The Culture Coaching project, jointly run by the VALOA project and the Network for International Students, aims to target local business with an international reach and persuade them to pay international Masters students as cultural consultants or, as they put it, ‘cultural ambassadors.’

Currently, the project includes students from eleven different countries where Oulu companies might wish to do business including Russia, Japan, India and Greece.

According to the Culture Coaching website, the project will help participating businesses to understand and optimize the ‘role of cultural differences when cooperating and dealing with international partners either in Finland or abroad.’ It will mean that they can ‘find out about the culture coach’s native culture and country of origin:  organisational culture; styles of leadership and communication; how meetings are conducted; when to and when not to talk business; power relations and traditions; travelling in the country; language issues’. It will be an ‘easy and inexpensive way to benefit from the know-how of local international students right here in Oulu.’ In addition, it will be a learning-experience and possibly aid recruitment.

The Culture Coaches include Kiyoko Uematsu, from Japan, who says on the project’s website that ‘I am here to ease or optimize your transition into the Japanese working world and culture. Through my own working experience as well as my academic and professional training in international education, I can help you with the cross-cultural challenges that your business may be facing.’ She has studied in the USA and now doing a Masters in Education and Globalization.

Marita Alexaki, also an Education and Globalization Masters student is from Greece. She explains that, ‘Greece is more than sun and beaches, ancient philosophy and the euro crisis – especially if your are (sic.) conducting business.’ The 30 year-old structural engineer, who has also studied Spanish continues that, ‘I am here to try to ease your way into Greek business and culture, help you deepen your knowledge in this area and to assist you in getting a better understanding and capacity to avoid of stereotypical thinking and behavior – both on the Finnish and Greek side as well as to help you find the opportunities that lie behind the economic crisis.’

According to the project, all of their coaches are ‘talented Masters degree students’ whose areas of expertise include international business, environmental engineering and global education.’

Education and Globalization student Yu-hsuan Lee.

Henni Saarala, of the VALOA Project, told 65DN that many businesses consultancies offer international coaching of these kind. But they don’t always involve natives of the countries. All of the Culture Coaches are ‘natives’ who have worked in their home countries as well as abroad.

The cultures on offer include China and Russia which are ‘big growth centres’ with Oulu companies find ‘very interesting.’ Also, the Culture Coaches will be inexpensive compared to what business consultancies charge, asking for a minimum of 50 euros for a session, the details of which can be negotiated.

Yu-hsuan Lee, 26, is the Culture Coach for Taiwan. Also an Education and Globalization student, she told 65DN that the project offered her ‘very good training’ and she wanted to get involved in order to show local business that international students are a good potential source of employees. So far, she has introduced Taiwanese culture, on a volunteer basis, at the International Fair at Villa Victor, Oulu’s multicultural centre.

Sara Chafak

The 21 year-old from Helsinki took the Miss Finland crown in the pageant at Hameenlinna’s Vanajanlinna castle on Sunday night. Miss Chafak, who speaks not only Finnish but English and Arabic, was slightly overcome with emotion as she accepted the prize, which she dedicated to her grandmother.

She told 65DN that ‘My mother is Finnish and my father is Moroccan.’ She wasn’t sure about the circumstances of her father’s coming to Finland but ‘but he fell in love with my mother and they made me.’

‘I haven’t thought a lot about my background but I think being half-Moroccan is an advantage in my career’ she continued. ‘It is my benefit.’

She believed that ‘Mixed people are more beautiful’ and ‘now is the time.’ Sara is actually the second ‘mixed’ person to have won Miss Finland. The first was Lola Odosoga (now married and called Lola Wallinkoski), who took the crown in 1997. Wallinkoski, whose father is Nigerian and whose mother is Finnish, hosted Miss Finland on Sunday night.

Miss Chafak told 65DN that now she was won she hopes to ‘get a lot of modelling work. We will see what it will bring,’ she added. She will also represent Finland in the Miss Universe competition.

According to the Miss Suomi organisers, Miss Chafak is 172cm tall and weighs 56kg. Her hobbies include singing, soccer and ‘eating good food’ and she is studying International Marketing at the Estonian Business School. Her motto is ‘All or nothing.’

77 percent of Oulu people now belong to the Lutheran Church compared to 78 percent in 2010. That year saw record resignations, seemingly connected to statements made by Christian Democrat leader Dr Päivi Räsänen. She is now a minister in the Six Pack coalition government.

Nationally, membership of the Lutheran Church also stands at 77 percent, so Oulu, often considered a relatively religious area, is representative of the country as a whole.

In terms of raw numbers, church membership in the city actually grew by 2000 because Yli-Ii was incorporated into one of the Oulu parishes. But using comparable boundaries, membership fell.

The numbers of people divorcing the church in the city, at 1.5 percent members, was about half of what it was the previous year.

Resignations peaked in mid-October 2010 after Dr Räsänen’s remarks about homosexual marriage and adoption on a discussion programme about the Lutheran Church. She told 65DN at the time that, ‘Now over 30,000 have left. I am not responsible for it . . . Marriage is an agreement between a man and a woman. This is a Christian view . . . I see it in the Old and New Testament and in Jesus’ teaching.’ She also re-emphasised her opposition to gay adoption emphasising that, ‘a child needs both parents.’

Both the Oulu region and Lapland voted for the Centre Party’s Paavo Väyrynen. So Kokoomus’s Sauli Niinistö and the Greens’ Pekka Haavisto were last week strongly campaigning in the north. Niinistö packed out Rotuaari while Haavisto pressed the flesh in Kemi.

In general, Niinistö did better than Haavisto in the north in the first round. However, it is unclear to what extent voters for the eliminated candidates will flock to one or other of the frontrunners.

YLE has attempted to discover which way Members of Parliament in the Oulu region intend, but with little success. It seems they are staying tight-lipped, possibly unsure of the mood of their supporters.

According to the broadcaster, eleven of the Oulu MPs  – 5 from the Centre Party, three SDP and three True Finns – simply will not say, or do not yet know, who they will vote for.

