From the Philip­pines to Oulu: “I nev­er imag­ined this would become my sec­ond home”

When Cel­sa Cubar moved from the Philip­pines to Oulu in Decem­ber 2025, almost every­thing around her was new: the cli­mate, the lan­guage, the work­ing cul­ture and the quiet­ness of a north­ern Finnish city. Almost a year lat­er, Celsa’s eyes light up when she talks about the city that has become her sec­ond home.

Cel­sa Cubar, 39, comes from Min­danao, the Philip­pines. She is the eldest of six daugh­ters and a moth­er of five chil­dren. Before mov­ing to Fin­land, she had spent almost her entire life in the same close-knit com­mu­ni­ty sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly.

Leav­ing them behind was one of the biggest deci­sions of her life.

In the Philip­pines, Cel­sa trained as a nurse and worked as a med­ical sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive, meet­ing doc­tors and health­care pro­fes­sion­als and sell­ing med­ical equip­ment and devices. Even­tu­al­ly, she decid­ed it was time for a change and applied for a pro­gramme that could lead to work­ing in Fin­land.

She began study­ing Finnish in Feb­ru­ary 2024, long before know­ing exact­ly where in Fin­land she would end up.

– My mind and my heart said: this is the time. But before you can go after your dreams, you have to work hard for them. For me, the Finnish lan­guage was the key.

A Famil­iar Con­nec­tion to Oulu

Even before Cel­sa knew where in Fin­land she would even­tu­al­ly live, Oulu already had a spe­cial con­nec­tion for her.
While study­ing Finnish online in the Philip­pines, one of her favourite teach­ers was Jon­na Kurt­ti, who is from Oulu.

Cel­sa enjoyed her class­es so much that when­ev­er she saw Jonna’s name on the sched­ule, she would choose her class.

The two became close, and Cel­sa remem­bers ask­ing Jon­na whether she could vis­it her one day if she end­ed up liv­ing in Helsin­ki. Jon­na explained that Oulu was actu­al­ly quite far from the cap­i­tal.

Lit­tle did Cel­sa know that she would even­tu­al­ly be placed in Oulu her­self.

Today, the con­nec­tion has come full cir­cle. Cel­sa and Jon­na can meet reg­u­lar­ly, this time not through a screen.

– We see each oth­er often and have cof­fee togeth­er. It’s amaz­ing to think that she was my Finnish teacher, and now we are both here in Oulu. I nev­er imag­ined that Oulu itself would become my sec­ond home.

From Min­danao to a Snowy Oulu

After almost two years of study­ing Finnish and wait­ing for a work place­ment, Cel­sa final­ly received the news she had been hop­ing for. She would be mov­ing to Fin­land with a group of oth­er nurs­ing pro­fes­sion­als from the Philip­pines.

When she land­ed in Fin­land in Novem­ber 2025, one of her first sur­pris­es was some­thing sim­ple: the air.

– The moment I stepped out­side the air­port, I noticed how clean the air was. I thought, this is what I dreamed of. I fell in love with this place from the begin­ning.

Snow was anoth­er com­plete­ly new expe­ri­ence. Com­ing from a place where tem­per­a­tures of around 25–26 degrees Cel­sius can already feel cold, the Finnish win­ter required some adjust­ment.

What sur­prised her was how nor­mal­ly peo­ple con­tin­ued their every­day lives despite the cold and dark­ness.

Learn­ing Finnish by Liv­ing in Finnish

Finnish had been chal­leng­ing to study in the Philip­pines, but Cel­sa quick­ly dis­cov­ered that learn­ing a lan­guage in the class­room and actu­al­ly liv­ing in it are two very dif­fer­ent things.

– Learn­ing Finnish online and using it with real peo­ple are com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent. When I arrived, peo­ple spoke so fast. But my col­leagues were very under­stand­ing. They slowed down, helped me and let me learn at my own pace.

Today, Finnish is Celsa’s work­ing and study lan­guage. She works in elder­ly care at Esperi Amelia while con­tin­u­ing her prac­ti­cal nurse stud­ies along­side work. At the same time, she con­tin­ues to attend Finnish class­es, fit­ting lan­guage stud­ies into an already busy every­day life.

Bal­anc­ing work, prac­ti­cal nurse stud­ies, Finnish lessons and her per­son­al life can be demand­ing, but Cel­sa is deter­mined to keep learn­ing and build­ing her future in Fin­land.

She laughs about the Finnish she uses at work. If words are miss­ing, body lan­guage some­times comes to the res­cue. The most impor­tant thing, she says, is being will­ing to speak, make mis­takes and ask for help.

And grad­u­al­ly, Finnish has start­ed becom­ing auto­mat­ic.

– Some­times some­one speaks to me in Eng­lish and Finnish comes out of my mouth with­out me even notic­ing. You hear it every day, and your mind adapts.

Dis­cov­er­ing a Cool Work­ing Cul­ture

Work­ing life in Fin­land has also been a major change.

