In November I guess last year in probably my second last or last night in Stockholm I purchased a diary (in Swedish, just for the exoticness, but it was a nice diary) and spent some me-time mapping out the dates my rent was due and the dates my pay was due, etc etc nothing that interesting just looking to the year ahead and a few things that I knew were coming. Hilariously, I found that diary again today while cleaning up, and of course it has virtually nothing in it because I had virtually no appointments or goals. But then I thought, well look I did enjoy the idea of a Swedish diary but damn it how much would I love the idea of a Finnish diary? And maybe even the diary itself. So I went looking online and once again, well, I don't know how much this happens with other languages, but seriously, the Anglosphere is so Anglocentric that the idea that you'd even want to buy something as utilitarian as a diary in another language is unbelievable to (for instance) eBay. Try looking for a diary in the Finnish language, and you get all kinds of books about the Finnish language for English speakers, and then a whole lot of diaries about Finnish Lapphunds, and then a whole lot of diaries with a particular 'finish' (presumably 30 December LOL). Now, of course you can get to websites for Finnish bookshops ('bookshop'+'Helsinki') but then you run into the problem that they cannot conceive that someone outside a few (non-English-speaking) European countries would be interested in a diary in the Finnish language, and to be honest I can kind of understand why that's an odd idea but you know some people are into licking other people's anuses, I'm into Finnish things.
There is a kind of Finnish eBay, I forget what it's called but all transactions are conducted in Finnish. I do actually want to buy at least one Finnish-language history book, for a book I'm writing - I mean look, I have a book in Portuguese for the same project and for which I google-translated four or five pages, it wasn't hell. But there is just no understanding that someone might want to partake of these things. I am reminded of a time during the year when I was very desirous of obtaining a 100th anniversary t-shirt for a Helsinki suburb I love as advertised on their facebook page but no chance - the person selling them was very certain I had to show up in person to get one.
I mean I'll live, but it is kind of weird. Surely there are other affluent Australians who enjoy random arcana. Someone should be brokering this shit.
1 comment:
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