Interview 2- Finland

When I began getting ready for my second interview, I started by reviewing my first interview. This would give me ideas, things to work on, and questions I wanted to ask again. This helped me write new questions, and chose questions I did not want to ask again. I also added more objectives to the list I already had. I found my objectives helped me to stay on task and work toward my goals, and get as much information as possible. When I chose a location for my second interview, I picked three locations and gave Niklas the option to choose where he would feel most comfortable. I picked locations that were more laid back; because this is the feeling I wanted my interview to have. When getting ready for my interview, I made sure I had all things I needed: Voice recorder, pen, paper, objectives, and interview questions.
I made a phone call to Susan, the head of foreign exchange students for the metro area. She gave me the number to a 17 year old boy named Niklas from Finland. Niklas has spent a few months in America already, so I thought he would be perfect. When I called Niklas, I explained to him and his host family what my project was and why I wanted to conduct an interview with him. He was very happy to meet with me, and set up an interview. He and I met the next day at a coffee shop near his host family’s home. I gave him the option to choose where we would meet, so he would feel comfortable when talking to me. Niklas was very open and we had a great time learning about each other, and each other’s countries.
On October 30th, 2009 Niklas and I met at Starbucks Coffee to have an interview and talk about Finland. Through the whole interview he was very open with me and I was happy that I could make him feel this way. I let him run the interview in a way. After asking questions I would give him a chance to go down another pathway or keep talking about this topic. I found that many of his answers were “it’s just like her (as in America)”. This made it hard for me to learn a lot about his country. He was very open about it, but it made it hard to find the differences between America and Finland.
I conducted my interview with a 17 year old boy named Niklas from Finland. Niklas has spend three months in Minnesota so far, and is not sure when he will be returning. He is enjoying his time here, learning new experiences, and meeting new people. Niklas enjoys spending time with his family, friends and playing hockey. He has been able to play hockey as a goalie at his new school in Minnesota, West Tonka High School. Niklas plans on becoming a doctor in his future.
The interview went very well in my opinion. I felt it was very laid back and he was very open. During the whole interview I found that Niklas was answering questions saying that “it’s just like here”. For example, I asked him what the biggest holidays are in Finland. Niklas answered: “It is just like here Christmas is very big”. I had to ask him to specifically tell me a holiday that is big in Finland to learn about his culture. Another thing I was trying to learn about what his family life was like. All he told me was that it’s about the same as here, with a few differences, but nothing really big. I found that my two other interviews gave me more information about the culture and country. One thing I found interesting about the interview was when we talked about sports in Finland. Niklas told me that most hockey players in Finland play at the highest professional level then they come to America to play. Something very interesting to me was that Niklas was fine with coming to America and being behind in school when he gets back to Finland. This is very interesting to me, because I feel like most students in America would not travel abroad if they knew they were not getting credit for their schooling abroad.
Finland is very special in many ways; one big thing is Finland is the first European country to have a female prime minister and first female president. Like Minnesota, Finland has many lakes and rivers. Finland is three times the size of Ohio, and is heavily forested. In 1971 Finland had complete freedom after World War II, when they were able to stop the invasion of the Soviet Union. In the subsequent half century, the Finns made a remarkable transformation from a farm/forest economy to a diversified modern industrial economy; per capita income is now among the highest in Western Europe (1). The Fins have a well structured and well rounded economy like, the UK, Germany, and Italy. Its key economic sector is manufacturing - principally the wood, metals, engineering, telecommunications, and electronics industries (1). Even though Finland has one of the best markets in the EU, in 2008 alone the unemployment rate has gone up eight percent. Long-term challenges include the need to address a rapidly aging population and decreasing productivity that threaten competitiveness, fiscal sustainability, and economic growth (1). Of the two official languages of Finland, Finnish is the first language spoken by 93% of the country's 5 million inhabitants (2). The other official language, Swedish, is spoken by around 6% of the population, most of whom live in the south west and are also speakers of Finnish (2). Finland, as well as Iceland, is Nordic not Scandinavian. This reflects their language origin; witch does not have a Germanic background. Children in Finland begin learning English in school at a young age. Every boy in Finland is required to spend 6months to twelve months in the Military training after High School, around age 18. After your year is over you are allowed to stay or return home and get a job. This sets these boys up for a draft, if there were to be a war in Finland they were use the draft system if needed. The mandatory retirement age for in Finish Military is 60 years old. In Finland school and health care are free. This creates high tax, but allows everyone equal opportunity to schooling. All schooling is free, even college. One of the biggest celebrated holidays in Finland is the Midsummer celebration; this is the longest day of the year. The families stay up late to celebrate enjoying each other’s company with food, and family fun. The most practiced religion in Finland is Christianity, the next most common is Russian Orthodox, and this is not very common.