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| Life In Finland |
Finland is definitely a kick-ass country to live in and today I'm going to introduce you to eight aspects of why you should move to Finland and have a kick-ass time.
Disclaimer: This article is in the simplest form of English written by a Finnish, so no hard feelings about the writing tone or quality?8 Reasons To Start Living In Finland
Safety
This country, and this it's society pretty much based on trustworthiness and honesty. And this makes Finland a very safe country to live, and also to visit.
For example, the World Economic Forum declared Finland the safest country for travelers. Good stuff. If we think about everyday life here, nothing bad really happens here in terms of criminals, and crimes, and stuff.
So even if you're like a single girl, you are walking around in the streets, even at night, it's pretty safe here.
I mean, 'cause the people here just mind their own business and they don't really try to talk to strangers that much at least.
So things are pretty safe here. And the only problems are usually caused by drunk people on Friday and Saturday night because usually that's 'cause that's the time when Finns get a little bit more like, huh huh, what's up man? Getting a little bit social, let's say.
No scammers
One thing that I also have to mention to you guys is that we don't have any scammers here or muggers.
Like for example, once I went to Hong Kong and I was at the airport and this kind of shady guy came hey, do you need a taxi?
Actually, I needed a ride to the center and then I actually first went with him, but he seemed a little bit shady, and then I just dumped the guy, and actually, later I realized that that was actually a scam taxi which would have costs like 300 euro or something.
So luckily I passed it, but in Finland, you don't have to worry about this all because you can trust people here and for example, police, taxi, this kind of things, they know what to do, and they also deliver the best. Most importantly, they don't try to scam you.
And also, did you know that Reader's Digest declared Helsinki the most honest city in the world, and they did this pretty cool social experiment where they scattered 12 wallets around the city to see how many of those will be returned.
And guess how many of those Helsinki wallets were returned out of 12. 11 out of 12 were returned. And this is how we Finns think.
Like if we see a wallet, a random wallet on the ground, or on the bench, or wherever, we don't think like ooh, we can get some free money and like let's swipe the credit cards and stuff.
No, that's not what we Finns think. Instead, the first thing we think is oh shit, someone's lost their wallet. How can we get that to their owner?
So what we do is we just take it to the closest police station, or at a kiosk, or wherever we found it to make sure it will find its owner. That's how we Finns do.
Education system
But the thing is that if you consider your kids, if you have small kids, or if you're planning to have kids at some time, the Finnish education system kicks ass.
First of all, the Finnish education system is praised worldwide but it's also free. Good stuff. So no money is required.
Well, of course, there are always some expenses, but fortunately, we don't have any tuition fees. And you know, education is the foundation of the future, so that's definitely something to keep in mind.
There are several aspects which are always considered great in the Finnish education system, such as no standardized tests, no tuition fees, teachers are high prestige and value, all peoples, or all students are considered equal, and in fact, some of the teachers can choose their own teaching methods themselves.
And there's a bunch of more, of course, but these are just a few things that make the Finnish education system kick-ass.
High living standards
Public services are running well, we don't really have poor people, we don't really have any diseases, crime people, robbers roaming in the streets.
And pretty much the only thing you have to worry about is if that drunk guy on the bus will start talking to you.
Also, we have decent salaries. How would I say, the income gaps are not that big here because of the progressive and kind of heavy taxation?
And for example, the average life expectancy is 82 years here in Finland, according to OE, what's the OECD. And for example, we also got the Happiest Country in the World title back in 2018.
Freedom
The next one we have is freedom because here in Finland, everyone can be whoever they want and pretty much also do whatever they want, as well.
Because here in Finland, we are very individualistic. Finland is a very individualistic society. We usually think of ourselves like our career, or passions, or hobbies and stuff, before we think about the people around us.
So if you just want to go to study, you are free to do so. No one's preventing you, and there's a lot of opportunities because we don't have, for example, tuition fees and stuff. Or if you want to start your business, it's very simple.
