摘自New York Times的一篇报道，第二段那首poem，太深得我心了。。。

By that, Ms. Dong did not mean that Chinese students had been repressed or censored by their own government. She meant that the Western news media had not acknowledged the strides China had made or the voices of overseas Chinese. “We are still neglected or misunderstood as either brainwashed or manipulated by the government,” she said.

No matter what China does, these students say, it cannot win in the arena of world opinion. “When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet./ When we tried limiting our numbers, you said it is human rights abuse,” reads a poem posted on the Internet by “a silent, silent Chinese” and cited by some students as an accurate expression of their feelings. “When we were poor, you thought we were dogs./ When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts./ When we build our industries, you called us polluters./ When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.”

我真是。。。sigh。。。为中华之崛起而读书！

全诗如下：When we were the sick man of Asia, we were called the yellow peril.
When we are billed to be the next superpower, we are called the threat.
When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to open markets.
When we embrace free trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs.
When we were falling apart, you marched in your troops and wanted your fair share.
When we tried to put the broken pieces back together again, Free Tibet you screamed, it was an invasion!
When we tried communism, you hated us for being communist.
When we embrace capitalism, you hate us for being capitalist.
When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.
When we tried limiting our numbers, you said we abused human rights.
When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.
When we loan you cash, you blame us for your national debts.
When we build our industries, you call us polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.
When we buy oil, you call it exploitation and genocide.
When you go to war for oil, you call it liberation.
When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you demanded rules of law.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you call it violating human rights.
When we were silent, you said you wanted us to have free speech.
When we are silent no more, you say we are brainwashed xenophobics.

不知道为什么，对spaces就总是不能够很上心。时而很在意，天天blog之；时而置之不理，任其自生自灭。。。

 

Whatever，反正来涂鸦几句也算有个交待，没让杂草繁殖过快。

 

近来心情翻云覆海，极不稳定中，易宅居，不易social，业已许久不见人烟。

 

待个三五七日之后，预计可有所舒缓，自当重新浮出水面，踏入江湖。

 

近来每日娱乐生活与tudou、ppstream为伴，对各类电视电影节目所知甚详，乃一收获。。。

 

另外通报一下，发型又有所变化，愈短，俏丽之貌溢于言表~~~

内容如题。

 

前两天看了一则新闻，说是现在哈佛最火的一门课是《幸福学》，选修的人数比《经济学导论》还多。那个教授说她刚开始教积极心理学的时候，只有8个人选她的课，还有2个人中途退课了。但是后来变成400多人，后来是800多人，现在甚至学生的爸爸妈妈奶奶爷爷都有来听课的。她说现在她站在讲堂上都快紧张起来了。

这则新闻有点来得正是时候的感觉，因为恰巧这段时间我在思索类似的问题。前几天还在跟鸟说，以前我是那种干坐着灵感都自己往外喷的人，创意刚刚的挥洒。但不知从哪天起，突然发现自己变得如此枯燥无聊，像是重复某些机械运动的机器一样。因为要思考毕业论文题目的缘故，我拿起本科毕业论文又看了看，突然发现我竟然无法找到比那个时候更好的题目和想法，甚至无法超越那个时候写的东西。何其悲哀。我突然意识到，当我的心思不再纯净，但灵魂被功利主义悄悄侵染的时候，上帝也收走了赋予我的所有灵感和天赋。

我在想，我到底想做什么？我到底追求什么？到底什么事情对我才是真正有意义的？到底怎么做才能感到幸福？我想到哈佛那个教授讲到的，她说幸福不是宝马别墅，甚至短暂的成就感也无法令人满足太久。是啊，这些道理如此浅显，谁人不知，谁人不晓，可又有几人能有权力和毅力去追求这样的幸福呢？也许只有在物质极大丰富之后，人们才会渐渐意识到曾经失去、正在失去和未来即将失去的东西。也或许，那便是中国十几年或者几十年后将要同样面临的情景。

我弟弟说，他现在就是彻底的拜金主义，他算看明白了，有钱就是能使鬼推磨。鸟说，只有那些第三代们才最有权力做艺术家。我说，至少现在，请还让我做个理想主义者。

我不知道这样的理想主义还能行走多远，也不知道命定要摔倒几跤和爬起几次，还是永远的攀附在阴冷的地面上长眠不醒。高中的时候，我说我会无翅前行，因为那时候看安妮宝贝，所以在感情的道路上我始终翱翔，尽管知道自己没有翅膀；现在我说我仍会无翅前行，尽管我已真正告别了薇安，告别了幽蓝文字的时代，但生活的无奈除了能折掉我的双翼，并无力吞噬我的灵魂。

