Into the Happiest Country in the World

Last week, a report by Yle investigative journalism unit MOT revealed that foreign partners of Finnish third-level study institutions are recruiting students for them under false claims. These recruiters (in countries such as India and Bangladesh) are telling people how easy it is to find a part-time job in Finland to support themselves, and that learning the Finnish language isn't even necessary. This has resulted in thousands of foreign students moving here, often spending their life savings in the process, only to find a life of poverty in the "happiest country in the world".

This, of course, again serves as an inspiration for our Deputy Prime Minister to try and make life even more difficult for our immigrants.

In my personal TikTok bubble, I have also ran into the claim that it's not necessary to learn Finnish to make it in here. People who are making that claim often tell people that you can get by and find work just fine if you can speak English, and for citizenship you can always learn Swedish which is a lot easier than Finnish.

Now, if you happen to be an immigrant here (or planning to become one), I can't stress this enough: you will absolutely need to learn Finnish in order to make it. While there certainly are some companies here that use English as their work language, they only have so many jobs to offer, and they're not exactly running out of applicants. As for Swedish, while it's true that you can indeed take the citizenship test in that language, in most areas of Finland it's not going to do you much good in any other way. Yes, we all study Swedish. No, we don't actually learn, much less use it.

Pictured: not the flag of Sweden.

I'm a member of a local non-profit organization that helps immigrants in finding their place around my area. Last Friday we had our Christmas party: With members from 29 different nationalities, we had people bringing in foods from their home countries - fishballs from Sri Lanka, Christmas pudding from England, noodle wok from China, pumpkin pie from the USA and a wonderful cream cake from Russia just to name a few. It was all beautiful. Needless to say, I was absolutely stuffed after trying everything out.

Me and another Finnish member were having a chat with one of our foreigners, a young man from Russia. When he was asked how he feels about our city, he praised how peaceful and easy it is to live here. He was then asked what kind of plans he has for Christmas, and he said he was going to visit his family in St. Petersburg. "Is it safe to travel there, with the war and all?" asked the Finnish woman besides me. "No" was the answer. "It's never safe to travel to Russia, or walk the streets there, whether there's war or not. Never was, never will be. You always need to be alert".

Then there was a new member, a lady from Brazil who asked if anyone in the group would give her a lift back home. She lives near me so I volunteered. She told me that she had met her Finnish husband on Tinder while she was still living in Brazil, and after meeting him first in her home country, decided to move and stay with him in Finland. I asked how difficult it was to make such a big decision. "Not difficult at all" she said. "Brazil is not a safe country for women, in here I don't need to live in fear".

So yes, living in Finland can actually be quite nice in many ways. But it's no paradise, and certainly not if you're an immigrant who is trying to find work here.