Love, work, and passion for adventure cause Finns to move abroad

More than 2,000 Finnish expats have already sent e-cards to a new “Greetings from the World” online service opened on Monday

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The Finns are no different from anyone else really: they are attracted to seek life abroad by love, work, and studies, but also by a passion for adventure. This becomes clear when studying the e-cards that Finnish expatriates have sent to the new Terveisiä maailmalta (“Greetings from the World”) online service set up by Helsingin Sanomat.
      By Wednesday, more than 2,000 Finnish expats had already approached the site with their overseas greetings. The service that collects experiences from the Finns living abroad was launched on Monday evening.
     
Love entered the life of Susanna, who now lives in Chicago, back in 2003 when she was on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
      During the second day of the journey Susanna met up with an American man called Jim.
      “We hiked together for 800 kilometres, and after the completion of the trip our journey together continued all the way to Chicago. Eight years later our Chicago-based family has two bilingual children. The whole family enjoys their life in this fantastic lakeside village of millions of people.”
      The majority of the received e-cards are coming in from Europe and North America, but mail has also been received for example from the Pacific Ocean nations of Fiji and New Zealand, and from Chile.
      Few expats, however, have such exotic jobs as a Finnish man from the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh.
      “AJ” reports that he is the only western and Christian CEO of a large Islamic investment bank.
     
Many of the expats say that they cherish their Finnish roots in their new home country.
      Some of them, however, would not be easily persuaded to move back, particularly at this time of year.
      Tuula fell in love with Hawaii during her first holiday there.
      “When I came to spend a holiday here, the feeling was unbelievable. I could never come and live in a cold climate again.”
      There are more than a million Finns living abroad, but rather little is known about them.
      The purpose of the Greetings from the World service is to collect information on the experiences of the Finnish expats and to bring them together.
     
     
To see where the Finns are living, click on "Selaa muiden kortteja" in the link below. The world map can be zoomed in for more detail.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish expats stay in orbit (5.1.2010)

See also:
  Terveisiä maailmalta (Greetings from the World)

Helsingin Sanomat