我在msn上遇到了曾经在北青报的时候主管我们部门的主编，我说我突然意识到，其实金钱和权力对我而言从来都不是一种吸引力，尽管很多时候我们需要他们并利用他们。这个时候我突然想起皮最让我钦羡的地方，他永远都怀揣着自己的梦想，不论多少阻碍，不论多么艰难和迷茫。而金钱和权力，在他看来只是目标的附属品而已。也或许，正是如此，他才能一直保持着他的天赋。我说我正在刹车，我不想再偏离自己的轨道了，我应该去做我真正想做的事情。我想起在CCTV的时候主管我的领导曾经对我说过，他觉得最幸福的事情就是在他40岁的时候做了现在的工作，那才是他一生中真正想做的。我们主编说我如此小的年纪能想明白这个道理，实属不易。但我知道，其实我远没有那么清楚和明白，只不过，我是宿命论者。

鸟说，你太累了，你应该停下来歇歇。烧鸡说，看你应该挺强势的啊，没想到在感情问题上那么弱势。我弟弟说，你那弱势都是装的，你本来就应该是强势的。我说，那好吧，那我还挺能装，一装就是七年。我总觉得他们都还不了解我，当然，也有可能是我还不了解自己。但我不过在本分地做着我应该做的事情而已。我从来都不觉得自己是一个有野心的人，我只是尽量把每一件我正在做的事情做到最好。因为我把自己归为类完美主义者。很多朋友总喜欢把我的很多事情归为“个别案例”，跟我说，你的情况是particular。也许，我只是习惯了把一切事情想得好一些罢了。所以我跟烧说，我不是不靠谱儿的。

我现在突然感觉有些轻松，因为我又开始思考了。无论它们有多么的荒诞或是无知。所以我仍然觉得感恩。曾几何时，我甚至失去了思考的能力。也许我总是沿着皮的脚步的，也许我不知不觉中正踩着他的脚印前行。我们有的时候会经历同样的思想和步调，尽管我常常比他晚上很多年，尽管我永远不及他的清楚和明了。但至少这一次，我已从随波逐流的小船上纵身跳下。庆幸的是，I do swim。

8-29 Did nothing 

 

i'm supposed to go to visit sanoma school of journalism on that day. But actually, i didn't go there because i'm so tired and i wanted do some work in the room. So, nothing to say about it.

 

Before i went to Finland, i expected to visit NOKIA as one of the most important programs here because i always thought that NOKIA is sort of a symbol of Finland which was denied by Finns. Whatever, i thought the best thing always comes last so that i had a high expectation to visit NOKIA and actually i prepared lots of questions to ask them. And you know, because i'm the campus embassador of MOTOROLA, so i'm really interested about the relationship between this two rivals. Unfortunately, the manager who received us was not competent in her position in our opinion because she seemed like not sure about lots of information. And the most importand, even the things she knew, she didn't want to discuss some meaningful but might be a little tough topics with us. Her answers were so official. Even more official than our officials.

A few words about the farewell reception. I met my host family again on the reception which was the memorable moment for me. And also, we got our diplomas from the ministry. But the best moment in the reception was watching the video made by Angela. She did a really amazing work. Everybody looked nice on the video and all our best memories were showed in front of us. I can't help weeping with Mateja and Zeynep. Finally I realized I'm leaving soon.

8-31 Last 44 hours in Finland

I feel so sad when I realized this is my last two days stay in Finland. I'm not reluctant to leave the place but the people here. We spent the whole day together exchanging our pictures and videos, discussing our trips, presenting our own individual projects, having a sauna and the most important, seeing our videos. Angela filmed the video of each one. We talked about our funniest moments here and our best moments as well. After that, Michael played guita and sang his newly composed song. Manuel played his saxophone and Judy sang a goodbye song for us. I was deeply moved by these lovely guys. As usual, we went to the night club together in the evening, but i didn't have a lot of fun there. I can't believe I will leave them soon. I can still remember the first day when we introduced ourselves. I can still remember the laughing on the bus and tram. I can still remember our singing and dancing everywhere. And now, I can understand the saying "How time flies". We left the bar by twos and threes in succession. We gave each other a big hug for a long time and said goodbye to everyone painfully.

