Anna, I agree that we shouldn't focus on our differences that some people create or make up. Sure we're all different even among our own people, but this only makes us more interesting ! Learn n appreciate and respect different cultures. It only makes our lives more interesting n sometimes exciting !
I think what really helped me in those days was that I was dying to learn more and was genuinely curious. If you’re too set on your own ways and don’t want to be influenced, it can get difficult - and people in survival mode often look for familiarity and are scared of anything new and unknown.
You're a very thoughtful person. One of the great advantages of being a member of a Western nation is how you're spared from the mad rush of survival that is common in developing countries. As a result, you can really explore many aspects of life. Being able to live in China and Kenya, two very different societies, must be so enriching from a personal thought perspective. And to experience all this from a young age is even more noteworthy. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your comment. It’s truly been a privilege and an enriching experience to be able to explore like this. I hope it provides tools for me this lifetime and something worthy to share. I just had a convo with a Finnish friend though that the older we get and the worse economies get, the more it becomes about survival 😩
@@ainoluo Yes, there's a lot of manufactured political hate for China among the mainstream media narratives primarily from the West which is unhealthy and unnecessary. Your voice and opinion based on your personal experiences and knowledge of the REAL China is truly much appreciated !
I am Chinese American, I love to visit China someday. I am glad you have a good experiences of the Chinese culture. I like your video because you keep it real, and speak your minds. You act and sound like an american white girl. LOL
Wow what an interesting topic. May I compliment you on your looks. You say Finland. I have been very near Finland some years ago. I bought an apartment in Estonia just so I could travel to st. Petersburg and Helsinki and Lithuania and elsewhere. I couldn't learn any languages because it was so easy to resort to English. I have a feeling I shall follow your tracks to see what more you can tell us. Best wishes.
Estonia is lovely! I have a similar issue with English here in Kenya, in Wuhan it was very easy not to speak English 😄 and sometimes life is so full of other stressors that learning another language is an overkill. My next project is to learn Swahili.
I don't know wether American use "not the sharpest pencil " expression! For you and for fellow Asian friends one expression is for sure related to it is saying " he/she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer ":)
Probably not haha. In Finnish we often make up new ones. An example, though not exactly the same meaning, is that someone doesn’t have all their Moomins in the valley, referring to the Moomin Valley children’s cartoon popular in Finland and Japan ☺️
@@ainoluo yeah! I once heard on a podcast, how funny it was for American translating the idioms from different European countries literally to English! We scratch our head and say "Why"😆
@@idofdm7625 I’ll be starting to learn Swahili soon, can’t wait to get to the expressions and idioms 😁 Proverbs especially can be full of wisdom. Although I can, as a Finnish person, say that some of our proverbs I really don’t agree with 😅
@@ainoluo Funny the world has become so small, as an Chinese diaspora who last time in China 40 years ago trying to learn about China now ( partly because of crazy politic in the West ) from Westerner because my main language is English and also watch a Chinese young man live in Tanzania past 4 years who speak very little English thus I had to try to understand his Mandarin (I'm Cantonese) and Swahili (Thus pick up a few word like kwaheri, Asante, karibu, mayai, macho... etc.) Now I'm following you to Kenya!😅
Must admit I know little of Finland even though having been there once and to every country in the Scandinavia I do know it has a population of 5.5 million which is less than Hong Kong where I was brought up or London where I spend half of my time. With such a small population there is little or no night life even in the capital like Helsinki while many parts of China like the Southeast countries all have another economy in the evening. I suppose the natural resource distribution governs the behaviour and perception of the local population. An example is according to the 2021 publication on electricity consumption per capita Finland ranks 5th in the world by having every Finn able to consume an average 15,254 KWh per annum, a figure almost 3 times of every Chinese consumption at 5.885 KWh/year or 5 times of the world's average of 3,081 KWh/year per person. China is the world leader of electricity generation so is Finland wasteful in consuming electrical power? The highest energy user-nations are those countries with extremely cold or extremely hot climate, except the USA who ranks 10th in the world consuming 12,154kWh per year per person.
Interesting facts! I’m pretty sure it is a combination of very cold climate, wastefulness and development that is also going towards electrification (for example electric cars)
A very interesting fact indeed! What comes to the total amount, surely the cold climate and darkness are factors (on the other side one does not need street lights in the summer!), but households and agriculture amount only to about 30 % of the consumption. The second biggest user is “services and public sector”, 22 %, so there are the street lights and public saunas (yes, there is a peak in consumption on Friday and Saturday evenings due to the private saunas that most people have access to and many of the stoves use electricity, although not all) and shopping malls. The other half is mostly various branches of industry and forestry (read pulp and paper mills, also sawmills) accounts for 20 % of the total electric energy used in Finland. They do also generate it themselves by burning the residual biomass. So yes, Finnish life is energy intensive, mostly due to the winter and forests. 🙂
Finns, Estonians, Hungarians. Finnish Soumi majority + Sami minority belong to W Europe of Finno---Ugric language family. The.greater no. of smaller FU peoples live in N of Russia. from W Finnish border to Siberian coast in E See several videos under "Finno---Ugric," Thr FUs, in Russia have appearances from Euro to mixed to E Asian. Each 1 has own flag, clothing, music song dance. both traditional + modern.
You foreign students come to China and are treated like gods by the Chinese. Many foreign students do not need to spend money to study in China, such as people from Africa or third world countries, you are from the United States, I don’t know how much you spent, of course, Chinese people who study in the United States must spend more money than you Studying abroad in China costs much more. Do you know why? Have you ever thought about this question? Maybe you haven't realized it yet. Sorry, I'm not biased against you, I just don't like... If you want to know why, we can chat privately.
I am from the United States? 😅 Never even been there. I agree that the power dynamics in this world are messed up and that opportunities and need to spend are not divided equally, but I’m failing to see the relevance to this personal experience I’m sharing about my amazing time in China almost a decade ago. Edit: Saw you noticed my nationality :)
@@ainoluo You are treated like a god by the Chinese, of course you feel good! It's really sad that you have lived in China for so many years and don't understand China. You only see the beauty of falsehood, but you cannot see the truth.