Sixdegrees3

SIXDEGREES

Finland’s ENGLISH

LANGUAGE MAGAZINE

TOMMY LINDGREN WORDS AND MUSIC

6

CUSTOMERS ARE ALWAYS WRONG? 12 YOU’RE IN THE ARMY NOW 15 KOOP ARPONEN: NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST

22 Issue 3/2009 www.6d.fi 27.3. - 23.4.2009

Jacek WalczakP

Tervetuloa – Welcome - добро пожаловать!

14 to 17 April 2009 St. Petersburg Days in Helsinki This April, the third-ever St. Petersburg Days are held in Helsinki. The four-day event that includes both business related events as well as cultural happenings aims to preserve and increase cooperation, interaction and friendship between the two cities.

Events Kati Hurme

THE FRIENDSHIP between Helsinki and St. Petersburg has a long and successful history. Helsinki was the very first city, with which St. Petersburg signed an agreement about cooperation and friendship in 1993. Helsinki Days have been organised in St. Petersburg in 1997, 2003 and 2007 and previous St. Petersburg Days in Helsinki have taken place in 2000 and 2005.

This year’s event is dedicated to the 200th anniversary of Finnish Autonomy. The governor of St. Petersburg, V. I. Matvienko, along with the representatives of the city council and members of the business and cultural scene, will be visiting Helsinki. Matvienko and the mayor of Helsinki, Jussi Pajunen will sign an act of cooperation for the years 2010 to 2012. The act is the seventh of it’s kind.

The Centre of Russian Science and Culture will be the scene of cultural happenings, such as various exhibitions about culture and traditions in St. Petersburg. www.kvs.spd.ru

14 to 27 April St. Petersburg and Finnish Science – contacts and impulses Exhibition from ethnographic museum.

Opening ceremony on 14 April, 10:00.

Centre of Russian Science and Culture Nordenskiöldinkatu 1 Free admission www.ruscentre.org 14 to 27 April Finland from the Russian artists point of view Art exhibition.

Centre of Russian Science and Culture Nordenskiöldinkatu 1 Free admission www.ruscentre.org

14 to 27 April Churches of St. Petersburg Photo exhibition.

Cultural centre Blagovest, Vanha Viertotie 20 Free admission 14 April Chamber concert Rozhdestvo chamber choir from St. Petersburg performs.

Helsinki Cathedral, 19:30 Unioninkatu 29 Free admission www.chamberchoir.spb.ru/en Photos St.Petersburg: Committee for External Relations of St. Petersburg Helsinki: Matti Tirri

OURVISION SINGING 2009 CONTEST EVENTS AT CAISA 2.4. 19.00 Sonia Sabri Company (UK/India) Kathak is one of the eight forms of Indian classical dances. In the performance Kathak combines with modern dance. Sonia Sabri Company is from Birmingham.

Tickets 10/7 e at the door Fri 17.4. 6 p.m. The Independence Day of Syria and an Evening of Syrian Culture Syria is a culturally rich country and a traditional society. Syrian flute master Husain Sabsaby and guitarist Tarique Salheya arrive in Finland to perform at this concert. Syrian dessert will be served. Free entrance!

FINALE D N A R G 9 0 0 2 N IO IS V R OU SAT 25.4. 8-11 P.M.

all Ourvision finale gathers together the most talented singers from the when s etation interpr the continents. Expect glamour and great ten finalists, two from each continent, fight for the Ourvision 2009€ victory. Make sure you buy your ticket early! Tickets: 20/17/15/10

ExhIbITIONS Gallery open weekdays 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Corridor Gallery open weekdays 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Free entrance to all exhibitions!

APRIL GALLERY AND CORRIDOR GALLERY 3.4. – 23.4. ”Between Dot and Majority”, Art from Lithuania

Wed 22.4. 5-7 p.m. Lecture: Intercultural Communication Join Eila Kaarresalo-Kasari in an interesting and practical workshop, where intercultural communication is tackled with the help of international etiquette. Plenty of practical tips are provided.

Languages: Finnish and English

MAY

Tickets 10 € at the door Inquiries and registration: Oge Eneh (09) 310 37508 or oge.eneh@hel.fi

6.5.- 28.5. ”Aber n Toumast - The Traces of Toumast”, Art from Niger

www.caisa.fi

GALLERY AND CORRIDOR GALLERY 29.4. – 28.5. ”Vietnam: Past and Present”, Art from Vietnam

Location: Finlandia Hall, Mannerheimintie 13 E, Helsinki

Tickets at the door from 1 h before showtime or advance tickets from Lippupalvelu, 0600 10 800 or www.lippupalvelu.fi

www.ourvision.fi

THE INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL CENTRE CAISA Mikonkatu 17 C, 00100 Helsinki / tel. 09 - 310 37500 Open weekdays from 9 am to 6 pm.

www.infopankki.fi

Contents WeMet

Issue 3 2009

in this issue April 2009

6 TOMMY LINDGREN

4

STARTERS

WORDS & MUSIC

9

The front man of the hip hop band Don Johnson Big Band is known for his music, but also for lending his face to the young activist generation.

Lindgren talked to SixDegrees about music and his relationship with publicity, but also about multiculturalism and racism.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANIMA VITAE

11 THE AMAZING ART OF CONTORTION 12 THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG? 21 CULTITUDE

The chef recommends: Bangkok

Interview with Koop Arponen

24 TV GUIDE AND PREVIEWS

What’s on TV during April

Movie premieres, latest game and CD reviews

25 OUT & SEE

Where to go and what to see in Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Jyväskylä and Oulu

30 FakeNews

15 SOCIETY: IN THE ARMY

16

Most Finnish men, and nowadays also some women, spend six to twelve months of their lives in military service. This period is usually remembered fondly later in life, but what actually happens there?

LOST IN TRANSLATION

The SixDegrees Team Editor Alexis Kouros Managing Editor Laura Seppälä Editorial team Kati Hurme Advertising & Marketing Bob Graham, Kati Hurme, Aiman Kaddoura, Stephen O’Brien

What defines a good and fluent translation? What is nontranslatable and how does the translator work with such phrases? SixDegrees enters the weird and wonderful world of words and translation.

Out & See Turku outseeturku@6d.fi Out & See Oulu outseeoulu@6d.fi Out & See Jyväskylä outseejkyla@6d.fi Layout & Graphic Design Kirby Wilson Moose Design&Photography

+358 9 689 67 420 info@6d.fi

Cover photo by Heidi Strengell. Read interview with Tommy Lindgren on page 6.

Emails in the form: firstname@6d.fi Out & See Helsinki and capital area outsee@6d.fi Out & See Tampere outseetampere@6d.fi

Writers and other contributors in this issue Jan Ahlstedt, Nick Barlow, David Brown, Daisey Cheyney, Robin DeWan, Amira Elbanna, Hans Eiskonen, Justin Goney, Ben Hughes, Kati Hurme, Mari Kaislaniemi, Matti Koskinen, Mikko Laitamo, Elisa

22 KOOP ARPONEN

Commentary

Last autumn Koop Arponen conquered the hearts of countless viewers with his vocal talent, lovable personality and international flair which propelled him to victory in television’s pop contest Idols.

Lautala, Juhana Lumme, Sami Makkonen, Rebecca Mills, Dunja Myllylä, Kaisa Mäenpää, Will Sillitoe, James O’Sullivan, Miissa Rantanen, Tuula Ruskeeniemi, Ville Ukkola, Jutta Vetter, Tomas Whitehouse

Publisher Dream Catcher Productions www.dreamcatcher.fi

All articles, pictures and graphics are subject to copyright.

6° DreamCatcher Vilhonvuorenkatu 11B

No reproduction or reprinting is allowed without permission from Dream Catcher Inc.© Dream Catcher

Proofreading David Agar, Matthew Parry, James O’Connor

00500 Helsinki tel. +358 9 689 67 420 fax. +358 9 689 67 421 info@6d.fi www.6d.fi

Print house I-Print Seinäjoki Circulation 50,000 pieces

ISSN 1459-5680

Next issue is out on 24 April SixDegrees can also be read at www.lehtiluukku.fi

SixDegrees

Issue 3 2009

Ethnic

product

Show me the mämmi

Staying on the road

of the month

Instant dim sum Matti Koskinen

THE CANTONESE word dim sum literally translates to “touching the heart”, meaning a small delight.

It’s a blanket term covering a whole Southern Chinese cuisine of small dishes, usually served in sets of three or four pieces.

These little drops of heaven come in all shapes and sizes, sweet and savoury, steamed and deep-fried, from the humblest meat-filled buns to the most exquisite tofu cakes. Among the myriad of varieties there are some that hold unive+rsal appeal (like the sublime mango cakes), and others that are less suited for the western palate (such as the gnarly chicken feet). With plenty of sugar and fat, most dim sum is definitely not health food, but in terms of taste and texture it’s sheer bliss.

Luckily, where ever the Chinese diaspora goes they take their tasty treats with them. Thanks to the wonders of modern food preservation technologies, imported deep-frozen dim sum dishes can be found in most Asian supermarkets around the world.

Shops often carry at least the most common varieties, such as char siu bau (BBQ pork-filled buns), har gau (shrimp dumplings) and cheun gyun (spring rolls).

Part of the fun is to try out different dishes and share them, and scouring the local ethnic food shops it’s usually possible to garner a pretty impressive setting of different types of dim sum. Prices vary, but a set of six to eight pieces usually costs around €3-6.

Quick-frozen dim sum is easy enough to prepare by steaming in a pot or a wok on a steaming grid.

Just throwing them into the microwave for a couple of minutes is faster, but the results are not quite as tasty.

Mikko Laitamo

Sami Makkonen

Easter means different things for different people. For Finns, it’s mostly about eating.

Nick Barlow

FOR CHRISTIANS, Easter is the culmination of a sequence of springtime festivals: Shrove Tuesday, Lent, Good Friday, and Easter. For most Finns, on the other hand, it marks the culmination of a sequence of cholesterol-loaded, artery-hardening dietary traditions designed only to make you look like a beached whale when you’re sunbathing a few months later: the eating of Runeberg tarts, laskiaispulla, and mämmi with cream.

Mämmi dates from the 16th century and is the traditional Finnish Easter dessert. It looks a bit like chocolate cake or a bowl of shit, depending on who you ask. Made with water, rye flour, rye malt, dark molasses, salt and orange peel, it is probably the number one thing that is regularly given to foreign visitors to see if they’ll throw up. Despite its fearsome appearance it actually tastes quite nice, especially drowned in thick cream and sprinkled with a kilogram of sugar.

But Easter is not only about food for the Finns, oh no. Betraying the festival’s pagan roots, Easter is the time of the year when witches take to the air – specifically from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. In parts of Finland, fires were

burned to scare them away before they stole all the children. This practice continues in a few areas. During the 19th century, the witch with her broomstick and cat became part of Finnish kid’s games and entered fairy-tale lore. For long, witches have been associated with Easter and have been featured on Easter cards.

These days, especially in smaller towns and suburbs, children dress up with sooty faces and scarves tied round their heads. Organised into small groups of muggers, they carry bunches of virpovitsa willow twigs and expect to obtain monies by knocking on your door and reciting a good luck poem. Rest assured, the little people have no magic powers, so telling them to bugger off will not endear you to their parents, but nor will it lead to an early grave due to being cursed.

Old traditions die hard around here; it was only at the beginning of the 1990s that the opening times of restaurants and places of entertainment were unrestricted. Customs and games involving Easter eggs were introduced in the early 19th century, but the ridiculous image of an anthropomorphic bunny handing out chocolate eggs is foreign to most parts of Finland, thank goodness.

Budget Accommodation in HELSINKI prices from

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ce to Great plat other travellers! e e m

US FINNS have a biological clock for certain things that people from most other countries have no clue about. One of these is changing your car tyres twice a year, before summer and winter.

Picture a sunny Saturday afternoon in late April. The snow is gone, the birds are singing and the sun as bright as it gets. First contact between the summer tyre and the dry asphalt is only moments away.

That feeling has something to do with hormones, it’s not really just a practical matter concerning traffic.

But then, picture the bleak November darkness.

Hormones start to flow backwards somewhere in your body.

Even a thought of driving with summer tyres is frightening, when super cooled water falls from the heavens, forming ice the very second it touches the paved road. Even the most Finnish of Finns might be taken aback by the first snow-

fall of the season.

In the household, changing tyres used to be daddy’s task, but a son close to driving age might even be proud to take responsibility for it. In recent years however it has become common practice for many to take their car to a garage every spring and autumn. In addition to changing the tyres, a complete service also includes checking wheel balance, evaluating their overall condition and often washing and drying them for a reasonable price.

Some places even provide tyre storage to keep you coming back for the next change. How easy life has become!

Making life easier has also been the motive for developing tyres that can be used all year round. But most Nordic drivers still rely on the good old studded ones. They keep the vehicle on the road when things get slippery and the going gets tough. And after all, you’d miss the ritual between the seasons if using all-season tyres.

A tweet Twitterdemic Daisey Cheyney

THERE’S a new kid on the social-networking block.

Introducing, Twitter! Sparking the “microblogging” phenomenon where users send “tweets” (updates) and “follow” the tweets of others. Limited to 140 characters, no matter how narcissistic it may seem, there is no limit to the banality. Its brevity and immediacy make it ideal for sharing information and when updated via the web, SMS, or a third-party application, the least web-confined service enables instant publicity for life’s every detail.

An instantaneity perhaps best illustrated by conventional media being pipped to the post with Twitter’s reportage of the recent US plane crash landing in the Hudson River. Its marketing potential is patent too, only a fool would ignore such an opportunity to capitalise on the attention garnered for self-promotion!

Obama used Twitter to remind the “twittizens” of the United States to vote and even if you

are opposed to the “exploitation” of websites for marketing or if you tire of a particular twitterer’s egotism then the no-nonsense option to “stop following” means you can be as connected or disconnected as you want to be.

Words such as “twittizen” and “twitterati”, the derogatory “twit” and “twitterhea”(an ailment with the symptom of too many tweets per hour) or a device that updates a pregnant woman’s tweet every time her unborn baby moves and you have a site taking the world by storm. The integration of instant and private message functions as well as the ability to interlink Facebook and Twitter profiles and it’s not surprising that my “Application of Procrastination” crown, long held by Facebook is slipping. Unashamedly I’m on my way to becoming quite a “twitterite” (an expert) and before long, web evolution will confine Facebook to the doldrums and the mysterious “twitterhea” ailment will become pandemic.

2

VIEWPOIN

12 – 18 MARCH 2009

Starters WEMet

5

Issue 3 2009

Linguistic thing

Fool for a day ing. This tidying up would be executed by Japanese-built web-crawling robots that would scrubofthe SIRPA PIETIKÄINEN was appointed Member thenetwork Europeanclean of the accumulated electronic Parliament in April 2008, after the nomination of Alexander Stubb litter. as Minister for Foreign Affairs. She is a full member of the Commit-

National designated flag days can be a fun way to learn something new about a country.

Kati Hurme

NEXT IN line is 9 April, the day of Mikael Agricola and the Finnish Language.

Unfortunately this is one of the national flag days, that doesn’t involve any signature pastry, but as Easter falls on the following weekend in this year’s calendar, this isn’t a great loss.

Agricola, who lived from 1510 to 1557, is considered to be the father of the written Finnish language. He wrote the first book ever published

Help for immigrants Ville Ukkola

A NEW counseling service was launched on February to provide support for immigrants in the Greater Helsinki area.

The service is part of the “Easy Entrance to Finnish Working Life” project, which is funded

in Finnish, the ABC-kirja in 1543, and did considerable work on developing the Finnish vocabulary. Since 1978, Finnish Language Day has been celebrated on the date of Agricola’s death.

The written language is the language one learns when you first start to study Finnish, or most other languages for that matter. Too bad no one really speaks the written form, and often your hard-earned skills are useful only when talking to other foreign students and, when speaking to a native, may leave you wondering if you had learnt anything at all.

To get some clue of what natives are speaking in different parts of Finland, look no further than the new Suomi- Murre- Suomi (Finnish – Dialect – Finnish) dictionary. It’s a humorous guide to different dialects that you may come across in Finland. So, on 9 April, you can celebrate the

diversity of Finnish language by greeting locals using their own dialects. Let’s practice with the simple phrase Hi! How are you?

by the European Social Fund and the cities of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa. Behind the launch was SEURE, a human resource management agency jointly owned by the three metropolitan cities.

The service will provide help in matters of housing, living and working in Finland and will be available to employees of Helsinki, Vantaa and Espoo. Counseling will be offered to both immigrants

arriving in Finland and those, who have already spent some time in country. To make it easier for immigrants to start working in Finland, support is extended to employers and recruiters as well.

According to project worker Mari Salo, the objective is to find out what is needed to create an effective counseling service for immigrants.

Hei! Mitä kuuluu?

(Written Finnish) Morjens! Kummoses kunnos sää ole? (Turku) Tere! Kui siu aikais männöö? (Carelia) Tsau! Mikä meininki? (Helsinki) Tereve! Mitäpä tiijät? (Oulu) Terve vuan! Mitteepä kuuluu? (Savo)

Sound difficult? If it’s any consolation, not many Finns today can actually figure out what is written in Agricola’s ABC-kirja either.

Mikael Agricola Day & Finnish Language Day are celebrated on 9 April.

The Suomi Murre Suomi dictionary is published

by Gummerus.

www.seure.fi/polku

A Finnish thing?

