My name is Cuiting Zhang, as you can decide from my name that I am not original Finnish. I have immigrated from China to Finland when I was 10-year-old. I went to Finnish school and I got Finnish friends, so I became a Finnish! I am so glad for being multicultural person and I can learn from both of Chinese and Finnish cultures. For me, Finland means many things. In this part, I just point out some specific of them.
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First, the nature. Looking at the outside we can decide how much Finnish do care about the nature. While I am living in Finland, I have learned to sort the trash and separate metals from the products and I am really proud of the system of Pantti (which means you can have deposit while you returned the used bottles). So, people are very willing to collect the bottles from the street and this very amazed me.
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The second one is independence (Okay, I know that belongs to original Finnish that they like to ask the help and want to do all things by themselves). Most of students are moving from home at 18 years old and start to get the first part-time job. So, I did the same. My high school life was very simple: I went to school on the weekday and worked at weekend. It sounds a little bit hard, but believe me, it was so instructive experience.
*I don’t need help to choose the shirt (or maybe I do…)
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The third thing is personal space. My original country is a very loud place and there is so many people in everywhere. Finland is a opposite from China. While I am taking the bus, nobody is talking loudly and people even don’t choose to sit beside of another if there is a free space around.
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After these many years, I became a Finnish. I appreciate this place and the culture, but I still want to know more about my original country, China, that I choose to go to exchange. I am looking forward to this trip a lot and the experience I will gain from my mother country.
(Pictures belong to Finnish Nightmare -comics by Karoliina Korhonen)
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