I am 50 years old. I worked as a cleaner in Finland when I was 28 years old. I opened a tourism company when I was 34 years old. Now I want to return to China for development.

This is the story of the 248th real person we tell

My name is He Bo@何波, my ancestral home is Jiangsu and I was born in Shanghai in 1972.

In the 1990s, my parents brought me to Finland as a visiting scholar. I chose to stay abroad to save my face. At the beginning, life in a foreign country was not smooth. There were less than 1,000 Chinese in the country, so work was difficult to carry out. After struggling for 11 years, my life gradually got back on track, and I even married a German student studying abroad. Until the child was born, I suddenly felt afraid and had to say goodbye to Finland, where I had lived for 27 years.

In 1972, I was born into a family of intellectuals. Both my parents were teachers at universities in Beijing. Later, in response to the rural-urban policy, I came to work in Anhui. For as long as I can remember, our family has lived in a big yard, where it is quiet and peaceful, and there are many friends.

At that time, materials were scarce, and not only money but also tickets were needed to buy things. My parents were registered in Beijing, and all the bills related to grain and oil were obtained from Beijing. In order to put them to use, I had to convert the bills to national ones, and finally to Anhui ones. This was the most troublesome thing in my childhood.

Fortunately, everything has two sides. Due to the aura of my parents’ relocation to Beijing, the compound where we lived rarely had power or water outages, which was very rare in those days. My childhood was carefree. Although my family was not wealthy, my parents gave my sister and me the best life within their capabilities.

The development of the times has brought more opportunities and also brought about earth-shaking changes in the life trajectory of our family.

After the reform and opening up, my parents were lucky enough to get the opportunity to study in the UK as the first batch of international students. After two years of studying abroad, in order to increase their knowledge, my parents applied for the opportunity to study in Finland as exchange visiting scholars in the early 1990s. In 1995, my father took my sister and me to study here in order to further our studies and broaden our horizons.

At that time, there was a craze for going abroad, and many people resorted to borrowing money to go abroad. It was common for a couple and their children to stay in China. Moreover, in people's perception at that time, those who could stay abroad were those who were capable, and those who were incompetent would not be able to survive and come back to China. So, after my parents returned to China after studying abroad, my sister and I still chose to stay in Finland and develop.

However, living and working hard in a foreign country is not easy. When I first arrived in Finland, I seemed to have fallen into a "cultural desert". The differences in language, culture, and life brought me a lot of discomfort. Coupled with the longing for my country and my hometown, it made me miserable. At that time, I couldn't hear the local accent, couldn't eat Chinese food, and couldn't make friends. I felt that my circle had suddenly shrunk.

At that time, the embassy would send us the overseas version of the People's Daily every once in a while. Since there was nothing domestic to read, I read the overseas version of the newspaper over and over again until I turned it over. Damn, I can memorize it silently in my heart. I also wonder why this place is not like London or Paris, where there are many Chinese people, Chinese circles, and people can communicate in Chinese.

In those days, it was extremely difficult to buy Chinese condiments, such as chili sauce, pickled mustard, and soy sauce, in Finland, unless you took a boat to an Asian supermarket in Stockholm, Sweden.

For a poor student like me, it is even harder to cook Chinese food. Moreover, people in Finland eat very simply. They just grill or heat it in the microwave, so that it tastes authentic and there is no such thing as stir-frying. Although the school is equipped with a stove, it is not very powerful and has no other use except for cooking.

Although my parents are college teachers, their meager salary is not enough to support my sister and me living abroad. Moreover, we also hope to reduce the burden on our family and have been finding ways to work-study while studying abroad.

However, life in a foreign country is like walking on air, without any protection under your feet, and every step is extremely difficult. Before I could integrate into the current environment, I couldn't find any decent job, so I could only do some heavy physical work.

There were very few Chinese in Finland at that time, only about 1,000 people. You can imagine how eye-catching an Asian with black hair and yellow skin is. For example, when I took a job as a cleaner, the looks I received from others came to me. Although I am not discriminating against you, those curious eyes can kill you. The pride I felt as the "proud son of heaven" among college students in China was shattered in an instant.

The days of work-study are very hard, but the physical pain is only a small part, and you can get through it by gritting your teeth. Mental loneliness is the most painful and unbearable thing. Moreover, there was no Internet at that time, and phone calls were expensive, so I was depressed for several years.