Items you can find in every self-respecting Finnish household

Teema Tuula Ruskeeniemi

“BLOW UP gilded dinnerware!” declared a crockery revolutionary, Kaj Franck, in 1949. He had his own vision for Finnish tableware; it should be simple and practical. And above all, people should be liberated from the tyranny of big, expensive sets of dishes.

Franck designed his own “system” in 1952. Then known as Kilta, it was based on geometrical forms: the circle, the square, the rectangle. To fit compact urban living conditions, dishes were stackable.

The Kilta creamer could be taken to the grocer’s, filled, capped and taken back home where it fit perfectly between the panes of the window for cooling (before fridges). Each part of the system could be used in multiple ways and be

purchased separately, allowing individual combinations of dishes and colours.

But the revolutionary road is neither smooth nor easy.

The management of the Arabia factory did not like Kilta, and wanted their young Franck to stick with more conservative designs. It took a push from Arabia’s parent company, more specifically the manager’s wife, to get Kilta in production at all. The buying public were none too enthusiastic either; for many, Kilta was just too bold and plain. Traditionalists liked

gild and nice floral patterns and often clashed with Kilta supporters – just verbally, though.

In the end, however, Kilta won Finns over. By 1975 it had sold over 25 million pieces, when it was suddenly cancelled due to changes in manufacture. It was revived only six years later with slight changes, now called Teema.

Over the years Kilta has lost its radical reputation and become a common object in Finnish homes and cafeterias.

Moomin figures have gently conquered some of Teema mugs, defying Franck’s nonornamental ideal. Despite his idea of anonymous utility design, Franck’s name remains closely attached to Teema, and as a recognised classic, Teema has been included in the collection of MoMA. Somewhere beyond the grave, Kaj Franck may be sharing bewildered thoughts with Che Guevara.

tee of Economic and Monetary Affairs, the Subcommittee for Huburger man Rights and a substitute member1998: of the Lefty Committee of InternaIn this April Fools classic, tional Trade and the Committee of Constitutional Affairs.

Burger King announced the launch of a left-handed version of the Whopper.

Thousands of American customers tried to order the entirely fictitious left-handed burger, while others wanted to make it clear they wanted groundbreaking change, theirs old-fashioned and right-handed.

Mr. Spinelli’s nightmare?

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SixDegrees Issue 3 2009

Photo by Heidi Strengell

T

he media sometimes portrays the singer as “Saint Tommy�, a Bono-esque pop star bent on saving the world.

Interview

Issue 3 2009

Tommy Lindgren Words and music Rapper, songwriter and columnist Tommy Lindgren is a man of many talents, though he’s best known as the hyperactive frontman of Don Johnson Big Band. With work on the band’s fourth album underway, the versatile wordsmith talked to SixDegrees about music, publicity and multiculturalism.

Matti Koskinen

THE DAY we meet Tommy Lindgren has come down with a cold. As he sits nursing a steaming cup of tea I worry if his voice will last the interview, but he soon launches into the familiar rapid-fire address, at times pausing to weigh his responses or backtracking to illustrate a point.

Hopefully they don’t have to lay down any vocal tracks today.

Although work on the album is commanding most of his attention at the moment, Lindgren doesn’t mind talking about his other work. He was a press officer for Amnesty International when DJBB made its breakthrough, he’s been appointed a goodwill ambassador by the National Advisory Board on Ethnic Relations and he takes on some thorny issues in columns he has written for Voima and Helsingin Sanomat. From his years of NGO work he has retained an interest in other activities aside from song writing and performing, he tells me, and plans to continue his work as a columnist with other publications.

With three albums under their belt Don Johnson Big Band has become one of the biggest hip hop acts in Finland – if you can call the

band’s eclectic music hip hop.

In the early days they were often mentioned as a hip hop band and the label seems to have stuck, even if they’ve come a long way musically.

“At the time we were making the first album and hadn’t played a single gig, we were working more with samples and with stylistic devices that were closer to ‘traditional’ hip hop,” says Lindgren. “Since we’ve begun to play live more we’ve turned into more of a band and our collective entity has grown and shifted. In terms of instrumentation, the deck’s been shuffled a lot. As a lyricist the thought of churning out the same old three rap verses and a shout-along chorus sounds pretty boring, I want to explore different things.”

Band members all have their own musical preferences, and although ideas that are thrown around the training space might at first sound quite alien to the band’s style, through collective processing they tend to somehow find a form that sounds like Don Johnson Big Band.

Saint Tommy Aside from his musical career, Lindgren’s own public image is very much coloured by his penchant for social commentary. The media sometimes makes him out to be some-

thing like a “Saint Tommy”, a Bono-esque pop star bent on world-saving. Lindgren himself is a little uneasy about media personalities commenting on social issues, but he says he has more or less accepted the fact that he’s often asked to talk about other things besides the music.

“These days I consider myself foremost a musician or an entertainer, whose public life happens to be constructed from elements such as my background at Amnesty and a general interest in social issues and commenting on them.”

Lindgren is perplexed by the contemporary cult of celebrity. Artists and celebrities are often asked by the media to comment on different issues, but why should they be more qualified to talk than, say a doctor or postman? In terms of thorny social issues Lindgren would rather hear from experts, academics and researchers who are more knowledgeable on the matter.

“If we’re doing an interview with the band I’m not going to try and steer the conversation to current affairs or anything.

But if it’s a profile on me and the interviewer makes a question about a topic that interests me, I would feel silly not to take the opportunity to advocate certain values or causes.” That’s good to hear.

We’ll get to one of those topics later.

“If you think about a character like Bono, whatever his motives, he has made a conscious decision to use his worldwide fame as a huge star to try and influence society,” Lindgren says. “But he’s also making music for a living and building his public image with every action, so he’s bound to stir some contradictory reactions.”

That kind of publicity is often received with cynicism, especially in the music press.

“Sure, it’s really tempting to think he’s just being a hypocrite. I for one don’t think I have all the necessary information to make a fair moral judgement on whether Bono is good, bad, hypocritical or moral. But it would be pretty depressing if not even a few of these mega stars used their fame to promote something other than their latest record or film or product.”

Nobody’s mouthpiece Lindgren himself sometimes wonders why he is invited to talk about certain things, when they should be asking professionals and experts.

“I’m often asked to appear as the ‘voice of a young generation’, which is getting ridiculous since I’m 31 now,” he laughs. But the media tends to go for familiar faces.

“In a way that’s weird, but it’s something I’ve come to accept. If I can get a young person to take an interest in an important public debate by putting my face in there, I’m glad to do it. But I’ve also learned to say no. I’m used to getting invitations and interview requests to talk about all kinds of topics. Provided it’s something that interests me enough to comment on it, I’ll do it. But I’ve never had any interest in being manufactured into a 31-year-old ‘voice of the young generation’ on all issues.”

Fair enough. But let’s go into one issue anyway. Last autumn’s local elections put fuel on the fire of the public debate about immigration.

Why is it that it’s so simple for some people to accept difference and so incredibly difficult for others?

“If only I knew! The easiest answer would be because some people are more used to difference than others,” Lindgren says after some thought. “On the level of rhetoric it’s easy for any intelligent person to accept difference. Often it just means it’s not something that’s encountered every day. It’s fine for a well-to-do person in Eira to talk about tolerance and diversity, but this may simply be because he or she never has to encounter diversity in everyday life. The reality can be very different for someone from the lower middle class living in, say, Kontula or Vuosaari.”

Racism and diversity Lindgren sees the Finnish racism debate afflicted by certain fundamental problems related to the ways in which racism is talked about. Racist values often masquerade as neutral arguments or crass humour.

“Some people can’t seem to understand, for instance, how 1950s or older colonial imagery in candy wrappers could possibly be seen as insulting.”

The notion of immigrants as a singular group is equally frustrating. “We’re talking about a huge variety of nationalities and different kinds of folk. To think that immigrants represent a certain set of values or are a homogeneous group is just as insane as the notion that all Finns agree on everything.”

When shades of incitement to racial hatred or disdain for basic human values creep into

the discussion, they should be called out, Lindgren urges.

People are too quick to accept all critique of immigration as based on unadulterated fact. A lot of the “concern over immigration” – which is not to be confused with racism, mind you – is rooted in personal pathologies that are unloaded on those that are different or perhaps a bit scary.

“People might react furiously to every single news item about rape or violent crime cases where the suspects are immigrants, while reacting entirely differently to the same crimes if the perpetrator is a native Finn.

If it is an existing problem, if an ethnic group is disproportionately represented in crime statistics, that problem should be tackled and the reasons behind it studied. All too often the reaction is to merely disparage advocates of ethnic diversity as naïve idealists who close their eyes from the ‘fact’, that certain ethnic groups are somehow inherently prone to crime.”

It’s true that advocates of multiculturalism are often criticised for sugar-coating the problems.

“I think this happens, first of all because there are a lot of people who do that, paint over the problems. Like I said, it’s so easy for people to talk about tolerance and multiculturalism when they don’t have to face diversity in their own lives and make sacrifices for it. People who advocate about multiculturalism and tolerance must grasp that it’s not an easy, unproblematic process.

But we also need to get rid of the opposite exaggeration that it’s a process that’s doomed to fail. I once sat with Jussi Halla-Aho on a TV debate.

He talked about how all precedents from other European countries tell us that a multicultural society is impossible, it only leads to frustration, violence and social problems, so why should we be able to make it work?”

Lindgren points out how, for example, in multicultural cities like London or Paris new generations intensely identify themselves as Parisians and Londoners, regardless of their ethnic origin.

“A more diverse society is possible, one that retains a Finnish or Helsinki identity.

Multiculturalism shouldn’t be feared as something that can only lead to trouble.”

Tommy Lindgren Birth date and place 10 June 1977, Helsinki Place of residence Old Herttoniemi, Helsinki Education Social sciences undergraduate Family Unmarried, but tied down, so to speak. I could also just list the names of my bandmates.

Right now I’m reading... The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Right now I’m listening to... Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I saw a documentary about it a few days ago that prompted me to listen to it, at 31 years old, for the first time in my life.

When I was a child I wanted to be... a sports commentator.

In one year I will be... hopefully on a well-deserved holiday somewhere sunny and warm.

VANTAAN KAUPUNKI CITY OF VANTAA

Stories from Länsimäki Jan Ahlstedt

iar with the electronic PressDisplay service that has updated versions of over 500 different newspapers.

Vidinovska also has her hands in another project. “I am taking part in writing a book, which will be called From Library With Love - Meeting of Many Cultures. It is written by the regional group SESAM.” The topic of Vidinovska’s presentation will be about the positive aspects of multiculturalism in libraries.

Children are the key

The Länsimäki library is located next to a school, and has become a meeting place for children of different national backgrounds. This can be one of the reasons why there is an increasing amount of interest in material that is published in foreign languages. Vidinovska thinks it is vital to pass the multicultural message to children. “It is important for a child to learn in their native language and gain information about cultural traditions of their parents’ home country. It helps to preserve some of their cultural identity. In my opinion, libraries have a significant role in offering children material in different languages. But it is not only children who visit our library. We get people from all ages visiting us every day. The library is open to everyone.”

Open minds, open borders Margarita Vidinovska welcomes everyone to visit libraries during the multicultural week.

Kaisa Mäenpää

E V ERYONE knows libraries are

there to offer people services, but for some people, it is more than just a place to visit. “I love my job so much”, states Margarita Vidinovska, director of the Länsimäki library. Vantaa’s upcoming multicultural week has made libraries even busier than usual and the Länsimäki library has planned a variety of occasions for the event.

Vidinovska and her husband moved to Helsinki from Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria twenty years ago. She had visited Finland several times and had already formed a circle of friends prior to her immigration. In 1991, the couple decided to move to Vantaa.”I love living in Länsimäki.

It is close to the sea and I can easily cycle to the Vuosaari metro station from where we live.”

A week of cultural eye-openers

When March turns into April, Vantaa celebrates its multiculturalism week and the Länsimäki library is preparing for the event. It

will have something for all tastes: the Palestinian-Finnish journalist Umaya Abu-Hanna, Iranian poet Kiamars Baghbani and the young Finnish poet Joonas Vartiainen are amongst those who have been invited to present their works. For children, stories will be read aloud in Somali, Albanian and Russian. In addition, several art exhibitions are going to be organised at the library and IT assistance is going to be given for those who speak Russian as their first language. Länsimäki is the not the only library following the multicultural path; other libraries in Vantaa are also making arrangements for the week.

A Bulgarian in Finland

Because of her temperamental, lively and talkative nature, Vidinovska found Finnish social culture somewhat contrary to her homeland.

“Finns feel comfortable in silence and I like it.” she says. “But on the other hand, my husband is the opposite of me, even though he is Bulgarian. Also, I know Finns who are talkative and temperamental.” Like books that all have different stories

to tell, Vidinovska sees people as individuals, whose behaviour cannot be simply classified according to their ethnic backgrounds.

“Vantaa is an ideal place to live in!” she says. “It is a truly international city with many different people which creates cultural diversity.

Also, this asset is highly appreciated within the city and it adds to its richness.”

The world at reach

What does the Länsimäki library offer to the visitor? “We have literature, music, films and magazines in over twenty different languages, such as Estonian, German, Chinese, Vietnamese, English, Swedish, Somali, Japanese, Arabic and Spanish.” Vidinovska points out. “The library is a meeting place for people of many different cultural backgrounds. We have a fine collection of different stories from all over the world. I myself read and translate Finnish literature into Bulgarian.”

In addition to its own collection, it is possible to order more material from the international section of Pasila library, or become famil-

Monikulttuurinen Vantaa www.vantaa.fi

According to Vidinovska, libraries can also function the other way around. “Immigrants living in Finland learn about Finland through us” she says. “Libraries constantly organise displays of books, art exhibitions, visits from authors and such. Our customers can use computers and the Internet and we have many discussion forums that have to do with Finnish traditions and cultural environment.”

Vidinovska has a clear opinion of the ongoing discussion on immigration. “Yes, I think Finland should have open borders. Why should the English, Germans, Finns and other Europeans be able to move around, and the others should not?” she asks. “Since the beginning of time, people have moved from one place to another, looking for a better life.

In the end, we are all immigrants in one way or another - even Finns and Bulgarians. But as the world becomes more international, it is important to take others into consideration. Knowledge about different cultures is essential to peaceful coexistence.”

Multicultural week is organised in Vantaa from 30 March to 6 April.

WHERE TO GO IN

VANTAA

MUSIC Fri 3 April Club ImpRock Improvised theatre and rock concert; energetic girl band Pintandwefall performs.

Vernissa, 20:00 Tikkurilantie 36 Tickets €6/4 www.velmu.fi Tue 7 April Marion Rung Marion Rung sings her most beloved and well known songs and show music.

Martinus hall Martinlaaksontie 36 Tickets €23/18 www.vantaanviihdeorkesteri.fi

OTHER Mondays Multicultural Arts & crafts club For girls aged 7 to 12. We make for example cards, jewelry, gifts, pottery, sewing etc.

For more info, contact Alemach G. Michael: 040-8367599 Silkin Portti, 15:00 - 17:00 Tikkurilantie 44 F, 2nd floor Sat 28 March Myyrmäki Spring Market Traditional outdoor market in Myyrmäki.

Paalutori Liesitori 1 Mon 30 March to Mon 6 April Multicultural week at Vantaa libraries All the libraries in Vantaa offer various services and programmes, for example, guidance in computing and book reading for children in several languages.

Vantaa city Libraries More info at www.vantaa.fi Sat 4 April Tikkurila Spring Market Traditional outdoor market in Tikkurila.

Peltolan tori Peltolantie 4 Fri 17 to Sun 19 April Sauna Expo & Outdoor Fair This expo is dedicated to outdoor activities from fishing to hiking and Finnish Sauna culture.

Myyrmäen Urheilupuisto Raappavuorentie 10 Open Fri & Sat 10:00 – 18:00 Sun 11:00 – 18:00 Tickets €10/5 (Free admission for children under 12) www.eramessuille.fi www.saunaexpo.fi

Lifestyle

9

Issue 3 2009

A day in the life of

Justin Goney

ANIMA VITAE

Kurre Kuronen, Mikko Pitkänen and Kustaa Vuori produce the best animated films in Finland.

SixDegrees recently had a chance to sit down with Kustaa Vuori and

3D post-mortem

Jani “Kurre” Kuronen of Anima Vitae, Finland’s largest animation

If you’ve ever wondered exactly what goes into 3D

studio. Fresh off the success of their latest full-length feature, Niko

animation, then this brief overview of the production

and the Way to the Stars, Kuronen and Vuori were eager to talk with

pipeline should help to demystify 3D voodoo for

us about the film, the studio and 3D in Finland.

Justin Goney

ANIMA’S latest feature, Niko and the Way to the Stars, was a collaborative production, with studios from Germany, Denmark, and Ireland working with Anima on the project.

The film was in production for around five years before finally being completed. It has been critically and financially successful; it’s not only by far the most widely distributed Finnish film, having inked distribution contracts with over 100 countries even before its premiere, but it also won a Jussi Award for “Best Picture of 2008.”

I asked Kuronen and Vuori what differentiates a production like Niko with one such as Pixar’s WALL-E, which, as an obvious example, is to date the gold standard in 3D animation. “Well, budget, for starters,” chimed in Vuori.

