Your experience of culture shock in Finland

When I finally moved to Finland I'd been here a good few times before so the shock was perhaps less than it might've otherwise been. I'd studied here in 1997 and then come back from time to time due to family and friends. I had also made the decision, in 2008, to move to Helsinki for 3 months to test the waters, so to speak, and if that didn't work out then I would've known it wasn't for me and stayed in the UK instead. I moved for those three months, it worked out well, so I started actively looking for work and planning my permanent move to Finland.

I was lucky enough to get a job offer from an IT firm so made my move here in 2010. Initially it was fine, I already had friends here so that was one less worry, and the company I worked in spoke English as an operating language so that also made things easier. My biggest problem there, though, was the ignorance of other countries and cultures, and the insensitivity to race relations. I heard people using the N word without sense of embarressment or irony, they would do impressions of foreigners in a mocking way that was supposed to be funny, I would be asked, way too frequently, if I wanted fish and chips and a cup of tea instead of whatever food was served in the canteen and they'd laugh at their own jokes. Hilarious, especially for the tenth and eleventh times.

I would be told that I was a "good foreigner" due to my appearance i.e. blonde, blue eyed, and white.

After a while, an engineer from Ireland joined the company and so that took a little edge off of things but, when out for lunch with him, the sales director, and a few other members of staff, we were talking generally and the sales director said "so, are you two going to start fighting?" we looked at each other confused and said "erm, no, why?" to which the sales director replied "you know because *giggle* you're *giggle* english and irish so* giggle* you know...".
I just stared at him and said "i don't know him, how can i have a problem with him?" and then we just carried on eating.

I eventually left that company due to the economic downturn, but I've witnessed so much since then such as a man in the centre trying to get bus directions from a group of somali guys by shouting "N****R!, N****R!, Hey, N****R!!" I've seen a dark skinned man on the bus get abused and pushed out the way by another guy because he "dared" to sit next to him.

Then, of course, there's the news with reports of PS getting more and more votes, racist banners being put up alongside motorways, it's as if someone made an announcement stating it was ok to be intolerant, insensitive and ignorant and I, apparently, missed that broadcast.

So, I'm returning back to the UK. People in the UK can be intolerant from time to time, and people the world over can be ignorant, but the fact is that the UK is the devil I know, so I can deal with it a little more easily there.

To be honest, when I got to Finland in 1997 I was looked on as a pleasant oddity as a foreigner and people were genuinely interested in my opinions and contributions as a non-Finn, now I feel the country is beginning to view immigrants and ex-pats as an unwelcome invasion or burden. The majority of us moved to Finland to bring expertise from IT, engineering, and many many other areas, chasing us away will only damage the economy further and those unemployed Finns with high qualifications will leave, too, leaving a country of under-educated, intolerant, racists. It's a damn shame.

I feel I've been driven out rather than leaving of my own choice, I hoped for better.