D-I-E Germany

My semester abroad is already over, so now it is a very good opportunity to think about my experience after all. This was my second time live in Germany, so I did not face any cultural barriers. However, it surprised me a little bit, how hard it was to get to know the local students at the university.

Describe

In a classroom, everyone sits silent and listen to the professor, the students highly appreciate the professors. It is very rare that someone interrupts them during their talk or even ask any questions. After the lecture, everyone just goes in their own way. In the library and study room, everyone chats and study, in their own group and it is common to make the team works online. So, there are not many opportunities to talk with the other students on school days, if they are not your friends already. I also felt that the Germans are not very interested in foreigners’ students, they did not make any contact with them and they seem a little uncertain to talk in English.

International food day

Interpret


I had six months' time to see and feel the German lifestyle and culture and I am convinced that Germans are very work-oriented and this can be seen in university. In Germany, success in university helps you to get a good job, and here, the previous work experience is not that important. Thus, everyone invests a lot of time into their studies and take it seriously. Maybe they don’t have time to make new friends and the friendship of an exchange student and a school-focused German may not lead to the best outcome because the study-spare time- balance is not the same.

The international family

Evaluate

I know that people talk about unfriendly Germans and it is a stereotype that Germans are very straight and study-oriented. The social outcome is not as important for then as a good result, so, they put all the effort and energy into their studies. In the end, even though I didn’t get to know many local students, I have a lot of international friends now. I familiarize many cultures all over the world and I cannot be happier that I have a lovely international family and also my old friends in Germany. I think in this way the outcome is even better than I ever hoped. 

My besties 💗

-Jasmiina-

D-I-E Netherlands

Written by Fiona Mwacharo

I have been in Netherlands for about a week and I love it. It is quite different than Finland. The city in which I am staying in, Groningen, is a student city with over 20 000 students. The average age is approximately 34 years for the residents here so there are a lot of young people and activities for young adults here. So here is my D-I-E experience

Describe

The Dutch are incredibly good at small talk, so much so that they end up talking about, what I feel is, super personal things just a few minutes after having met them. For example, my student group at the school was tasked with giving a small ppt introduction about themselves. Most people gave the usual information about their age and their hobbies but for the Dutch they went a step more. One of the Dutch students told that he was a Christian and had recently proposed to his girlfriend and that they would be married at the end of the year. Having lived in Finland for the past 10 years, I have become accustomed to the Finnish culture and I know that there is no way a Finnish student would discuss something so personal in front of people they had just met. Another Dutch student also talked about being engaged. Plus with other conversations with other Dutch people, I have seen that they are incredibly open people and can more or less give their life story after meeting someone for the first time. This is incredibly shocking for me.

Interpret

After encountering a handful of Dutch people who have been just as open, my interpretation is that this is a common thing in Netherlands. The people are overall incredibly friendly and just want to get to know other people. Maybe for them, giving such details is not too personal and they are not shy to give all kinds of details about their life.

Evaluate

After some googling I found that this is a typical Dutch stereotype. They are known for being open minded and being friendly and also discussing everything and anything under the sun even after meeting someone for the first time. Overall, this is something that at first made me feel weird but I am learning to adapt and be just as open as they are.

D.I.E. - Japan

This journey to Japan has now been my fourth time coming here. During these visits I have already learned a lot (but not most) about the manners in Japan. While I do still make some minor mistakes, and will continue to do them in the future, I believe that I am well enough informed that I can at least present myself in a decent manner when it comes to "keeping your face" and, more importantly, not causing shame to people in your party.

The cultural "bump" I actually experienced many times was with social interactions in unofficial situations! Casual conversations and meetings, that is. And this time the cause of "bumps" was the significant difference in humor. Humor is a social lubricant, a way to release stress and the perfect way in making strangers into friends. Humor is extremely important, and the nature of the humor also represents the soul of the people.

1. Describe

It is well known that Finnish humor is dark, sarcastic and very dry. Japanese humor is much more delicate and subtle, and often doesn't go too dark.

When I am surrounded by friends, I love being sarcastic and I often joke about something you shouldn't joke about in here: suicide. The reader should note, that this humor is only reserved for my close friends.. but sometimes mistakes happen.

So, on a normal day at a hall where students gathered on break times to eat lunch and chat with friends, I met with a close friend. The following interaction takes place:

Friend: Hey Maki-chan! How are you?
Me: Hehey man! I want to take a bath with a toaster!
Friend: Hahaha! Are you ok?
Me: I am as long as I have electricity.
Friend: That's good!

