food stuffs in Finland

before we start, i’d like to say that this blog post is just for fun. i am definitely not an expert, especially since i’ve only lived here for 8 years, but this post is based on my own observation during that time.

so… if you’ve never been to Finland (okay, to be fair, i’m only going to talk about the metropolitan area: Helsinki and around it) and are planning to do so one day, you might be wondering how easy or hard it is to find food that you’re used to eating in your own country. well, here is a small guide for that.

in no particular order, the most common food served by restaurants/eating places that you can basically find in almost every corner of the street (not including fast food restaurants) are…

1. pizza place. the pizzas here are the thin crusted ones, though of course some places offer the pan pizzas as well. another trivia is that most of these pizza places also serve kebabs (or pizzas with all kinds of kebab toppings). yum! there are so many pizza places, and almost every week a new pizza place opens around your neighbourhood (we know this because they always send leaflet to our mail). it’s literally easier to find the nearest pizza place than the nearest McD’s.

2. Indian food. there are the “stop and go” kinds, small-ish places where they sell 9 or 10 different set meals, same meals everyday. there are also the more “serious” kinds, with pages of menu filled with different types of Indian delicacies. some of these more serious ones play actual Indian (or Bollywood) music/videos. as for the quality of the food, i have not yet tasted any bad ones in any of these places so far! also getting more common these days are Nepalese restaurants. just like pizza places, Indian & Nepalese restaurants are quite common, there’s bound to be one in every neighbourhood.

3. Tex Mex. okay, this one isn’t a “place”, but rather surprisingly it is so common that in every hypermarket, supermarket, or even smaller markets, there’s always an aisle or a minimum of a separate shelf devoted to Tex Mex. from the tortillas, salsa sauce, down to the guacamole dips of all kinds, they’re always there. i don’t think i saw any Tex Mex aisle/shelf in supermarkets elsewhere, but then again i haven’t been abroad that much, perhaps i’m wrong?

4. Chinese food. another common thing, like pizza places and Indian restaurants. although, for this one, i can’t say i’ve tried them that much, so i can’t tell if all of them are as good as the others, as is the case with the Indian food. and the funny thing is, at least lately, these Chinese restaurants also serve sushis. which brings us to number…

5. sushi place. when i first came to Finland for a visit, let me say that i can count the number of sushi restaurants available in this area with one hand. but now, ohhhh… it makes me so happy to find more and more new sushi place opening up here and there. as a sushi lover, i would strongly suggest though that you choose your sushi place wisely. making sure the place is clean is our number one rule, but then again Finland has quite a strict hygiene rule when it comes to restaurants. still, since what you’re eating are generally raw fish, it won’t hurt to be extra careful. i myself prefer going to sushi places where they serve the sushis fresh for the customer, but i admit i’ve also eaten at sushi buffets as well. i haven’t had a single problem with any of my sushi-eating experiences here.

6. vegetarian/vegan food. being a vegetarian/vegan is so common here that there are actually quite a few places that offer only vegan/vegetarian menu. there’s also always vegetarian/vegan menu in any restaurant, no matter how small or big the place is.

7. berries & peas (mostly in the summer). when it’s the season, small berry & pea marketplaces/kiosks start popping up here and there, all around the city. they are usually local products, and the prices are slightly more expensive than when you pick them up yourself in one of those “pick your own strawberries” fields. but unless you live near the countryside (like us), who has time for that, right? it’s such a treat to munch fresh strawberries and cherries in a long hot summer day, i can tell you that!

8. buns. mostly, of course, cinnamon buns, but you can find any other buns just about everywhere, too. a small bakery or cafe is much easier to find than, say, a doughnut place. (i know what you’re thinking, what’s the difference between a cafe and a doughnut place? if you have lived in a place where J Co doughnuts exists, believe me, you’ll know the difference.) even in very rare occasions that i happened to go to some local pubs, they served buns there. (but no doughnuts.)

and now for the rarest foods or non-existent ones…

1. fried chickens. yeah, you know, we have probably 2 places that say that they have fried chickens. but it’s not the same kind of fried chicken as a REALLY REAL FRIED CHICKEN. oh well. Finns have healthy eating habits, i get that. but i do miss them fried chickens. sniff.