The next day, when I got up, some of us had already left. I went downstairs to say goodbye to someone waiting for the 11:30 car outside. About 5-6 of us would take the 11:30 car to the airport together. It's too difficult for me to say goodbye in the last minute. I just wanna say "see you" to them all. "See you wherever." When I watched their car leaving, I can't hold my tears off.

My flight was the last one of ours that day, around 8pm. I sat in the hall at the airport and watched our videos and pictures. It's really weird to stay without them and I felt really empty. I knew my trip was over.

Goodbye, Finland. I'll never forget my moment here. It's a great experience to spend a month with all my lovely colleagues. You're always in my heart, everyone. Miss you all the time. Kiitos!

I'm coming back from Lapland just now. I feel so exausted from the travelling thus I have no extra energy to write articles about each day's tour. But it's really an amazing experience in Lapland so that I'd like to say sth briefly in my diaries.

First of all, I still wanna say sth about astrology which I mentioned several times before. Because these days, we talked a lot about it and I've almost knew everyone's star sign already. I found we had so many Geminis and Scorpios in our group. Andris, Aurelien, Mosheh and me are Geminis and I can find some similarities among us. Zeynep, Ingrid and Bhekani are Scorpios. But it's out of my imagination to believe that Bhekani is also a Scorpio. Because Scorpio is supposed to be calm, rational and aggresive, but Bhekani seems so talktive and emotional although he insisted he's shy inside. And the most funny joke these days is the argument about whether Bhekani's sexy or not. I said'You might be sexy in South Africa'. He was totally frustrated. And I told him'You will be sexy in the future'. Thus, everybody talked about the possibility from 'might be' to 'will be' and asked Bhekani not to lose hope. And I said'I have a dream, that one day I would be sexy all over the world, not only in South Africa', hehe. Otherwise, Michael and Manuel are both Sagittarius. Angela, Urike and Laurens are all Cancers.

Back to the tour, when we arrived Rovaniemi which is the capital of Lapland, I was much impressived by this beautiful city. The sky is so clear and the air is so fresh although it's a little cold there. And actually, the temprature of the first day is the highest during our exursion. When we went to Kakslauttanen, Kiilopaa and Inari, the weather was really cold and windy. We can't believe that's the summer time of Lapland and I almost wore everything I took in order to survive...

We had two smoke sauna in Lapland, one was in Kakaslauttanen where we lived in Igloos, transparent glass houses. And the other one was in Kiilopaa where we lived in log cabins. Smoke sauna was more hotter than normal sauna. And the most amazing part was to go to swim during the sauna. The temprature of the lake was around 7 or 8 degrees which is really freezing and chilly. Especially in Kakaslauttanen, nobody can stay in the water more than 30 seconds which was Michael's record and we came to sort of consensus that he's not human being but a robot or fish. Actually, everyone got into the water just for 5 seconds or less and then rushed back. And most of us even can't go inside. I hesitated along the river for a long time and Angela persuded me to try it and said 'Only two seconds, you'll feel the whole life'. Finally, I jumped into the water and climbed out with the scream 'Angela, you ruined my life'. But whatever, I did it and even tried twice in Kakaslauttanen. In Kiilopaa, I went to swim 5 times and I'm the only girl who swam a whole round in the lake. Sara said I was so tough and she believed I can even swim in the ice hole in the winter time.

In Rovaniemi, we went to the Santa Claus' Office and took a picture with him. Santa spoke in Chinese with me but just some simple sentences like 'Ni Hao' or 'Gong Xi Fa Cai'. That's it. But Santa can greet people in different languages. By the way, in the Santa's Village, we can come across the Arctic Circle.

We went to two different farms in Lapland which raises Huskies and reindeers. Reindeer is the symbol of Lapland and the most important property of Sami people. Never ask a Sami how many reindeers he has because it's just like you ask a person how much money you have.