“WALL-E had a budget of 180 million dollars, which means, what, that we had 30 times less money to work with?” Kuronen adds “We’re also a lot smaller,” referring to Anima’s 40 or so employees as compared to Pixar’s roughly 1,000. “Basically you have to work in smaller teams, and you’re always

F

or one project you might need to learn in depth how light works, physically.

On the next one you might have to become an expert on the anatomy of a bird. It never gets boring. doing different tasks. For example, you might go from animating on one shot to lighting on the next, which makes the work less monotonous and keeps people from sitting around idle waiting for something to do.”

Eighteen-month production The actual production of the film took only 18 months from the start of the “blocking” phase, where animators roughly animate each scene to see which parts of the script work and which don’t. The art direction was handled almost exclusively by Mikko Pitkänen, who made clay

models of the characters as a proof of concept and worked on look development by painting directly on the storyboard images blocked-out by the animators in early production. “Mikko’s paintovers were extremely useful as a reference when it came time to light each scene. Also, the lighters were able to work with our own interactive real-time lighting system that we developed here in the studio. It reduced the hassle of having to re-render each frame just to see each incremental lighting change, which proved to be a huge time saver,” Vuori recalls.

Though officially, Anima is divided into feature, commercial, and 2D/design departments, in practice artists move somewhat freely from team to team depending on the needs of each project. Kuronen finds this interplay interesting, saying that “it’s helpful to get a different perspective through talking with the 2D/design people. Vuori adds that “in a way it’s all just animation, which means telling a story through dramatic movement.”

A career in 3D Vuori and Kuronen have been doing this for a pretty long time; almost ten years for each

of them. When I asked them what turned them on to 3D in the first place, they both said that it’s the pairing of visual art with computer technology that they enjoy most about the industry. “To be good at 3D, you really need to be interested in everything. For one project you might need to learn in depth how light works, physically. Then on the next one you might have to become an expert on the anatomy of a bird. It never gets boring,” Kuronen adds.

As any industry that’s art based, animation is very competitive. With regards to becoming a 3D artist, Vuori was quick to point out that technical ability is much less important than creativity and critical thinking skills. “The computer is just another tool to produce art, like clay or a paintbrush” he says. “While you can always learn the tool, it’s more difficult to approach a given task if you’re unable to think creatively about problem solving.” Kuronen agrees, adding that formal training in an art school is important. “And the schools in Finland seem to be getting better and better.” www.anima.fi

you. There’s really no black magic involved.

“FAILURE to plan is planning to fail”; nowhere is this more true than in 3D, where pre-production can be a lengthy and involved process. Artists draw storyboards, make clay models, and sketch concept art all with the goal of making the actual production go more smoothly.

Once characters are designed, they need to be modelled in 3D space by the modelling department. Modellers manipulate polygons in a number of ways to replicate the art directors’ visions, but almost as important as accuracy is efficiency, elegance, and speed. In 3D, as with everything else, time is money.

Models go then simultaneously to the rigging and shading departments. Rigging is the process of attaching puppet-like controls to the model to make it as easy as possible for the animators to animate, while shading is giving surface characteristics such as colour and reflectivity to a model to make it believable.

Once a model is rigged, it can be passed on to the animators whose job it is to bring them to life. Although animating on a computer offers several practical advantages over more traditional methods such as pen and paper or stop-motion, turning in a memorable performance still requires years of practice and dedication to the principles of classic animation as they’ve been honed and developed by artists such as the ones who worked under Walt Disney during the golden age of animation.

The lighting department’s biggest responsibility is setting the scene’s mood and atmosphere. A lighting artist might spend hours positioning and repositioning virtual lights in 3D space to achieve the desired effect, and they usually need to work closely with shading to execute the art director’s vision as well as possible.

Finally, it’s time to render the scene for final viewing. This seems like it should be as simple as hitting the “render” button, but in fact, this part is technical enough to where there are artists whose entire jobs consist of creating beautiful renders.

Rendering is also very computer intensive; Anima, for example has 45 dual-core PCs dedicated only to rendering. Each frame of Niko took about 15 minutes to render, and there are approximately 120,000 frames in a motion picture. You do the math.

1 – 18 MARCH 009

HELSINKI TIMES

Cult u r a l d i v e r s i t y i s e f i l f o e c i p the s www.jyvaskyla.fi

Entrance test for 2009-2010 at 9.30 am on 2 June 2009 for autumn start

Different cultures are an everyday part of life in Jyväskylä, bringing vitality and character to the city.

FIRST STEPS IN FINLAND – LUKIO

• City of Jyväskylä is home to around 3,000 immigrants or people with a foreign background.

• In addition, hundreds of students and workers from around the world live in the city on a temporary basis.

Getting people into Finnish education

• Around twenty multiculturalUpper andsecondary ethnic associations operate in courses in English learning Finnish and Jyväskylä, and they offer a vastwhile range of courses A 3-4 year program leading to the club activities.

Finnish Matriculation Certificate (ylioppilastutkinto)

• The multicultural centre Gloria, located on isafor: The program • Adults without a high school diploma pedestrian street in downtown Jyväskylä, recognized in Finland • Young people without a suitable high opened its doors in February of thisschool year.offer • Intensive Finnish prepares students The centre provides a space for theforactivities Matriculation Exam Opportunities for University of Cambridge of multicultural and ethnic •associations.

International AS levels in English Eiran aikuislukio • Eira High School for Adults Laivurinkatu 3, 00150 Helsinki E-mail: high.school@eiraedu.com Tel: 09 4542 270 www.eiraedu.com

Entrance test for 2009-2010 at 9.30 am on 2 June 2009 for autumn start

First steps in Finland – lukio Getting people into Finnish education Upper secondary courses in English while learning Finnish A 3-4 year program leading to the Finnish Matriculation Certificate (ylioppilastutkinto)

The program is for: • Adults without a high school diploma recognized in Finland • Young people without a suitable high school offer • Intensive Finnish prepares students for Matriculation Exam • Opportunities for University of Cambridge International AS levels in English Eiran aikuislukio • Eira High School for Adults Laivurinkatu 3, 00150 Helsinki E-mail: high.school@eiraedu.com Tel: 09 4542 270 www.eiraedu.com

Lifestyle

11

Issue 3 2009

BORN FLEXIBLE

the amazing art of contortion

Bad and good news for students Will Sillitoe

IF YOU’RE starting university this September, if you are in your 15th year as a student or if you hope to retire before you perish – read on!

Given time, anyone can learn anything, right? Nice as this sounds, it’s not really true. Janette Oksman, 18, used to be a contortionist. And no matter how long and hard you practice, if you weren’t born with inhuman flexibility, you’re less likely to be able to do the things she can do with her body.

FIRST THE bad news; planned university reforms look set to bring two big changes to student life. Non-EU students could feel the pinch if tuition fees are brought in next year.

Meanwhile, plans to make universities independent legal bodies is prompting fears that campus life might be run by business. Students worry that outside business interests may take greater control of university life under planned reforms. “Comments from staff and students have been ignored and we haven’t had much say over the process,” says student protest organiser Matias Huttunen.

PROPHETS of doom speak of lifelong learning replaced with lifelong working. Though plans to raise the retirement age to 65 has been shelved (for now) the timescale for completing MA degrees is being closely monitored. With a raging credit crisis, more young people are needed to join the army of tax payers as soon as possible. Meanwhile, extra tours of duty could still be added for those already in employment fields in order to keep Finland’s welfare system afloat. Get ready for the rat race!

LATE-AGE Finns starting university is an extra economic concern. Only one in five Finns are engaged in higher education at the age of 19 compared to 50 per cent of US citizens and Canadians. By 20, only 33 per cent of Finns are in college and the average age of new university students in Finland is 21.6. By this age, most UK students have completed a BA degree! The University of Helsinki has already been busy removing several thousands of students (a.k.a. slackers) from its database whose campus “best before date” had long ago expired. This will help reduce the student-professor ratio and improve the university’s international ranking in league tables.

Photo by Mirjami Schuppert

Juhana Lumme

JANETTE OKSMAN discovered her ability to stretch at the age of 12, during a gymnastics lesson. She realised that other girls were stiffer than her. “Before that I didn’t practice anything,” says Janette, who was born super-flexible.

Usually people bend in the middle of their backs and by stretching, you can get it more flexible – up to a certain point.

But Janette´s back bends from three different points, also in the lower and upper back.

Once Janette discovered her flexibility, she started stretching and began doing apparatus gymnastics, but it was too easy for her without adequate teachers. So she switched to rhythmic gymnastics, where her teacher noticed Janette´s abilities and gave her private lessons. She started competing, and did it for a couple of years. “It wasn’t really my thing, though. I had started

U

way too late,” she says.

Back then Janette lived in Ypäjä, and went to practice at Sorin Sirkus in Tampere once a week. “I wanted to become a beauty specialist and join a circus school, so I moved to Espoo,” she shares. While studying at a cosmetologist school she practiced at Circus Helsinki in Vallila, doing trapeze, acrobatics, hand-stands and contortion. “There was no direct teaching of contortion, since I was probably the only contortionist in the Helsinki area,” Janette says.

Pain and gain Bending oneself into unnatural-looking positions has its disadvantages. “It hurt if I hadn’t warmed up properly or if my back got cold. Or it might happen that a certain position caused striking pain,” explains Janette. She quit at the age of 18, when the most extreme positions became too painful and she didn’t want to perform

sually people bend in the middle of their backs.

But my back bends from three different points, also in the lower and upper back.

with anything less than 100 percent.

During her active years she didn’t really gain more flexibility. “I was as flexible at 13 years of age as I am now.

There’s not much I can do to increase it anymore, and I can bend without preparation.

One has to warm up very well to avoid pain.” So contortion can’t really be described as healthy. And the older one gets, the easier one hurts, so the best age for contortion practice is as a junior.

Tricks of the trade Contortionists come under either of two categories, front benders and back benders.

Janette is a back bender. “There’s not that many tricks one can do bending forward, but with your back you can do lots. My legs and arms bend many ways as well, but I’ve got my limitations too. There are directions I can’t bend.” For example enterology, squeezing oneself into a small box, is a form of contortionism that Janette never did, because it involves dislocating one’s limbs. “I can only dislocate my shoulders, and I actually have to be careful not to dislocate them. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels nasty.”

In contortion there are many postures but only a few are named, like the Scorpion, in which the legs are bended backwards over the crown of the head, in which the person stands on their hands and

their feet are touching their head. “But it’s up to your own imagination how you twist yourself,” Janette explains.

Breathing takes place normally during the act. “In the beginning everybody finds it difficult to breathe in these positions, but you get used to it. You can even watch TV at the same time.” Unlike yoga, there is no spiritual element to contortion, “It’s just sport,” Janette says. Naturally, one has to be quite fit to do contortion. Power training is essential with any circus training.

Nowadays Janette is a sports instructor at Leppävaaran Sisu, strengthening other people as well.

A performer’s life During her active years Janette never stretched at home, since she went to practices so often. At best she had practices almost every day, up to four hours at a time, plus the performances on top of that.

But she did all that to be able to perform. “I enjoyed going in front of an audience and showing my skills, since contortion is so amazing. There are so few people who can do it, just a couple in Finland. Sure there are flexible people, but not that flexible. I like it when people are amazed. To know you’re really good at something, that feels nice.”

More information: www.circushelsinki.fi

NEW students must also earn 60 credits per year or can expect their departments to ask “Is everything all right at home?” The era of spending twenty years at the back of a lecture hall knitting hats, scarves or bed spreads, and getting lifelong student discounts, is finally coming to an end. Slacking is no longer an option! Also, if you receive student benefits then failure to make the grades could also affect your income with a possible benefit cut. This is all part of the new fast-tracking into work strategy that aims for a higher graduate turnover rate!

BUT now for the good news: at 43 per cent Finland has more 20-29 year-olds in education than most countries!

And single guys take note: 56 per cent of all new university students are female, mainly in the humanities and arts. But males still dominate the engineering sciences - single girls take note too.

Will Sillitoe is a teacher and freelance writer who came from the UK to Finland in 2007. He currently studies English and Psychology at Helsinki University. He is a keen observer of Finnish life but not a fan of Nordic weather.

• OECD statistics: Ministry of Education • The university reforms for Non-EU citizens in Finland are mostly like to be applied to international student intake 2010-11 Top 3 Finnish universities as they currently stand in world university rankings.

2008 91 211 246

2007 100 University of HELSINKI 170 HELSINKI University of Technology TKK 237 University of TURKU

Source: The Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings

SixDegrees

12

Issue 3 2009

Hans Eiskonen

The customer

is always

wrong?

Ville Ukkola

difficult customers have plagued the working lives of those making a living in shops, stores, bars and restaurants since time immemorial. What can you do?

The customer is always right, right? Everybody knows the customer is often wrong and is just exercising his right to be obnoxious the rest of the time.

What turns polite and civil people into the worst examples of humanity the moment they become customers?

Having god-like powers may appeal to those who are born into servitude. The worst customers are usually people who must take abuse at work and are used to cowering in front of authority.

When these downtrodden souls find themselves in a position where they can make demands, they usually turn into customers from hell.

Bad service

“This one middle-aged woman had brought her computer in for repairs. When she came to pick it up the salesman explained to her what the fault had been, how it had been fixed, and what the necessary procedures had cost. Upon hearing the sum (twenty odd euros) she turned up her nose and stated that the service must be bad if the customer is expected to pay for maintenance as well.”

From Aasiakas.net

First class customer

“I once took a summer job in a travel agency some years ago.

One evening slightly before closing time a tall, long-haired man appeared in our office, looking pretty sure of himself.

My colleagues disappeared out back, which was fine by me since this guy was a potential customer, which meant a little commission. He asked for a first-class flight to Greenland – economy class wouldn’t do, apparently. I started to look for some reasonable connections, with no luck. I doubted first class would be available on that route, but when I mentioned this to him he responded with some obscene comments to the effect that I was unprofessional and dim, and demanded I keep searching. I was almost crying at this point when my supervisor appeared and calmly informed the guy that there were a few awkward connections to Greenland which were quite expensive, and he was far more likely to end up travelling there in a small propeller plane rather than any luxurious jumbo jet. The customer finally made the booking and left, though of course he never confirmed it with actual payment. It turned out he was a ‘regular’ who often came in to torment the staff and make bookings he had absolutely no intention of redeeming.”

Woman, 32

Some disagree and claim the worst customers come from the upper echelons of society. It is actually those who are used to getting their way that f lip completely and turn into demons when they can’t get a vegetarian filet mignon.

Let’s just assume that stupid customers are a breed apart, a force of nature. The best way to approach them is to let an unsuspecting co-worker deal with them and laugh at them behind their backs when they’ve left the store. The internet also offers an excellent possibility to vent your frustrations, as you can easily share stories about idiotic customers with approximately a gazillion people online.

Check out the craziest stories online and share your own experiences: www.aasiakas.net (in Finnish) www.customerdisservice.net

Flying with sugar Thanks for the advice!

“I work as head waitress in a busy restaurant. One Saturday night we were packed to the rafters and fully booked when a party of five strolled in. I told them they could wait at the bar for a table, as this is the regular practice when we are full. A man from the group asked me (as most do) ‘How long is the wait?’ With experience one can give a pretty good estimate. I informed the man of the approximate time and also told him that larger parties take longer to be seated, mentioning that two-to-four person tables free up faster.

The man then inquired, ‘How about if we just wait for a four person table to be free and just add a chair?’ THANK YOU SO MUCH! After over ten years in the business this observation was a complete eye-opener to me. I had never even thought that such a thing was possible!

P.S. I should mention that all busy restaurants have a person whose sole job is to arrange the most efficient use of tables.”

Woman, 34

Who’s the stupid one?

Parents, please!

Sense of style

“I’m employed in a small clothing store where I share the work with the owner and one other saleswoman. One day a woman appeared at the door. She looked me up and down suspiciously, without saying a word, before blurting “Where’s the slim saleswoman, then?” I assumed she meant my especially thin colleague and answered that she would be back at work in a week’s time. “But I need to buy a gown for a party! The event’s the day after tomorrow!” I told her that I could help her myself, and asked what sort of dress she was looking for. “I hardly think a fatty like you could really help me, fat people have absolutely no sense of style.”

From Aasiakas.net

“The restaurant where I work caters to a lot of families with young children. After dining the parents generally like to socialise and let their children run wild and free within the restaurant. What ticks me off the most about this is the lack of discipline (the responsibility of the parents, NOT the waiters!) when the children venture around the lunch and dessert buffets. Kids like to stick their grimy hands into the fruit bowl which other costumer use! On one particular Sunday we had just opened the restaurant and set the dessert table with a pristine layer cake. The very first family to come in to the restaurant had a seven year-old boy.

The brat sauntered straight up to the dessert table and slammed his face into the middle of the cake!” Woman, 35

“It was a nice table, set against a mirror illuminated by halogen lights. The ambience was only slightly tainted by a sign stating: HOT ! DO NOT TOUCH OR PUT ITEMS NEAR LIGHTS. May I take your coat? I asked. There was no reply, just a look of disdain as if I might steal the hideous nylon number or, that as a waitress, I would be too stupid to even know how to hang up a coat. I left her to the menu, one that didn’t offer ‘Spaghetti con burnt-plastic’ so what was that smell? Then I realised; the lights, the coat. From waitress to fire-fighter but sadly the coat could not be saved. Cue hysteria and a shaking fist: ‘MY COAT! YOU shall pay!’