You just go to the internet and within 15 minutes you have your own business running if you want to do that. Or if you just have a specific career path you want to go, then just go for it. I mean, this is really nice because we don't really have any external influences that try to steer our choices.
Of course, we have like parents and grandparents who might tell like, oh, you should become a doctor or stuff, but it's not really nowadays anymore because it's more about the things you want to do and pursue in your life.
Another good aspect of freedom is that we have everyone's rights, and what this means is basically that, for example, anyone can go to any forest, regardless if it's owned or not, roam there freely.
I think even you can set up a small camp there. You can pick flowers, berries, and mushrooms there if you want to do that, because that's what many Finns do in the autumn, for example. And you can also use a basic fishing rod to fish without any licenses or whatsoever.
So, you know, this kind of freedom is also very high, how would I say, integrated into our culture. The next one we have is social security.
And Finland has a really solid social security network for the residents of Finland in case life decides to kick your ass.
Because, you know, sometimes we have ups or downs. You know, you can never know what will happen in life, in your life.
We have the social security institution, Kela, which kind of controls and organizes the social security benefits like such as child allowance, basic unemployment security, income support, and student benefits.
But the thing is that these are only for Finnish residents, so people who are Finnish citizenship, or the people who have permanent residence permits for Finland. So if you are like an exchange student, or tourist, or whatever, you cannot really get this.
But if you're planning to come here for the long term, you are also eligible for this. Again, always the flip side is that these things are funded with tax money.
Unfortunately, some people come here as refugees or immigrants and who just live with the benefits of money. And that's actually kind of a problem here. If you want to come to Finland, you should also contribute to our society by working and paying taxes, because, for example, I don't want that my tax money. After all, we pay a crapload of taxes here in Finland, go to some lazy bums who just live off the benefits money, and don't contribute anything to our country.
Gender equality
Finland men and women are treated very equally and have pretty much equal opportunities. For example, nowadays you can see more and more women in executive positions in many companies.
But however, this is not true in the complete. For example, I found statistics, I think it was from statistics Finland that men's euro equal $0.84 for women.
So there is still a little bit of this kind of like pay gaps and stuff, which we still kind of have to work on, but it's still quite good compared to many other countries.
The Finnish Nature
Breathe some pretty clean air. And of course, we have the nickname of The Land of Thousand Lakes, so there are a lot of lakes for you to check out.
And also forests because Finland is one of the most forested countries in the world. And I think it's the most forested country in Europe.
And you know, nothing is more relaxed than just going out and having like a small walk in the forest, and (sniffing) breathing the nice air and listening to the birds to sing, and it kind of feels that this is the place to be.
You're outside of all the distractions, your work, your social media, your smartphone, and it just walks there and enjoys them, enjoy life, basically.
Again, thanks to everyone's rights you're able to do it pretty much everywhere, and also pick up some forests and mushrooms.
Pick up some, what did I say? Pick up some berries and mushrooms on the go. But the problem here in Helsinki (where I come from) is that you don't really have forests as easily accessible.
For example, when I used to live in Tampere I could just leave my studio and flat, boom, there was forest out there.
But not here in Helsinki, pretty much. But anyway, the point is that go to walk nature and enjoy that.
The Finnishness
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| A woman doing naked ice swimming |
And folks know we have a sauna, you know the place where we get naked and enjoy. You know, that's what we Finns love to do.
Then we have Finnish music, metal music is one of the most known facts about Finland.
Then we have like we have Santa Claus here, the real Santa Claus with us is in Finland. And then we have some pretty awesome Finnish people like Kimi Raikkonen, and Teemu Selanne, and Jari Litmanen, not to mention Finnish food like Karelian pies, and also the fact that we love to drink a crapload of coffee.
We are the number one country in the world with coffee consumption per capita. And also don't forget to do some ice swimming, because, you know, even if we get naked in the sauna, we also go pretty much naked to the lake swimming during the winter in the icy lakes. And that's a lot of fun. And it's actually quite a lot of to your healthy, too. To health as well.
And these kinds of Finnish things make also living here in Finland pretty interesting and unique.
Author: Aleski Himself, Video creator on YouTube