Exchange Students and Holiday Celebrations

Lukiossamme on kaksi vaihto-oppilasta: Alison Taiwanista ja Benita Saksasta. Tässä tekstissä he kertovat hieman itsestään ja havainnoistaan oman kotimaansa ja Suomen välillä. Lisäksi muutama sananen loppuvuoden juhlien vietosta. 🎄🎅⭐🕯

Alison: My name is Alison and I am from Taiwan. I like to read and to listen music during my leisure time. At the moment, I am reading a book about religion and philosophy, but usually I like to read novels and classic literature 📚. But I also listen to Western Pop music🎝🎝. I chose to be an exchange student in Finland because Finland has the best education system in the world, and I have never been to a country like this.

I am very impressed that you can use credit card 💳 almost anywhere in Finland, and there are not as many tall buildings like in my country 🌇. Also, the weather is different, I think it will be a tough thing for me to get used to it ⛄. And the life in school is totally different; our school day starts at 7.30 and ends at 5 or 6 pm. Most students have to cram after school, and it ends at like 9 or 10 or even 11 pm. So, it is like new for me that I can finish my school day before 3 pm and have lots of free time doing my own stuff.

I would like to learn how to speak Finnish because there is no way to learn Finnish in Taiwan and the Finnish language is super cool. I also want to experience some Finnish culture that I have never experienced before, like holidays and food. Last but not least, I would like to meet new friends 👱. But I am always shy when I meet a person that I don’t really know, so it may be a challenge for me to get over this.

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Benita: Hey, my name is Benita and I'm from Germany and I will stay here in Finland until the beginning of June. To be more specific, I come from Cuxhaven. Cuxhaven is a small coastal town in the north of Germany. There is not much going on except during the summer time 🌻, when the tourists are there, but there are many possibilities to do something, for example we have several shops in the city center, you can go to the beach 🏖 or harbor, to the cinema 🎦, etc. It is also very popular to drive to Hamburg and spend a day there. In my free time, I often meet my friends and we spend most of our time outdoors, we mostly go to the harbor or to the beach. We also enjoy to watch a movie at home or at the cinema (we like to watch all kinds of movies, so there is not a specific one). Besides all this, I like it to go to the gym but I also play electric guitar 🎸 and keyboard 🎹 and I love to go to concerts and festivals 🎶.

I decided to go to Finland 🌍 because I think Finland is more beautiful than Germany, even if we have the beach, our nature is not beautiful in the same way as nature in Finland is. I would also like to get to know the Finnish language and culture. I hope during this year I can gain many new impressions and experiences that may help me in my future life. I hope that we will have a good time together!😃

 🎈 Holiday celebrations 🎈

Alison: We don’t celebrate Christmas in Taiwan. Therefore, we don’t have a vacation for that. I think only Christians celebrate it in Taiwan. We only have a day off on January 1st, and then we go to work again. Students 🎒 will have a winter vacation in February, employees have a spring vacation at the same time but for a shorter time. This vacation is because of the Chinese New Year 🎆 and it lasts from three to four weeks. It also separates two semesters during a school year.

Chinese New Year is the first day in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. All members of the family will gather together on the night before New Year and have a big meal together🥘 . Next day, we go to visit others and get a red envelope from an elder. On the second day of the New Year, every married daughter returns to their parents’ home. Because of the hard work of earlier days, we usually stay at home 🏠 and just worship our ancestor and God. Next day, just like on the previous day, we go to a temple and worship God. And on the fifth day people start working again.

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Benita: In Germany we have a lot of Christmas markets and Christmas parties🎄. When we are at the Christmas market, we usually drink only mulled wine and eat cookies🍪and gingerbread. At home we always bake some cookies or make roasted almonds (of course you can also buy everything). During Christmas time almost everyone has a Christmas calendar, normally there is chocolate 🍫 in it but there are also calendars with things to play in it. We have a candle wreath, with 4 candles 🕯🕯🕯🕯 and for each Advent one more is lit. On the 6^th of December we celebrate Nicholas. The evening before this day we have to clean our shoes 👠 and then „Nicholas is coming during the night “and puts sweets 🍬 in your shoes. On the 24^th of December we eat dinner with our family, usually we eat potato salad 🥗 and sausages. There are also already presents on this evening 🎁. The next two days we are going to visit all our relatives and friends and eat with them. Popular Christmas movies are for example: 3 hazelnuts for Cinderella, The little Lord and Scrooge 🎥.

Teksti: AC ja BR

Kuvat: JW