Unsurprisingly, the region’s three Kokoomus MPs are voting for Niinistö but they are joined by three Centre Party MPs and the True Finns’ Olli Immonen.

The region’s Green MP will be voting for Haavisto. She will be joined by all four of its Left Alliance MPs.

If voters follow their declared MPs, then Niinistö will certainly win in Oulu.

Temperature falling to minus 24 in the morning.

According to the Meteorological Department, northern Finland will remain extremely cold for much of next week.

Saturday night was the coldest night so far this winter. Temperatures fell to – 35 in Taivalkoski, – 34.9 in Kuhmo and – 34-5 in Kuusamo.

Taivalkoski also has the most snow, 75cm of it due to recent snowdrifts. Helsinki hit – 15 while Oulu itself was around – 20. By Sunday afternoon, Oulu was – 21.

According to weather forecasters, parts of north West Finland will hit – 25 in the middle of the week while it will be as cold as – 35 in the east and in Lapland.

While my life in Oulu seemed like an expedition to the North Pole—biscuits and pemmican gone, hiking around ice chasms with the dream of planting a flag somewhere—visiting a cottage in the Finnish forest feels safe and familiar. On these terms, Finland and my ‘breakdown’ seem manageable. Where two weeks previously I had struggled to reach yoghurt from a fridge, fetching wood for a fire is simple.‘There’s a fireplace; there’s a basket that needs filling,’ I think. The simplicity comforts me. I carry a piece of wood from the forest inside and feel courageous. The trees are like giants standing still. I hear the wind and my husband breathing, but no one slams a door or revs a car engine and no email ‘ding’ makes me jump.

I’m like a little girl again. The birch branch smells like spices, and my muscles work perfectly, expanding and contracting as if by magic. I see myself doing things and before long I do them. Walk-to-the-lake-with-a-kettle-to-get-water, I think, and my thigh muscles move. Sit-down-by-the-fire-and-watch-steak-fry, I tell my brain, then do it. The flames make smoke, and sometimes I change place when the wind blows smoke in my direction, or change place to be closer to the fire. My husband and I sit on tree trunks and eat our peppers and onions, in smaller, half-plated portions because the boys aren’t here.

This is more than a day trip to Helsinki would have been. I’m training myself, proving that I’m alive and that I can exist without crying. Out here I know I won’t cry; in Oulu I was afraid to meet people or talk on the phone because a word or a phrase; for example, ‘How are you doing?’ or ‘How’s work?’ or ‘Are you missing the boys’; would start an emotional reaction; I’d start to bawl. ‘No …. I’m … not … missing the boys,’ I’d answer, tone wavering before the sobbing started. The tractability of life here and the absence of people is like a warm blanket.

Vaguely, I know that behind this comfort, my mind is scattered and conflicted. A dull confusion sits in my stomach, and the headache is a hand around the back of my neck. I see disorientation in how my husband doesn’t ask, ‘Are you enjoying this?’ or how he doesn’t mention the boys or work, not even his own. My mind soon flashes warnings also. Don’t start talking about living in Finland. Pause. Don’t talk about how lonely you are at work. Pause. These are accompanied by mental cinema of the upset I’ll experience if I do decide to blab. In one image, I decide to climb a rock by the lake and fall, breaking my spine. In another, I leave my hand on the fire, then notice the flames.

With another warning, ‘Don’t talk about work at all,’ comes visions of crying once more, rushing to the water, shouting, splashing, holding a broken leg and in hysterics, screaming curse words, ‘shit’ and ‘scheisse’ and ‘godverdomme,’ the Dutch word for ‘god dammit,’ because the ‘r’ sounds angry—you can really roll it—and the longer it is, the angrier you are.

At five pm the sky’s black. My coat, woolly scarf and hat keep me warm. When the chimney starts to warm, a glow can be seen through the glass doors. We decide to go for a walk. Returning, the thermometer reads thirteen degrees; I keep my coat on and pour coffee. The chandelier over the kitchen table gives just enough light to read. My husband searches for a comic from upstairs, an attic space under the slanted roof,  and now and then we go to the sauna with a flashlight to check that the stove is burning.

We take our clothes off in the dressing room. ‘Want to take a dip?’ my husband asks, pointing in the direction of the dark surface below. I shiver and stare at goose bumps on my arms. ‘Wimp,’ he says, and then walks towards the lake while I step into the sauna. I pour water on the stones and mix boiling water from the tank with lake water before washing my hair. I step onto the bench, get seated, and close my eyes.

Cold or not, I suddenly want to stay. Everything would be perfect if I could stay. It doesn’t matter how long: two weeks, two months, a year. I feel as comfortable as a tribesman in the wilderness; heating, food, music, friends and electrical appliances or not. I rehearse a conversation in which I talk about staying to my husband, who’s still in the lake. ‘Can’t we stay longer?’ I say when he does come in. ‘Teaching duties next week,’ he answers. ‘Leave me here,’ I say, anticipating his reply, trying to move him, ‘—one week might just be enough.’ His face turns; the discussion is going nowhere. ‘No way Ata; that’s never going to happen,’ I hear him say, although he doesn’t say it.

My husband is worried for me. On the other hand, I’m rebelling not just against his ‘duties’—in our family the word’s almost a joke, he’s so rigid in procedure each time he teaches classes, in addition to his research—but against obedience, against having to follow rules and timetables. I want him to stay as a gesture of solidarity. ‘Why can’t we just stay?’ I almost shout aloud.

When the evening of the second day is almost over, I realise that two days aren’t enough, that I can’t go ‘back’ to a ‘normal’ life, to a routine in which I won’t hyperventilate before meeting colleagues so as to prevent my face cracking and showing weakness. After the cabin, the road to Oulu and a new life seems more a journey into a complete void than the polar voyage I had compared it to. At the same time, these days have been wonderful. I’ve begun to feel as if I can live, that on a basic level I am part of the world and not out of place. When we step into the car, snow—the first of the year—is falling. Perhaps it is possible to make a change.