While that was a very typical conversationg for us (the friend was Japanese, who had already learned about my humor), we didn't notice that there was another Japanese student next to us, who had heard the whole conversation. The look on this student's face was a mixture of confusion and horror. Luckily my friend was able to explain that this, in Finnish manners, is humor and actually signals that the person is doing well. The student looked relieved and I apologized in Japanese for my poor judgement. Everything was ok.

2. Interpret

As I mentioned before, Japanese humor is very different. Dark humor is often not taken with open arms, unless you're very close to the people around you and they know about your country's customs and humor. In Japan, it is extremely important to always keep your composure and avoid showing any negative feelings. People who become angry or display misery publicly are considered immature and possibly dangerous. My humor was taken as me being extremely sad and thus in need of help, while in fact the opposite was true.

My friend explained to me, that when in public, Japanese tend to stick to safe topics and laugh to things that will in no way bring shame to anyone. "Keeping face" is, as I've said, extremely important. That's why I can add this personal note to anyone thinking about coming to Japan: Think about vanilla. Vanilla is pure, soft scented and without anything that will "poke" you. Sounds strange, but if you act and speak like vanilla itself, you're all set and will most likely not cause harm to yourself or more importantly to your friends and acquintances. Once you're close to your friends, you may begin revealing your more personal side. People should also learn about "honne and tatemae", which is an extremely important way of acting. I made a mistake many times to which I fully own up to.

3. Evaluate

If I was born and raised as Japanese and suddenly I heard this strange foreigner joking about suicide, I probably could not tell what was happening or how to react. Especially since I saw other people laughing at this person who was saying these horrible (for locals) things. I wouldn't know if he was actually serious and other people were actually hating him so much that they would laugh, or if they thought sad people are funny.

While the whole situation (and other similar ones) embarrass me a bit, I am glad that those moments took place. Due to those mistakes, I was able to learn great inside information about the Japanese people as personas. I learned more about how to act "like Japanese", and with the lessons learned from those, I have been able to act accordingly in my recent situations which have, in turn, brought great and respectful moments between myself and locals.

All in all, I have grown as a person and acquired new useful skills and manners that will surely assist me greatly (if not crucially) in my future endeavours in business world as well as personal social interactions. Mistakes are not bad, they're actually very good as long as no one got hurt or embarrassed and you learned something!

While this wasn't anything serious, it is definitely something that people should take care about when they come across people from (vastly) different cultures.

Lesson learned!

- Juha-Matti "まきちゃん" Katajamäki
28.08.2019
Nose, Osaka, Japan

D-I-E Korea

DESCRIBE
Moving to Korea, I encountered what was going to be my first and perhaps only cultural bump just a few days in. At that point, I didn't actually think of it as a cultural bump because it came from my student buddy (we had exchanged a few emails prior to my journey and a few messages when i got there before actually meeting). This cultural bump has to do with Korean small talk which goes thus;

Speaker: Hey, what is your name?
Me: Clinton.
Speaker: Where are you from?
Me: Finland / Cameroon.
Speaker: How old are you?
Me: 26.

Find anything odd in there? If you didn't then I bet you must be familiar with Korean small talk. I just found it weird to ask someone's age , less than five statements into your chat when you just met them. I always answered but would find it difficult asking what their own age was because it wasn't something I was accustomed to. I was met with this same line of questioning whenever i tried engaging in small talk with someone i met at a gathering.

INTERPRET
The ''raison d'etre'' behind this remained a mystery until one day when I met this Korean lady at a Cameroonian party in another city and thought of it in the course of our conversation. She didn't get to ask what my age was this time around as I joined the conversation midway but she was able to solve what had remained a mystery for so long. Koreans basically hang around with their age-mates, that is, they date, make friends and chill with someone who is the same age as them. So the reason for asking your age that early is to determine if you are in their age group and if they should be hanging with you.


EVALUATE
After this explanation, I was able to understand why it was difficult having friends besides my buddy and his friends to whom he had introduced me to, especially as they had all become friends during the previous semester whilst they were all exchange students in Canada from the same Korean institution, Chungbuk. I was much older as most students where between 18 and 22. After that fateful conversation, I remained content with not trying to make any new friends and stuck to the few I had already.

D-I-E - France

The most unusual and quite frankly, terrible thing that happened during my experience was that I had my electricity cut from my apartment for 10 days. One day I come home from school and I try to turn on the lights, but they don’t seem to work, at that moment I just assumed that the bulb had gone out, so I let it be. Then I proceeded to get something from my fridge and noticed that the lights did not work there either, at this moment I realized that I don’t have any electricity. I immediately tried to call the electric company EDF, and they told me that the residence manager in my student residence had cut it, they were baffled by the occurrence as well, since it was without reason, I had paid my rent, my electric bills and everything, but for some unknown reason this happened, they then offered an appointment for the electrician to come and put my electricity back on on a designated day, but the electrician never showed up, in total I had to make three appointments and call them numerous times each day over the 10 day period. I couldn’t believe that this could happen. I felt absolutely furious and I demanded reimbursements for all the cold showers I had to take, and the food that I had to throw away. In the end the electrician came and I got my electricity back, and the electric company also paid for the trouble they had caused.