2. wok food, Asian style. this is rare, though not non-existent. and out of the small few that are existing, only 1 counts as a real Asian style wok, in my opinion. it’s a small place, a “stop and go” kind that only sells 9 or 10 set menu, but the taste is so real Asian, i’m always transported immediately back to the streets of Jakarta whenever i eat there.

3. sea food, other than fish, served hot. there are of course plenty of fish dish here, and then there are the crayfish. as much as i love my salmons and crayfish, i must say… i miss eating grilled shrimps & squid, something i could easily get from a foodstall on the side of the road in Jakarta. actually, let’s just move on straight to number…

4. Indonesian restaurant. not entirely non-existent anymore, i’m happy to report, as there is one place that serves Indonesian food every Sunday (and i heard it’s good!). i actually know some Indonesian women here who cook so well, i have no doubt they would succeed if they start an open-everyday restaurant. i sometimes wonder why they don’t just go ahead and do it (come on, people!! i want to eat Indonesian food without having to cook them myself!). but this is a good start, right? it’s just too bad they only open on Sundays and i’m almost always at work. hope business is going well with them that they will consider opening on other days, too. 🙂

i’m getting quite hungry writing about these food (especially hungry for those food in the rare/non-existent list, ugh) and it’s past midnight, so i’m gonna call it a day. remember, this is just for fun and in no way meant to be taken seriously. just don’t go looking for fried chickens when you come visit Finland. opt for berries and buns instead! 😉

a different kind of paperdoll

when i was a kid, my sister & i had these special Japanese colouring books. they were otherwise normal colouring books, except that they were small (about 12 cm wide and 25 cm long), each page only consisted of 1 manga-style woman figure in certain positions, and each page were meant to be cut in 2 places (the cutting line were marked on the paper) exactly cutting apart the head, the torso + hands, and the legs. the idea was that we could mix and match the heads/hairstyles, clothes, and shoes that the woman figure on each page had. it was like a different kind of paper doll. and as a paper doll lover, you can probably imagine how much i loved those books. i could not properly colour them back then (i was probably younger than 5), but i liked flipping the pages randomly and got a random mix & match fashion tip of the day (or more like tip of the minute, since i did it ever so often!).

fast forward a few decades and i stumbled upon this book when i was in Amsterdam last year. it’s called Flip Fashion, illustrated by Lucille Clerc.

i was drawn to it because, well, i get easily drawn by anything that has to do with fashion illustration. when i opened it… it was exactly like that colouring book i had!! except that i don’t need to colour it anymore, ha! 😀 and instead of 3 parts, each page on this book has 4 parts. that’s more fun!

i didn’t immediately bought the book back then though… but i kept thinking about it, dreamed about it, because honestly, i missed playing with my old colouring book! so finally, a year later, i decided it was time to ‘spoil’ myself with it.

another difference is that this book has ‘labels’ on the left side of each page. but i’m not complaining. this was one of my first randoms: Romantic Ivy League Casual Countess.

and then there’s (left-right): Edgy Rodeo Anarchist Chick. next came Sixties Noir Fairytale It Girl. and lastly (for the day), meet Twenties Clubbing Classic Lolita.

i’ve got plenty more randoms, but i’m sure you get the idea already. 😀 this book is my new inspiration bible.

so, the verdict: if you love paper dolls, need fashion inspirations, like finding random things to do with your free time, love fashion illustrations, get this book. or, if you just like randomness, get this book.

i got mine from Book Depository for around 12€ (free shipping worldwide!), and i can personally guarantee you loads of fun.

unfortunately fortunate

so i went back to work for a couple of days earlier last week… and right away i ran into some unfortunate events.

like how i fell at work right on my first day back. that’s right, a full-on fall down the floor because somebody put en empty plastic box (the kind you use for when you’re moving to a new house) where it didn’t belong, and i wasn’t paying attention to where my legs were going. it was a nasty fall, but i managed to get up from it myself, and the day continued normally.