A few words about making pancakes and our new game. In Kiilopaa, we made pancakes ourselves around the fire and I'd like to write down the recipe in order to remind me how to cook it later. It was the combination of powder, eggs, salt, oil, butter, milk and jam. Otherwise, when we were in Rovaniemi the first night, Andris, Aurelien, Zeynep and me went to the river bank together and sat in a private boat. We developed a new game that everyone speak in their own language but pretend to understand the others and communicate with each other. And later, we translated it into English and to see what the others said. It's really funny that after they spoke a lot and turned to me, I was really confuse and didn't know what to say so I said 'Wo wan quan bu ming bai ni men zai shuo shen me' which means I totally cannot understand you. And they said 'Yeah yeah yeah yeah'. Ha, what a coincidence.

8-24 Military Defence and Argument with American

We got a general picture about Finnish military defence today by visiting the Defence Command and naval defence territory. In Finland, they have three main targets in terms of military defence. The most importand part is national defense and 90% of their military budget are spent on this aspect. Their overall military budget is about 2 billion euros a year which equals 1.3% of Finland's GDP. Comparing to other countries, Finland doesn't spend much on military. Their aim is "cost efficient". Mosheh told us that in US, their military budget is about 8% of States' GDP. The second target is to assist other authorities in Finland, such as fire alarm and so on. The third target is international cooperation which means response the demand of UN, EU or NATO. Comparing to the Finland's territory, they have only 5 million people. Although there is only 1 soldier in a square kilometer in Finland, their personnel strengths will cut down to 350000 in the beginning of next year due to the downsizing of the military budget. In Finland, their conscription is compulsive for men but the majority serve the army just for 6 or 9 months, some others may serve for 11 months. Anyhow, it's not very long comparing to China's 2-3 years.

When we arrived Upiniemi Naval defence territory, there was a military world championships. I met a person from Chinese DOD there coincidently. He was sent to Helsinki three years ago by Chinese military and studied in a Finnish military university for 2 years. Now he lives in Embassy of China in Finland as a permanent delegate of Chinese DOD. I asked him why China didn't attend this competition. He said we were invited by Finnishi military but he guessed maybe our government didn't consider it as an importand and influential event . The most interesting thing is when a Finnish military officer introduced this championship to us, he explained why US was not here. He said "as you know, they're busy elsewhere". By the way, Germany won the champion finally. In the afternoon, we went to the Uusimaa Brigade which is the only swedish speaking brigade of Finnish Army. In Uusimaa, two landing craft took us sailing in the sea. It was amazing! They turned sharply at the speed of 70km/h and it seemed like the wave would blow on your face!

Additionally, I argued with Mosheh about Taiwan issue today and I repeatedly emphasize that Taiwan is part of China. But Mosheh thought it was an "offical statement" and insist they are defending Taiwan's democracy. I pointed out unreservedly that it's none of their bussiness and It's Chinese interior problem. But he said they just did what Taiwanees asked them to do and they hope Taiwan can be everything they want no matter part of China or independent. In my opinion, it's really a tricky problem. If they want Taiwan to be what they like to be, why Bush so annoyed with Chen Shuibian when he wanna declare the independence of Taiwan. I thought Taiwan is only a weight of US to negotiate with Chinese government. However, Mosheh defended that they just want Taiwan to calm down because no one in America is willing to see a war with China and they thought if Taiwan declared independence, Chinese army would start the war. So you see, it wouldn't be any result of the debate between Chinese and American towards such issues. 

 8-23 Finnish Education

Today's main topic is about education in Finland. First of all, we had a lecture about Finnish education system and I'll write down some brief words about the impressive items. In Finland, their education policy is strongly influenced by the government because they have no private universites in Finland. Actually, their ministry of education makes the policy and under the ministry, there is a national board of education which implements the policy. In general, the ministry makes decision about educational policy and legislation and FNBE decides the national core curricula and carries out development work, national evaluation and information services. Btw, in Finland, there isn't any ranking list of universities or schools which is different from US or some other countries.

Considering of issue of the tution fees, the speaker said if you're single student from abroad, you don't need to pay something. But if you're a group of internaional student for exmaple sent by your government, you should pay for your master's degree in Finland although it costs little. The interesting thing is although this policy is toward foreign students, Finnish students feel unhappy with this policy because they fear this is the first step of government to collect fees for everybody.