Fortunately there was a common room
where I could charge my laptop and phone.

The reason why this happened is still unknown, when I tried to confront the residence manager about it, she was clueless as well, and she then put the blame on the electric company, even though the electric company told me that she was the one who cut the electricity. One theory that I had was that perhaps she meant to cut the electricity from another apartment and accidentally cut mine but was too proud to admit it was her mistake. Or, it could have also been some kind of a bug in the system of the electric company, or maybe the electric company had made the accident, because I did find an envelope in my mailbox saying that they will cut the electricity from my apartment on a designated day, it will forever remain a mystery. And the funny part is that I could have prevented it if I just had checked my mailbox on a daily basis.

It was not the most pleasant 10 days of my life for sure, and honestly I was quite depressed and angry during that period, but on the other hand, I began to appreciate the fact that I still had a roof over my head, and that I shouldn’t take these kinds of things for granted. When I told my French friends about this, they were less surprised about it than my Finnish friends for example, what I have understood from the French culture is that if you really want things to work, you must complain, a lot.

D-I-E France

I think I can about many cultural and episodes that are different from my culture and finnish culture in general but one that stand over all of the them was the manifestations and protest across the country regarding the taxes that were increased in the country.

Describe:

People started to organized to protest on the rise of taxes that the state was imposing. People first started talking about it and then expressing their disagreement till the point where non centralized groups started to appear with a common thing and idea. They characterize for using a yellow vest and to go on protest across the country with different activities till the extreme point of burning cars, business destruction, confrontation with the authorities and city destruction in general. People were in expressing that those taxes in the rise of fuels where affecting small businesses and country side people that had no other way to travel and do their affairs without a vehicle compare to the people in the big cities with other means of transportation like metro and buses. 

I manage to see close friends in France that were affected by these taxes and they shared with me their perspectives in how the state didn't look beforehand in the consequences that this decisions where carrying out. I didn't know what to feel as I have never experience in first hand something like this in my life inside Mexico and Finland. I was just thinking about different ways of protesting and different ways to find a solution to all this. 

Interpret:

I think and I know people were really tired of the amount of taxes they have to pay as it looks they were affecting the life of people with low incomes that had no means to go through their daily life.  Also I could see that French culture is characterized to stand for their rights and express their nonconformity with the situations in the country. I try to explain to myself that the only way to reach the government and public attention was to go down to the path of extreme means and actions and that is way many business, cars and material things as well as confrontation with police took place in the protests.  

Evaluate: 

In a way and with non intentions of being close to the situation and ended up living the events and experience everything really close. I had to travel to Paris for a university event where Centria was present and we as students of the university were going to help. I traveled by train with two other students from Finland, the first event took place when police stopped me to search and check all my luggage because of their concerned I might be going to Paris to protest and they wanted to be sure I was not carrying any dangerous materials or tools. I explained them that I was a student from Mexico representing a Finnish institute and that's when they calmed down but of course I could feel the tense environment and their efforts to control everything around the country as authorities. When we arrived to Paris we found out hundreds of Police officers guarding the railway stations and street sidewalks around the city, they stopped me one more time to check my backpack and my documents. I have to point out that this have never happened to me in Mexico or Finland. Of course I felt a bit uncomfortable but I kept my nerves as I knew they were doing their job. I didn't have a negative or positive feeling but just a neutral feeling of being a third party and casualty of the events. Not long after that we were able to witnessed how 10 police cars just stopped in a fast action to detained three persons in the street, we could see they were heavily armed and that was a bit shocking even though in my country we have sometimes the presence of the army in our street but of course in Finland this is not the case. We walked away and then we found the manifestation in our way to the university event we were trying to assist. Police stopped us again to ask about our intentions and they gave us orders to walk in a different direction to avoid the conflict.

When we went out of our event with Centria it was night and the protests were all over the city we saw burning cars and people fighting with the police, most of the people were covering their faces and they were breaking windows and shouting they non conformity with the regulations of the state. 

At the end I can imagine myself in the shoes of those people but also is hard to fully understand the situations. I could see and understand how this regulations affect people with no means to live their life because the state is asking them to pay more taxes and of course as the situation grows the people run out of tools to convince the state of taking a different approach. In the other way around I can't imagine myself doing or protesting in the way these people were but I guess is because I have never been in the edge of something affecting my life till the point I can't no longer live with dignity.