Mum in Transition 1,  2,  3,  4,

Anna Rotkirch, research director at the Population Research Institute, found that first generation immigrants from third world countries tend to have a similar number of children to the relatively high numbers they have in their home country. She argues that this substantially explains the figures.

‘Thus, we have many big Somali families.’ Second generation Somalis tend to have a similar number of children to native Finns, she claimed.

Immigration in itself, she argued, does not explain the change because many immigrant mothers are from Russia, where the birth rate is lower than Finland’s.

The baby boom has come as a surprise to demographers. Ten years ago, Statistics Finland predicted that the country’s population of 5 million would have fallen by 400,000 by 2050. However, newer research now predicts that it will have risen by 600,000 by that time.

Oulu University Hospital currently has to deal with about 1400 drunks being delivered to Accident and Emergency every year. According to hospital officials, this diverts attention from other patients and some kind of specific detoxification centre would be a more appropriate place for drunk patients than Accident and Emergency.

Hospital representatives claim that the problem is particularly acute at weekends when people from surrounding municipalities converge upon Oulu to socialise. Those who drink dangerous amounts all end up at Oulu University Hospital. People from up to seventeen municipalities find themselves at the hospital needing care at the weekends.

Dr Matti Martikäinen, who works at the hospital, told YLE that emergency patients encompass a broad variety, from children to the elderly. They all end up having to mix with drunk people, meaning that ‘all the patients suffer.’

Some inebriated people are sufficiently dangerous to patients and staff that Accident and Emergency has had its own security guard since 2008. Sometimes the situation has become so risky that other guards, and even the police, have been called in because of drunken aggression.

According to the doctor, most drunks need to just be left alone to ‘sleep it off’ and sober up and this is why a detoxification centre would be the best solution. However, the money cannot be found to fund it.

Oulu’s police also find that their resources are being wasted by people drinking too much. They pick up about 3000 drunks per year. According to a police spokesman, if a drunk in their cells is not from Oulu then an officer may have to spend a good chunk of their shift tracking down where they do come from.

An advisory committee recommended in 2009 that a part of the city’s police station could be converted into a detoxification centre, as most drunks end up in the back of ambulances or police vans and could simply be conveyed there. If this were followed, only the most serious cases of drunkenness – such as those with injuries – would be taken to the hospital.

The research also found that overweight children eat when they are unhappy. If their mothers ‘comfort eat’ then they will copy their behaviour. Living with only one biological parent (usually the mother) was associated with children becoming overweight.

More than half of the overweight children’s parents do not realise that their children are overweight, a problem which is even more prevalent amongst the parents of boys, the researcher, Marja Vanhala, found.

She also found that children are more likely to gain weight if they skip breakfast, later eat large portions and then do little exercise, as the body will be less likely to burn off the calories.

The overweight children’s diet is often deficient in fruit and vegetables and this usually reflects the fact that the parental diet is similarly unhealthy.

Since the early 1970s, strong attempts have been made to combat Finnish obesity, especially by schools. These have included nutrition lessons as well as ensuring that government-funded school meals are particularly healthy, with the menus now published online for parents to inspect. However, compulsory schooling does not begin until the age seven.

The study is the first to look at the relationship between mood and Finnish children’s eating habits. It examined nearly a thousand seven and eight year olds in Oulu, starting in 2003.

The thesis – officially titled in English ‘Childhood overweight: risk factors, recognition and lifestyle’ – will be publicly defended on 27th January at Oulu University.

The thesis – written in Finnish with an English abstract – is available here: http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9789514297441/isbn9789514297441.pdf

The award, which recognises cities with which use information technology to ‘power growth, address social challenges and preserve and promote culture’ is given by the ‘Intelligent Community Forum’ (ICF) every year.

The Top Seven were announced at their meeting on 18th January in Honolulu. The eventual winner will be crowned on 8th June at the Intelligent Community Forum Summit in New York.

Louis Zacharilla, Director of Development and a founding member of Intelligent Community Forum, stated that “it was extraordinary that Oulu made it already to the Top 21 with their first time ever application. And now that they’ve made it to the Top Seven is a success story beyond comparison in the history of ICF.”

According to the ICF, ‘The Top Seven represent models of economic and social transformation in the 21st Century. Each community exemplifies best practices in broadband deployment and use, workforce development, innovation, digital inclusion and advocacy that offer lessons to regions, cities, towns and villages around the world.  They are charting new paths to lasting prosperity for their citizens, businesses and institutions.’

ICF defines every year a theme that guides the nominations for the Intelligent Community of the Year.  The 2012 theme is Intelligent Communities – Platforms for Innovation.  The other judging criteria include the city’s broadband connectivity, ‘knowledge workforce’ and ‘digital inclusion.’

The ICF claims that all of these criteria were evidenced in ‘Oulu exceptionally well. The international jury was especially impressed by the degree of close collaboration of business and research institutions on all levels in Oulu.’

During the final stage of the competition, an ICF representative will be visiting Oulu to test the accuracy of the city’s application. The representative will then produce a report for the jury.

Barcelona, Frankfurt and Heraklion (in Greece) also made it into the Top 21 but Oulu will be Europe’s sole representative in the final. The rest of this year’s Top Seven are Austin (Texas), Quebec City, Riverside (California), St John (New Brunswick), Stratford (Ontario), and Taichung City (Taiwan).

Oulu’s application was jointly submitted by the Innovations and Marketing Group of Oulu, BusinessOulu and the Centre for Internet Excellence.

There was fight between a gang of men in Kaukovainio in the early hours of 19th January. According to the police, some of those involved were armed with knives.

The fighting led to a 30 year old man from Muhos being stabbed in the stomach. The knife pierced his abdominal wall and he was rushed to hospital where he is still recovering. He is not yet well enough for the police to be able to interview him. At the same time two ‘young men from Oulu’ received knife injuries to the hands and feet.

