Interesting you mention that as I've known a couple and you're spot-on. Saw first-hand that Finns perhaps looked on them as sort of, I don't know, traitors, for having dared work abroad and become citizens of the world with a more open view of things - something which really should be encouraged imo. I've only half-experienced it (doctors refused to use English with me, police refused to use English, TE-office refuse to use English, all because I am now a Finnish citizen... and with at least one of them I have the legal right to an interpreter, but it just never seems to be worth the mental effort to fight this idiocy).Rosamunda wrote:I remember when I first arrived in Finland there were quite a few 'Returning Finns' at my sons' school. Things weren't particularly easy for them. In a way, it's harder to be a Returning Finn than an immigrant (you're not an immigrant, but you're not quite Finnish either). As a Finn, you are expected to know how things work. With my UK passport I can still get away with mumbling in Finglish when I go to the maistraatti or the bank, or the doctors etc but I would not feel comfortable doing that with a Finnish passport. I wonder if there is much resentment of Returning Finns among the Finnish population. Certainly in Budapest (I lived there for a couple of years) the Hungarians who returned in the late 90s were not greeted with open arms.
Just thinking aloud!
I expect this to be a thing for me in moving to the UK too. Worse as I've never lived there. Not sure when it will be, but I do know that I can't stay here interminably, it's simply becoming too much and I'm tired of the sheer effort. Very few Finns will shed a tear once I finally run out of steam of course Hey ho just another taxpayer taking their money out of Finland eh?