I hope this was not to dark for other students in the blog with intentions to travel but I have to say that these things happen all across the globe in one way or another and it is important to be informed and to take it easy in an objective way.

D-I-E Netherlands

D-I-E, Phong Ho, Netherlands

These were what I hear in Welcome Day for international student of Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen (a city in Netherlands):
- Do you know that Netherlands is country with more bicycles than people?
- One survival lesson for new students is how to lock your bicycles correctly!
I think those are jokes.  Lesson about bicycle locking is over 15 minutes and was taught carefully. It is also like a marketing for bicycle lock and bicycles store. However, from those sharing, we could understand more about Dutch culture.

At first, I have no idea why there are a lot bicycle in Netherlands. Besides, although I know that bicycle is one main transportation in Netherlands, I think locking a bicycle is really simple. Why do they make it seriously? If many bicycles were stolen in Groningen, so they taught us about that. It was not normal for me because the police had been surprised when I had informed about my stolen bicycle Kokkola (Finland) police station. However, why does Hanze just not send new students an email as warning? Many stolen bicycles mean that the city is not safe. If the school doesn’t hide it, they should not public it like that. Having a bicycle is a kind of scary here. Maybe they just told us a joke...

After that, I knew that many bicycles was stolen in the city is real. Some sound like a joke, but they are serious. That shown Dutch culture. They are direct. they see straight to problems and try to find solutions. Maybe because they taught students to lock bicycle well, bicycles are more than people. Many international students come to Netherlands for study every year. They mostly stay from 6 months to 4 years and get out. They get out Netherlands, but their bicycles with good locks are stay.

From that time, I know that I will learn many things in Netherlands. Besides, Dutchs are humor. They smile with problem. They end lesson with a joke:
- If you do not loose bicycle three times, you did not really live in Netherlands. If you lost bicycle 5 times, you are like a Dutch. If you lost bicycle 7 times, we will beg you to get a Dutch citizenship.

After five months, I really learn a lot from my exchange study!

Describe, Interpret, Evaluate. Scotland.

There’s many things I would like to tell about Scotland from Irn Bru and the different accents to Balmorality or the clans, but something that you will encounter straight away alighting from the plane is as follows:

Walking toward the terminal you make eye contact with someone and they greet you. Someone is approaching you and you avoid toward the same direction and they instantly apologize. You go to a supermarket, and at the till the cashier will wait for you to pack your groceries and keep a small talk going until you’re finished packing. You hold door open for someone and will be thanked with ”Cheers!”. Be prepared for their wittiness and sarcasm as well – you will find that sometime their seemingly polite comment may be backhanded!

The politeness and small talk seemed quite foreign to me and I can still remember starting to tell about my day when I was asked ”How are you?” at the till. People will apologize about any inconvenience however small it is, and it catches on very quickly. British are often really indirect and if you happen to actually do something resentful, they most likely won’t say anything but ”give you the evils”, which is a kind of a resentful glance.

Apart from the last part, this avoids conflict and gives good impression of the encounter with a person, which must be the reason why people do it. It also makes the people appear more approachable. This small talk is the deal breaker, as with it you’re giving first impression what kind of person you are. Generally you should avoid anything personal while still talking about something that fits the situation. Maybe it comes from the idea of being more classy and formal by humouring your company.  

After a while and after getting used to it more, it’s easy to see when people just say tthings but don’t actually mean it. Sometimes the small talk can lead into quite awkward situations, if you’re not used to it, but after a while making small talk will feel normal. As a Finn I found it slightly exhausting and still do after my stay. I would rather have meaningful talk with people or not talk at all. Though, every so often I found it fun and pleasant. Overall I've mixed thoughts about it. 

D-i-e

Describe

Overall nursing. I heard of an incident which really bothered me. I had heard about similar case before but this happened to my collegue. Mother came with her newborn child to show it to a nurse. The nurse did check the baby and found him dead. The nurse then continued her work and the mother was left crying.

Interpret
Like I said in my previous blogpost, in Uganda, nurse has a wayy more patients than here in Finland. There are alot things to do. But while I was treated for my back pain in a local hospital with a descent reputation I kinda bumbed into same issue. Some nurses were caring, friendly and listened to patienst while others were ignorant and even rude. This seemed to be more common than I thought in Uganda. Great variation how to treat patients.  Some were frierndly and others..cold. Why this is that way, I can only speculate. Maybe its because of rush. Maybe you dont have enough energy to give love, compassion to others. Maybe it has even something to do with culture: you really cant show your pain in Uganda. You might even get laughed at if you do. Specially labouring women, they cant really make sound when giving birth or they might get mistreated, laughed.