The fighting took place amongst a group of about six men who all previously knew each other. It seems they had all spent the evening together and somehow got into a row. Police are currently attempting to find out precisely what happened, who did what and in what order the events progressed.

So far, four people have been arrested and three have already been released. The person who has been detained may be charged with attempted murder. Police are also looking at the part that drunkenness may have played in the events.

Sauli Niinistö

Nobody was surprised that Kokoomus’ Sauli Niinistö came first in Sunday night’s first round of the presidential election. The 2006 runner-up, who was predicted to romp home throughout the campaign, garnered 37 percent of the vote. He also managed get first place in almost every one of the fifteen voting districts. There were three exceptions.

Niinistö’s rival, Centre Party stalwart Paavo Väyrynen, took the north. Lapland put Väyrynen, himself from Lapland, in first place with 43 percent of the vote. The Oulu region also voted for Väyrynen, giving him 35.2 percent. In both areas, Niinistö was second and Haavisto third. Åland’s winner was the Swedish People’s Party’s Eva Biaudet who took 37 percent of the vote leaving Niinistö in third place after the former SDP Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen.

But in every other constituency Niinistö triumphed. For much of the evening, it looked like Paavo Väyrynen had managed to repeat his performance in the 1988 presidential election by coming second. He was predicted over eighteen percent of the vote at the beginning of the night. But as the results in southern Finland came in, the Green Party’s Pekka Haavisto caught-up with and narrowly overtook the former senior minister.

Pekka Haavisto

Haavisto was originally predicted to get just over 14 percent of the vote but he ultimately took 18.8 percent to Väyrynen’s 17.5. Where Väyrynen had strong support in the north, Haavisto’s votes were relatively evenly spread meaning he failed to win any parliamentary electoral district. He came second to Niinistö in six districts, all of them in southern Finland. Haavisto was third in another six parliamentary areas. However, in Satakunta, on the West coast, he was fourth behind True Finns’ Timo Soini. In Åland he was also fourth while in the Vaasa district he languished in sixth, behind Lipponen, Soini and Biaudet. Haavisto’s best result in a parliamentary district was in the Helsinki constituency where he took 34 percent to Niinisto’s 37 percent.

It was a relatively disappointing night for True Finns’ Timo Soini. He came fourth overall with 9.4 percent of the vote, a massive contrast with his party’s 19 percent at last year’s parliamentary election, in which he received more personal votes than any other candidate. Soini came fourth, and often a close fourth, in every district except Satakunta, where was third, and Swedish-speaking Åland, where he trailed in 7th, ahead only of the Christian Democrat candidate. Soini also managed to come third in Vantaa, a large city near Helsinki.

Fifth place went to the SDP’s Paavo Lipponen on 6.7 percent. He was fifth in most districts, rising above this only in Åland and Vaasa where he was third. The Left Alliance’s Paavo Arhinmäki was sixth with 5.5 percent, Eva Biaudet was seventh with 2.7 percent and the Christian Democrats’ Sari Essayah was last with 2.5 percent. For much of the evening, Biaudet was in last place but this changed when the results from southern Finland, where most Swedish-speakers live, began to be tallied.

With no candidate winning over half the vote, there will be second round on 5th February. The turnout in the first round was 72 percent, slightly down on the 2006 presidential poll.

Oulu Votes for Niinistö

Though Väyrynen carried the Oulu electoral district, the City of Oulu itself voted for Niinistö. He took 33.6 percent of the city’s vote to Väyrynen’s 23.4 percent. The Centre Party candidate only narrowly beat Pekka Haavisto, who was third with 22.8 percent. Soini was fourth, followed by Arhinmäki, Lipponen, Essayah, and finally Biaudet.

Niinistö also won neighbouring Kempele, but only 0.5 percent ahead of Väyrynen’s 32 percent. However, other close towns such Haukipudas, Tyrnava, Muhos, Oulunsalo and Kiiminki all voted for Väyrynen. In some small towns, Väyrynen wiped the floor with Niinistö, taking 64 percent in Yli-Ii to Niinistö’s 12. Soini came third in Yli-Ii and Raahe while Arhinmäki was fourth in Ii.

Bucking the Trend

The general trend in the election, and in most districts and municipalities, was for the top three to consist of the same people who were nation’s top three. But Åland aside, there were some glaring exceptions in mainland Finland. Soini came third in Satakunta and in most of its towns. In the same district, Haavisto was routinely fourth, often fifth and, in Jämijärvi, sixth.

The Vaasa constituency, which borders Oulu to the south, has also thrown up some atypical results, partly due to its relatively large Swedish-speaking minority. In most of the predominantly Finnish-speaking villages in the district, Soini took third place, including in the village of ‘Soini’ from which his surname may well derive. However, in the predominantly Swedish areas the voting was very different. Many of these areas put Biaudet, second from last nationwide, in strong first. For example, in Körsnäs, Biaudet took 46 percent and in Mustalahti she garnered forty percent. The SDP’s Paavo Lipponen was usually second in these places, Niinistö third, Väyrynen fourth and Haavisto fifth or lower. In some of these small Vaasa towns and villages, such as Alajärvi and Halsua, Sari Essayah, last nationwide, came fourth. Halsua also put Soini second after Väyrynen. However, the larger Swedish-influenced municipalities, such as Jakobstad and Kokkola, put Niinisto first.

Some of the towns in Uusimaa, where there is also a Swedish minority, placed Biaudet in third behind, in the case of Kauniainen, Niinistö and Haavisto

Rogue results in Lapland were not unheard of either. Kolari put the Left Alliance’s Paavo Arhinmäki in second behind Väyrynen. He was third in Kittilä (ahead of Haavisto) and fourth in Kemi. Soini was third in Kemimaa and Keminjärvi, amongst others.

