One day in Finland and I already feel like I’ve come home to an old friend, even if we are both a little older and wiser. Catching a tram through Helsinki with a gaggle of international journalists, all chatting in a score of languages about current affairs, was as stimulating as the first time I tried it, back on the Foreign Correspondent’s Programme in 2010. It was also a little bittersweet ...
Tag: environment
Smile like a Hanko biscuit
“When you are really happy, in Finland we say smile like a Hanko biscuit.”
This was what Leena, our tour guide in Hanko said before she got off the bus. On the way to our accommodation I kept thinking about the ‘Hanko biscuit smile’. Actually that was the exact expression we all had on our faces all day long today.
On our fourth day we had a bus tour to Hanko and during the trip Professor ...
Exploring the Finnish mindset for solutions
As a journalist, I’ve always been fascinated with solutions. That’s because much of the criticism around the news industry has been that it focuses too heavily on what is wrong with the world. While I agree that we must show the injustices, we can also highlight some of the answers to those injustices.
So, I joined a group of fellow journalists in the US who are focusing on “solutions journalism” ...
There was a little girl in Shanghai writing to Santa Claus
More than 7000 kilometers away from Helsinki, there was a little girl in Shanghai writing to Santa Claus: please fly me to the lakes, to the forests and bring me to see the northern lights! 20 years later, the little girl becomes a TV journalist. She travels all over the world, making business and political interviews with important people. One dream she keeps to herself: meeting Santa Claus in ...