the next day i started to feel the pain in the part where i hit my leg, but whatever… i was still in a good mood to start working again, and went to work normally… until suddenly around noon i felt weird. like very exhausted, and started to feel pain everywhere in my body, plus a cunning headache. so i sat down for a while, and when i felt like i couldn’t think anymore because of the pain, i took a painkiller, just to let me get by to the end of the day.

of course, as soon as i got home that day, i got a high fever. well, that was it then. i got myself checked the next day, and got a 3 day sick leave right away.

it almost felt like a joke that as soon as i had to get back to work, the universe was telling me that i needed to stay home some more. but i wasn’t laughing, far from it. the next night my fever went higher, almost as high as when i got chickenpox. it was just terrible.

at the health center, i was told that the symptoms sound like influenza symptoms. but i didn’t have any sore throat or running nose. days and nights passed, and finally, right on the third day, my fever started to go away. and yet still no sore throat or running nose. to this day, i still have no idea what it was, but now that i think about it, could it actually have something to do with the fall or the bruises, as i still have a bit of pain when i walk, even now. gonna have to keep an eye on them, i guess.

so anyway, while being ill, in true fashion of ‘looking for the silver-lining’ as per the supposed theme of my blog, i started to think of all the good things that came up with this unfortunate events.

1. obviously, i got my summer holiday “extended”. though it wasn’t that pleasant when you have 39C degree fever, lying in bed in a room that’s 31C degree hot. with no AC. oh, right, this is supposed to be the good things. sorry.

2. since i was super bored yet nearly motionless because of the illness, i managed to finish a book i just borrowed from the library in like less than a week. it was… entertaining. not the best i’ve read, but still, i’m glad i could finish reading it that fast… so i can now move on to the next book!

3. i also managed to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of watching TV series, much thanks to Netflix. my current addiction? The Killing.

4. when i didn’t have my fever anymore, we went out to take walks in the night (so that it wouldn’t be too hot anymore out there). during this walk, i finally, for the first time in my entire life, saw a wild hedgehog just under some bushes. ❤ i’ve never seen a wild one, though of course i saw some “pet” hedgehogs a long time ago back in my hometown. this wild one was a bit tiny, not fully grown yet, but also not a baby anymore. however, since it was afraid of us, all i could see was just the back (spikes) side, breathing up and down. still, cute!

5. the next night after seeing the hedgehog, we walked out again. this time we were hunting the super moon.we didn’t want to attract attention, so we didn’t bring our better camera. so this was taken with my phone’s camera. if you see the middle part, under the bright streetlight where there are a bunch of other streetlights… the biggest circle of the bunch is the moon. well, it’s the only one hovering in the air, should be easy to spot! it may not look awesome here, but it was actually quite huge. i’m happy i got the chance to see it live. after seeing the super moon, i was again given the chance to spot a wild hedgehog (different bushes this time!). it looked at us as we were backing away, so i could see its button-like eyes and small nose… so very cute! (no pics as it was very dark already.)

that last point probably has nothing to do with the fact that i got ill, but it definitely brings positivity back to me while i was feeling down for almost the whole week. i got reminded of how little it takes to find beauty everywhere around you, and that even when something makes you feel low sometimes, there are a thousand other things that you can still be thankful about.

with this new good spirit, i’m gonna go back to work tomorrow. i’d better not fall again this time!

the stranger’s dog etiquette

i can not express this more often than i already did, but here i go again: i just LOVE dogs. whatever dog it is, whenever i see one, i would squeal and hold my breath (to keep myself from squealing furthermore).

i LOVE it when people bring their dogs when they go to my workplace, i LOVE it when they bring their dogs to the public transport, i LOVE spying on my neighbours as they walk their dogs out… yeah, i know, i might sound a bit scary. but i can’t help it!

ever since i moved to this new place, i’ve seen quite a lot of neighbours with dogs. there’s one that has a big wolfy looking dog, another one has 2 very small dogs (that often fall on their sides from pulling the owner so hard and the owner pulled their leashes back… they’re too light that even the slightest pull make them fall!), another one has a barky-barky-bark-all-the-time small dog… for safety & security reasons, i can’t really tell you their breeds, but it’s all the same to me anyway: they’re all cute dogs! ❤

we (me & husband) always give our own nicknames to these dogs, since we don’t really know what their names are. the big wolfy one is the big kind wolf, the 2 very small dogs are the clumsy clowns, the barky dog is the coward (because it just keeps barking without actually acting out). there’s also the energetic dog, the fluffy dog, the Muppet dog (because it looks like a Muppet!). yes, we’re a bit crazy about dogs.

