Archive: May 2005
Seeing Growth Potential in Being Green
OULU, Finland -- Lassi Noponen, chief executive of Finland's Proventia Group, has his eye on General Electric Co., a firm thousands of times bigger than his own that recently announced plans to remake itself with "ecomagination," emphasizing ecologically friendly research...
By washingtonpost.com | May 31, 2005; 11:49 PM ET | Comments (90)
Nordic Walking
TURKU -- Not everything we've seen in Finland has looked entirely normal to our American eyes. For instance, since we arrived on May 19 I've noticed Finns of all ages cross-country skiing without snow and skis in the springtime weather...
By Lucian Perkins | May 31, 2005; 4:45 PM ET | Comments (46)
A Finnish Nursery School
KUHMO -- "Day care" does not do justice to the nursery schools of Finland, which provide an elaborate form of preschool education that de-emphasizes education per se in favor of socialization and just plain fun. Teachers at the nursery school...
By | May 30, 2005; 9:50 AM ET | Comments (140)
Far Afield But Always in Touch
OULU, Finland, May 28 -- Most of the road signs in central Finland are familiar, but one distinctly is not: it's a triangular warning sign, orange with a red border. In the middle is an artistic black profile of the...
By washingtonpost.com | May 29, 2005; 1:57 AM ET | Comments (219)
Music: A Finnish Preoccupation
KUHMO -- Finnish parents can send their children to a state-sponsored music institute at any time after they are eight months old. Day care centers here have music classes and a stock of kids' musical instruments. Every Finnish school offers...
By | May 27, 2005; 1:35 PM ET | Comments (125)
Moving Out of Nokia's Shadow
JYVASKYLA, Finland -- What does a little country with good technical skills and a lot of imagination try to sell to a fast-changing global economy already crowded with entrepreneurial ideas from much bigger economies? Finland's first answer for a decade...
By washingtonpost.com | May 26, 2005; 11:30 PM ET | Comments (77)
Women's Request Night
JOENSUU -- Four nights a week the big club on the second floor of the Karelia Hotel here jumps to the beat of the tango. With style and discipline, couples twirl around the dance floor, bathed in blinking light created...
By | May 25, 2005; 3:31 PM ET | Comments (84)
Kuopio, a Hustling City
KUOPIO -- In four decades of journalism in many lands, I've learned one reliable rule of thumb: for a clear-headed dose of reality, talk to the mayor. The rule isn't infallible, but it usually works, as it did here in...
By | May 25, 2005; 10:55 AM ET | Comments (28)
Closing a Popular School
JYVASKYLA -- We had our first interesting encounter produced by a reader's suggestion here in Jyvaskyla. Sari Laine, president of the PTA of the Voionmaa School in this town 180 miles north of Helsinki, wrote us an eloquent e-mail about...
By | May 24, 2005; 12:55 PM ET | Comments (94)
Focus on Schools Helps Finns Build a Showcase Nation
HELSINKI -- A foreigner asking to visit a school in Finland this spring got an unexpected reply from the Helsinki City Education Department: Our schools are overwhelmed by visitors; do you have to visit just now? In fact, the Finns,...
By washingtonpost.com | May 24, 2005; 1:05 AM ET | Comments (178)
Modest Finland
Today we'll begin what I hope can be daily entries in the Finland Diary. We've been here since Thursday, May 19, long enough to begin to adjust to the time (seven hours ahead of Washington) and to the Finns, who...
By washingtonpost.com | May 23, 2005; 4:15 PM ET | Comments (129)
Introduction to Finland Diary
Finland just might be the world's most interesting country that Americans know least about. It has the best school system in the world, some of the most liberated women (the president is female), more cell phones per capita than...
By | May 23, 2005; 10:00 AM ET | Comments (897)