The Result

Sauli Niinistö (KOK)             1,131,127    37 percent.
Pekka Haavisto (GREEN)            573,872    18.8 percent.
Paavo Väyrynen (CENTRE)        536,731    17.5 percent.
Timo Soini (TRUE FINNS)        287,405    9.4 percent.
Paavo Lipponen (SDP)            205,020    6.7 percent.
Paavo Arhinmäki (LEFT ALLIANCE)        167,359    5.5 percent.
Eva Biaudet (SWEDISH PEOPLE’S PARTY)    82,581    2.7 percent.
Sari Essayah (CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS)    75,755    2.5 percent.

The activity centre supports the integration of immigrants by offering guidance and Finnish language courses, and also organizes various events and courses not only for people of foreign origin, but for the native population as well.

Activity coordinator Shahnaz Mikkonen was one of the founders of the activity centre more than a decade ago. “Getting commemorated feels really good. For years we have been doing long-term work, the results of which are not immediately visible. We are taking small steps towards a better future.”

The Social Act of the Year award is given to commemorate work valuable to society. Last year the award was given to the Mother and Child Home and Shelter of Oulu.

By Jussi Kyllönen

In Bushido Karate School we think that karate is more of an art form
than just sport, but you can be sure there is lots of action in the form
of various efficient workouts.In our club you have a chance to meet with
the locals as well as with other foreign students. You may actually
learn some Finnish while training as teaching will be conducted both in
English and in Finnish.

KARATE BEGINNERS’ COURSE 23.1.2012-31.5.2012
The kick off is on Monday 23.1. at 16.45 at Ritaharju School (about 3 km
from university).
Training times:
Mondays 17.00-18.30
Thursdays 19.00-20.30.00
Training will take place at Ritaharju School (Ritakierros 2, 90540 Oulu)
Student price: 20 € (with a valid Sports pass) / 60 € (without) (Oulun
korkeakoululiikunta / Oulu Institutes of Higher Education).
Late enrollment 17.2.2012 at latest.

Sign in by e-mail. For testimonials from our foreign students and for
more info check out our website at www.bushido.fi.

See also:The Expat Karate Kids |/65 Degrees/North
<http://www.65degreesnorth.com/life-in-oulu/sport/the-expat-karate-kids/>

Cheers,

Tony (tony.wong@oulu.fi)
Bushido Karate School, Oulu
info@bushido.fi
www.bushido.fi
Tel. 040 744 7094

In 2011, 973,000 passengers passed through Oulu’s airport, almost 40 percent more than in 2010. This increase, to almost a million passengers a year, has been put down to the rise of budget airlines using the airport.

According to Oulu airport’s director, Pekka Mäntynen, much of the growth can be put down to budget airline Blue1 offering flights between Helsinki and Oulu. This alone explains 44 percent of the growth and has led to people switching from train to aeroplane. There are also Air Baltic, Flybe and Norwegian flights from Oulu airport. The numbers may even exceed a million this year as Blue1 begins to offer flights to Stockholm and Copenhagen.

However, the increase in passenger numbers has led to sweeping changes at Oulu’s airport, not all of which are necessarily good for friends and family picking people up from the airport.

The expanded terminal was opened last year. Until it was opened, those picking up passengers would find that almost as soon as the plane touched down, they were waiting for their luggage, visible through a glass wall. Now the luggage area is much further away from arrivals and the process of arriving takes much longer.

In addition, whereas it was once possible to wait for free in the carpark, there are now traffic wardens who force you to move on after a few minutes, if you are waiting close to the terminal, or 20 minutes if you’re at a waiting area further from it. Accordingly, there is far stronger pressure to purchase a parking ticket.

However, Pertti Savisalo, Regional Director for Western Finland, insists that the new policy is the only way to ensure sufficient parking spaces. ‘For customers, all this means improved service, wider selections at the restaurants, cafeterias and shops, as well as sufficient parking resources, traffic connections and generally fluent and safe operations,’ he said, in a Finavia press release.

The robber, who was described as being aged about 25, threatened the vendor with a knife and got away with a small amount of cash.

The thief is described as wearing a light-brown jacket, blue hat and jeans. Police are still searching for him.

Jukka Vidgren

According to Mutant Koala Pictures, the company that made the film, Dr Professor’s Thesis of Evil is the first film to use the internet and mobile devices as its main channels of distribution that has received funding from the Finnish Film Foundation.

‘Another new thing is that the distribution of the film is also being taken care of by a newspaper: the web premier of the film from Oulu was screened on the website of the Kaleva newspaper in October,’ claim the group, who are based in a market-square adjacent, nineteenth century warehouse.

Dr Professor’s Thesis of Evil is about Dr Professor, the world’s most celebrated super villain who has lost his passion for doing evil. The main character realises that he has become the prisoner of a media circus and his idol status and so he decides to take his destiny back into his own hands.

The actual starting point for the film was a technique that combines photographs and motion pictures which was innovated by Jukka Vidgren, one of the company’s founders.

The work originally began as the thesis of two young men studying Communications at the Oulu University of Applied Sciences but it soon grew into an independent professional production created by their own Mutant Koala Pictures company. There was international cooperation with professionals from San Francisco, Toronto and London. The lines of the English-language film were recorded in North America and directed in Oulu via the internet with Skype.

The film was invited to the Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy in the autumn. Jukka Vidgren, the film’s director and producer, says he was very flattered by the invite and at the same time very satisfied with the great start to the festival distribution. The film was also selected for the Tromsø International Film Festival and nominated for the Kettu film award in Finland. In 2012 the film will be distributed internationally through the iTunes store.

According to Business Oulu’s Silvi Ilvesviita, ‘The 100 Acts programme brings Oulu area municipalities together and gives everyone the opportunity to highlight small and large acts that take the area forward, bring joy to the population and serve both local residents and businesses.’

Other acts from the 100 include a Kaleva-run campaign against youth unemployment called ‘Duunita mut!’

The 37 year-old now has to pay damages of 360,000 euros; a 10,000 euro reduction on his original sentence.

Oulu District Court passed the original fine in October 2010 as compensation to more than 30 organisations whose copyright his website had infringed.