Evaluation

The way we live, is made from pieces like education, culture, family, even friends. Uganda has had big  difficulties in like 40 years, including reign of Idi Amin. It is a poor country. Harsh enviroment. You have to struggle. Maybe that is one reason why people there are like lions. They dont weep so much. They struggle to survive and maybe there isnt any place for "weakness". This same kind of thing happened here in Finland 70 years ago, when war ended. People were busy building Finland and there were so many wounds. Spiritual, mental, physical. I think people didnt have resources to deal with the pain and scars so what they did is they build. They build Finland as it is now. No mourning but many suicides. How we deal with our pain, past, is individual. But maybe there are some common elements  concerning us as a human specie. Love, compassion, we all grave that. But how can you give those if you are a broken spirit.



Mark 12:30-31

 ^"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

³¹ And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

D.I.E Assesment ;A trip from Germany to AUstria

A Trip from Germany to Austria

Description

Once it happened, I was traveling from Frankfurt (Germany) to Innsbruck (Austria). On the way, there was a break for 15 minutes for food and beverages at a gas station. I was lucky to be on time to the bus but some of the people around 10-15 were missing. The driver was on the seat, ready to continue the journey. As soon as the driver started the bus, many people gathered around his cabin and requested him to pause the trip so that the passengers who were missing could get into the bus. The driver did not listen at all and continued the journey. The leftover passengers gave him a call, but he did not answer. Even he did not answer the call of the police. Finally, the police pulled over the bus after an hour and those leftover passengers followed the bus through taxi.

                                         
                                                               Fig: Deri Zinnen

Interpret

After that incident, I came to know the importance of time and people in Germany take it super seriously.  I saw the driver was a bit angry and was quite loud when the other passengers were requesting him to stop the bus. So, no one was able to convince him. The majority of the leftover people were from the non-EU region and maybe they were unknown about German's rules and regulations.

Evaluation

I was a bit worried after that situation and one of the passengers sitting next to me was also missing.  I thought the situation could be easily solved if the driver could wait for them for a while.  On the other hand, I thought the driver did very well because he did not stay overtime which is against the rule. Similarly, he did not pick up the call while he was driving. It is quite difficult to judge the situation but it's always our responsibility to follow the rules of each and every nation.

D-I-E Thu Nguyen - Colombia

DESCRIBE

Friendly and proactive is the adjective I describe Latin America. In my perspective, Colombia is a nice place, at least my study area’s climate, it’s approximately 15 – 20 Celsius degree for the whole year. The people are never hesitated to support and help me. There are some refugees from Venezuela live in Colombia and sell some basic stuff such as coffee, water cake or appliance to earn for a living. I listened to their story and did volunteer in a nursing home. Thanks to those experience, I empathy and widen my eyes about the world.

INTERPRET

There was also an extreme problem happened to me, visa issue as well as the language barrier. Residents in Colombia don’t know English well and some have no idea about English speaking, includes employees who work in international places like the airport and there was no translator who can solve the problem. I did explain about my visa issue due to the instruction of Colombia embassy in Finland. However, they seemed to be misunderstood and locked me together with some people didn’t have any personal documents. I was scared to be sent back to Finland, but the host university helped me out and treated me very well.

For the young generation at my age, some of them who studied in English institute or did experience English speaking environment, they were more confident and express themselves clearly. However, most of the students around me were not used to communicating by English. And when we were doing teamwork, they spoke by Spanish and I felt like I was isolated in the team, they just spoke to me if they thought they had to. There was once when I missed the lab work as they were discussed in Spanish and I didn’t understand at all. I should ask them immediately, but I didn’t because I thought that content wasn’t related to work.

EVALUATE

I think Colombia is not yet an integrated country that everyone welcomes to speak and aware of communication skills. I didn't state they had to speak English everywhere since I was in Spanish speaking though personally, I feel being unrespectful from that behaviour. I accept and respect their culture and language. Nevertheless, this is in the educational environment, to which I was there to extend and exchange my knowledge. Although they did not aware and intend to do that, for me it was quite impolite and non-altruistic to international students. This issue happened in many environments, not just only in the educational area and to many countries. I've not overstated this problem, yet it did not always happen to me there. You just imagine if you are in a foreign country with the important task and local friends even didn’t concern or have eye contact to, and leave you some English sentences told you what to do within the whole group meeting, how do you feel? It was also my mistake that I should tell them to adjust their behaviour and please let me join the group completely. Yet it was also their drawback to disconnect with foreign students. Therefore, to future exchange students who desire to go to Colombia, you should prepare yourself a certain amount of Spanish to be in touch and express you feeling clear so both sides can empathy and modify the conduct.

