He is four years old. He has travelled for the first time in his life, travelled for a day and a night from his hot home country to the other side of the world - the cold and Western side. He stumbles out into the airport at the end of the journey and smiles hesitantly as he looks around with wide eyes at all the hurried, pale-faced people around him. He says something in his own language to his new mother who understands only his body language and answers with her own foreign words. But she smiles back at him.
His new sister and brother, a few years older, show him how to put on thick coveralls, a woolly hat and, strangest of all, woolly mittens. He accepts all of it and studies his hands in the mittens with wonder. When they leave the airport building, an icy wind hurls itself against his face. He squeezes his eyes shut against the brightness of the snow. Around the airport there are only fields, vast and empty and snowy fields. It could not be more different from the hot and crowded Asian city he has known all his life.
What is going on in his head? He looks, he smiles at his new parents when they hug him, he finds a toy in the car and starts playing with it.
Welcome to Finland, my new nephew. We all love you already. And listen to your mother when she tells you not to eat the snow.
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