The man had maintained an online, peer-to-peer service which permitted users to illegally copy music and games between 1st January 2006 and 4th June 2007. By January 2007, his site had 2800 users and more than 90 terabytes of files, including 18 million music files.

The court also upheld the man’s three month suspended prison sentence.

Current office holder Tarja Halonen

They probably can’t vote . . . although, in many cases, their spouses and friends can. So who should expatriates be fighting for as the next president of Finland?

The first round of the presidential election is just over a week away and pre-voting has just begun. Though the president is increasingly a figurehead, he or she has is an influential figure who will help to guide Finland in terms of domestic and especially foreign policy.

Most of our expatriate readers cannot vote in the forthcoming presidential election. But they can campaign and, in many cases, that campaign can be directed at their Finnish spouse or Finnish friends, who do have a vote. So who should expatriates be campaigning for?

In the run up to election, it has proved impossible to get hold of any of the candidates. But in most cases we found official representatives who were prepared to argue their case. Each candidate has a number which their voters must write on the ballot paper. Nobody can be ‘Number 1’ as this is considered to give them an unfair advantage. For readers who don’t read Finnish, we’ve marked if the campaign website has an English page.

2. Pekka Haavisto -  Helsinki’s deputy mayor Pekka Sauri is campaigning for Green candidate Pekka Haavisto, an MP whose support has shot up during the campaign period.

‘He is a highly international candidate,’ explained the Sauri. ‘Recently the political atmosphere in this country has very much divided between turning inward and trying to regress back to the good old times that never existed or going out into the world and being active with the resources that Finland has got.’

‘Pekka Haavisto represents the second option most clearly. He also had solid international experience . . . in the UN, in the Balkans and in the Sudan.’

‘Pekka is very liberal regarding immigration,’ adds the deputy mayor. ‘Immigration has been seen as a social problem; that immigrants come here to claim welfare. But many immigrants come here to work,’ claims Sauri, who adds the Haavisto has been influential in changing attitudes to foreigners and having them treated ‘as individuals, not part of some category.’

For Sauri, the recent reaction against internationalization is result of politicians not explaining the benefits clearly enough in a fast changing world. Haavisto, he argues, is committed to ‘getting the right balance’ in terms of this process. In Sauri’s view, Finland is quickly moving to a situation where English, not Swedish, is the country’s actual second language. (English page).

3. – Timo Soini (True Finns). It has not proved possible to talk to anybody from Timo Soini’s campaign. However, his campaign website includes an English-language section in which he emphasises that his party’s policy – of saying No to EU bailouts – is in the economic interests of everyone living in Finland. He also claims that he is ready to be the ‘father for our great nation. I welcome tough challenges and I want to fight for the good causes. I want to have a say when the future of Finland is discussed and our direction decided.’ (English page).

4 – Paavo Väyrynen (Centre). Petri Neittaanmäki, campaign assistant for the Centre Party’s Paavo Väyrynen is blunt when asked why expatriates should support his candidate; it’s for the same reasons anybody else should. ‘The president will lead Finnish foreign policy and Paavo is the best candidate for that. He was Foreign Minister for four years and has been involved in foreign policy for the last ten years.’

Neittaanmäki rigorously defends Väyrynen against the criticism that he’s lost the presidential election twice, coming second in 1988 and third in 1994, and that this third attempt is just vanity. ‘He has had a lot more experience since then, such as being a Member of the European Parliament.’ He also insists that his candidate do not lose his parliamentary seat in 2011 due to lack of popularity but rather because he switched constituencies from Lapland so that the Centre Party had more experienced candidates in the south. Väyrynen is in favour – if it helps the economy – of leaving the euro. (No English page).

5. Paavo Lipponen (SDP). Esko Ranto, the campaign manager for SDP candidate Paavo Lipponen, insists that the former Prime Minister ‘is the most international candidate. He has always promoted the role of Finland in the international arena and has been active in relations with the European Union, the United States and Russia.’

Ranto explains that, for Lipponen, ‘the language question is the most important.’ Everything should be done to help foreigners in Finland to ‘learn Finnish’ but they ‘should be allowed to speak whatever language they want.’ Lipponen is concerned about True Finns because ‘they have created a political climate which is not so tolerant of foreigners. The danger is that the party is not in control’ of the ‘racists’ within it.

Ranto also insisted that his candidate in some idealist. ‘Our candidate has been behind the growth in the last two to three decades,’ he asserted. ‘In the 1990s, when he was Prime Minister, he created 300,000 new jobs through co-operation between the welfare state and companies.’ (English page).

6. Sauli Niinistö (Kokoomus). Sauli Niinisto’s team’s policy is that any questions must be asked directly to Niinisto himself. Niinisto is pro-EU, pro-internationalization, pro-NATO and pro-business. He is, of course, the front-runner by a wide margin. (Limited English).

7 – Sari Essayah – Christian Democrat Sari Essayah’s campaign manager emphasises that Essayah is ‘from a different background from all the other candidates’ because ‘her father is Moroccan.’ Though her parents split when she was young and she hardly saw her father, this still makes her sympathetic to foreigners. Also ‘her Christian values mean that she cares for the weaker members of society.’ For the same reason, ‘she thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman and this is what many immigrants think as well.’ The campaign manager dismisses criticism of his party’s election alliances with True Finns as ‘purely tactical. We do not share the same values.’ He also insists that the party is ‘Christian’ but not ‘fundamentalist.’ (English page).

8 – Eva Biaudet – For the Swedish People’s Party’s Maria Swanljung, Eva Biaudet is the ‘only one’ who expatriates should campaign for.

‘She is the one who has been speaking-up the most about Finland being a multicultural country and being welcoming to all kinds of people,’ explained Biaudet’s press secretary. She is then one ‘worried about Finland turning in on itself.’ According to Swanljung, former MP Biaudet’s work as the Ombudsman for Minorities means that she has dedicated her working life to helping foreigners. She wants Finland to be ‘open internationally’ accepted ‘welcome people’ whether they come for ‘love, work or asylum.’