I still enjoy the time there except the circumstances above. The friends are friendly and generous to me surplus an amazing adventure to enhance my vision of Latin American culture and sightseeing.

D-I-E United States of America

1.      DESCRIBE: Think of one episode that has left you confused or that you think was strange/different. Describe the object or situation in concrete, observable terms. What happened in the interaction? What was said? What did you see? What did you feel at the moment?

I had confusing situation at the local church while we went listening Christmas songs there with my friend family, songs were presented and hosted by a family who was locally famous about this annual happening. The church was full of quests, and the son of the family welcomed people to the happening, from the stage, at his intro. I was introduced to them a bit earlier, and suddenly this man says to all: “May I introduce to you all, here is Rita.”  “Rita has come here all the way from Finland, etc.” I had to stand up and say hello to everybody, when they turned to see this weird miracle; all the way from Finland. It was awful to me because I haven’t used to be in the spotlights and it’s not so Finnish thing anyway.

2.      INTERPRET: Think of possible explanations (interpretations) for what you observed or experienced. From your cultural perspective, try to explain why you think this situation or experience occurred? Try to find at least 3 different interpretations of the interaction or occurrence. What cultural information have you used to produce these interpretations?  

In Finland that wouldn’t be happening, but I realized that it was a major politeness from their perspective and culture. In America you really must stand out from the crowd or leap to the eye, if you want to find the success in there. We don’t have that same system in here, so it was very weird thing to me. No worries, everything went well, and the concert was very good, but it was a good reminding of the differences between our cultures.

3.      EVALUATE: Evaluate what you observed or experienced. What positive or negative feelings do you have regarding the situation? Consider how you might feel if you were a member of the host culture and held the dominant cultural values and beliefs?

I don’t know? The situation was okay to me after a first shock when I thought to run out as fast as I could – not literally of course. The experience was good because now I know. In any case of willing to do business or have a job or a flat or you name it, it’s a competition. You must be seen, heard and noticed positively. There is a difference to the Finnish culture because we usually say that it’s good if it’s understandable, but in America it is far from good at that point; whatever it is.

D-I-E Gothenburg

I've had many unpleasant moments in Sweden in the past but this tops everything. As I was going to swim for the first time in Gothenburgs biggest swimming hall, I noticed something  awfully strange. There was this big sign in the sauna forbidding anyone to talk or throw water in the stow. I was horrified and confused when the local people walked in to the sauna with their towels wrapped around them. After taking a few gasps of air into my lungs I saw even more incredible things happen: the sweeds were reading newspapers in the sauna while the temperature meter was showing only 50 celsius.

My explanation to this incident is coincidence, lack of knowledge and bad luck.
Somehow the swedish ancestors never really found out what a real sauna is like. Maybe thats why it's one of the few countries that call sauna "bastu" instead. I interviewed a few locals about this bastu culture in Sweden, and they told me that being naked in a boiling hot sauna feels wrong and to sexual for them.
I think it's just pure bad luck that there's not enough finnish people living in Sweden who can educate about the great possibilities of  a tradtitional finnish sauna where you throw a lot water in the stow and spank each other backs with some birch branches.

Probably for the first time in my life I felt a little bit ashamed because of the sauna and hopefully for the last. If I were a sweed and would encounter a finn in sauna, I would most likely bow and show somekinda respect. Afterall, it's one of the best relaxing inventions that has come from Finland.

Cheers,

Jon Selin

D-I-E Sami Hänninen

D-I-E

1. Describe

I think the most confusing situation during the exchange period was a situation with one group project, when we did not succeed to return a teamwork on time. We had a big project we were working together. We divided the project to parts and everyone had certain part of the project to do. Everything was okay until the deadline day came closer.

During the last night I got information from another team member, that we are not going to get the project done on time and he asked me to send an email to teacher. I did send email, but answer was strict. He said that deadline was deadline, and our group is not going to get any etc from the course. Christmas vacation was starting on the next day, and the reason why we did not finish the project never actually came out. That is still confusing me and it’s a shame, because I really would have needed the etcs.

2. 2. Interpret 

We really had lots of time to finish the group project, so we kind of made the problem with too tight schedule ourselves. We had problems starting teamwork in the beginning, so we postponed that week after week. I had used to be a team leader in the past, so this time I thought that let others lead and I’ll just do my part. I saw problems coming but I did not want to take bigger role, because I wanted to let others lead. 

We had also big cultural differences about how to proceed with the group project. It’s a bit challenging to try to understand each other when your common language is not so fluent with all members of the team. That might cause misunderstandings and so it did. Sometimes we agreed together that how to proceed and next time we met, we did not always understand what everyone had done. However, we finished first part of the group project but the second one we did not.

