Our second day with the Tsinghua delegation began at Otaniemi Radisson SAS at 8.10am from where we headed to the first company visit of the week. Our guests were very excited, even though the previous night had been long and full of new experiences. However, perhaps thanks to the Finnish sauna, they had had a good night sleep.
Our bus headed to Turenki, the closest tree felling location of UPM in the Helsinki region. During our journey, Aili Piironen told us about UPM operations abroad and in China, in particular. One of the largest factories of UPM is located in Jiangsu province.
The factory will soon have new factory machinery, which can produce up to 360,000 tonnes of specialty papers annually. After a little over 1.5 hour journey we arrived to the felling area where we were given helmets for our protection. Tsinghua students found helmets and vests interesting, but they were even more excited when we walked deeper in the woods.
After a short walk, we reached a harvester. The area in question had only one harvester and one employee. We got to see the device in action and marvel at how quickly the trees fell and branches were hatched. We were also told how the device can estimate the quality and thickness of the wood in real time and estimate the best purpose for the wood. Trees are marked with colour stamps so that they can be processed in a correct manner in the next location. Tsinghua students were very pleased when they got to sit in the harvester. For safety reason, the machine was naturally turned off.
From the felling area we headed to the cabin of UPM and this was one of the first summer cottages that our guests got to see in addition to Otaniemi Rantasauna. The cottage was located by the lake. Before the meal, we had the opportunity to pick up mushrooms and blueberries from the nearby forest. We ate blueberries straight away but saved mushrooms for the dinner. UPM offered us a delicious lunch, including whitefish, new potatoes and chanterelle sauce.
After the hospitality of UPM, we headed back to Helsinki where we visited the Chinese embassy and met the ambassador. We heard about the relations between China and Finland, which have been excellent for a long period of time (since 1950).We also discussed the benefits of the Chinese and Finnish relations. Learning from the culture and education of one another was brought up in the discussion. We also discussed much about China’s rapidly emerging and growing markets, which already offer plenty of opportunities for Finnish companies but unfortunately mostly focus on large companies. China also needs the Finnish innovation expertise as well as new small and medium-sized companies. Perhaps Slush China in October can offer new opportunities for this purpose. (Slush China will be organised in Beijing on 13 Oct 2015)
After the day’s visits, we had some time to see the sightseeings in the centre of Helsinki.We showed our guests Finlandia Hall, Temppeliaukio Church, Parliamentary House, the Helsinki Music Centre, Kiasma and the Helsinki Cathedral. Our guests were most intrigued by the Helsinki Cathedral. Unfortunately, we only had time to see the sightseeings briefly as we had also other plans for the evening. We had reserved Sportstugan for the evening, where we had dinner, went to the sauna and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Tsinghua guests were in awe by the nature, lake and fresh air, in particular. Although the Finnish sauna was too hot for some of them, some of our guests already asked for more heat. We had a genuine Finnish sauna experience with Chairperson of the Student Union Liu Chang. Not all of our guests were able to swim but they still popped into the lake and enjoyed the fresh Finnish water. The evening could have continued for ever but we went to bed quite early as we would have perhaps the most important meeting of our trip with the President of Finland in the morning.
All in all, the day was excellent. The visits raised many thoughts on how everyone in Finland should consider how we could better utilise our international relations and China’s major growth potential, in particular. In addition, we were able to offer many new and exciting adventures to our guests that they will probably never forget.