Dismissive of the view that a vote for Biaudet is ‘a wasted vote,’ she points that the Swedish People’s Party candidate who came second in 1994 was only marginally ahead of Biaudet at this stage in the campaign (No English).

9 – Paavo Ahrinmäki. The Left Alliance’s Paavo Ahrinmäki also proved elusive with nobody from his ‘gang’ (as it’s called on his website) feeling able to able to give us any information. According to the 35 year-old’s manifesto, ‘A left wing society is open and accepting. In our view, the world’s people’s should live together and help each other. Solidarity between the world’s people’s is the only way to survive problems such as  . . . global warming . . . Xenophobia is the Left’s strategic and ideological opponent . . . We need an anti-racist president.’ (No English).

Until now, the city has provided English language daycare and English-language schooling but no English pre-school. Pre-school is the reception year before pupils begin school aged seven, but until now the only English-language options have been private.

This situation will soon change in light of the city’s Education Committee’s decision in December to establish an English-language pre-school in Pikku-Aino päiväkoti.

Before beginning, the preschool, which will be organized by the International School, will assess pupils’ linguistic skills and, after their pre-school year, they will be moved onto the International School and continue there, as long as their standard of English remains sufficient.

Fifteen pupils per year group will be needed for the preschool to go ahead.

Anneli Jokelainen, the International School’s Deputy Head, told 65DN that the main benefit of the new pre-school is that, unlike the private schools, it will follow the same curriculum as the International School. It will also be free of charge.

According to the Education Committee ‘It was the parents in Oulu and its regions who expressed a desire and need to expand the teaching of English in both pre-school education and the first years of primary education. Furthermore, the recent decisions about big investments in the Oulu region and an increasing number of foreign families arriving to Oulu have given fuel to the planning of new coherent learning school paths for children.’

There will be a meeting at the International School on Wednesday evening (18th January) at 6pm for all parents interested in sending their children either to the International School or the new English-language pre-school.

Thirty year old Tom Morgan, from the Pembrokeshire area of Wales, has lived in Helsinki for eight years.

According to WalesOnline, the freelance graphic designer entered a song-writing contest last year without even being exactly sure about what it was for.

‘There were only two weeks left until the deadline and I was going on holiday so wasn’t sure if I had time to enter, I ended up submitting something really quickly but amazingly I got through to the next round,’ he told the newspaper.

From 540 entries, Morgan, who has fronted various bands both in Finland and Wales, has made it down to the final 40. But his rushed track ‘Melt’ will be up against some fierce competition.

‘Because I submitted the song at the last minute it is quite a raw demo compared to some of the well known acts,’ he explained to WalesOnline. ‘I’m up against acts who are already with big record labels and have heavily produced tracks and a bigger fan base than me in Finland.’

‘It’s harder for me because I’m not able to get involved with the Finnish media so well which is why I need everybody in Wales to vote for me.’

He also told the newspaper that in Britain people see Eurovision as ‘a bit of joke’ but that in other countries, such as Finland, they take it more seriously.

Morgan is now vying with the other shortlisted bands to be one of the final 12, to be announced on 27th January. One of these will represent Finland at the contest in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the spring.

Wales is one of the constituent members of the UK alongside England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has a population of three million and its recent sons have included singer Tom Jones and film-star Anthony Hopkins. It has a devolved legislature and is a principality, nominally headed by the Prince of Wales, the monarch’s oldest son (currently Prince Charles).

Known as ‘Cymru’ in its native Welsh language, about twenty percent of Welsh people speak Welsh. Related to Irish and the ‘Breton’ of Brittany in northern France, Welsh enjoys equal status in the principality, alongside English. People can even study at the University of Wales through the medium of Welsh.

Most expats in Northern Ostrobothnia are familiar with the Laestadians. A strongly conservative ‘awakening movement’ within the Lutheran church, the group is particularly influential in and around Oulu. Members tend to have large families, an average of ten children, and look and behave subtly differently from non-members. Women tend to reject make-up, ear-rings and hair dying but otherwise embrace the latest fashions, members are more inclined to smoke and television is supposedly not allowed. Importantly, neither is contraception.

But one woman, herself a Laestadian, has been making waves in the local Finnish media by speaking about against the treatment of women by the movement.

According to Rebekka Naatus, changes are afoot within the group. Female Laestadians are increasingly coming to believe that their bodies are their own and they do not wish to spend the best part of their lives simply producing and caring for children.

There are online discussion forums in which young Laestadian women discuss their misgivings about their treatment by the movement. But thirty year-old Naatus speaks out in public and uses her real name and has even produced an article entitled ‘My Body was Not Mine,’ contributing to a broader pamphlet on women’s rights in minority groups in Finland such as the Roma.

‘I wrote on it when I was asked. I thought the issue was important and I have nothing to be ashamed of,’ she told YLE Radio in November.

Naatus is a mother of one and is recently divorced from a Lutheran priest. She told YLE that almost as soon as she had her first child there began social pressure to have another one. Laestadians, according to Naatus, if a woman does not follow the accepted pattern of frequent pregnancies.

Naatus claims that Laestadians do use contraception, though its not really discussed. ‘You can’t even speak of these things by their real names,’ she admits. However, if a particular couple are deemed not to have ‘enough’ children then this will raise concerns in the group’s discussion circles, and the firmness of their ‘faith’ may well be questioned.

Naatus believes that in twenty to thirty years Laestadian women will be more in control of how many children they have. As a precedent she notes that in the 1960s it was ‘sinful’ for a Laestadian woman to perm her hair, but this is now acceptable.

On Krouvintie, a storage area was broken into. When the guard went to inspect it, he found a 53 year-old intoxicated man. The man, who was not from Oulu, was later arrested for attempted theft.

In Hiironen the Neste service station was broken into by people after beer and cigarettes. Having got want they wanted, they escaped by bicycle. Later the police simply followed the bicycle tracks all the way back to a home in Kaukovainio, where three suspects were arrested for breaking and entering and theft.

