In the view of some settlers here, Finland is "like something out of a fairytale"

Newsweek’s ranking does not come as any great surprise

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By Johanna Maria Lassy
     
      The US magazine Newsweek recently ranked a hundred of the world's roughly 200 sovereign nations according to a clutch of parameters linked to health, education, quality of life, economic dynamism, and political environment.
      After a brief embarrasing hitch, Finland was selected as the best country to live.
     
The Finns themselves were torn.
      Yes, it's nice to be recognised, but when you know the place well, you also know its drawbacks and perhaps even feel that maybe feel it is already slipping from some earlier dizzy heights - for instance in public services, which are regularly in the news, and often with the word "cutbacks" attached.
      Equally, can such studies be extrapolated to say a place is "best" for anyone, or is it merely those born there who can reap the benefits?
      Perhaps it is best to ask some who have settled here. Is Finland worth all the hype?
     
Yes, it is, confirm Christina Kinnunen and Fernando Miranda, who have both migrated to Finland and settled here.
      Kinnunen works as a sexton, while Miranda is a sales manager at an IT company.
      One can trust their word as they have chosen Finland as their home country voluntarily.
      Kinnunen emigrated from Canada to her parents’ former homeland five years ago. Miranda moved to Finland from the United States ten years ago, after having fallen in love with a Finn.
     
In Newsweek’s survey, Finland was ranked #1 mainly through its good results in education. Even Kinnunen and Miranda wax enthusiastic about the Finnish education system.
      ”I almost had a heart attack when I heard that studies in Finland are free of tuition-fees”, says Kinnunen, laughing.
      For years, Christina Kinnunen was in agony over the high tuition fees for a Canadian university.
      ”I studied for six months, but then I had to work for a year in order to gather money”, she says.
     
”Here even the teachers of small children have a master’s degree”, Fernando Miranda says, with some amazement.
      In Finland class sizes are smaller than those in the USA, and all children are paid attention to.
      ”It was also unbelievable that the child is allowed to be present in performance appraisal discussions between the teacher and the parents”, Miranda notes.
      Kinnunen is also astonished by the free meals in Finnish schools.
      ”And yet people complain about them! In Canada, you don’t eat if you have no money”, Kinnunen notes.
     
Fernando Miranda also enthuses over the Finnish healthcare system, even though Newsweek did not rank it anywhere close to #1 in the world. In fact health was the weakest link - Finland could do no better than 17th, well behind the winners Japan.
      But Miranda is unruffled by these numbers.
      ”When my children were born in Helsinki’s Women’s Hospital, the hospital fee was EUR 20. If we had been in an American hospital, it would have been USD 20,000. A quite absurd sum”, Miranda comments.
      ”Here people pay more taxes and get lower salaries, yes, but one cannot attach a price tag to such things as education and health”, he adds.
     
Both Kinnunen and Miranda are also full of praise for Finland’s political system, which Newsweekranked as the fifth best in the world.
      ”Representative democracy really comes true here”, says Miranda.
      Kinnunen also expresses admiration for Finnish legislation, saying that all laws are prepared carefully.
      ”Here nobody can get their fingers into the fundamental civil rights”, Kinnunen believes.
     
Further thanks go to the fact that nature is part of everyday life in Finland.
      ”Finns know more or less how to get their livelihood straight from the lake, and yet there are also many innovations in Finnish technology”, Miranda says by way of an explanation of the bond with the natural world.
     
Kinnunen is enthusiastic about the Finnish lifestyle and rhythm.
      ”In the summer, people are on vacation, and on Saturday they go to sauna. In the autumn, everybody goes to pick berries and mushrooms in their secret places. It is like something out of a book of fairy tales”, she says.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.8.2010

More on this subject:
 COMMENTARY: The best, or the happiest?

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Newsweek ranks Finland as ”best country in the world” (17.8.2010)

See also:
  Oops! Has Newsweek been mathematically-challenged? (18.8.2010)

Links:
  Newsweek: Best countries in the world

JOHANNA MARIA LASSY / Helsingin Sanomat
johanna.lassy@hs.fi