Becoming a Better One--The Year I spent in Finland

Time:2011-06-02 17:40:00 Clicks:

Towards the west, the airplane crossed 6 time zones. I arrived at Oulu, Finland finally. The memory about that day is full of the smell of the sea and the falling down sun at 21 o’clock.

Happy times always pass away easily. The year I spent in Finland is just like this. In fact, the first glance at Oulu disappoints me a little bit. However, beautiful things always need time to blossom. After I solve all the problems concerning the basic daily lives, I start to enjoy my life.

The experience in International School helps me a lot. I feel no problem at class when I am taking the lectures or talking with the professors, because we have been trained for 3 years since we entered the International College.

However there are a lot of differences between Chinese and Finnish educational systems and teaching methods. For example, Finnish teacher like to have a close communication with the students, one of our lecturers even teaches us how to dance at class. I think it may be a little bit unimaginable in China. From the other way, Chinese teachers value the relationships between the facts and theories more. When the financial crisis happened the year before last year, almost every teacher in China made an extra speech for it. But at the lectures I take in Finland for the whole year, I gain nothing about the reality.

I like the learning atmosphere in the University of Oulu very much, especially the library. There are countless books, journals in English—fictions, poems, scientific magazines etc. I usually stay there for the whole day if I do not have lectures, sometimes I even forget the lunch time.

This is a world of pure and good to the study. I can pay me to the things I concern with no doubt. What I do everyday is learning. But I can not use the word “tedious” to describe the life because it is not, really. When you are doing something you really like, you can not tell how happy you are because of a pride coming up with concentration.

As to the daily life, loneliness is indispensable since we are 6500 km far away from home. Anyway, the colorful activities will make it disappear. We have parties with the students from more than 100 countries. We go to Lapland to see the Arctic lights, to see the Santa Clause’s hometown, to BBQ together. I have learned how to make Sushi with Japanese roommates, how to make spaghetti from the flour with Italian roommates, and how to make Pulla with Finnish friends. I think those are just the meaning of studying abroad. We can not only learn the knowledge but also get the foreign experience and know what the world really looks like.

The International Office in the University of Oulu offers me a kummi family. That aims to help foreign exchange students to get in touch with how Finns’ life works. I go to the concert every week with my kummi family. And they teach me the traditional stories or customs of Finnish culture. What’s more, they treat me as I am their daughter and make away my homesick.

We have to get through some difficulties in the daily life. The first one is the low temperature. During December, the lowest temperature can be down to minus 30 degree. It is a tough question to me who stay in the southern part of China for the past 20 years. I have never seen so much snow which lasts from September to the next May. Then, I cannot speak Finnish, either can other Chinese. We try to taste in the supermarket to know which the salt or sugar is. We have to ask where the city building is when the map is in Finnish. But Finns are one of the most kind-hearted people in the world. If the one we ask can not speak English, he will walk far until he can find someone who can speak English to help us. At last, it is the food. Almost every Chinese here can cook very well, it helps minimize the homesick at some level. We have a Chinese students union. No matter where you go, Chinese people are always like a big family.

Finland is one of the countries that have the best welfare system in the world. We can get cheaper buffet in the university restaurant. Besides, we can get 50% off train tickets and other countless welfare. The Finnish university students can get an extra 600 euros every month, which aims to help them not rely on the family or parents any more. I think it is a very good thing to the students. Most of the friends I know have their own job in the part-time.

A benefit of studying in Finland is that we can travel across Europe. I value this trip of 7 countries very much. It shows me a pretty new viewpoint of the world. I gain lots of direct feelings about the difference of inter-countries. It is nice to see how harmonious that people of different colors or culture backgrounds can live together with no bias.

The difference between different people is obvious. Finnish people are pure, Italy is full of historical atmosphere, French woman are elegant and not that proud as everyone believes, Switzerland is a country with sceneries compared to the poems, Germans are not cold as they look like. I find it is very interesting to observe how the communications happen. After the trip, I know one reality, that is there is no good or bad, but the difference. This reality makes me have a re-consideration about the mechanisms of the international trades and communication. I will make it into use in the future.

In order to take an interview in Bonn, I go to Germany by myself. It is a 7-day trip that helps me find myself in a new way. I begin to comprehend deeply the reasons my parents send me to study abroad. There is not too much relationship with the life in developed countries, not with the advanced knowledge, not the funny crazy parties, but the experience makes me understand the meaning of life and make me stronger day by day.

The year I stay in Finland passed like a second, but the memory there will never fade in the future.

I will not forget the pure eye look of Finnish people.
I will not forget the so look “fairy tale” scenery from the window of the library.
I will not forget the sleepless night at the shuttle train in different countries.
I will not forget…

The experience in Europe for the past year gives me so much that I can not find an exact word to descript it. But the snow, the sea, the forests are all parts of my life. They make sense not only in the history I went through but also in the way I live in the future.
 

2006級國際金融1班 楊欣寧