The last one to tell us about her life in Oulu is a German family with two children, aged 12,5 and 10 years. I met with the mother of the family who is 40 years old and works as a tailor. The family lives in their own house and they have been in Oulu now for seven years.

Not surprisingly anymore work was the main reason for this family to move to Oulu. She explains: “Actually my husband works here for VTT. At that time when we were deciding I just said: Let’s go and try and we can always move on if necessary. But there were other uncertainties and one part was that we would have to go back to Germany and I did not want to do that.”

 

She continues with her opinion about life here in Oulu: “It has been quite a long time here. I don’t know if I should say that it’s more difficult than living anywhere abroad but probably it’s not. What is important is how you think about things and your attitude towards living in a foreign country. If you think about the positive sides, you can somehow solve problems as they come along.”

Making friends with Finns is apparently not a walk in the park and she agrees: “It’s very difficult! We have two real Finnish friends who are a couple and for them I can honestly say that I know they would be prepared to help us at any time. The man is my husbands’ co-worker so that is how we got to know each other. Otherwise there are just acquaintances like for example parents you meet at the day-care or school but those are not really your friends.”

On the question what does she value most about Oulu she answers: “I would definitely say services in English. The papers and forms are mostly in English for example at the tax office, post office or police station. And the second thing at the moment would be safety in town. I can still say that my children are able to grow up like we did and Oulu should maintain that. But it is already slowly changing.” As most foreigners she as well misses something and this time it is not the food: “I do miss a daily newspaper with local news and literature in German and English. Oulu book stores have only a limited amount of literature in those two languages and that is what I found sad.”

Like Rebecca, the mother finds herself in deep thought at the question of Oulu in one word. At the end she comes to the same conclusion as Rebecca: it is simply not possible. But she has more to say when it comes to giving advice to a foreigner, thinking of living here:
“Be active in everything you do, especially in personal life. Keep asking questions and don’t accept everything that comes your way. Like for example in your own country when someone says no to you, you want to know why and that is why you should ask for the reason behind the answer you get. Finns do speak English so don’t be afraid. They understand but they are afraid to speak. So it is better to form a question like this: “Is it ok if I speak English? Do you understand English?” instead of “Do you speak English?.” When I changed my questions it opened many doors for me in the first year. Before I was wondering why I got so many “no’s” and then I changed my question. Everything has changed since then.”

She finds it very strange that Finns generally do not initiate a conversation. That is why you should be active and ask first because they won’t start on their own. But she also had some surprisingly pleasant experience with Finns: “We went on a trip and we came to a point where we had to make a left turn but we were too fast and there was a truck behind us. It was in the winter and there was a lot of snow. So we were forced to suddenly drive to a pile of snow and only the wheels were left in the air still spinning around. Luckily the children were asleep and didn’t even notice anything. But we didn’t have a shovel in our car. And we were thinking what can we do and the only way was to lift the back part of the car in order to get it out. And then came by a Finn and he said something which we didn’t understand. Ten minutes later he came back with another guy and three shovels. So they shovelled and shovelled and they finally were able to push our car out of the snow. It was funny because we couldn’t communicate but it was so normal for them to just help somebody. It’s like they always know what to do. This goes perfectly with their personality and their nation: they don’t say much but instead look at the situation and they know what to do.”

Interesting enough is seems that work is the main reason why foreigners decide to come to Oulu. Better position, better pay and a friendly middle-sized town combined with nature is apparently attractive to outsiders. And none of them even thought of mentioning tougher living conditions in winter. We (foreigners) simply try to look at the bright sides of living in Oulu and make the best of it.