I failed to comprehend how I was responsible for the coat’s untimely demise. If you refuse to make use of the cloakroom and ignore a clear warning? Who’s the stupid one?”

Woman, 25

Passenger: Do you have diet ginger ale?

Flight attendant: Unfortunately not. But I can offer you a Diet Coke.

P: You don’t have Diet 7Up? F: Sorry, just Diet Coke.

P: Sure you don’t have a diet 7Up? F: Very sorry, just Diet Coke.

P: OK. I’ll get a Diet Coke, and would you get me some sugar with it please?

F: Sure, madam. Here you go.

Hard of hearing

Flight attendant: Can I get you a drink, sir?

Passenger: What do you have?

F: Juices, water, soft drinks, wine and beer. Would you care for something alcoholic or non-alcoholic?

P: What kind of juices do you have?

F: Orange juice, apple juice and tomato juice.

P: Do you have cranberry juice?

F: Sorry, I’m afraid we don’t.

P: Pineapple juice?

F: We’ve just got orange, apple and tomato juice.

P: Well, in that case I’ll just have water.

Flight attendant, 33

COMPLETE A SHORT LANGUAGE SURVEY AND WIN A GREAT PRIZE – Every now and then we ask our readers to share their information and views with us. The aim of this survey is to measure immigrants' attitudes towards the Swedish language and the Finland-Swedish culture in Finland. The results will be published in a later edition of SixDegrees.

– Please give us a few minutes of your time by filling this questionnaire and sending the results to us no later than 24.4.2009. Simply fold the page as instructed overleaf and drop it in a mailbox. The postage has been paid by SixDegrees.

– Alternatively, you can complete the questionnaire online at: www.sixdegrees.fi/languagesurvey Participation can be anonymous, but to have a chance of winning a prize remember to put your name and contact details at the bottom of the page. These are for the prize draw only and will not be used in the analysis of the survey. The prizes will be raffled among all participants. The survey is intended only for those whose native language is other than Finnish or Swedish.

1. Sex r female r male 2. Country of origin _______________ 3. Native language _______________ 4. Place of residence r Helsinki r Espoo r Vantaa r Tampere r Turku r Oulu r other, where? _______________ 5. Postcode _______________ 6. Age r under 20 r 20-29 r 30-39 r 40-49 r over 49 7. Marital status r single r married r cohabiting r other _______________ 8. Education r no education r comprehensive school r high school r polytechnic, college r university degree r other, what?

9. I am currently r working full-time r working part-time r unemployed r student r self-employed r other, what? _______________

10. I am in Finland for r work r study r personal reasons r refuge r other, what? _______________ 11. I have lived in Finland r less than 1 year r 1-2 years r 2-4 years r 5-10 years r more than 10 years 12. My level of Finnish is r I don't know any Finnish r poor r medium r good r excellent 13. I am fluent in the following languages (do not mark your native language) r English r German r French r Spanish r Swedish r other __________________ 14. I knew that Finland had more than one official language when I moved here r yes r no 15. The percentage of the Swedish-speaking population in Finland is r 2 % r 6 % r 15 % r 40 % 16. Finland was a part of Sweden until r 1500 r 1809 r 1880 r 1917

By participating You will have a chance to win on of the followin: 1 Apple Iphone 3G, 16GB works with any SIM card and carrier (worth 819 euros)

2 Linda Line return tickets to Tallinn for two (worth 100 euros)

17. Are you aware that you can go to school and study in Swedish? r yes r no 18. Are you aware that there are Swedish-language newspapers broadcasting in Finland? r yes r no 19. My level of Swedish is r I don't know any Swedish r poor r medium r good r excellent 20. I would like to learn Swedish r I already speak Swedish r definitely not r not sure r probably r definitely 21. I have already learned Swedish while in Finland r yes r no 22. I would be prepared to learn Swedish while in Finland in order to succeed in my career r yes r no 23. I think that Swedish would be easier to learn for me than Finnish r strongly disagree r disagree r not sure r agree r strongly agree 24. I think the Swedish language is an essential part of Finnish society r strongly disagree

3 Ateljee breakfast for two at Hotel Torni in Helsinki (worth 58 euros)

r r r r

disagree not sure agree strongly agree

25. I think that I have sufficient knowledge about Swedish-language culture in Finland r yes r no r not sure 26. If you already have some familiarity with the Swedish-speaking community, how did you come by it? r through general infor- mation about Finland r through studying Swedish r through friends/family r other

r yes r yes, if necessary r no 28. Would you consider doing your studies in Swedish? r yes r yes, if it helps me to succeed in business r no r not sure 29. What would be the main reason for you to get involved with the Swedish-speaking community to learn Swedish in Finland? r social contacts r business r Swedish language r other, what? __________________

__________________ 27. If you do not have familiarity with the Swedish-speaking community, would you be willing to improve your knowledge in Swedish?

30. If possible, would you consider putting your children in a Swedish-speaking kindergarten/school? r yes, absolutely r maybe r no

Your contact details if you want to take part in the draw: Name

_________________________________

Address _________________________________ Postcode

______________________________

City

_________________________________

E-mail

_________________________________

Phone number ____________________________

HELSINKI TIMES

Society

15

Issue 3 2009

Tomboys and big sisters

You’re in the

army now Most Finnish men and some women spend six to twelve months of their lives in military service. What actually happens there? Does the army really make men out of boys?

Ben Hughes

DESPITE having lived in Finland for nearly my entire life, I have never completed the mandatory military service that is imposed on all male citizens here. Depending on the circle of friends I am with and the amount of alcohol consumed, this can make me something of an outcast at times. This is quite understandable, as the six to twelve months spent in the army are without a doubt a very transformational time for the recruits.

The clearest sign of this can be seen simply in the way the opinion of the service evolves.

Based on friends’ comments, I gather the first few months are just painstakingly, mindnumbingly frustrating, and getting rat-arsed drunk over the weekend is the only thing that makes life worth living. Over the next few months, this slowly develops into the notion that the service is actually alright, with its annoyances but certain fun moments as well. Then, in a dramatic turnaround after returning to civilian life, all of a sudden every single memory from the army days becomes a stunning pearl in the string of human experience, a moment to be cherished and retold from what may well quickly become known as “the best time of my life.” Certainly this change of heart is indicative of some deeper transition?

Now you’re a man Teemu Tallberg, a sociologist and researcher from the Hanken School of Economics has studied the transformational nature and masculinity of the service. He has researched for example the educational films used in the Finnish army and carried out field work in the peacekeeping forces. The army is most

definitely still seen as a school which turns boys into men, and according to Tallberg, this view is also clearly encouraged by the Defence Forces themselves. Based on his research, however, it would seem that in fact several other facets of change are also being implicitly promoted.

“In the training videos shown to the recruits, there are hints that in the army not only does a boy become a man, but a civilian also becomes a soldier, and an inexperienced and reckless youngster becomes mature and sexually capable,” Tallberg says.

“The young age at which the service is usually completed certainly intensifies experiences for the participants. An eighteen year-old away from home for the first time is definitely more impressionable than, say, a twenty-seven yearold family man,” continues Tallberg.

Taking place at this tender age, one could say that in a sense the military service is the Finnish equivalent of a rite of passage into adulthood, comparable, for example to the Mentawai Indians who chisel the teeth of their young as they pass into maturity. As opposed to having your molars reshaped though, the army does likely impart some of its values and codes of conduct on the participants as well.

The tribe has spoken The army is to a certain extent a very closed community, so it has its own behavioural patterns. “In organisations, one can sometimes identify a culture of hegemonic masculinity, where an ideal of a male exists, and dominant positions in groups are occupied by those who best fulfil it. Those not capable of achieving the ideal acquiesce to lower positions, but still actively

participate in upholding the system,” Tallberg explains. A rather direct analogy of this could be the overweight sports fan, who idolises his favourite athletes with little hope of ever becoming one himself.

“Set in this frame, it becomes clear that the army is an ultimate hegemonic system, where all the participants complicity uphold the chain of command and the notion that only certain types of individuals should rise into dominant positions,” Tallberg says.

A friend reminisced that this was indeed the case in the Finnish army too, where the normative ideal also took on a very Finnish form: he was to be quiet, stoic and effective. The ones who fit this bill were respected and admired, whereas those who didn’t were sometimes openly teased.

“It is clear that people experience military service in very different ways. The physical strain, the absence from home and the fact that they are learning to kill enemies are all certainly dealt with, but the question is whether or not the recruits can deal with them in their own way, or whether they are forced to deal with them in a predetermined, ‘army’ way.

Not everyone can cope with the experiences, and certainly the implications of becoming a ‘failure’ at this stage can be far-reaching for some,” affirms Tallberg.

The Defence Forces are also very concerned with problems young men face in the army, and do conduct extensively research into the mental welfare of their privates. Still, from an academic perspective, there is actually very little study in Finland regarding the military service, as opposed to Sweden, for example, where the topic has been explored far more thoroughly. Considering that

the experience affects roughly 50 per cent of the population, perhaps it is time a little light is shed on the subject here too.

When asked about whether the military service plays some part in unifying the concept of masculinity among those who complete it, Tallberg draws an analogy of the whole country watching a single TV channel.

How much would that unify opinions? It is only natural that in some ways the experience can create a rather uniform notion not only of masculinity, but also of leadership and communication in general. What effect these behaviours and mindsets have when juxtaposed with those of people who do not share them, for example, in a work environment, remains largely unexplored.

Some basic facts • All Finnish men are conscripted when they turn 18, and usually enter the service within a few years of this • If a conscript does not wish to complete the military service, he can choose a twelve-month civilian option instead. Roughly 2600 individuals opt for this every year.

• Every year roughly seventy men refuse to complete either option, becoming so-called total abstainers, punishable by imprisonment for no more than 181 days • Since 1995, it has been possible for women to voluntarily complete the military service as well.

• With a strength of 350 000 soldiers at wartime capacity, Finland has one of the largest armies in Europe.

Anne, now 34, entered the army amongst the very first women in 1995 and completed her service with the rank of sergeant. She describes her time in army as “pretty horrible” but says that gender didn’t really play that big role.

“IN THE army it doesn’t pay to think too much or to analyse. When you’re being shouted at round the clock the important thing is just to survive, at least at the beginning. Women were treated surprisingly equally.

We weren’t given any special treatment one way or the other. Everybody was in the same boat, and the same ugly clothes. Army discipline and adjusting to it came as quite a shock to the young conscripts, regardless of whether they were boys or girls. All the women that were there with me were tomboys, really sporty and energetic. We certainly didn’t waste much time doing our hair or bothering with makeup. Sometimes at camp we’d endure some of the boys’ stories about all the girls they’d bedded, and we couldn’t help but have this sort of amused, big sister attitude where we assured them that they still had some growing up to do. I personally didn’t feel it was directed at me nor did it really bother me, though some of the comments were pretty vulgar.

The fact that we’d all be trudging through the same mud created a strong feeling of fellowship, and gender didn’t really come into the matter. I found my time as a conscript pretty horrible, but I sort of had this ”I have to survive, come what may” attitude once I knew I was going. It was a question of my own honour, and the honour of women in general, that no-one would be able to say that women can’t survive in the army. All that time spent in such a masculine environment did wreak a bit of havoc with my identity in my first few months back in civilian life. It felt weird to buy dresses and to grow and varnish my nails. I went through this ”corrective” phase where I emphasised my femininity. I think I ended up more girly after I came out than I ever was before.”

Army rejects macho image A SPOKESMAN for the Finnish Army reacts critically to claims that his organisation is characterised by an overly masculine culture. ”The army is a very broad-minded and diverse body of people. The range of work we carry out calls for all sorts of skills and characteristics, so success in the army does not require any single personality type,” Lt. Lauri Inna insists.

Inna argues that in many respects the army is a forerunner in terms of equality issues. ”Our education culture is extremely multifaceted. Each batch of conscripts contains several young women, as well as people of differing ethnic and religious backgrounds, and representatives of other minorities. We seek to train these young men and women to perform variegated tasks and we produce quite concrete results. We’ve received a great deal of positive feedback on this score.”

Nevertheless, Inna concedes that the interpretation of the army culture as especially masculine is not a surprising one. ”It’s understandable because the army is an institution that is rich in tradition and one in which men continue to be overwhelmingly represented. However, the everyday practice of the armed forces is anything but macho,” he emphasises.

SixDegrees

16

Issue 3 2009

n i t s Lo

e cul h t tu om r f ra g

on

St ay in g

n o i t a l s n a r t

or

n i y ts ra

lp ath

If translation is a form of interpretation, can experiences really travel from one language to another without distortion?

The trials and tribulations of the translator Daisey Cheyney

I AM unusually hesitant to share my literary tastes and my literary recommendation apprehension probably stems from this. Imaginations are unique, and I for one am yet to meet my conceptual match.

Interpretation is subjective and if translation is a form of interpretation, is it possible to have an experience that is comparable to the reader in its original language?

A combination of my English ‘arrogance’ and a failing of my education too, I have never mastered another language. Yet despite the fact

that my French and German are as jumbled as a tin of alphabet soup that has been rusting at the back of a cupboard for years, I recognise and appreciate the uniqueness and diversity of language.

The distortion factor A linguistic construction can have an array of meanings and translation is no way as black- and-white as swapping a word from one language to another. Translations have long been viewed in a less than positive light. Even the canonical Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes likened reading a translation to “look-

ing at the Flanders tapestries from behind”, a distortion of the original.

Factors such as historical spirit, wordplay and cultural bias and the extent to which a translation may be distorted are intrinsic to how ‘translatable’ something is. In particular, if the concept requiring translation is heavily culturally specific, the originality of languages such as Finnish can be a challenge for translators.

“Translating from a very foreign language is slow and painful,” says Herbert Lomas, a Finnish to English translator, who has been honoured officially for his services to

Finnish Literature. Keith Bosley, another prolific translator whose extensive work catalogue includes the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala and numerous Finnish poetry anthologies, describes how translatability can differ: “For me ancient Finnish is more translatable than the French poet Baudelaire, even though my French is much better than my Finnish.”

Aspects such as style and register are inseparable from meaning and it is this inseparability that makes it challenging. The maintaining of certain aspects often occurs at the expense of others.

No time Complexity differences are not only a challenge when translating classical literature across languages or for a modern audience. This is illustrated by the Piraha tribe from Brazil, whose language has no exact words capable of describing number or time, nor any distinct words for colour. To most, the very idea of a vocabulary lacking such a fundamental part of our lives seems unfathomable. Other examples closer to home include the Sami’s elaborate vocabulary for reindeer and types of snow. ‘Ruka’, the Russian equivalent for ‘hand’

Feature

17

Issue 3 2009

Commentary

The lost translator Five universities in Finland teach translation, but what would future translators like to translate for a living and how does this differs from the reality?

Elisa Lautala

LAST MONTH translator and Artist Professor Kersti Juva lectured for a crowd of enthusiastic students of translation studies at the University of Joensuu. Juva has translated such classics as Lord of the Rings, Tristram Shandy and Winnie The Pooh into Finnish, among dozens of other novels, plays and other literary texts. I think I speak on behalf of many by saying that it was by far the most inspiring lecture during this academic year.

However, with almost four years of studying under my belt, I have come to terms with the fact that very few, if any, of us will be like Juva or any other of those fortunate ones who with creativity, determination, a bit of luck and vast knowledge of at least two languages and cultures have gotten the chance to translate literature.

I

s a successful translation one that is measured by the similarity of experience between the readers? stretches from fingertips to elbow as opposed to fingertips to wrist. The Finnish word ‘jalka’ doesn’t distinguish the foot from the leg.

Abstract words, particularly words to describe emotion, are notoriously challenging.

Consider Greek, that has several different words for ‘love’, each with a different nuance, or the German ‘futterneid’, a word to describe the feeling that someone else’s food is better than one’s own. Variations in the number of words in a particular domain between two languages reflect cultural facts.

Preserve or destroy?

If the target language lacks a particular concept or adequate vocabulary to describe a particular concept, what can a translator do? If the concept is an intrinsic part of the plot, then excluding the concept is not an option, so the translator will aim to approximate and contextualise any cultural, historical or geographical references. The art of translation and what constitutes a success is little understood. Is a successful translation one that is measured by the similarity of experience between the readers?

There are a few main points that translators undeniably agree on. Transferring the spirit and energy of the original takes precedence over a mechanical approach. All linguistic devices need to be considered to ensure that the omission or transfer does not detract from the experience.

“Translating is not as easy as a lot of people think. It’s maintaining the format, the register, the terminology and so on,” says Greek to English

translation student, Frosso Skontiniotou. He goes on to explain how idiomatic expressions and metaphors can be a challenge: “Every writer has their own style and this might not be clear to the translator and therefore the transfer of the style to the target audience may be difficult.”

Identifying the culturallyspecific element humour can be a challenge in the original language, let alone transferring it into another language altogether. As English to Finnish translator Kersti Juva, whose literary classic translations span from Shakespeare to Dickens, explains: “Humour is a very elusive element in literature. The most difficult task is to detect the humour in the source text; if a translator misses a joke there is no hope of it appearing in the translation.” The general principle for translating cultural nuances is ultimately equivalence, something that may or may not be possible. As Bosley so succinctly puts it: “You can’t turn a bar-mitzvah into a confirmation.”

Domesticate or foreignise?

