Kindergarten Majakkasaari hosted Selena during spring 2014. Read Selena's experience in the Kindergarten project here. Majakkasaari's experience is written by Tytti Honkanen and translated by Joanna Mäki-Valkama.
"Our entrepreneur Olli Liimatainen suggested that we take part in this project and we were elated. We got to "choose" a suitable intern for our kindergarten early on. We chose Selena from China, since we wanted to give and get as many new and unique experiences from a new culture as possible during the project.
Our expectations were to learn new things about the Chinese culture in general, to teach the kids internationality and acceptance as well as convey the Finnish early childhood education and our principles here at the Aarressaari -kindergartens.
Selena arrived in Finland during the coldest winter and the culture shock must've been quite something. On her first day Selena arrived bravely to a new adventure in Majakkasaari, in the middle of a strange language, new people and a new job. Everything around her was new and strange, much different from what she had been used to. However she didn't show any of this for a second and she presented herself with a smile and an open mind to all the things we learned together about the daily life of the kindergarten and the Finnish way of doing things.
In our everyday life we learned many things and habits about China. On the very first day we got to witness Selena bravely using a fork for the first time, giving Finnish food a taste and learning to make a sandwich the Finnish way! As days went by we heard about Selena's dream of meeting Santa Claus and all the other things she had heard about Finland and wanted to experience here. In addition we got to experience bits and pieces of the Chinese culture in the form of games, songs and so on. In return we took Selena sleigh-riding, ice skating and even managed to arrange her meeting with Santa himself.
Mainly our everyday life was completely normal and it was all new and wonderful to Selena. She took part in all our everyday chores as one of the workers. Her English was really good so there was no language barrier whatsoever. If language failed, gestures and drawings helped fill in what words couldn't convey.
Selena will forever be in our hearts and we look forward to the day we meet again. It can be said that we received an important friend from across the globe! Thank you Selena for the rewarding weeks that went by really quickly. We hope you come back soon, so much is yet to be done and experienced!
Selena arrived in Finland during the coldest winter and the culture shock must've been quite something. On her first day Selena arrived bravely to a new adventure in Majakkasaari, in the middle of a strange language, new people and a new job. Everything around her was new and strange, much different from what she had been used to. However she didn't show any of this for a second and she presented herself with a smile and an open mind to all the things we learned together about the daily life of the kindergarten and the Finnish way of doing things.
In our everyday life we learned many things and habits about China. On the very first day we got to witness Selena bravely using a fork for the first time, giving Finnish food a taste and learning to make a sandwich the Finnish way! As days went by we heard about Selena's dream of meeting Santa Claus and all the other things she had heard about Finland and wanted to experience here. In addition we got to experience bits and pieces of the Chinese culture in the form of games, songs and so on. In return we took Selena sleigh-riding, ice skating and even managed to arrange her meeting with Santa himself.
Mainly our everyday life was completely normal and it was all new and wonderful to Selena. She took part in all our everyday chores as one of the workers. Her English was really good so there was no language barrier whatsoever. If language failed, gestures and drawings helped fill in what words couldn't convey.
Selena will forever be in our hearts and we look forward to the day we meet again. It can be said that we received an important friend from across the globe! Thank you Selena for the rewarding weeks that went by really quickly. We hope you come back soon, so much is yet to be done and experienced!
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| Majakkasaari crew |
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