My Experiences in Finland - The Nation with lots of Nature

”Not dark at all” This is my first imp­res­si­on about Fin­land. When I saw the view from pla­ne, the­re were lots of be­au­ti­ful en­vi­ron­ment inc­lu­des fo­rest and la­kes. As I’d got any in­for­ma­ti­on about Fin­land be­fo­re I came here, most­ly tho­se ar­tic­les men­ti­o­ned about its dark­ness. So I’ve been ex­pec­ting Fin­land as a tough count­ry to stay and I an­ti­ci­pa­ted that so­me­ti­mes I would get dif­fi­cul­ty to talk with pe­op­le. It’s also be­cau­se of cer­tain ar­tic­le which tre­ats Fin­nish pe­op­le as the shiest pe­op­le in the world. (Though the 2nd is ac­tu­al­ly Ja­pa­ne­se.)

The first per­son I tal­ked with was ac­tu­al­ly the baby I met in the lift of Ho­tel Finn. He loo­ked hap­py being with his mot­her un­til that mo­ment he saw my face, he’d just star­ted crying when I say ”Ter­ve” , I gu­ess he was trying to comp­lain my pro­nun­ci­a­ti­on but I can feel my­self as a fo­rei­ner here at that mo­ment. Also, his mot­her kind­ly told me on which floor the Ho­tel is so I could ef­fa­ce my pre­ju­di­ce con­ver­se­ly.

Not to men­ti­on, sin­ce I came Kuo­pio, I’ve met many pe­op­le and had any kinds of ex­pe­rien­ces, that so­me­ti­mes was fa­bu­lous the ot­her ti­mes, na­tu­ral­ly, not that ad­mi­rab­le. If I re­fer from good afair, I should men­ti­on my co­wor­kers. The first time when I went to klas­sik­ka, it’s not easy to talk and int­ro­du­ce my­self to eve­ryo­ne though I tried. Of cour­se still I’ve been trying to find the way to un­ders­tand each ot­her even at this mo­ment. But eve­ry­ti­me I try, as I said about shy­ness of pe­op­le from tho­se 2 count­ry, the­re are awk­ward mo­ment emer­ged so of­ten. Even we are able to read si­len­ce as a un­ders­tan­dab­le word. Thanks to this as­pect, I’ve just re­a­li­zed my lack of know­led­ge, or any kinds of ex­pe­rien­ces so that I’ve been trying to do eve­ryt­hing I want, in or­der to know how to make my life en­joyab­le.

Ho­we­ver, even though I didn’t try, so­me­how I got dep­res­sed so­me­ti­mes in the­se 3months. I could feel my brain fil­led up with eve­ry ide­as that I came up with, inc­lu­ding both of real and un­re­al. I gu­ess it can be also part of my ex­pe­rien­ces in Fin­land. It’s pos­sib­le in the dark­ness to ima­gi­ne eit­her of the real and un­re­al be­cau­se I can’t see anyt­hing. The­re has been eve­ryt­hing I can ima­gi­ne du­ring tho­se alo­ne night. But ob­vi­ous­ly it can’t be real un­til I en­coun­ter. And, I didn’t lose any hope for real, to meet my friends or to te­ach my cul­tu­re for my stu­dents, so I can fall as­leep ea­si­ly with loo­king for­ward to tho­se things hap­pe­ning to me. I just mean to find the so­lu­ti­on against this troub­le of dark­ness, it’s just the­re, like all of my friends are al­ways around me. Be­cau­se of the dark­ness, re­la­ti­ve­ly it’s qui­te easy to find tho­se light, cer­tain kind of light, they rai­se me up.

Now I’m still smi­ling eve­ry sing­le day, en­joying my Ja­pa­ne­se class with cu­ri­ous stu­dents and the foods such as kala­kuk­ko, kar­ja­lan­pii­rak­ka, pi­par­kak­ku. Tot­ta kai I love sau­na!!!!

And, af­ter all my 6months-staying, I swe­ar I’m going to say, ”Not dark at all ”.

Hi­ros­hi Haya­sa­ka