There are two strategies available to deal with ‘nontranslatables: foreignisation or domestication. Translators aim to produce something readers can understand without unnecessary effort, but whether to foreignise or domesticate appears to be a point of much debate. According to the British Council web site, there is more consensus today about the need to maintain the foreign essence in form and content, and foreignisation is seen as a means to fertilise the native literary ground.

Different stategies are

adopted with varying results, and success is not always guaranteed. For example, in the English translation of Stieg Larsson’s book trilogy Millennium the spending habits of the principle character are domesticated. Although events take place in Zurich, the currency described in the book is Swedish krona! Considering that the audience is like ly to be outside Sweden, a conversion to Swiss Francs may have been a more suitable choice for the translator.

Crossing the border Over 60 per cent of all translated literature is done from works originally written in English.

This figure contrasts sharply with the paltry one to two per cent of literature translated into English. However, according to the Finnish Literature Society translations from Finnish into other languages are an area that is continuing to flourish. A growth that may be a result of the Finnish publishing sectors increasingly commercial stance as well as Finland joining the European Union in 1995. The target language of the translations from Finnish is predominantly German with over 184 titles translated between 2002 and 2007. A possible explanation for this is that translated books impressively account for over half of the German fiction

market. Of these, the most successful genre was mystery, in particular the crime writer Matti Yrjänä Joensuu.

The Kalevala is the most translated Finnish publication to date, with over 200 different adaptations in over 60 languages. Many of these are translated from existing translations, meaning the text may have become curiously distorted through successive translations. The resulting effect of being ‘twice removed’ one might compare to Chinese Whispers, the game in which errors accumulate during the retelling.

It is all too easy to pick holes in a translator’s work or become pedants over whether the translator has created an exact equivalent reading experience. I say we should be thankful to the under-recognised translators for sharing what is more often than not a labour of love. The odd lapse in judgement or hiccup in accuracy is surely a small price to pay for the exposure to such a multitude of cultures, access to which is not confined to geographical location.

Translations help to enrich the development of world cultures, something that can only be deemed positive. Without them we would seem to be headed for cultural isolation.

Continues on the next page

Translation Industry Facts • Over 70% of translations into Finnish are from the English language • The most translated Finnish novel is the national epic, The Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot. It has been translated into over 60 different languages, including Arabic, Faroese and Korean.

• Other writers whose work is continuing to reach audiences on foreign shores include Arto Paasilinna, Mika Waltari and of course, Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins.

• Mauri Kunnas is the most widely translated Finnish children’s author, famous for his stories about Father Christmas.

• Johanna Sinisalo’s novel Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (Not Before Sundown), first published in 2000, has already been translated into over 15 languages. www.finlit.fi/fili/en/

From the very first term onwards we were continually reminded of the realities in the field of translation. We are well prepared for the fact that we will probably end up translating instructions, manuals, brochures, technical texts and specialised documents. Some of us may move to Brussels and translate the never-ending flow of Europeann Union texts.

But what about literary works?

The majority of BA and MA theses done in the discipline of are concerned with literary texts. Thus my assumption is that many, if not most, of the students would be interested in translating these rather than more mundane materials.

A quick poll between 15 of my fellow students revealed that all of them would like to translate literary texts. A couple even admitted that it was their main goal. A few said that they would be interested but, at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter what they translate. Most of the students stressed that even though they would be interested, they weren’t sure if they had the skills and courage to actively pursue the career as a translator of literature.

The fact is that the curricula of most degrees in translation only scratch the surface of translating literary texts. And as Juve informed us, this differs fundamentally from any other type of translation. Many of the translators of literature, like Juva herself, haven’t even studied translation.

One of my fellow students noted that general knowledge and the knowledge of literature play an important role in translating literary texts. Also, as it is above all a creative process you either have the knack for it or you don’t.

That SAID, I’ll continue translating the owner’s manual of a guitar amplifier even though by doing so I’m going against Kersti Juva’s sound advice that one can’t translate what one can’t understand. So it looks like I will have to forget about my silly dreams of literature, at least for the time being.

The writer is a fourth-year student of English language and translation.

Degrees in translation at Finnish universities • English Language and Translation (or Translation and Interpretation of English) can be studied as a major in five Finnish universities: Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Vaasa and Joensuu.

• The aforementioned universities also offer degrees in translation and interpretation of Russian, German, Swedish, Spanish and French.

• The Department of Translation Studies of the University of Helsinki is currently in Kouvola, but will be moved to Helsinki this autumn.

• The Department of Translation Studies of the University of Joensuu is also currently being moved from Savonlinna to Joensuu. The teaching in Savonlinna will cease after the autumn term.

• Translation studies are quite practical compared to many other university degrees.Ideally the translator translates into one’s native language, therefore excellent native language ability is also stressed. However, the reality is that most translators also have to translate from their native language into a second language.

SIXDegrees

18

Issue 3 2009

Harry Potter: Daisey Cheyney

J.K ROWLING’S Harry Potter series highlights many of the potential pitfalls of translation and how they can be avoided.

Translated into over 60 different languages, each translation employs a variety of strategies, with varying degrees of distortion. In the US editions of Harry Potter, lexical switches were made, not in an attempt to Americanise the novels, but to ensure that the books would give a similar literary experience to an American child.

For example: in Britain, Harry consults his school timetable and in America, he consults his schedule.

An area that shows consistent change across the translations concerns proper nouns. Some alterations are transliterated, bearing no resemblance to the original meaning, whereas other words are translated for equivalence.

German translator, Klaus Fritz chose to retain the majority of the names, but interestingly the few alterations that do appear have no translational properties. For example: Rita Skeeter becomes Rita Kimmkorn, where

A case study

Kimmkorn, has no inherent meaning. In contrast, the Anagrams of “I am Lord Voldemort” Finnish translations by Jaana Kapari see the majority of the names altered. Hermione’s cat Crookshanks, pertaining Tom Marvolo Riddle (English) I am Lord Voldemort to an archaic insult meanTom Lome Valedro (Finnish) Ma olen Lord Voldemort ing ‘crooked legs’, becomes Om Gus Mervolo Dolder (Swedish) Ego sum Lord Voldemort Koukkujalka (koukku- hook Tom Vorlost Riddle (German) Ist Lord Voldemort + jalka- leg). Evidence of lanTom Elvis Jedusor (French) Je suis Voldemort guages’ attempts to transfer Tom Sorvolo Ryddle (Spanish) Soy Lord Voldemort Rowling’s innovations is also Trevor Delgome (Icelandic) Eg er Voldemort evident in the character name Tom Orvoloson Riddle (Italian) Sono io Lord Voldemort ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’, which Tom Vandrolo Riddle (Hebrew) Ani Lord Voldemort is altered to retain its anaTom Marvoldo Riddle (Turkish) Adim Lord Voldemort grammatic potential.

Rowling’s imaginative language presented translators with a far from easy task. One pun that proved tricky to transfer was the magical adhesive tape ‘Spellotape’. ‘Spellotape’ is 2 – 8 MARCH 2009 the wizarding equivalent of the Translational differences in J.K UK’s Sellotape a brand nameRowling’s Harry Potter turned-generic adhesive tape.

Outside the United Kingdom, Sellotape is more commonly Finnish English German known as Tesa or Scotch, posing the question of how Ihmeteippi Spellotape Zauberband possible it is to transfer the Tylypahka Hogwarts Hogwarts magical nuance. In American Huispaus Quidditch Quidditch editions, spellotape was simply Kalkaros Snape Snape replaced with scotch tape, losKoukkujalka Crookshanks Krummbein ing the meaning entirely. In Finnish it became ‘ihmeteippi’ (miracle tape) and in German, ‘zauberband’ (magic tape).

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WEMet Cultitude

21

Issue 3 2009

Chef recommends Restaurant & Bar Bangkok

APPETIZER Column Getting hooked

A true sense of Thai hospitality on Finnish fish David Brown Photos: Tomas Whitehouse

What’s your chili threshold?

Hot, hotter, flaming hot! How can you be sure you’re going to receive a manageable amount of chili in your meal in Restaurant Bangkok? Have no fear. Not all Thai dishes embrace the fiery embers of excessive spice. Also the waiters will ask and identify the needs of the customer when taking orders. Thus the measurement of chili can be identified according to three categories:

James O’Sullivan

PROVIDING an oasis from the Finnish winter and inviting Helsinki residents to enjoy a taste of Thailand, Restaurant and Bar Bangkok immerses its customers in authentic Thai culture. Spilling over two floors, the establishment enjoys a lounge bar area at street level and continues downstairs into a wonderfully decorated dining area.

Sipi Siljamäki and his Thai wife Suthiporn had been looking for a Helsinki location to open their own Thai restaurant for almost three years before teaming up with the expertise of family friend and aspiring bar entrepreneur Harri Soinila to create an experience “as authentic as possible from original Thailand.” Using social networking website Facebook as a springboard for gathering publicity, the establishment has swiftly carved a niche amongst Helsinki’s increasingly cosmopolitan dining landscape since opening late last year.

In the lounge bar customers can enjoy cocktails such as the popular Chai Thai or a Singha beer seated amongst a mosaic of different scenes of modern Thai nightlife. The gentle pulse of background music, coupled with a relaxed air, provide an inviting option for clientele from the neighbouring Finnkino cinema and passers-by. For those with a little more stamina, the restaurant area downstairs is transformed into a nightclub from 22:30 five nights a week boasting local, European and forthcoming Thai DJs. In the dining area, imported wooden carvings and pictures of Thailand’s King and Queen adorn the walls alongside bamboo stalks and statues of Buddha. Meeting the weekday lunchtime rush, table service offers a choice of four different dishes for €9.20 including a salad buffet. At 15:00 the restaurant commences its à la Carte menu with a carefully-chosen selection of tastes offering a tour of the different regional Thai cuisines.

Employing cooks and waiters from Thailand, Restaurant & Bar Bangkok enjoys a firmly established connection with the local Thai community.

The presence of many Thai customers enjoying their

• Those who have not visited Thailand before and haven’t gotten used to spicy foods.

• Previous visitors to Thailand who are willing and daring enough to embark upon a spicy attack on the senses.

• Thai customers – The sky’s the limit! *If you can’t get enough spice from your meal, be sure to try the chili-spiced vodka from the bar!

Restaurant Bangkok offers not only delicious Thai food but also refreshing drinks every day and clubbing four nights a week.

lunchtime meals is testament to the quality of the food on offer. In the near future the establishment seeks to further extend its cultural appreciation by introducing evenings of traditional Thai dance and even regular kickboxing demonstrations.

The restaurant menu deftly balances the five fundamental Thai flavours of hot, sour, sweet, salty and bitter. The more popular dishes such as chicken in satay sauce and vegetarian spring rolls are

complemented by the flavoursome spicy green curry with chicken or the succulent whole pike perch resting upon a bed of salad with Thai herbs. For desert, the Head Chef recommends a refreshing serve of mango and sticky rice with coconut cream to soothe the palate. With such fresh tastes prepared from scratch using authentic Thai ingredients, it comes as no surprise that a table reservation on the weekend must be made well in advance.

Restaurant & Bar Bangkok Kaisaniemenkatu 4 09 428 327 91 www.ravintolabangkok.fi Opening hours Restaurant: Mon-Sat 11:00-21:30 and Sun 15:00-21:30 Bar: Mon-Tue 11:00-02:00 Wed-Sat 11:00-04:00 Sun 15:00-04:00 Nightclub: Wed-Sun 22:30-04:00

new out now!

OF THE pink, salmon-like fish, brown trout (taimen) is Finland’s real star. More subtle than salmon, trout is best cooked by lightly grilling only the skin side, with just a little lime juice or grated rind. Arctic charr (nieriä) and rainbow trout (kirjolohi) are also delicious, grilled or lightly fried in a combination of butter and oil. Pink fish should be slightly undercooked and served just as the middle of the fish starts to look cooked.

THE RANGE of white fish is even wider. While pike (hauki) and the fantastically bony perch (ahven) are Finnish staples, the finest fish are perhaps zander (kuha) and whitefish (siika), with the latter having the added bonus of being the best source of Vitamin D you’ll find. Both can be grilled, fried, or cooked in the oven, and neither needs much in the way of spices. Good quality fish has a wonderful flavour of its own, which stronger spices such as chillies or curry only overpower. Another interesting option is flounder (kampela), which is best served meuniere, or in carefully browned butter.

Smoked fish does not seem as common here as in other parts of the world, which is surprising given the quality of the finished product. Bream (lahna) is a cheap and tremendous smoked option, but if you can’t find it in kauppatori, you might have to ask the nearest Finn you know with a cottage by the lake if he’d mind fetching one for you.

FEW FINNISH dishes are more classic than vendace (muikku), a species that has apparently lived in Finland for 10,000 years.

They usually seem to end up fried in butter until the pan begs for mercy. Nevertheless, with mashed potato and a pint of beer it’s a tough winter meal to beat, if not a favourite of many heart surgeons. I’ve never managed to make a convincing version of the dish yet, so I suspect the ability to cook vendace is genetic. Any self-respecting Finn will no doubt be able to make you a muikku meal that will set your fitness programme back a good six months.

SALMON is still probably the fish Finns eat most, and why not?

The big decision is between the cheaper farmed salmon and wild river salmon, the latter costing around four times the price and being around four times the quality to boot. Wild salmon is more like trout or char to eat, being paler in colour and denser in texture. River fish spend more time exercising than their lazy farmed cousins who just sit around the pool all day, so perhaps the difference in quality is not surprising.

Salmon medallions (steaks) make an excellent meal. You don’t need to be a genius in the kitchen to toss one in a pan with a little oil, flip it once, and come back three or four minutes later.

SOME supermarkets have fresh fish counters and some don’t.

But either way, the range is generally limited, and the word ‘fresh’ is often interpreted vaguely, with quality not always quite what it could be. Töölön Kala in Hakaniemi Market Hall is one of the very best fish shops in Finland. Managed by the charming Argentine Teresa Soengas de Laine and staffed by the most international crew you are likely to find anywhere, Töölön Kala can give great advice of everything from sushi to ceviche to ideas for classic Finnish barbeques. The fish is fresh and the staff really knows how to skin and fillet!

Da’Bomb Ground Zero Hot Sauce 234 000 Scovillea Da’Bomb Beyond Insanity Hot Sauce 119 000 Scovillea Jalopeno Harissa #112 Hot Sauce 1100-1600 Scovillea Honey Cayenne #164 Hot Sauce 900-1250 Scovillea

American food and drinks

www.hisandhers.fi

WALK INTO any well stocked Finnish fish shop, and the choice can be slightly intimidating. While most of us might think of salmon, pike and herring as being the basis of all Finnish seafood, in reality some of the tastiest fish are less well known and require a little searching.

his&hers

David learned to cook by watching the action at street stalls in Hanoi and Jakarta, but decided not to train as a chef after learning that professional chefs don’t generally eat with the guests. Since then, he has specialised in French and Thai food, and intends to devote the rest of his life to the search for the perfect Kung Pao Chicken.

SixDegrees

22

Issue 3 2009 Risto Vauras

What in the World Column

K o o p

Arponen a happy mongrel

A slackers´ paradise Robin DeWan

FINLAND is the absolute best country to live in if you’re a slacker. The only catch is, you have to get a permanent job first. Once that kind of contract is secured, kick up your feet and light up a stogy. The labour laws in this country are incredibly liberal compared to the rest of the world.

Employees with a permanent position – especially one in the public sector – would have to nearly outright refuse any tasks whatsoever and give their boss the finger on a daily basis before steps might be taken to fire them. And even once such a decision has been made, the matter of removal can be complicated, involving long leaves of absence, legal evaluations and possibly court cases.

Take the case of the curator whose museum is open less than six months a year. There would be plenty to do during the winter months but her main task appears to be servicing the office coffee machine. But avoiding work six months out of twelve is not good enough. Come May, the busiest month for her job, when the museum is scheduled to kick off for the season, you can bet your bottom dollar she’ll be on sick leave. Her boss just sweeps the whole thing under the carpet year after year, recommends the curator continue receiving an annual bonus, and warns others in the department not to bring up the issue for fear of triggering harassment allegations.

“ Koop Arponen’s laid back attitude and modest charm have melted the hearts of the Finnish audience.

The matter of [job] removal can be complicated, involving long leaves of absence, legal evaluations and possibly court cases.”

Matti Koskinen

LAST autumn Koop Arponen conquered the hearts of countless viewers with his vocal talent, lovable personality and international flair which propelled him to victory in TV’s Pop Idol competition. Within months of moving to Finland the singer-songwriter with a pan-European background – Koop’s father was Finnish, his mother is Dutch and he grew up in England – was put on a fast-track to stardom.

Not too long ago he was a music management student in England, working as a builder and playing the local pubs on weekends. With his début album New Town out now, SixDegrees had a chat with Koop to see how the mellow troubadour is coping with the pressures of nationwide fame.

You’ve gone from pub singer to pop star in a very short time. How has the experience changed you as a performer and as a person?

Quite a lot, I think. Everyone says “Oh, whatever you do, don’t change”, but I don’t think you could put up with everything that goes on unless you change a little bit, and I hope that I’ve changed for the better.

If I compare this to singing in a pub, obviously there’s a big difference. But I’d rather sing in front of a million people and cameras than go back to some of the pubs where people might throw their empty pint glass at you, which luckily never hap-

pened (Laughs). On the other hand it has been a really quick process and I haven’t really had time to stop and think.