At that time, the only way to make calls and contact the country was through public telephone booths. There was no euro at that time, and the currency used by Finns was called the Finnish mark. The two coin holes in the phone booth can accommodate coins worth one mark and five marks respectively.

As we played more, we found that if you plugged in five one-marks in a row, you could play for more than 30 seconds longer than if you plugged in one five-mark.

In order to spend the least money, make the most calls. We often exchanged a bag of one-mark coins and kept stuffing them into a plastic bag.

Although making a phone call can heal me a little, it can only temporarily relieve my loneliness and desolation in a foreign country. If you want to live here, you also need to integrate into the local culture. The most basic thing is to overcome the language barrier.

Finland is a bilingual country. The languages ??are Finnish and Swedish. However, at the whole society, 90% speak Finnish and very few speak Swedish. On a social level, locals will first communicate with foreigners in Finnish or English.

Unfortunately, I was studying at a Swedish university. When I was studying at school, although I could communicate with teachers in English, I still encountered big problems due to my mute English. I couldn’t understand what they said. What I wanted to say, I had to consider various grammatical structures in advance. By the time I knew how to express it, the occasion had passed.

At that time, there were no free materials to study, and I couldn’t afford to spend money. In order to improve my English, I watched a lot of American TV series. Since the TV did not have a video recording function, I treated it like a class and watched each episode attentively.

Fortunately, most American dramas are closer to life. After a period of practice, my English level has improved significantly. In addition, through conscious study in school, my Swedish has also improved a lot.

The improvement of language has eased my previous communication barriers. Gradually, I started to make friends and learned a lot about the local news.

I remember one time, I was invited by a friend to his home. After dinner, my friend asked me to go to the sauna. In Finland, sauna is a traditional way of hospitality. What I didn't expect was that in the countryside, a family, regardless of gender, old or young, would spend time with each other in a sauna room. I was so embarrassed at the time that I wanted to dig a hole in the ground with my toes and crawl in.

Sauna is a cultural feature that Finland has introduced to the world. Traditional saunas in the countryside are built by lakes, seasides or rivers.

Finns don’t like hot weather. When the temperature exceeds 30 degrees, they find it unbearable, but they love the experience of “ice and fire”. The temperature of the sauna is very high, usually 80 to 100 degrees. Finns like to jump into the cold lake after staying in the sauna for a long time. Even in winter, dig a hole in the lake and jump in directly from the sauna.

Friends said that they have been taking saunas like this since childhood, two or three times a week. Sauna has penetrated into all aspects of local life. Later, I also learned that in addition to saunas in offices and ships, miners also take saunas in mines more than 200 meters below.

The most amazing thing is that there is a sauna in Helsinki built on a Ferris wheel, where you can take a bath while watching the scenery. There is also a sauna in the gondola of the ski lift. It is said that when the Finns went to war, they built a sauna before digging trenches. They would not do anything else without a sauna.

In the past few years of studying abroad, I have learned a lot about the local customs, customs and cultural characteristics. Most Finnish people are friendly. Although I have never encountered discrimination, I still have far less advantages than locals in finding a job.

Fortunately, with the development of the Internet, it has brought more job opportunities, and my life has also improved. Through it, I can understand the domestic situation more conveniently. I remember that at that time, the first online Chinese channel I found on Internet radio was called Voice of West Lake. At that time, I listened to it online almost every day, and this habit lasted for several years.

In 2001, I got my first formal job, doing data-related maintenance for a hotel. During this period, due to financial anxiety, I would use the rest of my time to work several jobs. At that time, I often got up at five in the morning to work and worked until 11 at night.

In order to get to work on time, I bought a CD and played the song at a scheduled time every day to wake myself up. Since the CD player does not have a resume function, it can only be played from the beginning every day. It made me very irritable when I heard the beginning of this CD because I had to get up again.

The life I was living at that time made me exhausted and longing for a rest. So, in the summer of 2004, I quit all my jobs, rented a car with my friends, and traveled around Northern Europe. Unexpectedly, this trip not only relaxed my mind and body, but also brought me new job opportunities.

It was this travel experience that made me realize that being a tour guide is a good job. Not only can I make money, communicate with more people, but I can also have fun everywhere. After I came back, I read a lot of relevant recruitment information online.