After the lecture, we went to an comprehensive school, similar to elementary schools and high schools of ours. We had a school meal there and it let me feel back to my school time. Two things wanna mention. One is I met a Chinese girl there who is the only Chinese student in that school. Actually, she came there only a couple of months so that she still cannot speak Finnish and is even not good at English which means she will experience a hard time there. I tried to talk to her, but she's so shy and even didn't wanna talk with me. No matter I asked her what question, her reaction was just saying "en" to me. So I really have no idea how to continue our conversation.

The other thing is they have some students who have "mental difficulties" in the school and they are arranged by special schedules of classes. Actually, we met some such students there but they didn't start to learn English untill now so that we can't talk with them. It's very funny that the guides of the school may not know the exact and appropriate term to discribe these students in English, so they just called them "retarded students". But it seemed very very weird for someone from English countries, e.g. UK. Michael told us basically nobody calls them "retarded students" and even "mental challenges" is not respectful either.

Our last stop today was Helsinki University of Art and Design. Related to my future article, I asked the presenter some questions about internaional students. She told us according to the newly figures in 2007, they have overall 1089 students in MA degree and 28% of them are international students. But it's very hard to get into the university and about only 6% applicants can get the admission. There are few Chinese students there. Most Asian students are from Japan.

Otherwise, after the dinner, we several guys chatted on the ingrid's balcony which is on the first floor and we mentioned astrology issues again. I found there are many Geminis and Scorpions in our group. Mosheh, Aurelien, Andris and me are all Geminis which seemed exciting for me. 

 

Something wrong with my alarm today and I was late for the first lecture. Whatever, I took part into the lecture as soon as I entered the office and raised several questions about Finnish media environment and condition. Btw, the theme of the lecture is "Finnish news and media". The trainer said nowadays, a trend in Finnish journalism is news are getting more and more simple. Although it has some negative influence, she thought it would be a good thing considering of the audience and readers. The more simple your word is, the more easily they can be understand. She thought one of the dangerous things is the speed. Because more and more newspapers or broadcastings they pursue the speed of releasing the news in stead of the depth of the news. It means you have less and less time to think about what you will write and what you wrote. What's more, sometimes, news are getting more and more entertainmentalized which means the sensational issues replace lots of meaningful and serious issues. And you can hardly find any information in this kind of entertainment news. And we also discussed about digital tv today which is actually my focus during the last semester.

We went Helsinki Sanomat which is the biggest newspaper in Finland this afternoon. I didn't stay there for a long time because I had an interview with the admissions adviser of Helsinki University. A few words about the AD issue of Helsinki Sanomat. Almost every foreigner is shocked by the front page of Helsinki Sanomat and also some other Finnish newspapers whose front pages are completely occupied by advertisement. The explanation of Helsinki Sanomat is because the largest proportion of their circulation depends on subscription which means it's unnecessary for them to attract their clients by front page news. Instead, they can gain lots of money from this AD business. Yes, it makes sense, but still seems strange for me.

By the way, we had an international night today and everyone took one dish of their own food. I fried some different kinds of peppers, onion, mushroom, chicken wich black bean sauce. And I would say, I'm not boasting, it's really tasty. And actually, everyone liked my Chinese food except the vegetarian. Whatever, we had a wonderful night together and the Spanish guy Manuel played saxophone for us. I drank some Irish coffee as well and it's nothing but Whisky...really strong...Actually, I drank Whisky, Austrian wine and French cidar at the same time...a little drunk...

8-22 STT

We seventeen different participants spent the day as guests of seventeen different media in Finland. My media placement is STT(Finnish News Agency). I arrived at STT at 9:30am and two of their stuffs showed me around their offices. Like other news agencies, STT produces a real-time and comprehensive news agency services. But different from Xin Hua News Agency or some other news agencies, STT is a private company owned by Finnish media companies and I think that's why STT can be neutral and objective toward different issues especially political news. And to some extend, we have to say the Finnish politicians more or less depend on the media to get more expositions in order to gain the support from their voters. Fortunately, Finnish media today are not that interested in the private life of powers. Besides their prime minister's love affairs, most serious newspapers or broadcastings have no such desire to dig out this kind of scandals. They pay much attention to political scandals in terms of political issues themselves.