We’ll see how it goes when I get bit more time to myself to reflect on recent events.

In the press and on TV you come across as a very level-headed, down-to-earth person. Don’t you ever just feel like exploiting your fame a little bit?

Not in the slightest! I really don’t enjoy posing in front of cameras... I hope that people take me seriously as a musician, ultimately, when all this blows over. I never followed Pop Idol or X-Factor back in England, because it seems to me that the dominating factor that determines how far you get is your looks as opposed to your music. But I think I can safely say I didn’t win for my looks. It’s kinda funny, I was in Los Angeles making a music video for my second single. I was surrounded by these American musicians and film and TV people in this nightclub, and I was told by two people that I could get my teeth straightened! That’s the sort of world that I really want to avoid at all costs.

How crazy are your fans? Is it a full-on Hard Day’s Night type scenario where they chase you down the street and send you weird gifts?

Well, I do get more fan mail from 20-30 year old women than any other age group. A lot

of photos, date requests, stuff like that. I can’t say that I’ve replied to many date requests but I try to reply to all the kids that write to me. I had one really nice letter, actually, from an older lady. She left her phone number and said to just give her a call sometime, you know, just for a chat. The other day I thought, “sod it, I’ll give her a call!” At first she didn’t believe it was me! But anyway, we were on the phone for about 15 minutes, and in the end I realised how easy it is to make someone happy. I mean, I’ll always try to give the time of day to people who like my music.

You seem to be very popular with the ladies. Does that mean there’s hope for the nice guys?

Hopefully! (Laughs) They do say nice guys finish last... I split up with my girlfriend last summer because I moved to Finland but I’ll see her next month. I don’t feel any pressure at all to go and find myself a girlfriend at the moment. I think a genuine relationship doesn’t start by someone looking for one, it just happens, if you’re lucky that day.

Do you consider yourself more of an entertainer or an artist?

More of an artist! I get my kicks out of writing lyrics...

I think my roots are in more folk-type music, I listen to a lot of Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg and so on. I wrote the lyrics

and co-wrote the melody to Every Song I Hear with Patric Sarin. I wrote the lyrics to six of the songs and there’s one song I wrote before the Idols competition, called Voices of the Past, on the album. I hope to have more of my own songs on future records.

An Englishman, a Dutchman and a Finn take part in a singing contest. Who wins?

Umm, can’t a bloke just be a mongrel? (Laughs) Just a happy mongrel with a Finnish passport!

Fish and chips or lihapiirakka (Finnish meat pasty)?

I’m gonna go with lihapiirakka! Actually, when I’m in England I really do miss Finnish food. I’ve realised the food here has a lot more variety and it’s just a lot healthier.

info Birthdate and place Lappeenranta, 20 April 1984 Education University degree Family Mum, grandmother and sister As a child I wanted to be... too many things.

I love... some days.

In one year’s time... I’m going to be working on my second album, hopefully.

Then there’s the case of the communal computer specialist. He’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard for the past 20 or 30 years. A few years ago his boss gave him a year off with pay to see if he could straighten out and sober up. I’m happy to report he’s been back on the job for a number of years now. The only problem is that nobody is exactly sure what he actually does anymore, his former tasks having long ago been relegated to others.

It also seems that in some situations there is no need to be amiable once you’re over that first four month trial period. I recently heard the outlandish tale of a chronic pain-in-the-ass with whom nobody enjoyed working. After enough observations had been made and complaints received, his boss decided to take drastic action. Far from being laid off, the employee was merely transferred to another department with the same sweet pay and benefits.

As you can imagine, this did not sit well with the notorious hell-raiser who immediately whipped the union lawyers into action. His co-worker in the new department has gone on sick leave in protest over having had such a foul-natured colleague relocated to her once calm and efficient unit.

Even the head boss, an extremely tolerant individual who took the bold step in initiating the transfer, seems to be paying the price. She’s made it known that she plans to take it easy in her job for a few months until the dust settles on this little drama. Her view is that if she can’t be provided with a peaceful working environment, then there’s no sense stressing to get things done. Bravo, chief! That’s something every slacker can well understand.

Robin DeWan is a musician, writer and conceptual artist living on Suomenlinna. He holds a degree in literature from the University of California.

Cultitude

23

Issue 3 2009 Nina Merikallio

Lessons from the past Rebecca Mills

Monthly dose of free pop

Tommi Forsström and Riku Kärkkäinen are Viola.

Matti Koskinen

IT’S A common observation that the music industry as we know it will undergo massive changes in the near future as digital technology continues to steam ahead. Generating revenue is increasingly difficult for big record companies and grassroots publishers alike.

Helsinki-based electro-pop duo Viola have come to the conclusion that it’s better to just give up, abandon physical and LP formats altogether and just let the music be free.

Since February, the band’s entire discography has been available on-line free of charge, and starting 1 April Viola will release a new track every month, also free for all to listen, download and distribute – no strings attached.

Economic sensibilities don’t even enter the equation: the aim is simply to narrow the gap between music and listener.

“If you think about it, from the moment we finish the tracks to the moment when somebody out there gets to hear them on the CD, there are way

too many steps along the way.

We want to minimise that distance,” says Tommi Forsström, one half of Viola. They’re not looking to pioneer a new way of music publishing, let alone spearhead a music liberation front, he says. The new MO just suits the band perfectly.

On the other hand, churning out a fresh track every month instead of compiling them into albums means the band will be “chronically out”.

“Without album releases we’ll never be the ‘band of the month’ in mainstream music

press,” Forsström says. This doesn’t worry him, though.

The role of the media as tastemakers is changing as well. “A lot of things nowadays circulate in a viral fashion,” he says.

“Things that are interesting will find their way from user to user. We’ll just have to make music that’s good enough to get noticed.”

Viola website www.pophurts.com Listen/download www.violamusicclub.com

The father of Ethio-jazz is back!

Robin DeWan

EVERY NOW and then you hear about some long forgotten musical legend that comes back in stunning fashion. Such is the case with Mulatu Astatke, scheduled to play Helsinki 4

In Zambezi, the shoe is on the other foot Mari Kaislaniemi

WHAT would happen if Europe was in chaos and

SET IN the heart of cobbled, pastel-coloured, classically columned Kruununhaka, the Helsinki University Museum Arppeanum boasts a grand wrought-iron stair-case, a cosy cafeteria, and exhibits that evoke the life and times of students in bygone years.

The first floor has a chemistry laboratory. Today we expect a clean, white, orderly space; this room looks as if it was devoted to the arcane art of alchemy. It’s crammed with odd glass beakers and bottles, colourful powders and liquids. The displayed doctors’ and dentists’ devices seem equally occult. Crude clamps and unwieldy instruments induce shivers, as do treatments like the Cage Bed for restless patients, a wooden casket covered with a net.

Models of small heads for teaching diagnosis, distorted and inflamed by diseases, form quite a cabinet of horrors. The basic shapes of the tools are familiar; the modern syringe is visible in the massive glass tube tipped with a scarily long needle.

There is a large array of geological samples on the second floor, and a small hoard of classical artefacts from archaeological digs on the third. It’s not the British museum, but it’s an interesting sidelight.

Mementos of the more recent past are also found on the third floor in examples of student life and activities.

A brief history of student ideologies is also presented through banners and photographs, from protests against Russification in the 19th cen-

Rock the Stage

April. Astatke is a pioneer of extraordinary proportions, who created a whole new sound in the late 60s and early 70s, combining jazz and Latin influences with traditional Ethiopian music. The term Ethio-jazz was coined and Western jazz artists such as Duke Ellington were quick to take note of this unique musical genre.

Astatke got much of his musical training in the West, studying in London, New York City, and Boston, where he was the first African student to attend the prestigious Berklee College of Music. It is little wonder therefore, that he went on to experiment with hybrid combinations long before the trendi-

ness of world music emerged.

While he has remained active throughout the years, his comeback can be attributed in large part to the appearance of his music on the soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers.

Jarmusch discovered Astatke through the Ethiopiques series of albums and immediately fell in love with his music. Once Jarmusch’s film was released, a whole new generation of Astatke fans sprung up around the world and his career shifted back into high gear.

His show in Helsinki is part of a unique event, Jazz Heat Bongo Beat, organized

by Flow Festival and Ricky-

Tick Records at Kulttuuritalo (House of Culture). Mulatu will be accompanied by the highly regarded UK group The Heliocentrics. On the bill of this very special club night is also The Five Corners Quintet, Dalindèo and Auteur Jazz, plus DJs Nicola Conte (IT), Sampsa Vilhunen and Matti Nives. Time to put on your groove shoes and get some glide in your stride!

Jazz Heat Bongo Beat Sat 4 April, 19-02 Kulttuuritalo, Sturenkatu 4, Helsinki Tickets €35, from www.tiketti.fi www.flowfestival.com www.kulttuuritalo.fi/en

ARE YOU tired of waiting for summer and its endless stream of festivals? Kick off the season at Hit the Stage Festival in KY-Klubi, Helsinki. The main attraction in this indoor festival is the band imitation contest, which is open to all comers. According to organisers, musical skills aren’t a requirement. What one needs instead are the right attitude and the ability to throw oneself, plus perhaps some plastic guitars. Original music is provided by the organisers with

Finns had to f lee the country?

Now you can see for yourself and follow the story of a Finnish family who migrate to Zambezi.

Zambezi is a play written by married couple Bengt Ahlfors and Ritva Siikala.

“My husband, and I have had this idea for many years”, tells Siikala, who has also directed the play. “We asked ourselves, what would happpen if things

were the other way around for a change?”

The play is set in the late 2010s. Refugees from Europe are flowing into Zambezi, legally and illegally. On stage you see a Finnish family, a bank manager mother, a dentist father, two daughters, a grandmother and their hamster, as they arrive in Zambezi.

The family is faced with the bureaucracy of the local

immigrant office as they try to adjust to the Zambezian society. Everything is alien to them, the language, the culture, the religion and the way of life.

Some members of the family will adjust to life in Zambezi very well, while others will struggle with trying to maintain their Finnish identity in a foreign country.

The message behind the

play is that every person must be allowed to keep their dignity and be treated with respect, Siikala says. This is a play about humanity.

Zambezi isn’t like most plays. The cast is made up of Finns and foreigners, the dialogue is spoken in nine different languages, and there’s lots of music and songs from different cultures.

“I recommend Zambezi for

Kati Hurme

tury, the Vietnam War in the 1970s, and budget cuts in the 1990s. This year, demonstrations are against proposed reforms to the laws governing the university, which would detach the university from the State, making it a public corporation or a foundation under private law.

A museum has two main purposes; to provide something to do on a rainy day, and to remind us of worlds beyond everyday life. Arppeanum succeeds at both. Small and compact, it provides glimpses into the search for knowledge that has driven mankind for aeons.

Arppeanum Snellmaninkatu 3 09 1912 2914 www.cafe-arppeanum.fi/ www.museo.helsinki.fi Opening hours: Mon-Fri 11-17, Sat-Sun 11-16 Closed on Monday Tickets: Adults €4.50 Children age 7-15, students and university staff €2.50 Sedeer El-Showk

The dentist will see you now...

applicable equipment.

Making a (positive) fool out of oneself is definitely worth it, as the best performances are rewarded generously.

Registration for the competition is open until 4 April and can be done on the festival homepage.

The festival also presents three tribute bands. Maiden Hell play Iron Maiden, Dear Victims play Kiss and Crazy Machine play Metallica.

Hit the Stage Festival Wed 8 April KY-Klubi Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu 21 Helsinki Tickets €8 For more info see www.hit-the-stage.net

everyone who wants to learn more and understand the current situation in Finland and the world,” Siikala says.

Zambezi Aleksanterin teatteri Bulevardi 23-27 Helsinki Tickets €10-29 Last performances on 31 March, 1/3/4 April at 19 www.aleksanterinteatteri.fi

TVGuide

Previews

24

Issue 3 2009 Memfis Film / P-A Jörgensen

Family moment in Mammoth.

By Kati Hurme

What to watch this month lost their lives in an occupational accident in England 2004. Most of the amateur actors are former illegal immigrants themselves.

Compiled by Kati Hurme

Paris je t’aime

Movie premieres

Easy Virtue

Mammoth

Australian Stephan Elliot is best known for his 1994 cult film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the quintessential drag queen road movie. Now Elliot returns with a light and poignant comedy, set in 1930´s England. Young John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) returns to his home manor with his newly-wed bride Larita (Jessica Biel) who, to John’s mother’s outrage, is a reckless American and clearly not good enough to join the family. John’s father, however, doesn’t seem to think so. The deliciously uptight mother is portrayed by Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth charms as John’s father.

Elliot’s cheerful zeitgeist with hilarious musical bits is a second film adaptation based on Noel Coward’s 1925 play, the first one being Alfred Hitchcock’s Easy Virtue in 1928.

PremierE 27 March.

Swede Lukas Moodysson’s new film is a powerful morality tale about globalisation and broken families. Gael García Bernal (Diarios de motocicleta) and Michelle Williams (TV’s Dawson’s Creek) portray the stressed and career driven parents of 10-year old Jackie (Sophie Nyweide).

With parents absent, Jackie gets more and more attached to her Filipino nanny Gloria, who has her own heart ache, as her two little boys are left behind in the Philippines.

With loose, episodic structure, the film bares a strong resemblance to Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film Babel. It lacks the positive vibe of Fucking Åmål and Tillsammans, that made Moodysson famous but carries the same agonizing and thought provoking tone as his films Lilja 4-ever and Ett Hål I mitt Hjärta. Dialogue in English, Tagalog and Thai. PremierE 17 April.

New on CD

What to play

By Mari Kaislaniemi

Nick Barlow

Regina Puutarhatrilogia

Skate 2 (PS3, 360)

With their third album Regina continue on their unique path of ethereal electro-pop. Puutarhatrilogia (Garden Trilogy) isn’t part of a trilogy but in itself forms a trilogy with the first section luring listeners into Regina’s own world.

Once you get around to Saanko jäädä yöksi?, the first single and a minor radio hit, you can no longer get out. The beats become more hypnotising with each tune as the vocals reach up into the sky.

Married couple Iisa and Mikko Pykäri along with Mikko Rissanen form a tightly woven unit that carries listeners from the edges of eccentric electro to the sturdy plane of piano based pop.

The album will make you want to dance, to close your eyes and listen closer.

Eeppi Ursin: Yellow Page Girl Singer-songwriter Eeppi Ursin returns to do what she knows best, playing the piano and singing, in her second album. Yellow Page Girl is a smooth easy playing album with jazz and pop influences.

Although unknown to the greater audience, it seems that Eeppi Ursin is known in Finnish jazzy circles. Her band has three talented men who also play with artists known across Finland, such as The Five Corners Quintet and Olavi Uusivirta to name a few.

Yellow Page Girl has stretched out melodies accompanied by gentle vocals and it all sounds nice and pretty but I can’t help but think that there’s much more behind this voice that isn’t getting out. Maybe the language is the reason since the last song, Tuuli, is sung in Eeppi’s native Finnish, and in the song her voice has more colour and warmth.

Thu 9 April Luther YLE1 at 21:50 Young idealistic monk Martin Luther, portrayed by Joseph Fiennes, battles against the Catholic Church in 16th century Germany. His battle will eventually lead to the Protestant Reformation. The biographic drama was directed by Eric Till.

Dude! Grab your board and tear up the streets of San Velona on your bit of wood with four wheels attached.

Released from prison at the beginning of the game, you have to complete various missions to increase your skater rank and become top dog. So far, so same old. But this time there are new tricks, new spots and new security guards desperate to throw your butt back in jail. The controls are tricky at first but become second nature, and there’s more than enough variety to stop it becoming old. Plus, there’s the usual online multiplayer offerings and an amusing system for scoring points depending on how badly you wipeout. Like, totally awesome, dude. 9/10

Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box (PC, PS3, 360)

This pack containing the original Burnout Paradise plus the bikes expansion pack means that PC gamers can finally enjoy the latest in possibly the best driving franchise around.

Keeping the original emphasis on high-speed driving, blurred vision and all, this game relegates the crash mode to a minor role compared with previous instalments. Having a whole city at your disposal means you can pick and choose which events to partake in, or you can just drive around uncovering the myriad of extra hidden goodies. There are loads of unlocks to discover, and a multiplayer component which allows you to race your friends online and laugh as they launch themselves into the path of oncoming buses. 9/10

Thu 2 April La Mala Educación YLE1 at 23:20 Pedro Almodovar’s intimate portrayal of two young men, who meet several years after they attended a religious school, where they had their first sexual experiences. Gael García Bernal stars in the film, set in Franco’s Spain. Dialogue in Spanish.

(CERT15) Sat 4 April Secret Window Nelonen at 21:00 Johnny Depp is author Mort Rainey who, after having separated from his wife, moves to a distant cabin in the woods and runs into an ominous stranger that accuses him of plagiarism. While Rainey tries to prove his innocence, things get ugly with his mysterious tormentor.

(CERT15) Mon 6 April Ghosts Yle Teema at 22:00 Documentary director Nick Broomfield’s semi-fictional film is based on real life event, in which 23 illegal Chinese immigrants

Fri 10 April Around the World in 80 Days Nelonen at 21:00 Jules Verne’s classic adventure with a brisk new adaptation, starring comedy genius Steve Coogan as Phileas Fogg and martial art master Jackie Chan as Passepartout.

Arnold Schwarzenegger does a cameo as Prince Hapi of Turkey.

