What an interesting couple of day session in San Francisco!

It’s really a place full of history, stories, all kind of interesting people, places… It’s a curious island, and crossroads of American and indeed Western cultural history. It’s an interesting combination of culture, creativity, thinking out of the box – and indeed technological innovation. It’s a city that innovates itself constantly. And keeps innovating. It’s a place that got a massively visible place in our contemporary history – much bigger than its size. Probably due to its originality and the atmosphere it created. Talking about hippies, tech innovators, or gold rush miners and financiers – or Chinese immigrants – it’s indeed a city of much originality. A city by the bay, by the ocean, “next door” to Asia (just a Pacific between them), the gateway to both Pacific Ocean and SF Bay… A city with glorious history – and a place with a substantial amount of homeless people, like many cities in the Californian coastal side (talking about LA…). 

A city which is more expensive than New York, a place where everybody seems to be willing to come – living or for a visit. A place with nostalgic places such as Haight street, Chinatown, the Wharfs, Parks built by Scottish stubborn gardeners, the Golden Gate Bridge…

To be honest, with all the glory and curious places, I start more and more think, that Americas days are gone and past. America is only a shadow of its past. Looking into the fabulous documentaries of Monterey festival in the 1960s, 1970s, where Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Mamas and Papas and so forth play, and everybody seems to be inventing the world again – and whole world (expect China) was coming to a a park having awesome time, taking LSD and “pop”, and living like never before… It must have been unique. But already 20 years ago, when these guys were giving interviews about how awesome it was back then 30 years ago, I can’t stop feeling about that the “awesomeness” of America is somehow gone. In the 1990s we were all for it. Almost everybody. Then the 2000s first decade changed it, 9/11 and Iraq war brought up an anti-American sentiment. (I remember inter railing in Germany when I was looked very negatively, when people seemed to think I was American.. Canadians put a big Canadian flag into their backpacks to separate them from the folks in US.) Obama lifted up another new sentiment, but with the economic crash something else also was gone. Trump brought other new waves, in positive and negative, globally, and the divisiveness and arguing hasn’t necessarily made it any better. 

Now we’re up to 2023. A big covid has gone past. Google and Twitter are kicking out dozens of thousands of people in San Francisco and Bay Area. Their offices, tables and shelfs are on sale here for good price. Pick and get it! We were hanging around at Microsoft SF HQ, which used to be Bank of America global HQ. Walking around in Chinatown, feeling like a mix of Hong Kong and local Chinese restaurants in Guangdong. Shops selling stuff from the 1990s. Aurora told me: “How can they sell this kind of trash? Nobody would buy those in China nowadays…”

It’s shocking how developed Chinese first-tier cities are compared to these places, like LA and SF. Not to talk about Utah. And California is really the GOLDEN state in the U.S. This is supposed to represent the most modern and most fancy area of the U.S. It has 40 million people, which is around a third less than Zhejiang. Streets in the newest areas of Hangzhou or Ningbo are growing. Having said that, china also has it’s massive challenges economically and in many other ways too.

Everything is expensive in SF. But with a good salary, you can well live a nice and decent life here. Sometimes SF even looks a bit like Helsinki. Packed, small, cozy, can walk and bicycle anywhere. Fresh, breezy air from the sea – seagulls flying in the wharf, streets going up and down. Liberal, relaxed atmosphere in the streets. Like a massive Kallio district the whole city… lovely parks. Color’s in the streets. Plus the beautiful bridge. And tech companies, like you’d have a Ruoholahti. Or Supercell. Or Otaniemi… (In Espoo side next door). 

To think about that China and US all have their – very different – challenges and opportunities, in the end it makes me feel that Helsinki is not that bad after all. Or other Finnish cities either. 

We are a small country – not the same opporutines as the big world here or in china / asia – but we’re cozy and I’d say larger than our size. Much things are possible. 

Maybe I’ll go back one day. Not just being much connected to Finland – but also living there, for good. Schools are good. Very little crime and danger in the streets. Government is not controlling your life. You have safety network. You can also develop nicely in life. Nature is beaufylt. You have close friends. Transportation, subway, trains all work. Salaries are decent. Prices are not crazy. Art life is nice and ok. You can travel easily anywhere in the world. Not bad!

Let’s see..

As we say in Finnish: matkailu avartaa. Traveling grows your views, puts things into a little broader perspective and makes you understand new things. 

Sometimes those things are old things, that you already knew, but just had to go out for awhile to see that it’s actually really that way. 

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Let me introduce more of some of the past days pondering and findings.

We arrived in SF on Tue afternoon, and spent a nice day with old friend from Shenzhen, David, saw some places in SF nighttime, and the morning after visited also the Bay Area. SF Bay has around 9 counties, and dozens of small municipalities. We stayed close to the airport and experienced a lot of local neighborhood life of Bay Area and California. A few notes: 

There’s a LOT of Chinese and Asians here. There’s not just the Chinatown at the center of SF, (which is btw like 1/7 of the population or something, over 100k people), but there’s also counties and towns, like close to the airport, where there’s all kind of Chinese and Asian people. “I wanted to bring my kid here, so I got the green card and came in. But my child has grown up in China – and he is not used to the American and Californian way of life. He doesn’t want to study now, I feel it was almost wasted…” Interesting. There are several restaurants where we can easily just keep talking Chinese – like back in China – and it’s almost the same. 