3.  3. EVALUATE: 

I think that we all saw problems coming but we all had lots of other things to do as well, so nobody was not eager to bring problems to the table. We had few meetings with the teacher about the projects during the semester, but even that did not save us from failing the course. I was very disappointed to myself after I found out that we are not going to finish the project. That course was one of the courses I had really focused at and after that failure, I really had not much to bring home from exchange period. After failing the course it was very challenging to continue studying normally. 

As a student, I could not imagine beforehand how much energy it would take to move to another country and study in different culture. I wish good luck to everyone who is going to an Erasmus student exchange program.

D-I-E, Bulgaria

1. DESCRIBE

Throughout our stay in Varna, we had quite many confusing moments when ordering something from restaurants, going to the stores, using public transportation etc. The service was often very rude. By rude I mean that the waiter, for example, would not necessarily reply anything on any language when we ordered. Many times they even rolled their eyes and just looked like we ruined their day by coming in. The taxis wanted to take the benefit of us being foreigners, and tried to get double prices for the rides.


2. INTERPERT

Coming from Finland, we are not even used to having too friendly service. It is quite normal for us that the service is lame, compared to Southern Europe or the U.S. for example. So it really was a surprising to find even less friendly service from Varna. Well, the taxi thing was expected because that happens all over the world in tourist resorts, but I mean everything else was a bit of a surprise.

I believe the rudeness had many times something to do with language barrier. We learned that Bulgarians are very aware of their language skills and shy to use a foreign language, if they don’t feel like they handle that 100%. One reason for the rudeness might also be that they have so many tourists there in the summer season that they get tired of foreigners. Another reason could also be that they would have expected us to greet them in Bulgarian, and thought that we were rude by going straight into talking in English.



3. EVALUATE

Talking to other foreigners in Varna, we found that we truly weren’t the only ones getting bad service. We learned pretty soon that it is not that much personal, so we just ignored the quality of the service and concentrated in the good things, like the good food and good prices. Putting a bit more effort into the interaction ourselves (meaning, greeting in Bulgarian, smiling more), helped sometimes as well. Positive attitude is always a good idea, no matter what – because even if you wouldn’t get better service right there with that extra kindness, it will make you feel better anyway. Of course there were days when it made us really frustrated and even mad to get treated poorly when needing service, but most of the time we didn't take it too seriously.

From the local’s perspective I actually understand getting tired of foreigners. Golden Sands, the tourist resort close to Varna, and Varna itself is a very popular destination among young adults who come to party hard. Working as a waiter, with very low salary, being too buzy and feeling underappreciated, it is surely tiring. The drunken tourists who trash and don’t respect the locals ruin the good service for many decently behaving foreigners too. That’s sad.

To balance the negative, I have to mention that we also had at least as many very good experiences, with very kind and polite service. And even more of that lame kind of ok-service that we also get in Finland. So we cannot say that all service is bad in Varna – but the level of the service surely varies a lot.

 We often visited this beach restaurant because of the decent service, good prices, family friendliness and the location. 

D-I-E Basque Country

1. DESCRIBE: The main challenge when you go abroad for a year is basically a communication issues. What do I mean? I mean that after a first semester you make a lot of good friends and then it is hard to get on well with others. You feel that there are no better people that those you met during the fall semester. I have noticed this issue even at Centria, watching our exchange students.

Using my Polaroid to capture one of the best evenings ever:)

2. INTERPRET: That issue might happen because the new incoming students at the moment of their arrival have a lot of things in common: they have just arrived, and they need to get used to the local environment. They start to explore the environment and facing the challenges together. That really unite them, as it had happened with me during the fall semester. At the same moment, me and other “oldies” had already completed this stage of acknowledgement.    

3. EVALUATE: Speaking about locals regarding this situation, they do not notice the split in the exchange group. They just enjoy getting to know other nationalities and cultures. As for me, I became really picky in terms of choosing people to talk to. I started to notice only negative aspects of people. Moreover, two students from Centria had arrived in Mondragon, so I started to feel more comfortable in my Centria squad. Now, I can give a good piece of advice: never stick to the past.   

D-I-E Czech Republic

D-I-E, Susanna Leppänen, Czech Republic

1. Describe

Source: 

http://in-control.entriforccm.eu/chapters/chapter-4/addressing-language-barrier/

In Czech Republic people outside of Prague don't speak English. Tourists is the reason why they need to speak English there. In city where I lived, you didn't see tourists, only Exchange students.
People in markets and shops don't speak English. Only younger people do but they are feeling shy about it. 

This was first experience about intercultural communication which came in my mind.