and then there’s this one very cute & curious dog. i see it (and the owner) every second day when i go to work, or sometimes when i go home from work, and some other times we would see them when we go shopping nearby. so many times we’ve passed each other, and almost every time, this cute dog always came to us as if it wanted to say hello. and just as many times we just walked by it without stopping, because… we have no idea how the stranger’s dog etiquette work!

i know that some dog owner wouldn’t mind a stranger petting their pet, but some actually do mind it. and if i ask the owner nicely, if i may pet it, how can i trust myself that i can then let the dog go??? and how do you end this petting session anyway??? LOL, so many things go in my mind when i want to pet some stranger’s dog, i end up never doing it!

i really, REALLY, want to pet this cute & curious dog, especially because it always seems expectant and waiting to be pet. as i said, this cute dog always came towards us when we were passing by, and then it actually stopped near us, almost as if waiting to see if we were going to FINALLY give it a brush, but we always just kept on walking (though i must’ve looked like i nearly died from holding back my squeal & at the same time smiling so big towards the dog). these last few times, i always also tried to look at the owner to see how she reacted, and it seemed as if she would actually give a green light if i were to ask if i may pet the dog, since i think she also remembers who we are by now from passing us by so many times. but how could i REALLY know?

so friends, strangers, ANYONE, please tell me, what is the correct etiquette for petting a stranger’s dog? or a stranger’s pet, any pet at all? what would you, a pet owner, expect a stranger to say when asking for permission, and also how would you end the session??

hello again, Liebster

i noticed that my blogging pattern has become more and more like what it was 2 years ago when i was still blogging in Multiply: only 1 post per month, and always only to record my latest sewing project. :p this worries me, but what can i do if i just have nothing else to write?

thankfully, last night Oppie kindly re-nominated me for the Liebster Award. since i’ve actually done it that time, i won’t do the full version here (NOT going to: nominate other people, ask them 11 questions, state 11 facts about me), but i insist on answering the questions from Oppie because this time it’s in Bahasa Indonesia. 🙂 good chance for me to practice my mother language, and translate it to English, too. (long live boredom!)

let’s start!