STT is an independent, national news provider which means they have seldom foreign customers. They mainly provide their products to Finnish media and companies. And it's a little weird that actually some of their customers are also their shareholders which means their customers own them but should pay them for the products. Whatever, considering of the profit, it might be a good thing for them because they needn't think a lot about the profits and stare at the stock exchange all the time. In this sense, they have more time to do good journalism in stead of business.

Additionally, as mentioned above, because STT mainly provide national news so that their main focus is domestic news, including politics, economics, social affairs, culture, sports and so on. Everyday, they have approximately 300 news items in Finnish and 140 news items in Swedish. They have only 5 correspondents abroad, one in Brussels(because of EU), and the other four are in their most related countries, including Stockholm, Tallinn, St.Petersburg and Washington. By the way, their foreign desk usually follow the news from Reuters, AP, AFP or some other foreign agencies instead of doing interview themselves. In another word, the journalists there haven't lots of chances to go abroad but edit the others' news and translate them into Finnish.

I found something interesting there. Although everyone in STT thinks that yellow paper is a bad example of good journalism, almost all the departments read ILTA SANOMAT which is sort of yellow paper as their entertainment even gain some information for work from that paper.

A few words about meeting with the chief editor of STT. I don't used to meet this kind of "somebody" so I felt a little uncomfortable about it. To some extend, I felt like an interview and the "interviewer" kept asking me hot questions, such as the attitude toward media freedom in China and so on...

By the way, we went to an "European Chinese restaurant" for the lunch. I would say not bad. And on the way home, I found a shop selling crystals, really nice.

I wanna write an article about chinese students who study abroad in Finland so that I had an interview with two students in Helsinki University this afternoon and missed one lecture in our program at the same time. I wouldn't say I missed it on purpose, but more or less, hehe. One of my interviewees is the boy came from PKU who I mentioned in the diaries before and the other one came from Wuhan University. Both of them planned to apply for universities in US at the beginning, but finally they went to Helsinki due to some different reasons. So, you see,  I think the universities in Nordic countries are just kind of alternatives as spare choices for students, not the dreaming destinations. Whatever, to some extend, it's not a bad idea to study in such countries. At least, you will learn how to be independent and know more about western countries in terms of the trend of globalization.

When I went back to office of MFA, there was another lecture about Finnish Family Life because we will spend this weekend with Finnish host families. In most Finnish families, fathers are not good at talking with guests even with family members and they seldom cook. Most chores are conducted by women. And whenever they finish their dinner, they will say 'Kiitos' which means 'Thank you' to each other. And as you know, sauna is one of the most popular things in Finland and most families serve their guests with sauna. But the difference is when they have sauna among family members, they are naked in the sauna. But if there were guests, they may ask them to wear swimmingsuits if they want or let them enjoy the sauna alone if they feel much more comfortable.

After the dinner, we decided to go to some interesting bars so that some finns led us to a bar-street. We spent some time in a Karaoke Bar first and I sang three songs for them, including Shania Twin's 'You are still the one', Spice Girls' '2 Become 1' and Christina's 'Beautiful'. Their Karaoke Bars are not the same as our Melodies or Cash Boxes. Actually, it's a public karaoke. As long as you pay for the ticket of the bar, you can sing whatever you like on the stage inside the bar. So I feeled like a pop star there, haha. And it's really funny that Mosheh, Thomaz, Manuel and Bhekani sang together as a boys' group. It's a new 'Backstree Boys'.

When we left the Karaoke Bar, we wanted to find somewhere to dance so that we went to a Disco Bar as well. The ticket of the Disco Bar is to stamp a butterfly on your hand. It's so cool. I drank some cidar at the bar and danced all the time. We had a ball during our dancing time. It's really marvellous. And unexpectedly, Michael was not as quiet as I thought before. He has another side which was not showed in some kind of formal or offical occasions. But when he danced with us, he was full of passion like the other extrovertish guys. To some extent, it's not completely out of our imagination. After all, he's a Sagittarius. By the way, Manuel said I was a good dancer, haha. But unfortunatelly, we were caught in the rain when we were on the way back and I hadn't any raincoat with me. I was totally wet. Whatever, it was really a wonderful night with all of these nice guys.

8-18 City gril in the countryside

Because I went to bed so late yesterday so that I didn't go to today's program although it seemed interesting more or less. So you see, I missed "the Finnish Design Day". I woke up at about 13am and went to the railway station to meet my host family directly. When I saw Sanna who is the hostess, I found she's very nice and kind. We went to Espoo where her husband works by bus and went to their house by their car after some shopping in Espoo. Btw, I bought a new small suitcase which was 50 euros. Although it's more expensive than that of ours, it's still relatively cheap considering the others which mostly cost more than 100 euros.

