Seeing Finland sunny-side up

Li enjoyed the natural beauty of Finland, "the country of 1,000 lakes". Geng Feifei / China Daily

Li Sicong probably will never wake up on a summer solstice, the longest day of the year in late June, without thinking of Finland.

Li, who traveled to that Nordic country during his just-completed final year of graduate school at Tsinghua University, had heard a lot about the lands of the midnight sun. But being there was still amazing.

Arriving on the first day with 19 other journalism students from 19 different countries, Li says "we were all excited and talking and suddenly realized it was 11 pm." It was still as bright as day.

The trip was Li's first time out of China, and the Shanghai native was fascinated by the Finnish people - "efficient, civil, well-educated, polite" - who surprised him by speaking perfect English and always being eager to offer directions to strangers.

That friendliness was magnified on his birthday during the trip, when his new student friends took him out to a bar and the bar owner insisted on serving up his best vodka. "The beer was really good in Helsinki, too," Li allows.

International journalism was the focus of the trip, and Li found his itinerary packed and fascinating.

"Unlike China, most people who read newspapers don't buy them on the street," he says. "They buy a subscription. And most families read two or three newspapers each day." Li was intrigued that Forestry & Agriculture was the third largest paper in the country, and that officials were very accessible to reporters.

The groups schedule included meetings with Finland's president and seven ministers. Li, whose specialty is financial news, was delighted to be able to ask President Tarja Halonen what collateral Finland would accept as it reached out to help crisis-stricken Greece with loans.

One thing about the country was already familiar. Li's a big fan of heavy metal music, and Finland is a hotbed for that sort of sound. In 2009, the Finnish government set some of the country's most notable bands on a world tour, and Li didn't miss the chance to see them in China.

The most pleasant surprise of the trip was the beauty of the landscape in the "country of 1,000 lakes". Li was enchanted by the extensive forests and natural beauty.

"But the people were the best thing," he says, adding that he's very happy to not only know more Finns but his fellow student travelers from more than a dozen countries. He also encountered two heavily tattooed drunks ("they turned out to be very nice and very smart") and other folks who were individualistic in appearance but surprisingly eager to talk with foreigners.

Getting out of his own country, he says, also helped him know himself better as a Chinese, thanks to that outside perspective.

"For one thing, Europeans talk a lot - so much and so fast that they almost get ahead of their thoughts," he says. "Here at home, we are more reserved - we like to get our thoughts together before we share ideas."