1. Kapan mulai ngeblog? barusan cek, dan ternyata mulai tahun 2001 di Livejournal. wow, berarti sudah lebih dari satu dekade gue nulis!
2. Kenapa suka ngeblog? hmm, selama lebih dari satu dekade gue nulis blog ini sebenernya tujuannya beda2 & berubah terus. waktu pertama kali nulis di Livejournal (LJ), saat itu gue punya homepage/website KiSS Dolls, yg adalah semacam mainan bongkar pasang secara virtual. gue nulis di LJ buat kasih update ke para pengunjung homepage/website gue itu, apa yg baru aja gue tambahin ke dlm website, apa yg akan datang, dst. setelah bbrp tahun, website gue tutup, jadi gue nulis di LJ buat hal2 pribadi, sekaligus tetap berhubungan dgn para seniman KiSS Dolls dari seluruh dunia yg baik2 dan super berbakat. lalu pas gue pindah ke Finlandia, blog gue pun pindahan ke Multiply (MP). alasannya sederhana, yaitu karena di MP waktu itu lebih mudah untuk post foto2, musik, video. di MP tujuan gue nulis blog berubah lagi jadi buat ngasih kabar terbaru ke temen2 & keluarga di Indonesia. setelah bbrp tahun lagi, gue belajar jahit, dan akhirnya blog gue isinya jahitan mulu. sampai sekarang. (dan jadi sampe ke WordPress karena MP tutup. sekian.)
3. Paling suka ngeblog tentang apa? apa lagi kalau bukan ttg jahitan sendiri. 😀
4. Apa topik favorit yang selalu dibaca di blog orang? macem2. cerita pribadi soal kehidupan sang penulis blog. jahitan sang penulis blog. foto2 keren sang penulis blog. semuanya gue suka, yg penting tulisannya jujur, ga ikut2an orang lain, dan ngga menggurui/menghakimi org lain.
5. Apa yang kegiatan favorit di waktu luang? tergantung musim. biasanya waktu luang gue sangat sedikit, jadi sebisa mungkin gue gunakan buat jahit. tapi kalau lagi musim panas, hmmmph, bisa kalah sama panggilan alam, yg artinya gue bakal keliling kota sama suami entah dgn sepeda atau jalan kaki/kendaraan umum. kalau lagi musim dingin dan males jahit karena gelap (ya, ada kok hubungannya! coba aja jahit gelap2an cuma pake lampu, emg enak? jahit tuh butuh cahaya matahari, percaya deh!), paling2 jadi nonton TV atau film, atau baca buku.
6. Punya mimpi yang pengen diwujudkan dalam waktu dekat? mimpi sih ada, tapi gue rasa ga bisa diwujudkan dalam waktu dekat karena satu dan lain hal. (bukannya pesimis ya, cuma realistis) kalau tetap pengen tahu, mimpinya adalah untuk kembali buka butik baju hasil desain & jahitan sendiri.
7. Apa film favorit kamu? adukh, banyak! kalau cuma boleh nyebut 1, mungkin jawabannya The Band Wagon, film musikal tahun 50-an. ini film pertama dlm hidup gue yg bikin gue cinta dunia seni tari dan tarik suara, baju2 gemerlapan & dramatis, dan gue selamanya berterimakasih pada bokap gue yg memperkenalkan Fred Astaire dan Cyd Charisse pada gue di usia semuda 5-6 tahun.
8. Apakah makna pertemanan itu? Jelaskan dalam maksimal 5 kalimat. saat gue ngerasa super sendirian, ternyata ada yang merhatiin. saat gue ngerasa pengen berbagi kebahagiaan, dia ikut ngerasain hal yg sama. ga perlu selalu dekat dgn gue, tapi cukup kalau hatinya selalu dekat dgn hati gue. mungkin pertemanan adalah hadiah paling indah yg bisa diberikan oleh Tuhan kepada manusia. 🙂 (4 kalimat, masih masuk hitungan!)
9. Sebutkan 3 orang wanita yang menjadi sumber inspirasi kamu. Oma, nyokap, dan kakak gue. Tiga2nya sosok wanita kuat dlm hidup gue, walaupun mungkin mereka sendiri ngga menyadarinya. Oma gue selalu jadi sumber inspirasi dlm hal jahit-menjahit, masak, sampe saat gue nulis cerita2 fiksi selalu ada sosok seorang nenek. nyokap jadi sumber inspirasi gue untuk terus berusaha dan ngga gampang menyerah. kakak gue jadi sumber inspirasi untuk membela diri sendiri (kalau memang kita yg benar), juga untuk tetap gigih & tangguh walaupun dia harus menghidupi dirinya & anaknya sendirian.
10. Sebutkan 3 hal yang loe paling suka dalam hidup. kesempatan untuk belajar, berkembang, dan mengenal satu sama lain. menurut gue sih itu 3 hal yang mungkin hanya bisa didapat dlm hidup, jadi nikmatilah selagi bisa. 🙂
11. Seandainya loe hidup hanya 3 bulan ke depan dan boleh melakukan 3 hal, apa pilihan loe? jual segala yg bisa gue jual untuk dapet uang tambahan, yg kemudian gue gunakan untuk mengunjungi negara2 yg selama ini pengen gue kunjungin, setelah itu balik ke Indonesia untuk menghabiskan waktu2 terakhir dgn keluarga dekat gue.

translation:

