Helsinki Times

Happy to be a foreigner

Moving to Finland in October 2010 was not such a culture shock for me. I had visited the country on numerous occasions and had friends in Finland going back nearly 20 years. Leaving Ireland, however, was a bittersweet experience. The full weight of the financial crisis had become apparent and the crash meant that the chances of my returning to Ireland and gaining employment again were unlikely – there was a sense of finality in the move.

Inevitably we will miss things about our home country. We miss small things: foodstuffs we grew up with, how people interact socially and perhaps even the pace of life to which we have become accustomed. Most of all we miss family and friends – those near and dear to us. Thankfully, modern social media means we can keep in daily contact with those back home. But it’s not quite the same.

Before I moved to Finland my circle of friends had remained relatively unchanged for most of my life. I had good, old friends – ones whom I had known from my school-going years. These were part of my ‘home’ – solid, reliable and always there when you needed them. They are great friends and whenever I return to Ireland they are there, and things are as if I had never left.

During that time the number of international friends I had numbered about five or six – mostly wives or partners of my friends – from about four different countries. I had never previously sheltered myself from meeting people of diverse nationalities – in fact I’ve always had an interest in different cultures and Ireland in the past decade or so has become quite multicultural – it was more a case of lack of opportunity.

Yet in the 15 months since I’ve been in Finland I’m happy to say the circle has expanded to dozens of people, from about 22 different nations. As an example, two weeks before Christmas I went for a drink with some friends from my Finnish language course. There were nine of us, of nine different nationalities, from Sweden to Vietnam and Serbia to India. The cultural diversity and range of conversation really were something to behold.

Attending language courses has led me to a number of friendships with people who are also immigrants. We struggle with the language, we complain about the volume of work and, more importantly, over weeks and months we get to know each other. There is a sense of all of us being in the same boat and this has begun to give me a new sense of home – that is the oneness of being an immigrant.

One other hugely important thing I did last spring was to become involved in the Finnish Red Cross. The volunteer work is immensely rewarding, but one of the most positive things is meeting people from around the world, hearing their stories and getting to know them. The volunteers are a mix of Finns and non-Finns, internationally-minded and, by the nature of the Red Cross movement, without prejudice and willing to help others. And so steadily the circle keeps expanding.

It can be easy to feel down about living away from the place of your birth, but the thing to remember is that we are not alone in this new home of ours – in fact our being from elsewhere is the very thing which unites us with so many others here. I truly have great Finnish friends – ones I can really depend on – but the friends who are also immigrants are the ones who give me this new and very important sense of home. I wouldn’t swap it for the world.