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Vietnamese refugees find a home away from home in Finland

In Oulu, along Finland's north-western shore, 27 refugees dream of their far-off homes in the high mountains of Vietnam and of one day going back to fight the communists who

chased them away.

"I want to join the Finnish army because I'm very angry at the communist party and I want to deal with it later," Siu Grun said.

The 25-year-old has a hard time accepting his fate as a refugee. While he feels grateful to Finland for taking him in, Vietnam will forever be his home, he insisted. "Homeland is very important for us."

Siu Brum, 23, also hopes to receive military training or training in "any field that would help against persecution."

Grun and Brum, who are of the ethnic Christian Jarai people, the largest minority group in the central Vietnamese highlands, were sent to Oulu last May along with 25 others by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

"We Protestants were threatened all the time. They came in our home and tried to make us change our religion. So we went to Cambodia," said Du Van Anh, 37, who left his village in November last year with his wife and their two children, along with other Jarai people.

"At first, we wanted to go to the US, but now we are pleased with Finland," he added.

None of the refugees however appear intent on staying in the Nordic country for long. Just long enough perhaps to give the children time to learn to read, write and count and for their parents to learn a profession, how to use a computer and a very foreign language.

Ksor Vuong, 21, has for instance so far held off on requesting family reunification in Finland, since he hopes to be headed back home ... just as soon as the Jarai territory is granted autonomy.

In the meantime, the refugees in Oulu participate in a number of activities and classes arranged by the town. Few of them have had much schooling before coming here and some are illiterate.

In Vietnam, "they lived so close to nature, that they have so many things to learn about their new environment," said Finnish nurse Soili Korhonen-Sohlo.

Social center worker Shahnaz Mikkonen agreed. "I understand that they want to go back to their country. [To begin with] they were so scared, and they still are. The language is difficult, and the culture and cuisine are so different," she said.

Oulu, a harbor city that in the past shipped out salmon and asphalt and that now is a center for high-tech industry, sits on the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea, some 600km from Helsinki, and about 200km from the Arctic Circle.

The town, which this year is celebrating its 400th anniversary, counts few foreigners among its about 130,000 inhabitants. Only 1.5 percent of the city population is foreign, with Russians, Iraqis and Swedes making up the largest groups.

The Vietnamese refugees have had little trouble fitting in however, their translator says, pointing out that their discreet nature goes well with the discretion Finns are so famous for.

To help ease their introduction into Finnish society, individual integration programs are being created for each of the refugees by the local employment agency and Finnish social workers. Their rent and electric bills will also be covered during their first three years in the Nordic country.

If history's any indicator, it should not take the refugees long to begin functioning in their new home.
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