{"id":1667,"date":"2026-07-31T01:55:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T23:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/?page_id=1667"},"modified":"2026-07-31T01:57:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T23:57:02","slug":"my-background","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/index.php\/my-background\/","title":{"rendered":"My background"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’m not from anywhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you ask where I’m from, my answer is often: “I’m not from anywhere.”<\/em> I leave that open to interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am Finnish. That is clear. Born and raised in Finland, lived here for most of my life. But identity is rarely as simple as a passport suggests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father worked wherever the work was, and we moved with it. My grandparents \u2014 on both sides \u2014 were originally from Sotkamo, in Kainuu. That’s where the roots are. My mother’s parents had a farm there. I spent every summer holiday there as a child. It was the one place that stayed, while everything else moved. There I learned to ride horses, to drive a tractor at nine, and a moped at eleven. I learned to harvest fields and fell trees in the forest. My grandparents’ farm was the anchor \u2014 always there, even when everything else changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kolari<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first place that left its mark is Kolari. In western Lapland, right on the Swedish border. I lived there as a child and was a teenager when we left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s where I started school. That’s where I encountered the Swedish language for the first time \u2014 not in the schoolyard, but on the other side of the river. And at home, in front of the television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We lived by the Torne River. You could literally row across to Sweden. And we did. Everything was cheaper on the Swedish side, so that’s where the most shopping got done. But for me as a child, the river wasn’t a national border \u2014 it was just water between two banks of the same world. On both sides, people spoke me\u00e4nkieli, the language that lives right there, neither pure Finnish nor pure Swedish but something of its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet some things reminded you that there were still two sides. Our Swedish shop owner on the other side threw his TV out of the window when M\u00e4ntyranta won over Jernberg. By that time, the Swedes still drove on the left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the evenings \u2014 Finnish television didn’t reach us up there in those days. The only channels we could get were Swedish, SVT \u2014 the very same our shop owner watched! The commentator was cheering for the Swedish side, not the Finnish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Swedish language came into our home by itself, long before I understood that it would stay for life. A richness for the whole of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same happened with the western Lappish way of speaking, the unhurried pace, the attitude. They became part of me. A part that resurfaces especially when I go skiing at Yll\u00e4s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as everyone along the river knew \u2014 the border wasn’t only for shopping. “Poikkinainti”<\/em> was a well-known tradition. You married across the river. The term could be translated as \u201cGrossmarriage<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juankoski<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Kolari we moved to Juankoski, in Savo. That’s where I finished high school. That’s where I did my military service, at Kontioranta near Joensuu. Savo is a world of its own \u2014 a different dialect, a different rhythm, a different humor. That left its mark too. Though with Savonians, you can never be quite sure where the truth ends and the story begins. I’ll leave that responsibility with the reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the army, I headed to Gothenburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gothenburg<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I moved there after my matriculation exams and military service, with a grade of Laudatur in Swedish. For years I lived there as a young adult. And I have to say \u2014 you don’t just live in Gothenburg and move on. Gothenburg gets under your skin. The language, the rhythm, the humor, that slightly reserved way that turns out to be so warm once you’re in. The local dialect, the g\u00f6teborska, began to show in my speech \u2014 and it never quite disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still have family and close friends in Gothenburg. It’s not just memories that bring me back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left because my father was seriously ill back home in central Finland. He was only 59, a WWII veteran. I wanted to be there for him \u2014 more than I wanted to study engineering, which I also loved, at Chalmers. The choice fell on business school in Finland instead. And it was the right choice. My father needed me right then when I came back \u2014 a few years later he lost his ability to speak. The years we got together, nothing could have replaced them. Computers were new technology then and my minor subject \u2014 that later became my life’s career. My father lived to 71, but we didn’t know that then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finnish capital area<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After my studies I built my own IT company in Kuopio. The early 1990s Finnish depression changed many plans \u2014 mine included. I was back working as an IT professional within days. Nearly forty years in the capital area followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My office was in Espoo, and so was my home for thirty-one of those years. But the work took me everywhere \u2014 across Finland from Maarianhamina to Sodankyl\u00e4, and regularly to France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and the United States. Sweden is not counted as abroad. At its most demanding, two months a year were spent abroad, on top of constant domestic travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this as a single father of five. My mother was still in good shape after my father passed \u2014 without her, I don’t know how it would have worked. And I married a wonderful lady. She has helped me a lot during the last 30 years and you wouldn\u2019t believe \u2013 she is a biker too! Towards the end of my career the traveling finally eased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since January 2020, our home has been in Kirkkonummi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps that’s the closest thing I have to “from somewhere.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Gothenburg \u2014 year after year<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even today, almost every year, I come back to Gothenburg. And when I arrive, I sound like a Finland-Swede \u2014 a little stiff, a little formal perhaps. Everyone hears it in the way I pronounce words. But give me a couple of days there, and the g\u00f6teborska just comes back. It’s not something I do \u2014 it happens by itself. The language remembers even when I don’t think about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then something happened that I hadn’t asked for. When I returned to Finland from Gothenburg, my Swedish lecturer at business school wrote me a recommendation letter \u2014 entirely on his own initiative. He wrote, among other things, that I speak Swedish like a native Swede. I didn’t quite know what to say. I said nothing. But I kept the letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So who am I? I am Finnish. But ask me in Swedish and I am a Gothenburgian. And that feels completely right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not from anywhere. But Gothenburg \u2014 that city sits inside me, whether I want it to or not. It suits me.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not from anywhere. If you ask where I’m from, my answer is often: “I’m not from anywhere.” I leave that open to interpretation. I am Finnish. That is clear. Born and raised in Finland, lived here for most of my life. But identity is rarely as simple as a passport suggests. My father worked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1667","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1667"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1670,"href":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1667\/revisions\/1670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tapiokyllonen.fi\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}