leaf.

When we moved to Bombay, I sort of remember that my mother may have introduced this practice also in the St. Thomas Cathedral.

When we came to Finland, The English Club of Oulu used to hold a very traditional lunch on Palm Sunday. Annikki was for a time the Chairperson of this Club which was to help promote the English language amongst Finns. (More about this in another blog entry, hopefully!)

One year, I had the Palm Crosses flown from in from India to Oulu to give to all the participants of this lunch in Oulu. It was greatly appreciated and a few of those still have them in their Bibles as book markers! This lunch tradition has vanished over the years!

The second tradition that sticks in my mind was the sombre atmosphere that pervaded our household on Good Friday. My mom and dad used to go to church early morning and then again at noon for a long three hour service. On a few occasions, when we asked, they would take us to the service. Some years we went tothe Orthodox Church where the service was more intense and longer.

In the long service all the stages that took place while Christ was being taken to the cross, nailed and till his death, were recreated. People in the church genuinely felt all the anguish and pain that Jesus and his family and friends must have been through.

After the service, as none of us would have eaten a morsel that day, we would have a very traditional meal of rice in the rice water (called kanji in Malayalam), cooked beans (paira) and a very spicy pickle, the sparsest and simplest of meals that one can have in our Kerala tradition.

The sombre atmosphere would continue right through to Friday evening, when we would sing hymns to my dad's piano playing. It would also run into Saturday. We were not permitted any form of "enjoyment", but this was never given or taken as a punishment. The whole atmosphere was as if we were mourning the death of a very real family friend.

Then would come Easter Day. Right from the early morning, the atmosphere changed from the one of great sadness to one of untold joy. Everyone would wish each other. My dad would ring his friends all around the world to wish them a very happy Easter!

There was a rush to put on our very best clothes and be in church to wish all our friends. This atmosphere of untold joy was so infectious. The smiles and happiness would continue in the songs we sang and the get together for tea and cofee with biscuits after the church service.

Then we would go home to a wonderful Easter lunch which was the very best food we could afford! This would bring to end the 40 days of Lent where we would have each given up something we really liked. The money saved would be entered into a card and that would be given by my mom to some charity.

The meal was usually biriyani (Chicken or mutton),  a wonderful curry (usually chicken), lots of vegetable side dishes and a very sweet rice traditional paysam. As some of us liked fried fish, this was also usually on the menu.

My mom would invite anyone who she thought was alone, to join us for the lunch. She really believed in sharing our good fortune and joy with others.

Talking to Joanna yesterday, I did find that she did remember that as a child she had experienced the Good Friday atmosphere and had enjoyed the sparse meal served up at home. As we used to have the Easter type meal on several occasions other than Easter, she may not have remembered that in particular.

I wonder whether these traditions still persist among Christian families in India? I only wish they do for the children of the present generation!