My host family lives in the countryside, a small village named Pauni where is about 50 kilometers from Helsinki city. Basically, their house located in some sort of the middle of the forest and it's a lovely pink two-stored house with their own green house. Sanna told me that most of her relatives live nearby and I saw her parents', uncle's, and cousin's home as well. Actually, the forest of a large area belongs to her father's.

Sanna and Sakke, her husband, travelled a lot all over the world and lived in Vietnam in a couple of years. Also, they have been to China twice and that's why they're familier with Asia. Sakke told me they missed the days living in Vietnam even more than in other places. Although they had some difficult time there, they still wanted to be back there again. And Sanna told me they had applied for adopting a Chinese child but it might take them several years on the waiting list and the processure is very very complicated. Whatever, they love Asia and Asian food as well. We cooked some Chinese food in the evening and I had a good sleep on the soft bed they prepared for me.

8-19 Finnish family's weekend

In the morning, we went a small town named Lohja and went some shopping there. Once again, when I tried to buy some clothes there, they are made in China. I found the efficient way to take care of your money here is to check their label. If you found sth is really really expensive, you know you can't afford it. If the price is acceptable, you'll find it made in China and you can give it up. Btw, I found a super market where has lots of relatively cheap but good stuffs in it and I bought sth really nice for family and friends.

After the shopping, we went to the library of the town and there was a classical band playing some music at the hall. Near the library there was a market square. Besides selling, there was a local festival and some bands were playing on the stage of the open air. We also went to the small church of the town where Sanna and Sakke got married. It's really a distinctive and delicate church with lots of frescos on the wall. Later we went to a lake where was a water-ball game carrying through there. The game was between Finland and Russia and the Finnish group got a fiasco finally.

After we went back home, we had a barbecue together on the balcony of the house. And during my short rest in the afternoon, Sanna and Sakke was preparing for the little party tonight. Actually, they invited Sanna's cousin Anna and their friend Nina, Philips couple to the party and the theme of the party is to eat delicious cramfish. Anna married a swedish man several years ago so that she lives in Sweden now. She came back for just one week vacation and the good news is she's pregnant. Nina and Philip travelled a lot because of the philip's work. Philip comes from Belgium and works for Nokia now. Philip is really a funny guy and I talked a lot with him. He complained about the strange accent of his Asian colleagus. And of course, especially his Chinese or Singaporean company. He said he couldn't understand their English. I said whatever, you did a good job, you can understand mine. He thought although he can still hear my Asian accent, my English is less Asian and in his opinion, very nice. Hopefully, it might be the truth more or less. But actually I'm not such confident about that. Because there always be somebody shaken your confidence. Like Nina, she is really a talent on languages. She can speak Finnish, Swedish, English, Deutch and German. Wow, I can see the Mariana Trench between us. Whatever, all of them are very very nice.

Something about over dinner. The cramfish were very very dainty and we ate with delicadishes and cups and different kinds of wines. We ate outside of the house, in a camp near it. And along the road from the house to the camp, Sakke put on so many lights and firebrands and candles as well. It was an amazing picture when it was getting dark. So romantic~After the dinner, we had some wines and cakes together and kept on chatting. I was so sleepy so that I went to bed first at about 2am. The left of them stayed up till 5am in the morning. Wow~~

8-20 Monday never comes

pending~

pending~

8-14 Finnish Aland or Swedish Aland?

We went to Aland's Autonomy Building today to see their own parliament and meet their governer. Aland is autonomy of Finland but in retrospect, both Finland and Aland belonged to Sweden for couple of years before Russia took charge of them. In 1920, under the intermediation of UN, whiAland became a part of Finland. And this Aland Islands Question is the only case in history which was peacefully solved by the arbitrament of UN. The most interesting is no matter Sweden or Finland or Aland, they said nothing at that time, just accepted calmly...But I have to say it's really strange that although Aland is Finland's Autonomy, it has more intimate relationship with Sweden. Swedish is their only offical language and the majority of Alanders even can't speak Finnish. Moreover, most of young people there usually continue their study in Sweden instead of Finland after graduation from high schools or universities. And if you look at their different flags, it's easy to find out which country Aland is close to. Whatever, nowadays, Aland has their own rights on election, law, flag and some other issues. But they still can't decide their won taxation policy which they demand to and negotiate with Finland government at the moment.