By chance, I met the master who led me into the tourism industry. At that time, apart from some official groups or business inspection groups, there were very few private tour groups coming to Northern Europe. At that time, Master received a lot of orders for business teams to come to Northern Europe for inspections and was in urgent need of hiring people.

I submitted my resume. He saw that I had a university background, had been to the United States, could speak Chinese, had a driver's license, and had traveled to Northern Europe. He thought I had more experience, so he hired me.

Unexpectedly, being a qualified tour guide is not an easy task. When I first started leading tours, I encountered various situations. Later, in order to improve my communication skills and professional skills, I attended a study class and obtained a professional tour guide certificate. I was among the first batch of officially listed Chinese tour guides in Finland.

During this period, I took many travel groups with me. What makes me happiest is that I have the opportunity to meet compatriots from China who are traveling here. The familiar language and the same skin color make me feel more friendly.

At that time, many domestic tour groups came to Finland. Since most of them had never been to Europe and only relied on maps and online information to arrange travel, they encountered a lot of trouble during the trip.

So, they asked me to help. This trust from the Chinese people makes me feel honored. Unexpectedly, I accumulated a lot of contacts and resources through unintentional intervention.

However, the good times did not last long. In 2006, Master’s company was restructured and the tour group business was no longer available. I became unemployed. The originally fulfilling life suddenly became empty, anxious and restless.

The pressure of unemployment gave me the idea of ??starting a business. But starting my own company is not an easy task. I consulted a lot of information and studied relevant laws; I raised funds, rented business premises, purchased equipment and instruments, and obtained various qualifications... I was very busy. Fortunately, hard work paid off and the company opened smoothly.

Interestingly, there are always some unexpected surprises in life. While I was leading tours in the company, I happened to meet my lover who will be with me from now on.

She is from Hunan and was studying in Germany at the time. When she was traveling with her mother during the holidays, she joined the Nordic travel group led by me. Being of similar age and similar study abroad background has drawn our relationship closer. The endless different topics made us have a good impression of each other and gradually came together.

During our relationship, I would fly to see her every one or two months. Finland and Germany were not far apart and there were many low-cost airlines in Europe at the time. The cheapest time, I only spent 5 euros on a 3-hour flight, and she would come to see me during the winter and summer vacations. But long-distance relationships are not destined to be easy, and minor frictions are commonplace.

Once, in order to make her happy after a conflict, I decided to drive to see her. There is a 24-hour ferry from Finland to Germany. I deliberately set off at 6 o'clock in the morning and took the boat all night. We arrived in southern Germany at almost 8 o'clock the next day. After getting off the ship, we drove for another 6 hours to reach her city. It was late at night by then, so I put a lot of bottom lights on the bottom of the car and called her to come down, and she was shocked and delighted when she saw it.

I am a person who is not good at words, and this is the most romantic way of expression that I can think of. Later, my girlfriend graduated and planned to stay with me. At that time, it took a lot of trouble to apply for a residence permit in Finland for her, and it even caused an unexpected incident.

At that time, she could only apply for a work-related residence permit in the name of the company, but recruitment in Finland was open and a recruitment advertisement had to be posted in the labor department. After the results were distributed, the labor department told me over and over again that there are many unemployed people here who have received vocational training and have strong working ability. Why don't you recruit them? It made my head big.

As a last resort, I narrowed the scope of the recruitment conditions, and the conditions became more and more simple. I had to tell the labor department directly that the person I wanted to recruit was my girlfriend.

After my girlfriend came over, she helped me a lot in my career. During this time we got married and the company was getting better and better. But with the eastward expansion of the EU, our tour group encountered a lot of troubles.

Many Eastern Europeans come over and steal tourists’ things. Losing your wallet is a trivial matter for tourists, but the most troublesome thing is losing your passport. You have to go to the police station to get a certificate, go to the embassy to get a temporary pass, take photos, etc. Fortunately, after a lot of trouble, these troubles were finally solved one by one.

Over the years of traveling and leading tours, I have witnessed firsthand the process of the motherland becoming rich and powerful. Domestic tourist groups have evolved from official groups and business groups in the past. Now, as Santa Claus Village, Northern Lights, ice and snow and other projects become more and more popular in the country, more and more people are slowly beginning to be willing to visit Northern Europe. These are all It reflects the rapid development of China.