1. When did you start blogging? i just checked, and it turns out i started in 2001 on Livejournal. wow, that means i’ve been blogging for more than a decade!
2. Why do you blog? hmm, actually the reason i blog has changed multiple times throughout this blogging period. when i first started writing in Livejournal (LJ), i had a homepage/website for KiSS Dolls, which is basically virtual paper dolls. i wrote in LJ to update the visitors of my homepage/website what i had just added to my site, what was coming, etc. after several years, i had to close down my site, so i wrote about my private life in LJ, as well as to keep contact with the Kiss Doll artists from around the world who were incredibly generous and talented. when i moved to Finland, i moved my blog to Multiply (MP). the reason was simple, it was easy to post pictures, music and videos in MP. the purpose of my writing in MP also changed to giving my latest news to my friends and family in Indonesia. after several more years, i learned how to sew, and finally all my posts are for my sewing projects. until now. (and i got to Wordpress because MP closed down. the end.)
3. What’s your fave subject to blog about? what else but my own sewing projects. 😀
4. What’s your fave subject to read from other people’s blogs? all kinds. private life stories about the blogger. sewing projects of the blogger. cool pictures that the blogger took. i like them all, as long as the post is honest, not a copy of someone else’s, and not patronizing/judging other people.
5. What’s your fave pastime? it depends on the season. generally i don’t have that much of free time, so i use it mostly for sewing. but when it’s summer, hmmmph, nature call is harder to ignore, which means i would likely go around town with my hubby whether by bike or by foot/public transport. when it’s winter and i don’t feel like sewing because it’s dark (yes, there is a relevance! try sewing in the dark with just the light of a lamp, you think that’s comfy? you need the sunlight for sewing, trust me!) i would probably just watch TV or some movie, or read a book.
6. A dream you would like to actualize in the near future? i do have a dream, but for one reason or another i don’t think it can be actualized any time soon. (not being a pessimist, but a realist) if you still want to know, the dream is to once again open my own boutique, selling clothes designed & sewn by me.
7. What’s your fave movie? i’ve got plenty! if i can only name one, the answer would probably be The Band Wagon, a musical from the ’50s. this was the first movie in my whole life that made me fall in love with the art of dancing and singing, glamorous and dramatic costumes, and i am forever grateful to my dad who introduced Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse to me at the wee age of 5-6 y.o.
8. What’s the meaning of friendship? Explain using max. 5 sentences. when i feel like i’m alone, it turns out that somebody cares. when i want to share my happiness, someone else is feeling it with me. we don’t have to be physically close, it’s enough that our hearts are. i think friendship is possibly the most beautiful gift God could ever give us human beings. 🙂 (4 sentences, that’s valid!)
9. Name 3 women who inspire you. my grandmum, my mum, and my sister. all three of them are strong women figures in my life, though they probably never realized it themselves. my grandmum inspires me in sewing, cooking, and even writing… whenever i write stories, there’s almost always a grandmum character. my mum inspires me to keep trying and not give up easily. my sister inspires me to stand up for myself, also to stay persistent & strong even when she has to support herself & her daughter single-handedly.
10. Name 3 things you enjoy the most in life. the opportunity to learn, grow, and know one another. in my opininon, those are the 3 things that you can only do while you still live, so enjoy them while you can. 🙂
11. If  you can only live for 3 more months and do 3 things, what would they be? sell everything i can to get extra money, which i will then use to go to those places i’ve always wanted to go to,and then go back to Indonesia to spend my last moments of life with my immediate family.

thanks again Oppie for the chance to answer these. it was fun! 🙂

Javanese & Finnish: we’re not so different

so, after living in Finland for some time, i’ve come to notice that there are actually some similarities between my husband’s heritage and mine. how this is possible, i have no idea. did Finnish people actually travel much further back then than they have always thought and somehow ended up in Java island and exchanged some words and cultures with the natives?

these are probably not strictly Javanese and Finnish traits, but still i find it quite amusing that there could be similarities between two cultures that seem otherwise unconnected to each other.

1. when we say goodbye, we actually mean we’ll keep talking to you until at least another half an hour. (usually it means another hour.)