Mon 13 April Jesus Christ Superstar MTV3 at 11:40 Based on Tim Rice’s long-running Broadway rock opera, this anachronistic and rather surrealistic musical film portrays the last days of Jesus Christ through the eyes of Judas Iskariot. The film’s awardwinning music was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber. (CERT15) Mon 13 April Paris je t’aime Yle Teema 15:00 Episodic film with 20 little stories set in the city of love. Directors include names like Coen brothers, Gus van Sant and Gérard Depardieu. Starring for example Marianne Faithfull, Steve Buscemi, Natalie Portman and Elijah Wood.

Dialogue in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin.

Secret Window

Fri 17 April Cecil B. DeMented Nelonen at 00:50 Melanie Griffith plays Honey Whitlock, a pretentious actress who gets kidnapped by a group of anarchistic indie filmmakers and undergoes enlightenment. This satiric film makes fun of big budget Hollywood productions. (CERT 15) Mon 20 April Tracey Ullman Nelonen at 22:00 SERIES BEGINS! Popular comedienne makes a triumphant comeback to television with her new series, in which she ironically explores the current state of America with poignant satire and hilarious imitations of celebrities.

Mon 20 April Sex and the City Nelonen at 19:30 Remember how it all began? Carrie and the girls are back with reruns of season one on weekdays. Snazzy columnist and her friends talk fashion, friendship and sex while exploring the bars and parties of Manhattan. (CERT 13)

TV column With shows this good, who needs TV? Matti Koskinen

WATCHING a TV series in weekly instalments not only requires a superhuman level of patience, but it is fast becoming a hopelessly outdated practice.

Some of the most devoted TV addicts I know don’t actually watch broadcast television at all any more – some don’t even own a set! No, today’s TV fan does not bow to the dictatorship of network programming

SECOND HAND TREASURES for a better future

heads. They get what they want, when they want, on DVD or online.

Instead of throwing themselves at the mercy of an immovable programme flow, true TV aficionados choose their narcotic with care and voraciously indulge in their addiction. Those prone to binging naturally watch a full season of their favourite show or the complete series on DVD. After all, a good series is like a solid novel: best gorged upon without useless distractions.

On the other hand, thanks

to countless file-sharing networks circulating TV programmes on the internet, a hardcore televisionista now follows the latest shows from around the world with only a few hours’ delay – and rushes afterwards to discuss the plot twists with an international congregation of like-minded zealots. Take a look at discussion boards for the series Lost and you’ll get an idea of the level of immediacy and dedication. Could you have imagined that with MacGyver or Melrose Place?

FIDA LÄHETYSTORIT

30 VUOTTA

Available in Helsinki I Espoo I Joensuu I Jyväskylä I Järvenpää I Kerava I Kotka I Lahti I Mikkeli I Tampere I Turku I Vaasa I Vantaa and in many more places www.lahetystorit.fi

FIDA – MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE.

Out&See Greater Helsinki where to go what to see By Miissa Rantanen

Issue 3 2009

www.kulttuuritalo.fi 09 7740274

Music_Clubs

Sat 4 April Manboy, Zacharius Carls Group Two fiery rock bands.

Korjaamo Culture Factory, 22:00 Töölönkatu 51 Tickets €8.50 www.korjaamo.fi 0207417000

Fri 27 March Ismo Alanko Teholla Ismo Alanko is an influential composer, a significant poet and an entertaining performer.

Virgin Oil Co., 22:00 Mannerheimintie 5 Tickets €22/20 www.virginoil.fi 010 7664000 Sat 28 March Radiopuhelimet A band notorious for aggressive songs, powerful rhythms and original lyrics will be supported

by Janne Westerlund.

Club Liberté, 22:00 Kolmas linja 34 Tickets €8 www.clubliberte.fi

Pintandwefall

Emma Salokoski

Wed 1 April PMMP A tough and tight gang of five playing energetic pop rock music.

Apollo Live Club, 23:00 Mannerheimintie 16 Tickets €18 www.apolloliveclub.fi 020 7759400

Matti Johannes Koivu

Sonia Sabri

Thu 9 April Suhinators An exhilarating live band playing reggae music.

ClubLiberté, 20:00 Kolmas linja 34 Tickets € www.clubliberte.fi Fri 10 April Kuusumun Profeetta, Low Life Rock’n’roll Philosophers Two admirable and skilful rock bands.

Korjaamo Culture Factory, 22:00 Töölönkatu 51 Tickets €8.50 www.korjaamo.fi 0207417000

Karttunen Kollektiv

Fri 3 April Pintandwefall Unconventional and excellent pop songs performed by four young women.

Vernissa, 20:00 Tikkurilantie 36 Tickets €6/4 www.velmu.net 09 8736264 Fri 3 April Tommy Emmanuel (AUS) Tommy Emmanuel is one of the finest guitar players in the world with an energetic, emotional style.

Helsinki Hall of Culture, 20:00 Sturenkatu 4 Tickets €52/45

Wed 8 April Pat Metheny Tribute The students of the Sibelius Academy pay a tribute to one of the most famous and versatile modern jazz guitarists and composers, Pat Metheny.

Kanneltalo Cultural Centre, 19:00 Klaneettitie 5 Tickets €7/5 www.kanneltalo.fi 09 31032416 Wed 8 April Emma Salokoski & Tuomo An evening with Emma Salokoski and Tuomo is full of soul, jazz and funk.

Ateneum Hall, 19:00 Kaivokatu 2 Tickets €8 www.ateneum.fi 09 17336401

Thu 2 April In the Hills of Concord Joonas Ahonen on piano performing works of Chopin and Ives.

Sibelius Academy’s Concert Hall, 19:00 Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu 9 Tickets €10/7 www.siba.fi 040 7104319 Thu 2 April The Toasters (USA), Blaster Master, Goon Ska music with a punky attitude.

Nosturi, 19:00 Telakkakatu 8 Tickets €12 www.elmu.fi 09 6811880

Tue 7 April Alexander Tucker (UK) In his acoustic tone, Tucker mixes minimalism, psychedelia and jazz.

Kuudes linja, 21:00 Kaikukatu 4 Tickets €8 www.kuudeslinja.com Tue 7 April Ice Cube (USA), WC (USA) A legendary gangsta rapper Ice Cube will be supported by another American rap artist WC. Nosturi, 20:00 Telakkakatu 8 Tickets €40/38 www.elmu.fi 09 6811880

Mon 30 March Vic Chesnutt & Elf Power (USA) An appreciated folk rock singersongwriter and his band.

Tavastia Club, 20:00 Urho Kekkosen katu 4-6 Tickets €22/20.50 www.tavastiaklubi.fi 09 77467423 Wed 1 April High Places (USA) An imaginative and spacious amalgamation of sounds with a unique, almost Caribbean undertone.

Kuudes linja, 21:00 Kaikukatu 4 Tickets €10 www.kuudeslinja.com

Sat 4 April Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics (ETH/UK) Jazz Heat Bongo Beat Club presents Ethio-Jazz legend Mulatu Astatke.

Helsinki Hall of Culture, 19:00 Sturenkatu 4 Tickets €35 www.kulttuuritalo.fi 09 7740274 Mon 6 April This Will Destroy You (USA) An instrumental quartet playing a cascading brand of cinematic rock music.

Semifinal, 19:00 Urho Kekkosen katu 6 Tickets €8/7.50 www.semifinal.fi

28 March & 1/4/14/17 April The Ostrobothnians Leevi Madetoja’s exceptionally felicitious merger of folk music and operatic singing, underpinned by a powerfully sonorous orchestra.

Finnish National Opera Helsinginkatu 58 Tickets €14-80 www.operafin.fi 09 403021 Sun 29 March Protest the Hero (CAN), The Chariot (USA) Two hardcore bands from the other side of the pond.

Nosturi, 19:00 Telakkakatu 8 Tickets €18 www.elmu.fi 09 6811880

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Sat 11 April The Rollstons Playful and catchy indie pop music.

Restaurant Belly, 22:00 Uudenmaankatu 16 Tickets € www.belly.fi 09 644981 Sat 11 April Hannibal & Joku Roti Mafia Witty rap music with northern frank attitude.

Dubrovnik, 21:00 Eerikinkatu 11 Tickets € www.andorra.fi

Czech Cubism

Mon 13 to Sat 18 April Rot Fest Folk music in Espoo.

Sello Hall Soittoniekanaukio 1 A

Tickets €10-15 www.juurijuhla.fi 09 8731320

THIS

MONTH’S PICK

Thu 16 April Lisa Nilsson (SWE) Nilsson’s repertoire ranges from pop music to soul-inflected ballads and dance tracks to a more mature jazz feel.

Korjaamo Culture Factory, 17:00 Töölönkatu 51 Tickets €48 www.korjaamo.fi 0207417000 Fri 17 to Sat 18 April Black Curse over Helsinki Black metal festival Black Curse over Helsinki presents many topical bands.

Gloria Cultural Arena Pieni Roobertinkatu 12 Tickets €20-35 www.nk.hel.fi/gloria 09 31045812 Sat 18 April Club Töpseli Club Töpseli is a jazz club that combines DJ-set and live artists.

Restaurant Belly, 21:00 Uudenmaankatu 16 Tickets €6 www.belly.fi 09 644981 Sat 18 & Mon 20 April Cosi fan tutte Mozart’s merry-go-round of love ranges from exuberant joy to dark despair.

Finnish National Opera, 19:00 Helsinginkatu 58 Tickets €14-62 www.operafin.fi 09 403021 Sun 19 April Patricia Kaas (FRA) A popular French singer Patricia Kaas mixes pop music, jazz and chanson in her music.

Finlandia Hall, 20:00 Mannerheimintie 13 E Tickets €69/64 www.hel.fi/filharmonia 09 4024211 Mon 20 April Matti Johannes Koivu Warm and acoustic pop folk music.

Kom Theatre, 20:00 Kapteeninkatu 26 Tickets €12 www.kom-teatteri.fi 09 6841841 Tue 21 April Club MauMau Björkenheim, Tapio, Hytti and Heikinheimo playing live jazz.

ClubLiberté, 21:00 Kolmas linja 34 Tickets €7 www.clubliberte.fi Wed 22 April Deerhoof (USA) Deerhoof is one of the most renowned and influential groups in indie rock scene.

Tavastia Club, 20:00 Urho Kekkosen katu 4-6 Tickets €22/20.50 www.tavastiaklubi.fi 09 77467423 Wed 22 to Sun 26 April Aprilil Jazz The biggest jazz-festival of Finland’s capital-city area.

Espoo Cultural Centre Kaupinkalliontie 10 Tickets €5-45 www.Aprililjazz.fi 09 4550003 Thu 23 April Petri Kumela The guitarist Petri Kumela plays pieces from Bach to Wennäkoski.

Sello Hall, 19:00 Soittoniekanaukio 1 A Tickets €12/6 www.sellosali.fi 09 8165011 Thu 23 & Fri 24 April Tina Turner (USA) The career of the American singer and actress Tina Turner has spanned over 50 years.

Hartwall Arena, 20:00 Areenankuja 1 Tickets €139/109 www.hartwall-areena.com 02041997

The exhibition of Riiko Sakkinen and Jani Leinonen presents the glory of the free world.

Jani and Riiko’s Free World Jani Leinonen and Riiko Sakkinen shake the audience at Amos Anderson Art Museum this spring by dealing with a conception of the free world. The new exhibition is a tribute to neoliberalism, globalisation, The World Bank and The International Monetary Fund. Jani and Riiko’s Free World fights against the financial crisis through lowering taxes, cutting salaries, limiting human rights, firing, and abolishing social security. Also, all the state’s property should be privatized according to the artists.

After graduating from Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Leinonen and Sakkinen have been famous for their startling interventions.

The exhibition at Amos Anderson is an abundant overall work of art that consists of drawings, paintings, objects, installations, design, and a leading work executed on the spot.

Until Mon 4 May Amos Anderson Art Museum Yrjönkatu 27 Mon, Thu, Fri 10:00–18:00 Wed 10:00–20:00

Theatre_Dance Fri 27 March Anna Karenina The ballet version of Tolstoy’s classic novel focuses on the fatal love triangle.

Finnish National Ballet, 19:00 Helsinginkatu 58 Tickets €14-56 www.operafin.fi 09 40302211 27/28/29 March Karttunen Kollektiv Situation Room The ingredients of Jyrki Karttunen’s latest production are six dancers, pig Latin, photo studio spotlights, outfit changes – and a lot of dancing.

Stoa Cultural Centre of Eastern Helsinki Turunlinnantie 1 Tickets €17/10 www.karttunenkollektiv.fi 09 31088405 Tue 31 March & Wed 1 April Sonia Sabri Company The Sonia Sabri Company from Birmingham performs the North Indian classic Kathak dance in a new style, respecting its traditional purity and form.

Kanneltalo Cultural Centre, 19:00 Klaneettitie 5 Tickets €15/10 www.kanneltalo.fi 09 31032416 2/4/5 April Whispering Cosmos The new creation by dancer-

Sat - Sun 11:00–17:00 Tickets €8/6/4 www.amosanderson.fi 09 68444634

choreographer Joona Halonen asks questions of the body and its experiences.

Zodiak Tallberginkatu 1 Tickets €17/10 www.zodiak.fi 09 6944948 3/4/5/7 April Dance Theatre Hurjaruuth Moon Maiden a non verbal, visually inspiring performance about a slightly funny and different girl created by a multicultural group of artists.

Cable Factory Tallberginkatu 1 Tickets €10 www.hurjaruuth.fi 09 5657250 3/4/16/21 April Kylián – Ek A long-awaited revival of Mats Ek’s and Jirí Kylián’s memorable works.

Finnish National Ballet Helsinginkatu 58 Tickets €18-42 www.operafin.fi 09 40302211 16/17/18/19 April aapo aaltokoski company The Most Important Thing Is to Be Alpo Aaltokoski’s new choreography deals with human existence and what is important to us about it.

Stoa Cultural Centre of Eastern Helsinki Turunlinnantie 1 Tickets €15/10/5 www.stoa.fi 09 31088405

Out&See Greater Helsinki

17/18/20/21/22/23 April The Rasta Thomas Dance Company (USA) Rock the Ballet Rock The Ballet from New York is a stunning show that knows no boundaries.

Savoy Theatre Kasarmikatu 46-48 Tickets €48/38/34 www.savoyteatteri.fi 09 31012000 Thu 23 April Theatre Vanha Juko The Girl Gone with the Wind and The Egg The fairy tale opera written and composed by Kaj Chydenius is of undeniable Chydenius quality.

Stoa Cultural Centre of Eastern Helsinki, 10:30 & 13:00 Turunlinnantie 1 Free entrance www.stoa.fi 09 31088405

Exhibitions Until Sun 5 April Behind the Scenes Design Museum’s new exhibition is introducing rarely seen prototypes of Finnish furniture design.

Design Museum Korkeavuorenkatu 23 Tue 11:00–20:00 Wed - Sun 11:00–18:00 Tickets €8/6/3/0 www.designmuseum.fi 09 6220540 Until Thu 9 April Liisa Lounila Been Trying to Meet You Works exploring the subject of the loss of the loved one.

Kalhama & Piippo Contemporary Mannerheimintie 3 B Tue - Fri 11:00–18:00 Sat - Mon 11:00–16:00 Free entrance www.kalhamapiippo.com 092785301 Until Sun 12 April Juhana Moisander Kiiras Feelings of horror and strangeness are present in Moisander’s photographs and video installations.

Kluuvi Gallery Unioninkatu 28 B Thu - Sat 11:00–17:00 Sun 12:00–16:00 Free entrance www.taidemuseo.hel.fi 09 31087039

Art Kiasma Mannerheiminaukio 2 Tue 10:00–17:00 Wed - Fri 10:00–20:30 Sat - Sun 10:00–18:00 Tickets €7/5/0 www.kiasma.fi 09 17336501 Until Mon 4 May Czech Cubism The exhibition introduces how Czech artists developed extraordinary modifications of Cubism which were applied with remarkable results in the fine arts, architecture and design.

Amos Anderson Art Museum Yrjönkatu 27 Mon, Thu, Fri 10:00–18:00 Wed 10:00–20:00 Sat - Sun 11:00–17:00 Tickets €8/6/4 www.amosanderson.fi 09 68444634 Until Sun 17 May Enzo Cucchi The work of Enzo Cucchi, considered one of the major Italian contemporary artists, is rich in symbolic and metaphoric allusions.

Espoo Museum of Modern Art Ahertajantie 5 Tue 11:00–18:00 Wed - Thu 11:00–20:00 Fri - Sun 11:00–18:00 Tickets €10/8/0 www.emma.museum Until Sun 17 May Head First The exhibition explores design and culture related to the human head.

Design Museum of Finland Korkeavuorenkatu 23 Tue 11:00–20:00 Wed - Sun 11:00–18:00 Tickets €7/6/3/0 www.designmuseo.fi 09 6220540 Until Sun 24 May Tensions of Space Mohamed Bourouissa’s, Sini Pelkki’s, Carrie Schneider’s and Sauli Sirviö’s solo exhibitions.