In the Philip­pines, Cel­sa was accus­tomed to long work­ing days and a more hier­ar­chi­cal rela­tion­ship between employ­ees and man­agers. In Oulu, she was sur­prised by the flat­ter work­ing cul­ture and the amount of free time she had out­side work.

For her, this has made the idea of work-life bal­ance some­thing con­crete rather than the­o­ret­i­cal.

– Here in Oulu you get to enjoy your days off and your life out­side work. You have time for friends, activ­i­ties, sleep and rest. I was nev­er used to that.

“Here in Oulu you get to enjoy your life out­side work.”

Cel­sa also feels that her salary in Fin­land is enough for her every­day life. Impor­tant­ly, it allows her to send part of what she earns home to her fam­i­ly in the Philip­pines.

This gives her work in Fin­land anoth­er mean­ing: while build­ing a new life and career for her­self in Oulu, she can also sup­port her fam­i­ly.

Her col­leagues have played an impor­tant part in help­ing her set­tle in, par­tic­u­lar­ly when Finnish has felt dif­fi­cult. Cel­sa describes her work­place as a com­mu­ni­ty where peo­ple ask each oth­er for help, plan togeth­er and share respon­si­bil­i­ties.

– For me, a good work­ing com­mu­ni­ty means that you plan togeth­er and work togeth­er as a team.

She has also dis­cov­ered that she gen­uine­ly enjoys work­ing with elder­ly peo­ple. Car­ing for old­er peo­ple feels famil­iar to her because she grew up help­ing to care for her grand­par­ents.

Her longer-term ambi­tion is to con­tin­ue study­ing and even­tu­al­ly qual­i­fy as a reg­is­tered nurse in Fin­land.

“Oulu Has Giv­en a Dif­fer­ent Per­spec­tive”

Com­ing from a large and live­ly fam­i­ly, Cel­sa was used to noise, con­ver­sa­tion and hav­ing peo­ple around her almost con­stant­ly.

Oulu intro­duced her to some­thing dif­fer­ent: silence. At first, she had won­dered how she would cope with it. Now, it is one of the things she appre­ci­ates most.

– Oulu has giv­en me a very dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on life. I have learned to appre­ci­ate the lit­tle things: being close to nature, silence, sim­ple gath­er­ings and hav­ing time to reflect.

One of her favourite places is Ain­o­la Park, where she likes the water, bridges and peace­ful sur­round­ings. She has also explored Oulu by bicy­cle and enjoyed the city’s sum­mer and win­ter events.

The com­bi­na­tion of city life and nature is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant to her.

– Oulu is a place of calm­ness. You have nature and out­door activ­i­ties, but every­thing you need is also acces­si­ble. For me, it is a very fam­i­ly-friend­ly place.

There have been Finnish dis­cov­er­ies of the culi­nary kind, too. Cel­sa has tried Finnish favourites such as salmi­ak­ki (salty liquorice), pul­la (sweet bun) and, nat­u­ral­ly, cof­fee. Cof­fee, at least, was an imme­di­ate suc­cess.

A Favourite Finnish Word

When asked dur­ing the inter­view about her favourite Finnish word, there’s a sparkle in Celsa’s eyes. With­out a trace of an accent, she imme­di­ate­ly exclaims: “Ihana.”

Won­der­ful. Love­ly.

For her, the word cap­tures many of the feel­ings she asso­ciates with her new home.

She has trav­elled to oth­er places in Fin­land, but says Oulu remains her favourite. She is par­tic­u­lar­ly delight­ed when friends vis­it and she gets to show them the places she has dis­cov­ered, includ­ing the almost oblig­a­tory pho­to stop with the Toripol­li­isi stat­ue.

Most of all, she hopes that one day her hus­band and five chil­dren will get to expe­ri­ence her new home them­selves.
For now, dai­ly video calls keep the fam­i­ly con­nect­ed across thou­sands of kilo­me­tres.

– I hope that in the future I can bring my fam­i­ly here so that they can expe­ri­ence the beau­ti­ful things I have expe­ri­enced. Words are not enough to describe how Oulu has changed me, my life and my career.

For any­one con­sid­er­ing mak­ing the same jour­ney, Cel­sa has one cen­tral piece of advice: arrive with an open mind.

There will inevitably be new things to get used to, from the lan­guage and cold weath­er to the dark­ness and silence. But Cel­sa believes atti­tude makes a dif­fer­ence.

– Come to Oulu with an open heart and an open mind. Give every­thing a chance. Based on my expe­ri­ence, this is a won­der­ful place to live, espe­cial­ly with a fam­i­ly. For me, Oulu is a place of dreams.

Text: Annakaisa Vääränie­mi

We’re look­ing for inspir­ing sto­ries from Oulu

If you know a per­son, com­pa­ny or com­mu­ni­ty with a strong inter­na­tion­al mind­set, let us know. We’re always hap­py to high­light local voic­es with a glob­al touch.
Send us an email: annakaisa.vaaraniemi(a)businessoulu.com

Arti­cles you may be inter­est­ed in: