Back at home

I know, I know it has been over one month when I last write a post. But before I apologize or something I have to admit that I have been super busy. Really, super super super busy. Way more busy than I thought I would be. I thought I would just lay in my bed crying, missing Taiwan and thinking about my boring life in Finland but no, I have been working in the special school 8 hours almost everyday and spending my evenings in the baseball practice. Not so much time for crying and missing.

Before I went to Taiwan everybody told me that exchange will be ups and downs and I just have to get use to it. They said I have to get use to tolerate home sickness, loneliness and sadness. Somedays I will definitely just want to come back to Finland and maybe somedays I will think why I ever wanted to go to exchange. Now after my experience I can honestly say I am happy that I didn't believe those people. My exchange was only ups, really! Okay first day in Taiwan was down and I wanted to come back home immediately, but after that my whole exchange was only ups. I didn't have home sickness ones during the whole time I was in Taiwan, I didn't feel myself lonely ones and I didn't want to come back home ones after that first day. Maybe that was why I love Taiwan, its' culture and people so much!

Now I have been home, in Finland for almost one month and even thought after what I said earlier I thought it would be super hard to adapt back to Finland I have to admit that it hasn't been so hard at all. I came back to Finland on 24th of January, next day I was already at the basketball practice and week after that I had a job! I can only say wow! I know that without these awesome opportunities to play basketball again in my old team and work in my dream job straight after coming back to Finland it would be soooooo much harder to live my life happily in here again. I think these familiar and happy things that keep me busy everyday had help me so much with my second home sickness and when I am missing my Taiwanese friends and my easy life there. But don't understand me wrong I still miss Taiwan everyday and Finland is still cold, dark and miserable in this time of the year but at least I am not that sad and depressed all the time that I thought I might be :D

Now when I have spend almost one month in Finland again I have a good perspective about differences between Taiwan and Finland. It was hard to made these comperisons in Taiwan because I somehow forgot how things where in Finland, but now it is easy to see interesting differences between Taiwan and Finland that I didn't see before. Of course Taiwan is warmer, there is no snow, people speak Chines and you can't really see blond hair everywhere.. But now I mean deeper differences, differences that are not that obvious.

First thing that I realize in Taiwan was that Taiwanese smile way more than Finns and they look happier than us. I know Finnish people are shy and they don't like to show their emotions that much but still I never realize before how sad and unhappy we really look outside. Taiwanese people are not afraid of show their happiness and because of that they spread happiness to the other people also. It feels like Taiwanese are thinking "If I am happy, maybe she will be happy also if she will see I am happy" when Finnish people are thinking "If I am happy, I would definitely not show that to anyone ore they might stole my happiness".

In Taiwan they have soooo much more pressure for education. I would never want to put my children to school in Taiwan. Not because Taiwanese schools are bad, no way, but because in Taiwan children had so much pressure for education. Children will stay at school from 7.30am to 5pm and after that they will go to gram school to get more teaching in different subjects like math and English and after that they will get home around 8-9pm, do their homework, go to sleep late and repeat the whole thing next day. In Finland our children will study 4 to 6 hours per day and spend the whole other time for playing, doing sport, seeing friends etc. Still our education system is almost as good as Taiwanese. And in this case almost as good is enough for me if my children can be children as long as they want!

In the other hand people in Taiwan have way less social pressure than we have in Finland. I was shock when I first went to Taiwan and saw university students with their Hello Kitty backpacks and Snoopy pajamas. Slowly but surely I understood that in Taiwan you can really be who you are, there is not so tight mold for people. You can really be who you are. In Finland you have to be adult so early. Girls and of course boys also (I just don*t have experience about that) have to grow up super early, they have to adapt acceptable norms if they want to fit in to the group and they have to point out if somebody is not fitting in to these norms. In Taiwan kids, teenagers and adults could be what they want to be, they didn't have to fit in the mold and they look much happier with that.

In addition to these I also remember couple smaller things that was different in Taiwan than in here.

Food was super hot every time you got that. I still can't understand how that can be possible because in Finland you never get boiling hot food in front of you in the restaurant. Normally it is just warm or even cold when it comes to table. I think Finnish people should learn from Taiwanese.

Every classroom has a microphone and all the teachers and students who are making their presentation etc. use that. There is never a problem to hear what teacher is teaching in class. In Finland at least in my university teachers super rarely use microphones and that is a huge problem many times. If you will sit in the last rows you really have to concentrate if you want to hear something.

I would do anything to be back to Taiwan now when it is miserable, gray weather in Finland almost all the time and you have to put million pants and jackets on if you want to survive outside. But at the same time I am super happy working in my new job with special children and playing basketball with my friends and enjoying it for a long time in Finland. So life is quite good for now even though I am back to Finland after 5 months awesome Taiwanese experience.

But don't worry Taiwan I am coming back sooner than you think ;)