I was in market with my friends and I took fruits and i tried to weight them but there was some problem in machine. I tried to ask help from the salesperson but he said something in Czech and I was looking at him so with surprise face. He suddenly got angry to me and my friends who knows little bit czech told me "he is angry because you can't speak his language."
I didn't know how  to react so saler saw from my face i get little  bit sad and he came to me and tried to ask do i speak german. I said sorry I dont speak. Likewise he tried to fix it how he act to me.

2. Interpret

I noticed in Czech Republic older people don't like when people are not speaking their language. I think older people dont want to talk in foreign language. It depends on people, but they can be nice but also very rude. Customer Service was at times bad because they couldn't help us in English and sometimes it felt they don't want to help. 

3. Evaluate

After thinking this situation, I am not feeling bad at it. I know it's hard to help when you don't know the language and I'm happy about the salesperson. He anyway tried to fix the situation. After this happeningn probably not many people are not trying to fix.

D-I-E Poland

Assingment (2) during exchange - Describe - Interpret - Evaluate:

 

1. DESCRIBE:

  

In my exchange period, there's no such a situation that confused me. However I will tell a story that I find it quite interesting and a little bit weird at first. As we all know, the World cup was held on last summer , my friends and I went to the city center to watch the matches. And funny story when I was preparing to come back home, 1 Polish guy looked at me and said shit words, his crew also glanced at me and show their dirty finger.
I just didn't get it at all and my friends told me to be back, dont care about that bull***t. Then I left because the match also ended, suddenly I met an old man, I think he's Polish cause he came into me and spoke a lot in Polish with happy mood, like he's so exited to meet me. After that he made a handshake with me and left, didnt forget saying goodbye to me.
And then I was really confused what happened.

 

 2. INTERPRET:

Firstly, when the young crew seem hate me, I thought they're just racists. Or maybe because Poland lost that match to Japan so they hate any Asian guys. However when the old man come, I was in a crying state.
I just smiled after the old man leaving. Finally, when I met my Polish friend, she explained anything. It's mainly because I was wearing a Polish football team scarf but there're actually  2 teams in my city so the old man is fan of the team whose scarf I wore and the young boys are the fan of the other team :> 

 

3. EVALUATE:

Eventually, I think that people there just too crazy about football. They love the sport so much that sometimes too overreacting but that's also very cute in some angle, they show their feeling like a kid, so emotional and naturally.
If I was a member of the host, I'll notice the newcomers about this because it might be a fight if you cant control your temper. Anyway, it's unforgettable memory.

D-I-E France

1. Describe
During my stay in La Rochelle, the city had 2-3 days of snow in January. It was quite exciting for me since it has been almost a year I hadn't seen snow. However, I was quite surprise that the city was almost shut down during these days. The school was closed, the buses stoped running, most of the restaurants, cafe, shops and supermarkets were closed. I found it really strange because snow is not somthing abnormal in France, especially, the amount of wet snow in La Rochelle is very little.

2. Interpret
After talking with my host family, I knew that was the first snow in La Rochelle in 20 years. The coastal city is usually humid and La Rochelle is quite in the South of France so it has less snow than other parts in the country. The people also find it difficult during the daily activities like driving, walking or shopping, many old people had to go the hospital since they fell on the ice. On the other hand, people got excited with the snow. For example, my host family, the 60-year-old couples went out to the backyard and enjoying the snow with their grandchildrens.

3. Evaluate
This experience recalled my first time in Finland: As a girl from a tropical country (Vietnam), I was thrilling when seeing snow the first time in Kokkola. I think I can partly understand how the people here feeling. Even though I found it strange at first, I had fun with my host family, I built the snowman with their grandchildren and all of us enjoyed the hot chocolate beside the fireplace at night.

D-I-E USA

1. DESCRIBE:

One instance was when Spring break came, and everybody left school to go on a vacation, but I stayed at the dorm during the break. There were couple of us that stayed there, but most of the students were gone during that week.

2. INTERPRET:

Most who left were from other states or cities, or they just had planned other vacation plans. I know that at least couple guys from our corridor left to have a vacation near a beach so they could just relax on the beach, but there were so many people around the US and world that they left for their home or just sightseeing. I had made plans of having couple adventures in Arkansas, so I decided to stay.

3. EVALUATE:

I felt it was similar to our ‘hiihtoloma’ in spring. Actually, it was almost at the same time, too. In Finland many people during the time off go back to their parents or have a vacation abroad or just go sightseeing around the country. What I heard from other peoples’ plans, their plans were similar to what people here would do during their vacation; going to the beach, visiting parents and other relatives, going on a cruise, things like that. Some also just worked during that time, which is also what I can imagine lots of people doing in Finland.

Lobby which normally is full of people

Afternoon outside my dorm