Linux 操作系统的创始人 Linus Torvalds，最近在一次访谈（An Interview With Linus Torvalds: Open Source And Beyond）里面，谈到了他为什么会移居美国、对美国的印象，以及目前的家庭生活。普通人，读起业界翘楚关于生活、工作等看法，觉得蛮有意思，也颇受启发，在此也与诸君分享。
为什么来美国？
我 1997 年离开芬兰，搬家到了美国。
那时我还很年轻，有一家创业公司邀请我来美国。该公司从事的就是在 80386 体系上面开发 Linux 系统，这正是我非常熟悉的领域。他们做的事情也非常有趣，所以我就来了。
当时的芬兰非常注重高科技，但以手机技术为主。诺基亚就是芬兰的公司，那时是世界最大的手机公司，也是芬兰最大的公司。
我对手机不感兴趣，那时的手机还没有变成小型计算机，人们只能用它打电话。美国看起来似乎很有趣，我和妻子以及我们当时 10 周大的女儿搬到了这里。
当你刚有第一个孩子，就搬家到另一个国家，并且周围没有家人朋友，这可能不太明智。但是，我们那时还年轻，抱着不妨一试的态度，一切就都很顺利。
我还记得那年二月份搬家时的情景，离开时赫尔辛基很冷，大约零下 20°C，当我们达到旧金山机场，天气晴朗温暖宜人，气温是零上 20°C。
美国是怎样的国家？
美国的生活很有趣，这些年我已经把美国当成自己的家。当然，我还是很想念芬兰的一些地方。美国的问题是，它的教育系统是一场灾难。你必须搬到正确的地区，才能进入好的小学或中学，如果你要上一所好大学，就要支付多到疯狂的钱。这是美国的一种耻辱。美国的医疗系统也有问题。另外，美国的政治已经从"有点奇怪"，变成了彻头彻尾的可怕。芬兰都没有这些问题。
美国也有很多优势，不仅仅是天气。我们后来从加州搬到了俄勒冈州波特兰，这里的天气不像湾区那么好，但还是比芬兰好很多。我们在美国待了这么长时间，我们的孩子不会说芬兰语，我和我妻子都来自芬兰的讲瑞典语的少数民族，所以我们在家里说瑞典语。我们在这里已经有很多朋友和各种社会关系。在美国，只要你有一份好工作，你就可以在很大程度上忽略美国社会的失败。
我们考虑过搬回芬兰吗？有那么几次确实想搬。首先是孩子们小学开学的时候。然后是孩子们开始上中学时，接着是上大学时。你看到里面的规律了吗？、
要是特朗普再次当选美国总统，我大概也会考虑搬走。总的来说，美国的政治让我感到担忧，美国至上论和民族主义的兴起，令人感到悲伤和可怕。尤其是那些拥护者从来没有国外生活经历，根本不知道自己在谈论什么。
美国在很多方面都是一个可爱的国家，也是一个非常多样化的国家，拥有许多不同的文化和人群，以及自然风光。我喜欢这一点。事实上，如果我要搬回芬兰，对我来说最困难的部分可能就是这个。芬兰是一个非常友善、理智和安全的国家，但它也是一个非常小的国家，而且非常单一化。
特朗普当总统时，你经常可以看到挂着美国国旗的巨大卡车，那些没有受过教育的人高喊着"美国第一"、"美国伟大"，这让人很困扰。
有时甚至是受过教育的人，也相信这点。我的家庭医生坚信美国的医疗制度是世界最好的，但他从来没在其他国家生活的，拒绝承认其他国家实际上拥有更好的医疗制度。是的，他是特朗普的支持者。
不要误会我的意思。民族主义无处不在，包括欧洲，甚至包括芬兰，但它的美国版本似乎确实有毒。
老实说，这也是我住在西海岸的原因之一。俄勒冈州基本上非常自由，你肯定不会经常看到那些支持特朗普的旗帜。
家庭生活
我的家庭生活相当正常。我有三个女儿，但她们年纪大了，大部分都飞走了。最小的还在上大学，暑假回家。二女儿正在读研究生，暑假不回家。大女儿在东海岸工作。我们仍然尝试全家一起度假，但去年的疫情让这一切没法实现。
所以这些天，家里主要就是我和妻子，还有两只狗和一只猫。我已经接种了第一剂疫苗，离第二次疫苗接种还有几周的时间。再过几个月，我会再次去潜水，期待着恢复稍微正常一点的生活。
JA: What brought you to the US? Do you miss, and have you considered returning to Finland, or elsewhere?
LT: So I moved to the US in '97, and part of that was that I was fairly young, and I got an offer from a startup that did very interesting things in an area that I was very familiar with (ie the somewhat odd 80386 architecture - exploring it was why Linux got started in the first place).