Additionally, I will say a few words about the shopping today. Before we departed from parliament to airport, we have some time to look around at market region and I bought some souvenirs for my family and friends.

We took Aland Air to Helsinki and it's really the smallest plane I've ever seen. It seemed like a private plane which was prepared only for us. I think there wouldn't be more than 30 seats on the plane. After we arrived Helsinki Vantaa Airport, I found my suitcase's handle was broken. I compained with the staff of the ariport and she told us they needed more information from Aland's Airport and then called me about how to deal with this problem. The processure may takes a couple of days and untill now I didn't received their phone call yet.

8-15 Atenuem

It's our second free day in Finland. I slept till the lunch time and cooked some chinese food myself. Later in the afternoon, I went to the art museum 'Atenuem'. To be honest, I don't understand the paintings which means it's not easy for me to figure out which is better and what's its value. I'm really not an expert. However, I really enjoyed some sculptures there, especially the one about Cubid.

And I went shopping again today. But actually, I didn't buy anything although I checked more shops this time and almost every shop along the main shopping street. Because I found the clother and shoes are so common comparing to ours. In my opinion, this kind of stuffs are more fashionable in our country but less expensive or at the same price at least. Actually, I found sth nice here, but all of them are Italian or French or British design, such like Max Mara, Max & Co, Burberry and so on. They're quite expensive, more than 400 euros per one skirt or sth.

8-16 We're mentioned

we had three lectures today, nothing interesting actually.

by the way, we're mentioned on the Helsinki Times which is an English newspaper here. They wrote an article about our program.

 

8-10 Naked boys

After 9 days in Helsinki, we left this city in time in order to avoid of getting bored here. We took the train to Turku which is known as the Finnish candidate for European Capital of Culture 2011. When we arrived Turku, we took a guided bus to have a sightseeing in order to get an overall picture of the city's history and scenery. In this traditional and cultural city, which impressed me a lot is Turku Cathedral, located on Unikankare Hill. The church is considered to be a national shrine in which the monuments and hundreds of details describe the history of the Finnish people.

in the afternoon, we went to Aker Yard where produces cruise ships. So far as we know, they have the biggest cruise ship all over the world which is three times larger than Titanic. Fortunately, we got a chance to get into the cruise ship 'Independence' which is still in construction.

When we came back from Aker Yards, we went to our hostel. It's my first time to live in a hostel and i didn't think i like it. It's too narrow to share a room with some others and have no private at all.

In the evening, we went to Volla Solin where seemed like the heaven to have dinner and sauna. I would say the tour to Volla Solin is the best part during our stay in Turku. That is really a luxury place to spend your vacation. In this quiet, delicate and wonderful place, you can feel the power of the nature.

After the meal, we girls went to the sauna first while the boys were waiting in the garden. In front of our sauna room, there is Baltic Sea. You can swim with the fish in the sea after the sauna and then get back to sauna, and then get out to swim again. That's an amazing experience. It's so funny that the boys had sauna after the girls finished because all the girls sat in a line along the seashore with wines in the hand and saw boys come in and out from sauna. It seemed like we bought some VIP tickets for the show. And some boys even went to swim without swimming suit. I mean they were naked! We thought they were really enjoyed the attention from girls and that might be the reason why they did that. Whatever, I have to clarify I didn't see anything because I sat behind them and there was a big bushwood in front of me which veiled my vision. I promise.

When we came back to the hostel, some of us went to a bar. I intent to order some orange juice, but Bhekani said 'You suck.' So I ordered some Apple Cidar instead. Anyway, it's kind of alcohol.

8-11 Nuclear power plant

It's really frustrated for me to attend a boring lecture early in the morning. A professor from Turku University kept talking about policies and relationships among Baltic countries which seemed none of my business. The only thing I did in the conference room was enjoying the fruit and coffee they offered.

After that, we went to TVO which is a Nuclear power plant. The significant issue toward nuclear power is how to deal with the waste. According to the Nuclear Energy Act, all nuclear waste generated in Finland mu