–> when i was still living in my hometown, this was what we did whenever we went to some family gathering or get-together with friends. when we got up to bid our goodbyes, the host would walk with us, s-l-o-w-l-y, to the front door, while keeping us talking etc. then just before the door, we would stay to talk some more, and then finally the host would open the door for us, let’s say after 15 minutes. we would step out the door, and the host would follow, sometimes only to the gate, other times to our car or the road where we would then go home from, all the while still talking about this and that. after another 15 minutes, if we’re lucky, we would FINALLY say our real goodbyes and depart. even if the gathering was at some other venue than someone’s house, this happened as well. as we went around telling everyone that we were off, the person we were saying goodbye to would then talk to us for another 10 minutes, so if there were 8 people altogether, it would  mean we would actually leave the venue 80 minutes after we first said to everyone that we were off. PHEW!

i know that there are many different cultures & customs in Jakarta alone, but i can safely say that my experience has always been mostly with my Javanese family members and friends. for example, with my mum’s side of the family (which aren’t Javanese), this almost never happened. but my dad’s side: almost always, LOL.

–> in here, this happens again every time i go to my husband’s family gatherings. okay, maybe not as long as we did in my hometown (since they say Finns are people of very few words), but the similarity is uncanny! i felt immediately at home after the first time i experienced this here. 😀 and apparently my husband’s big family also think of this as something common.

2. something bad happens to you? don’t worry, we’ll tell you the silver lining.

–> rumour has it that for whatever bad thing that happens to you, the Javanese people will always say, “well, but luckily you… (fill in the blank with some positive thought)”. yeah, we’re pretty famous for seeing the silver lining, no matter how dim the situation might seem.

–> imagine my surprise the first time i heard a Finn telling me my silver lining after i told a story of a mishap that happened to me earlier. again, i guess you could say that pointing out the silver lining isn’t strictly Javanese or Finnish, but based on my experience with people from other backgrounds, those who always come up with the silver linings (before saying anything else to comment on my story) are either Javanese or Finnish, LOL!

if you’re still not convinced yet, then number 3 is probably going to.

3. we have the same names.

–> even before i moved here, i already knew some from my husband. for example, his name is actually a popular Javanese women’s name (spelled with 1 different letter). in Finnish, there’s the name Helmi for girls, which is commonly used for men’s name in Indonesia (not limited to Javanese).

–> then i got to know that the name Ari is common in Finnish culture, which is also widely used in Java for either women or men. there’s Samuli in Finnish, similar to Javanese word “ngemuli” or “muli” or “mulih” (so many options, all different meanings!).

–> and the latest one that i found was quite a revelation: Putro is used as surname in Finland (and NOT for someone who has a root in Javanese or Indonesian ancestor, by the way), and it’s a very VERY common name Javanese name for men (we don’t have surnames in Indonesia, so we use it as the first name or one of the first names). it means “son” in Javanese, so of course it’s a very common name.

so i mean, seriously???? how many other countries in this world actually uses Putro as a name? and the thing is, Finnish words and Indonesian (or Javanese) words are pronounced the exact same way, so that makes it even more eerie.

i wonder if there is any world history/culture expert out there who would care to give me some insight?? i would really like to know how this happened (most especially about no. 3)! :p

don’t you just love goodbyes?

i know i’m not supposed to feel this way, jealousy is bad for my health, and regrets will get me nowhere.

but i can’t help feeling it right now, argh.

okay, to cut the drama short, i just saw some pics of my old workplace that i left last October to work at my current workplace. i mean, i knew then that they were going to have some renovation, but we didn’t know that the renovation includes the whole interior of the place. at least i didn’t. for all i knew, they were going to renew the pipes, and everything else that’s hidden under the floors and above the ceilings.

and now i just saw the pics of the newly renovated place… and it looks so good, i wanna cry! they changed practically all the interiors and have like a completely new concept which looks awesome! ESPECIALLY the department where i used to work at, dammit! i mean, i truly am happy for my ex co-workers there, but it’s kind of like this big joke that almost exactly after i moved out then they did something THAT nice. and not that i would go back there again anyway, but still! why?? why now??? why not, like, five years from now??? *scrapes the ground*

rumour has it that the renovation will also be done to all the other branches, and since i basically still work for the same company, it is bound to happen to my current workplace, too. but knowing my company and their ‘plans’, this would take a while. like, 5 years from now. isn’t it just grand?

don’t you just love goodbyes?