Monthly Archives: March 2009

in english

Family

One of the main disadvantages of living abroad is the sparser contact with one’s own family.  In this day and age, of course you can use e-mail, Skype or just plain old long distance phone calls, but there’s nothing like being physically present.

Your family, whether you like it or not, is part of who you are.  Enjoy them when you have the chance.

in english, suomeksi

The difficulty of the Finnish language is a national myth

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We know that Finnish is not the simplest language in the world, but I find that its difficulty is a little bit exaggerated and has become a source of national pride, however right or misguided (nothing wrong of being proud of your language, but because it’s perceived to be difficult for others to learn?).  Every once in a while people are surprised that I would have taken the time to learn it, but I’d say that its learning curve is quite steep in the beginning due to the amount of new vocabulary and grammar that needs to be learned, but tapers off later (unlike English for example, where it is very easy to get started but there are lot of irregularities).

I am very grateful to have had very competent teachers in the beginner and advanced levels, but was just  listening to an acquaintance who mentioned that even his teacher said “Don’t worry of you don’t learn, it’s a difficult language anyway”.  Now that’s a way to motivate people!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “Suomen kieli ei niin vaikea ole, vaan erilainen” (The Finnish language is not so difficult, only different).  Very different maybe, but if you unlearn what you have learned you’ll be fine.

in english

Against the World Music category

Anybody who knows me a little bit (or has seen my profile at Last.fm) has probably realised that my musical taste is quite varied.  On any given day I could be listening to raï, ranchera, punk, samba, rock, jazz, metal, classical music, ska, axé, or electronica from Mexico, Japan, Brazil, Algeria, France, Belgium, Israel, India, Canada, Argentina, Egypt, China, etc… which if they’re not your usual Anglo-Saxon pop-rock will usually be clumped together into World Music, with very awkward results.

For example, with the current version of iTunes you have a “Genius” feature that promises to make perfect playlists for you.  However, the database they use seems to have been made by the record companies instead of users, so when it does find the music I have (which is less often than I would expect), if I ask to create a Genius playlist out of e.g. one of my favourite Mexican rock bands it will put it together with Mexican & Argentine traditional music too since they’re “Latin”, something akin to lumping James Brown together with Enya because they come from the English-speaking world.  It gets even better when I try it with some of my favourite samba artists, as they will be lumped together  with salsa, raï, Bollywood and tango acts because they are “World Music”, even if I do have plenty of MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) to make a list with.

David Byrne said it best: he hates world music.

in english

Foreigner or local?

Every once in a while I meet someone new (who doesn’t?).  As a foreigner in Finland that means first disbelief of why would anyone move to this country followed by either suspicion or only a request to know the whole set of decisions bringing you here, how do you like it here and how is your life here.  As I’ve lived in the Helsinki area for most of my adult life, explaining why and how I came to this point has become a longer story than I might be comfortable sharing on a first meeting, so depending on the person the exchange might go something like this:

“Mut, mistä sä oot kotoisin? (But, where are you from?)”

“Täältä (Here).”

Problem solved 😉