In Kempele, a car parts were stolen from a scrap-yard. Police happened to stop the thieves in connection with a traffic offence. The car was searched and a man and a woman were arrested for theft.

The election booths were erected in the city’s main thoroughfare on Thursday and, despite the cold weather, are likely to be abuzz with party activists right up until the election on 22nd January.

However, the climax of the campaign will be focussed on densely populated areas in southern Finland, meaning that only a few of the candidates are making their way up to Oulu in the final weeks.

Front-runner Sauli Niinisto, of Kokoomus, was in Oulu on Sunday as was the Green League’s candidate Pekka Haavisto.

The Centre Party’s Paavo Väyrynen will be stopping his battle bus in Oulu on Monday and he will be in Raahe on Tuesday.

True Finns leader Timo Soini will be campaigning in Northern Ostrobothnia on Saturday 14th January, focussing his efforts on Ylivieska.

However, the other candidates, seemingly those with less support, are concentrating their efforts on campaigning in southern Finland.

Currently, the front-runner is still Sauli Niinisto, Parliament’s speaker and second place in 2006. According to a 5th January poll, he is predicted to get 37 percent of the vote. However, his lead has declined from a predicted 54 percent in September last year.

The race for the second place is so close that different polls seem to see things differently. The Taloustutkimus poll on 5th January indicates that it is Pekka Haavisto who has been indirectly benefiting from the decline in Niinisto’s support. He is currently second with just over 8.3 percent. The Centre Party’s Väyrynen is third with 8.2 percent while Timo Soini is fourth on 7 percent. For much of the campaign he has been second or third.

But the Research Insight Finland poll, conducted on the same day, predicts different results. Niinisto has 41 percent, Väyrynen has 11 percent, Soini has nine percent and both Haavisto and former Social Democrat Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen garner 6 percent. TNS Gallup on 3rd January gives Niinisto 38 percent, Soini and Väyrynen 9 percent and Haavisto and Lipponen seven percent. If no candidate reaches fifty percent then there will be a run off on 5th February between the top two candidates.

The other candidates are Paavo Ahrinmäki, leader of the Left Alliance; Sari Essayah (a Christian Democrat MEP who is half Moroccan) and Eva Biaudet (the Minorities Ombudsman, for the Swedish People’s Party). Ahrinmäki is predicted to get about 4 percent, Biaudet 2 and Essayah 1.

These predictions are within a margin of error of 2.5 percent and 29 percent of correspondents did not know who they would vote for. This leaves the battle for second place very close.

A fire broke out in the apartment block in Kaakuri, about 8km from the city centre. The blaze began on a first floor balcony and quickly spread to the adjoining bedroom, which suffered smoke and fire damage.

Other flats in the block suffered smoke damage, with the fire brigade suspecting that a cigarette was the cause of the blaze. Though most of the residents have now returned to their flats some are refusing to do so.

The fire comes just a few months after research at the Emergency Services College in Kuopio found that the introduction of special self-extinguishing cigarettes in 2010 had seemingly reduced house fire deaths in Finland by forty percent over the past year.

The bird-watching tower, which was erected in 1987, was finally brought down at about noon. Rising sea levels had led to ice developing around the tower’s legs, which had weakened the structure anyway. Tuesday’s storm turned out to be the last straw. The storm also caused sea levels to rise by 1.7 metres.

In addition, the storm destroyed several cabins which have long been situated on the beach for use by hunters and fishermen. These have also been in place for decades. Of seven original cabins, only one managed to survive the storm.

Nature photographer Jari Peltomäki told Kaleva that ‘The landscape on Liminka bay has now changed dramatically.’

The 9.7 metre observation tower now lies in ruins and birdwatchers are already itching for a new one to be put in its place.

Ulla Matturi, of Metsähallitus (the Finnish Forestry Commission), says that bird watching visitor attracts 20,000 bird enthusiasts every year and the tower is an important part of this. ‘There should be a new tower,’ she told Kaleva.

Heikki Viertola, the Oulu Business Centre Executive Director, says that the event begins early to allow families with young children to enjoy part of the festivities.

However, he hopes that for health and safety reasons, with the presence of young children, revellers will avoid letting off their own fireworks in the square and simply enjoy the organised display.

The events will include a speech by an Oulu Member of Parliament and music by a local quartet: IFK Uleåborg.

The incident occurred at Pakkahuoneenkatu 23 on the Friday night and the police have been unable to track down any suspects.

According to the police, a paperboy whom they describe as of ‘foreign background’ (a term often used to mean observably not Finnish) was beaten up while delivering copies of Kaleva. This abuse led to an escape method which has left him in hospital with serious head injuries.

A female witness to the incident, which seems to have taken place in the corridors of a block of flats, told police that the paperboy escaped his attackers by ‘jumping off a third or fourth floor balcony.’ When she witnessed this, she immediately called the emergency services.

The paperboy has been questioned by the police but remains too seriously hurt to be formally interviewed.

A 21 year-old man was mugged on Kirkkokatu at about 2am in the early hours of Christmas Eve. Two assailants marched him to an ATM and forced him to withdraw cash under threat of violence. They only got away with a small amount of money and their victim wasn’t injured. But the police are treating it as a serious offence and are asking for any information.

At about the same time, an Oulu man in his sixties was arrested on Hallituskatu for drunk-driving. The police found that the man had guns in the car and they were duly confiscated.

Otherwise, the police had to deal with rowdiness and various domestic incidents but they emphasised that this was Christmas was little different from any other. Nevertheless, according to Oulu police, 2011 has been a much busier year for them than 2010.

By the end of November, they had received 1200 more emergency calls than by the same time in 2010, a 2.8 percent increase. With no corresponding increase in staff, people have had to wait slightly longer for their calls to be answered and for the police to arrive.

Assistant Oulu police chief Timo Saarala puts the change down to population growth in the area covered by his police force.