The person, I interviewed is from Australia, has a Finnish spouse and they have four children together. He has lived in Finland for 14 years. He works for a large international company, from his own remote workstation. To the question: “What has been the most challenging part of adapting to Finnish society?" He answers: "The Finnish language." He works alone, the working language is English and at home with his spouse and children he speaks English. To the question: "What has been difficult in Finland?" He answers: "Tax system." He has worked as a private entrepreneur before his current job and also experienced taxation as complicated through this. To the question: "What has been easy in Finland?" To this he answers: "Raising a family." To the last question: "Do you feel that is it good to be in Finland?" His answer is: “Yes, it is a safe country with good local and federal services. It is fairer and less corrupt than other countries.” Finland really is a safe place to live and it's good to raise children here. Corruption does not flourish and even immigrants are treated well at the state level.
This person's integration has been influenced by his spouse, his family, and of course his spouse's family, while they live in Finland. The acceptance and positive attitude of people in the immediate family and community affect the life of an immigrant and his mental well-being. The integration of this person and immigrants in general is also influenced by employment and knowledge of the local language. Through work, an immigrant can feel that he is an important part of this society, and through this, Finns' respect for immigrants also increases. Of course, knowing the language has an impact on the job search, and language skills also affect social life outside the family. A lack of language skills can have a negative impact on social life. Courage is required from an immigrant to face new things, to learn new things and customs, as well as the language. However, with your own positive and open-minded attitude, you can get off to a good start, although there are many cultural material and non-material things that confuse immigrants in Finnish culture. The most famous of the non-material ones is the sauna culture, which involves nudity, a hot sauna, spinning in the snow in the winter and open swimming. These are things that have also confused the person I interviewed, because he grew up in a Catholic family where members of the opposite sex do not see each other naked, even as children.