I still remember the experience of returning to China in 1998. At that time, many people in China did not know the existence of Finland. At a party, my friends were very curious about where I studied abroad. A friend asked, are there windmills in the country you went to? I said that was the Netherlands, and some friends asked, are there concentration camps there? I said it was Poland.

In fact, when they first came to Finland, many locals had no idea about China or Asia. I went to a bar with my friends, and they asked me where I was from. I asked them to guess. Some of them said North Korea, some said Japan, and some said South Korea. They circled around China, but they didn't say China.

And in society as a whole, there is basically nothing related to China.

In the 1990s, only some low-end clothing in Finland was made in China. Later, UnionPay and online payment were accepted on all streets, all aimed at Chinese tourists.

The first words that many small businessmen and hawkers say hello to you change from "こんにちは" to "hello", which is also a subtle process.

There will be Chinese-style things on the street, and occasionally you will meet foreigners who are very good at speaking Chinese. From this, we can feel that such a small and remote European country is slowly beginning to pay attention to China.

In addition, Finnair was the first Western European airline to establish direct flights with China. In 1988, it had a branch from Helsinki, Finland to Beijing, and it once became the most important link between Northern Europe and China. Later, with the opening of the domestic market, branches in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Chengdu and other places were added.

Witnessing the development and growth of my motherland in a foreign country made me overjoyed and proud. But at that time, I never thought that I would panic about the future because of what I heard.

I have lived in Finland for many years and have seen too many Chinese children. Due to the lack of domestic cultural education since childhood, they are dominated by Western culture in all aspects and are even unwilling to eat Chinese food. This makes me anxious, lest the next generation forget my roots.

I heard a story about my friend’s daughter before, which I couldn’t let go of for a long time. My friend and his wife also worked hard in Finland, and their daughter was born and went to school in Finland. At first, the couple wanted their children to learn Chinese well. So, Chinese classes were arranged for her daughter after school, but the child was naturally playful, so she told the school teacher about this.

As a result, the teacher accused the couple of violating Finland’s education syllabus and affecting the child’s happy childhood.

Under the "protection" of the teacher, this girl has the right not to learn Chinese. The girl's grades were always very good when she was in school, and she was admitted to the best business school in Finland. But then, something happened that made her regret it.

When she was in the business school, she helped the professor in the research group write an article. The professor saw that she was Chinese and said: "You are Chinese. We just want to study the Chinese market. There are a lot of Chinese materials here. You Help me do some research." Hearing this, the girl froze in place.

It turns out that in addition to being able to listen and speak Chinese, the girl cannot read or write Chinese. At this time, she wanted to blame her parents for not forcing her in the first place, but it would not help.

This incident touched me a lot. I think children can learn any language and it is not very difficult. But what if you give up a language spoken by 1.4 billion people and learn Finnish, a language spoken by only 6 million people in the world. No matter how proficient you are, you can only communicate with 6 million people, which is like losing the watermelon and picking up the sesame seeds.

After this incident, I began to consider shifting the focus of my Finnish business to China. I hope that my children will focus on Chinese culture and not forget China’s cultural heritage. Even though he may go to the West to study or further his studies in the future, I still don’t want there to be a cultural gap between us.

In addition, Chinese people put filial piety first. My parents are getting older and need our care, and the domestic development is getting better and better. These have strengthened my determination to bring my wife and children back to China for development.

In 2013, my wife became pregnant. After I sent her back to my hometown in China, I started living between China and Finland. During this period, I stayed in China to accompany her most of the time, and in the spare months I flew to Finland to handle company business.

In 2014, we welcomed the birth of our child. In order to live in China in the future, I began to consciously understand the relevant domestic market and business models. I attended friends' gatherings and learned some wine table culture. I also cooperated with a French company and opened an office in Shanghai.

Unexpectedly, an epidemic struck and I was stranded in Finland. Today, although my wife, children, parents, and I cannot be reunited for the time being, seeing the children thriving and growing in China gives me an indescribable sense of security.

Li Ka-shing once said: "The success of any career cannot make up for the failure of educating children." I deeply agree. Educating children is an arduous and long process. Parents need to be role models and establish connections with their children, and education in the motherland's culture is even more indispensable.

Oral narration: He Bo