But some “Chinese” here are already second or third (or even more) generation Chinese – and very naturally talk English with each other. It’s also a familiar dialect when a Chinese-American from SF and closeby speaks English. I can pretty much start recognizing that. 

And of course: many of the folks are from the South, in Canton, or even Hong Kong. Taiwanese and Singaporeans I suppose there’s too. 

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The more modern San Francisco was built by the 1849 Gold Rush, which brought folks all around the world in here. Later on when Nevada and other places found gold, they kept working with SF for the latter part of the supply chain. This became also a natural financial center for the Western USA. The population was growing constantly until the end of 1800s, and outside areas were also settled. We took a nice drive around the areas closely here. Fascinating architecture and stories. 

However a huge – unexpected – earthquake in 1906 destroyed much of the former SF. People ran to closely places like Berkeley, Oakland, and so on. People say that was the time when LA also started to grow and take SF’s place. (LA is kept lively by an artificial water system). 

During the WWII, SF grew again in importance, and many folks settled – and stayed – during and after the war. Folks from Deep South, Greater Appalachia, “white folks, black folks”, came here. African-American neighborhood also influenced the music scene in here. 

1960s -1970s, brought the hippie phenomenon – and student movements – which the mainstream media spread out to the whole USA, and globally to the world. 

Late 1970s-80s brought the internet revolution, which has been continuing and accelerated until today. However the center of that movement was down in Palo Alto, around Stanford University. (Where Google has also been established. And HP founded. Cool visit in the garage building. 🙂

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People are very laid back. A guide told that “some San Franciscans never grow adult”, and I can feel it! It’s positive and optimistic, but you see it also in the services and in the streets: hotel receptionists talk with you like you were in the Sodankylä Midnight Sun film festival: cool, in ease, cozy, we’re all friends type of a thing. If I’d had to choose a city neighborhood – anywhere in the world – which this resembles, I’d really probably take Helsinki’s Kallio, where I lived as a high-school kid. Check it out – a cool working class background neighborhood, with Helsinki’s creative art-flavored high school and a lot of young “hippie” students, entrepreneurs, immigrants… Another one might be some of East Berlin’s cool places (which may be less tech/biz connected than in here) or Beijing’s 798 area beforehand (but that’s obviously also different, as in China you can’t create a similar confluence of different free-thinking individuals from all over the world, who create something in relation with each other). Beijing and China would be too “和谐”, harmonious, for being San Francisco. But that’s what they all yearn for! “I want to be the next Silicon Valley!” Ok, please don’t do the “Handan walk” – you can’t copy something, which has been organically and naturally developing for decades. You can’t just cut the rose from it’s roots – and expect that it would start growing a perfect rose garden in a very different soils. If you’re soil is in e.g. Netherlands, foster Tulips! Or in Hangzhou, foster the Longjing and tea leaves. 🙂 

The world-famous green tea is probably much better idea, than a rose that would grow only half-ways, and never would shine like the roses of San Francisco. (I don’t know if here’s many roses around, but you get the allegory.) 🙂 

People here are friendly – but in an independent and cozy way. I am me – and you are you – and we’re both ok. 

It’s funny though that you don’t have so strong an Irish influence here. It’s not New York. Also the Mexican and Latin influence is slightly less than in LA. Southern Bay Area also has a strong Indian and South Asian influence. 

There are though many Chinese, some Southeast Asians, and much Italian influence too. Nancy Pelosi is from here. Kamala Harris too. ’49ers comes from the Gold Rush of 1849. Philadelphia 76ers you can guess anyway: 1776, American declaration of independence. 

In the news they talk about the latest shootings in LA and the the Bay Area, about the traffic to the city (big companies have their excellent wifi coaches to take you around, you might need an hour in the coach, and you can use that for working). Many SF folks won’t work on Friday – yesterday evening was a “weekend rush-hour” at Thu 5pm. For a Chinese that sounds crazy. 

If the Chinese work 9-9-6, and SF folks 9-4-4, you don’t need to guess, who’s catching who economically. Especially if the new Chinese youth can catch inches of the innovation, and wit of these places. 

Work in the digital era doesn’t though need to be working “harder”, but “smarter”, like many have said. 

Heading out, a day in SF waits. Let’s see what the new day brings in front of it. 

P.S. If anyone wonders why I’m not blogging about China or stuff what’s going on Finland, I’ve felt that it’s good to concentrate on the experiences in here – while being here for this shorter period. Having said that, there IS much things ongoing in China and Finland also constantly. While visiting other places, you always need to block a good time to manage your other affairs too. That’s the tone I guess for many, in the modern life. Creating a balance between different continent, and different “verticals”, home, family, work, friends, health, hobbies, economy, spiritual life… they are all connected, and they all make you who you are.