Being different I Mar 2025
It is not easy to be different.
This is something I feel most personally as I spend a majority of my adult years abroad, in the US and now in Finland. I feel it in the persistent inquiries of where I am really from, in the abruptly silent interactions at store checkouts, and I feel it most certainly in the workforce environment shy from international input.
You might say it is natural for someone to feel this way if they choose to live abroad. It is their choice and they should be prepared for being different. Yes, and to some extent I agree. The efforts to blend in are necessary and they can be beautiful too in many ways. As I learn Finnish as my seventh language, I love how I can make sense of this language from a brand-new outsider perspective. Switching between Chinese, Japanese, and English in my daily exchanges, now I am glad to add Finnish to my linguistic jumble that further expands my ways of thinking and expressive potential. I also started to try and enjoy sauna, sienestys, Fazer, a little bit of lakritsi and a whole lot of snow. Indeed, I have come to see that many beautiful experiences are made possible exactly because they are an encounter of differences — in traditions, languages and life-worlds.
The other day, a Finnish friend asked if I considered myself to be Finnish after living here for more than two years. While it is worth considering what it means to be or become Finnish (a topic for another time), I do believe there is a part in me that is Finnish, a part that I have adapted through learning and living here. As the first and only international employee at my previous workplace, I was thrilled to nourish and develop further that Finnishness in me in an immersive Finnish environment. I got to carry out most of my work in Finnish and tried my best every day to communicate with colleagues in this language. Yet at the same time, I also felt again and again that it was not easy, to be different and to be an international. No, it was never easy, yet it was, nevertheless, deeply enriching. Everything I have learned about the Finnish language, culture and workplace from the wonderful people I met there only adds to my capabilities and helps me become better, both as a professional and as a person.
Yes, being different can be a beautiful thing. And since it is naturally mutual, its impacts happen on both sides. Just like how I make use of my outsider, international perspectives to appreciate, to learn from, and to encounter the people and things in Finland, I also bring along my expertise, global experiences, language skills, ways of thinking that could greatly add to Finnish workplaces and exert changes for the better. In today’s challenging times that call for pioneering solutions, the key for Finnish companies is to recognize differences as sources of strengths and breakthroughs rather than obstacles. Sparkling in this shift of mindset is then a brand new encounter of imaginations, inspirations and opportunities.
Being different is not easy, for both sides. But who says it has to be easy? Great things in history never come easily either. What matters is the openness to embrace differences for greater possibilities together.