And Finland at the time was very much about high tech, but it was dominated by cellphone technology (Nokia is Finnish, and at the time was the biggest cellphone company in the world, and the biggest company in Finland by quite a big margin).
I wasn't interested in phones (this was before they grew up and became small computers - people actually used those things to talk to each other, if you can believe it). And the US seemed interesting, and I moved here with my wife and our (at the time) 10-week old daughter.
Moving to another country when you just had your first child, and you have no other family around to support you may not be the smartest thing to do. But hey, we were young, we took a "let's try it" approach to things, and it all worked out. I still remember how we moved in February, and it was cold (about -20°C, so about 0 F) in Helsinki when we left, and we walked off the plane and it was sunny and a nice balmy 70°F when we arrived at SFO.
It's been interesting. The US is home these days, and yes, I miss some parts of Finland. The US education system is a disaster. You have to move to the right area to get a good grade school or highschool, and you have to pay insane amounts of money for a good college. It's a disgrace. So is the healthcare system. And the political climate in the US has gone from "slightly strange" to downright scary. In Finland? Things mostly JustWork(tm).
But hey, there are advantages too, and it's not just the weather (yes, we then moved up to Portland, OR, and the weather here isn't as nice as it is in the Bay Area, but trust me - the weather is still a lot better than Finland). And we've been here so long that our kids don't speak Finnish (both me and my wife are from the Swedish-speaking minority group in Finland, so we speak Swedish at home), and we have friends and social ties here in the US. And you can largely ignore the failings of US society as long as you have a good job.
Did we consider moving back? Several times. First when the kids started school. Then when the kids started highschool. Then college. See a pattern? And then when it looked possible that Trump might get re-elected.
JA: Much of the world was carefully watching that election, and worried about what it would mean. And even yet, knowing that some 70 million Americans supported his re-election, there’s foreboding for the future. How do you handle conversations with people who supported Trump’s re-election?
LT: The US political system in general worries me, and the American exceptionalism and nationalism is sad and scary. Particularly when it is often by people who literally have no idea what they are talking about and have never lived outside the country.
The US is a lovely country in many ways, and it's also a very varied country with lots of different cultures and people (and nature), and I like that. In fact that would probably be the hardest part for me if I were to move back to Finland - Finland is a very nice, sane, and safe country, but it's also a very small one and very homogenous.
But the uneducated "Rah rah, America #1!" thing can be very annoying too. You see these huge trucks with American flags, and you just face-palm occasionally.
And sometimes it's even educated people. Before Trump was elected, I was talking to this perfectly nice medical doctor, who was absolutely convinced that the US health care system was the best in the world. He based this on having never lived anywhere else, and couldn't possibly admit that other countries actually have better healthcare - even when discussing it with somebody who actually has literally seen that better health care first hand. This is a highly educated person who went through many years of medical school, and still has that "America, f*ck yeah!" mentality.
And yes, he was a Trump supporter.
Don't get me wrong - nationalism exists everywhere, including Europe. Including even Finland. But the US version of it does seem to be pretty toxic.
And honestly, it's one of the reasons I live on the West coast. Oregon is mostly very liberal, at least in any population center (Eastern Oregon is very much different, but hardly anybody actually lives there - large in area, very small in population). So the area I live in, you certainly don't see the confederate flag (or the Trump flag) very often, although you do see that occasional big truck person who drove in from elsewhere.
That said, I do think the US is changing. We've lived here almost 25 years by now, and it feels like it has changed even during just that time. Religiosity is way down, although it's obviously still very much an issue about where you live. And in many ways the US has obviously shed a lot of socially repressive policies (ie the whole legalization of gay marriage, effectively the end of the war on drugs etc). So on the whole I'm fairly optimistic, and I do think that the Trump phenomenon is possibly (hopefully) just the result of those overall positive changes. Classic reactionary conservatism.
JA: What are your interests and hobbies outside of the Linux kernel? What do you do when you're not focused on kernel development?
LT: I've already mentioned the main two a couple of times: I end up reading a lot (nothing serious, it tends to be random fantasy or sci-fi off my kindle), and when I get to travel I try to do scuba diving as much as possible.
And I actually have a fairly normal family life. I've got three daughters, but they are older and have mostly flown away. The youngest is still in college and will come home for summer, the middle one is doing some graduate work and won't be home for summer, and the oldest is working on the other side of the country. We still try to do family vacations (but only the middle one ever got scuba certified - I tried with all of them, but it is what it is), but last year really was not great.
So these days, it's mainly me, my wife, our two dogs, and a cat. I've gotten my first vaccine dose, and am looking forward to trying to go back to a slightly more normal life in a couple of months.