The Finnish Museum of Photography Tallberginkatu 1 G Tue - Sun 11:00–18:00 Tickets €6/4/0 www.fmp.fi 09 68663622 Until Sun 31 May Walt Disney and European Art The exhibition portrays the European roots of the animation movie classics Tennis Palace Art Museum Salomonkatu 15

Tue - Sun 11:00–20:30 Tickets €8/6/0 www.taidemuseo.hel.fi 09 31087001

Rajatorpantie 23 Tickets €3-25 www.sulkapallo.fi 010 6330303

Until Sun 31 May Sense of Architecture Some sixty filmic narratives can be experienced in an exhibition of contemporary architecture originated in the Austrian state Styria.

Museum of Finnish Architecture Kasarmikatu 24 Tue & Thu - Fri 10:00–16:00 Wed 10:00–20:00 Sat - Sun 11:00–16:00 Tickets €3.50/1.70 www.mfa.fi 09 85675100

Fri 10 to Sun 12 April Baila Baila Salsa Festival The 5th International Salsa Festival is a fantastic 3-day event with the world´s most exciting salseros.

Sokos Hotel Vantaa Hertaksentie 2 Tickets €8-175 www.salsafestival.fi 041 5337383

Until Sun 30 Aug Watch Out, Gypsies!

The History of a Misunderstanding A guest exhibition about the history and culture of the European Roma.

Hakasalmi Villa Mannerheimintie 13 D Wed - Sun 11:00–17:00 Thu 11:00–19:00 Free entrance www.helsinginkaupunginmuseo.fi 09 31078519

Sun 12 April Jeff Dunham (USA) Jeff Dunham is an American ventriloquist and stand-up comedian who has also appeared on numerous television shows.

The Helsinki Ice Hall Nordenskiöldinkatu 11-13 Tickets €59/49 www.helsinginjaahalli.fi 09 4777110

Until Sun 10 Jan 2010 Barbie – Still Going Strong 50th anniversary exhibition exhibition boasts a comprehensive collection of Barbie’s early outfits and other Barbie items from 1959 to 1965.

Finnish Toy Museum Ahertajantie 5 Tue 11:00–18:00 Wed - Thu 11:00–20:00 Fri - Sun 11:00–18:00 Tickets €10/8/0 www.leikkilinna.fi 09 81631833 Until Sun 28 March 2010 Move and Play!

Heureka’s new exhibition is intended to inspire visitors to move, play and have fun together through shared activities.

Science Centre Heureka Tiedepuisto 1 Mon - Fri 10:00–17:00 Sat - Sun 11:00–18:00 Tickets €8-20 www.heureka.fi

Until Sun 26 April Ola Kolehmainen A Building Is Not a Building Architecture is the subject matter of Berlin-based photographer Ola Kolehmainen’s art.

Museum of Contemporary

SONIA SABRI COMPANY (India, UK) North Indian classic Kathak dance intertwined with modern dance. “In the right hands, Kathak can even be funky” (The Birmingham Post) Sonia Sabri, dance  Ustad Sarwar Sabri, tabla accompanied by sitar and vocalist www.ssco.org.uk

Valentina Vuksic

Others

Fri 17 to Sun 19 April Sauna Expo A fair introducing sauna bathing as an integrated part of the Finnish way of life, and one of the oldest traditions of this country.

Myyrm ki Sports Park Raappavuorentie 8-10 Fri, Sat 10:00–18:00 Sun 10:00–17:00 Tickets € www.saunaexpo.fi 0400 813696

The event listings in the Out&See section are based on the available information at the time of printing the issue. SixDegrees is not responsible for possible changes, mistakes, cancellations or lack of information concerning the events mentioned.

Artkillart will perform experimental audiovisual and sound art at Kiasma.

Pixelache PIXELACHE is a festival of electronic art that started in 2002. The aim of the festival is to create encounters between the grassrootlevel community and representatives of art, science and the corporate world. It is guided by a cheerfully experimental, yet critical viewpoint on new audiovisual media and technologies.

The variety of art forms presented in the festival is wide: festival clubs, performances and workshops have included interactive film, VJ culture, music produced by electronic junk and media tools of activists, among other things. This year’s programme contains performances, concerts, club events, installations, seminars and workshops at Kiasma, Dubrovnik, Korjaamo, MUU Gallery and Myymälä2 Gallery.

Thu 2 to Sun 5 April Tickets €6-40 www.pixelache.ac 050 4657929

Wed 1 to Sun 5 April Finnish International Championships in Badminton Energia Areena

Wed 1 Sun 19 April Kasper Muttonen Constructions and Realities In his exhibition, Muttonen deals with a thought about space as structure that shapes our lives.

Gallery Jangva Uudenmaankatu 4-6 Tue - Fri 11:00–19:00 Sat - Sun 11:00–17:00 Free entrance www.jangva.fi 09 6123743

WED 1.4. 7 PM

MONTH’S PICK

Sports

Until Sun 12 April Riiko Sakkinen Kosmostars Good-natured paintings in bright colours, embedded with serious and challenging messages.

Korjaamo Gallery Töölönkatu 51 Mon - Sun 11:00–17:00 Free entrance www.korjaamo.fi 0400 499396

Until Sun 19 April Rafael Wardi – The Soul of Colour Rafael Wardi’s 80th birthday celebratory exhibition presents the artist’s work from the 1950s onwards.

The Didrichsen Art Museum Kuusilahdenkuja 1 Tue 11:00–18:00 Wed 11:00–20:00 Thu - Sun 11:00–18:00 Tickets €8/6/2 www.didrichsenmuseum.fi 09 4778330

THIS

Tickets € 15/10

Reservations tel. (09) 310 12000 or www.lippupalvelu.fi

Kanneltalo, Klaneettitie 5 www.kanneltalo.fi

E.Cucchi, Fini Mondo, 2004. Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zürich

26

28.2.-17.5.2009 ENZO CUCCHI SANTERI TUORI: FOREST Tue, Fri-Sun 11-18, Wed-Thurs 11-20 Ahertajantie 5, Tapiola, Espoo, Tel: 09-8165 7512 Busses from Kamppi, Helsinki: 106, 110 www.emma.museum

Out&See Tampere where to go what to see

Sports

Music_Clubs Sat 28 March Live music at Vastavirta Live on stage: Totuus, Amazing Tales, No Kids, Deadsunrise. Age limit 18.

Vastavirta Pispalan valtatie 39 Tickets €5/4 www.vastavirta.net Sat 28 March Yo-talo Kuplii Live on stage: Black Audio, Sweet Jeena And Her Sweethearts, Jyrki Nissinen & Dj Eetu.

Yo-Talo Kauppakatu 10 Tickets €6/3, free entrance before 23:00 www.yo-talo.com Sun 29 March Spring music in the Keskustori Old Church A spring concert by Sari Anttila (vocals) and Paula Sirén (piano).

The Old Church (Central Square, Keskustori), 19:00 Free entrance, programme leaflet €10/5 050-433 7373

by Jutta Vetter

Tue 7 April Trotting races Horse trotting races at the Teivo track.

Teivo trotting track, 18:00 Free entrance For further information and exact location, see www.teivonravit.fi (03) 315 481

Others Tue 14 April Magic Show – Kevin James Magic by Kevin James from Las Vegas. The evening is

THIS

hosted by Mikko Kivinen.

Tampere Hall (Small Auditorium), 19:00 Yliopistonkatu 55 Tickets €30/15 For tickets, call 0600 94 500 (Tampere Hall ticket office) www.tampere-talo.fi Fri 24 April – Sun 26 April Tampere Fish Market The Tampere Fish Market on the Laukontori harbour and Market square has been regularly arranged since 1990, and attracts up to 50 000 people. Programme and, of course, fish food for all tastes.

Laukontori Market Square, Fri 10:00—18:00, Sat 9:00—17:00, Sun 10:00—17:00 Free entrance

MONTH’S PICK Elise Kulmala

Tue 31 March Vic Chestnutt and Elf Power (US) Klubi Tullikamarin aukio 2 Tickets €14 www.klubi.net Thu 2 April Student concert Tampere Conservatoire students performing.

Tampere Conservatoire (Pyynikki Hall) 18:00 F.E. Sillanpään katu 9 Free entrance www.tampereenkonservatorio.fi Fri 3 April Music at Telakka Mari Paul performing live at Telakka.

Telakka Tullikamarin aukio 3 Tickets €5 www.telakka.eu Fri 3 April Heikki Silvennoinen Blues Night Featuring Jukka Gustavson, Pepe Ahlqvist and Mikko Kuustonen.

Tampere Hall (Park Hall), 19:00 Yliopistonkatu 55 Tickets €20 For tickets, call 0600 94 500 (Tampere Hall Ticket Office) www.tampere-talo.fi Sun 5 April Ultra Brass and percussionists Afternoon music at the Tampere Cathedral – the concert is conducted by Juha Untala.

Tampere Cathedral, 16:00 Tuomiokirkonkatu 3 Programme leaflet €5/10 (03) 245 2500

Theatre_Dance Tue 21 April – Sun 26 April Tanssivirtaa Tampereella (Tampere Dance Current) – Current Contemporary Dance Festival This festival presents the most interesting works of the Finnish contemporary dance scene, from established professionals as well as from new dance and choreographer talents.

Different venues and prices For more information, see www.tanssiteatterimd.fi Sun 26 April Rock the Ballet For the first time in Finland, this Rasta Thomas dance show has no boundaries. The style varies from James Brown, Queen, Michael Jackson all the way to Frank Sinatra. Nine professional dancers are performing in this show, and it was considered to be “dance at its best” by the New York Times.

Tampere Hall, 15:00 and 19:00 Yliopistonkatu 55 Tickets €48/39 For tickets, call 0600 94 500 (Tampere Hall Ticket Office) www.tampere-talo.fi

Energetic street dance performers compete in Tampere.

Disco & Street Dance Finnish Championships Dance School Hip Hop House organises the Finnish Championships of Disco and Street Dance. This weekend gathers together the most talented and devoted dancers in Finland. The organisers expect over 2,500 participants and spectacular performances both from individuals and groups competing.

On Friday the event begins with Disco dance, the fast paced dance style, based on large hand gestures and skilful patterns, such as jumps and pirouettes. The Freestyle series even includes some acrobatics.

On Saturday the event continues with Street dance as all the most important street styles are represented. The absolute treat of the day is the showy synchronized Hip Hop competition. Sunday includes, for example Break dance as well as a couple other dances that are competed in individual and group battles.

Fri 3 to Sun 5 April Tampereen Messu- ja Urheilukeskus Pirkkahalli (hall D) Ilmailunkatu 20

Tickets €46/40/18/15 from www.lippu.fi www.hiphophouse.fi www.fdo.fi

SARA HILDÉN ART MUSEUM

ALEX KATZ An American Way of Seeing 21.2.– 31.5.2009 Särkänniemi, Tampere, tel. +358 (0)3 5654 3500 www.tampere.fi/sarahilden Blue Coat, 1990

Out&See Turku

28

Out&See Jyväskylä

where to go what to see By Dunja Myllylä

Music_Clubs

THIS

where to go what to see

MONTH’S PICK

Fri 27 March Nopsajalka & Sound Explosion Band Nopsajalka is a young veteran in the Finnish Reggae & Dancehall business.

Klubi, 23:00 Humalistonkatu 8 Tickets €9 www.klubi.net

TMK/Martti Puhakka

Tue 31 March High Places (NYC) Mary Pearson and Rob Barber, both Brooklyn dwellers, create a unique and joyous union of world beat, dance music and underground pop with High Places.

Dynamo Linnankatu 7 Tickets €6 www.dynamoklubi.com Fri 10 April From the Cádiz Cathedral to Turku – The Seven Last Words of Christ A classical composition by Joseph Haydn, featuring seven meditations on the last words of Jesus Christ, commissioned in 1787 for Cádiz Cathedral in Spain. The programme includes also Arvo Pärt’s Trisagion.

Turku Cathedral, 19:00 Cathedral Square Tickets €19/15/7 www.tfo.fi

Beautiful decorated Easter eggs are presented in Handicraft Museum.

Sun 12 April Amorphis World-famous Finnish metal band performs.

Klubi, 22:00 Humalistonkatu 8 Tickets €16 www.klubi.net

In ancient Egypt and Persia people exchanged decorated eggs

Fri 17 April Joose Keskitalo ja Kolmas Maailmanpalo Young Finnish folk singer-songwriter Joose Keskitalo’s music is, according to himself, ”the opposite of all production-oriented music”.

Dynamo Linnankatu 7 Tickets €5 www.dynamoklubi.com

Theatre_Dance Until Wed 8 April The Last Circus This play takes you to a journey where death, love and fortuneseeking are mixed with warm humor and circus tricks.

TEHDAS Theatre, 19:00 Itäinen Rantakatu 64 Tickets €15/12/10 www.tehdasteatteri.com Sat 18 April Päästä meidät paheista Flamenco dance company Takoyat and chamber choir Key Ensemble perform together. The program includes a flamenco opera called Mortal Sin and Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Medieval choir mass Requiem.

Turku Sigyn Hall, 19:30 Linnankatu 60 Tickets €12/10 050 366 6090, 050 357 6633 Until Fri 24 April The Boss’s Funeral Medieval carnival traditions, commedia dell’arte, unfounded nudity and bad taste written by Dario Fo. The purpose of the play is to be as offensive as possible.

Turku Student Theatre, 19:00 Läntinen Rantakatu 23 28/31 March, 2/4/7/8/9/14/16/21/23/24 April Tickets €12/6 www.turunylioppilasteatteri.fi

Exhibitions Until Sun 29 March Kaisu Aro Watercolor and oil pastel paintings from Benin in West Africa.

Landscapes and portraits of women, men and children.

Galleria Ama Kaskenkatu 1 Tue - Fri 12:00–18:00 Sat - Sun 12:00–16:00 Free entrance www.ama.fi

Easter at Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum at the spring equinox, the beginning of the new year. The eggs were seen as a symbol of fertility. Later Christians adopted this tradition, and the Easter egg became a symbol of resurrection.

If you’re out of ideas for this year’s Easter egg decoration, head to Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum’s Easter happening, wheremembers of the OvoDecor association present egg decorating traditions from different European countries.

In addition, You can decorate your own willow Barnches for Easter trick-or-treating. A Sugar baker makes Easter sweets of marzipan and there are competitions in egg rolling, a traditional game played with eggs at Easter. Different nations have different versions of the game, played with hard-boiled, decorated eggs. How far will your egg roll?

Sat 11 to Mon 13 April 10:00–15:00 Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum Vartiovuorenkatu 2

Sun 5 April The Butterfly in Me Elina Relander’s photographs are an insight to the life of Finnish transsexual men. The need to be oneself shows in the pictures and makes the exhibition touching.

Photographic Centre Peri Uudenmaankatu 1 Tue - Fri 12:00–18:00 Sat - Sun 12:00–17:00 Free entrance www.peri.fi Until Sun 17 May Annika von Hausswolff One of the most honored Scandinavian contemporary artists, Swedish photographer Annika von Hausswolff handles questions about corporeality, gender and domination.

Turku Art Museum Aurakatu 26 Tue - Fri 11:00–19:00 Sat - Sun 11:00–17:00 Tickets €7/4 Free admission on Fridays 16:00–19:00 www.turuntaidemuseo.fi Until Sun 6 Sept 800 kilos of bones!

The exhibition tells of the animals in medieval Turku through archaeological bone finds.

Aboa Vetus Ars Nova Itäinen Rantakatu 4 Tue - Sun 11:00–19:00 Tickets €5.5-8 www.aboavetusarsnova.fi

Others Fri 27 March Tutti frutti – Music for the whole family

Fee €5.5/3.5 044 9072 150 02 2620 322

Tutti Frutti House Band, the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra and the music classes of Puolala School perform. The repertoire consists of Tutti Frutti, Mango Tango, Ananas Jazz and Ragtime Lime.

Turku Concert Hall, 19:00 Aninkaistenkatu 9 Tickets €9/6 www.tfo.fi Wed 1 April Circus on Ice Figure skating club Turun Riento’s spring show. 400 skaters play the roles of acrobats, clowns and circus animals.

Kupittaa Ice Hall, 18:00 Hippoksentie 1 Tickets €7/5 040 525 6157, 050 306 7723 www.turku.fi/tapahtumat Ongoing Whose park?

Community and environmental art students from Turku Arts Academy have built 16 bird houses in the Urheilupuisto park. By doing this they want to emphasize the importance of parks to city dwellers and especially to animals. Each bird house is a unique piece of art – go and track them!

Urheilupuisto – Sports Park Free entrance Wed 16 to Sun 19 April Festival of Finnish Films This year’s festival has three major themes: director Tapio Suominen, director Valentin Vaala, and Finnish animation film.

Festival includes three clubs.

Cinema Julia Eerikinkatu 4 Tickets €4 / Festival pass €20 www.suomalaisenelokuvanfestivaali.fi

Music_Clubs Sat 4 April Werner Bros: Don’t Worry, Be Happy A music concert fit to put anyone in a good mood. This Finnish band uses its unique style and mixture of old and new, Finnish and international, and a huge range of various genres. Full of high energy and fun lyrics; a must see!

Jyväskylä University, 19:00 Seminaarinkatu 15- C Building Tickets €23/20 www.wernerbros.net 040 5448495 Mon 13 April Easter Concert Celebrate Easter with this fabulous concert featuring Nikke Isomöttönen, conductor, Helena Juntunen, soprano, Markus Schwartz, bass and Male Choir Sirkat. Tickets can be purchased from the City Theatre Ticket Office.

Taulumäki Church, 19:00 Lohikoskentie 2 Tickets €20/18/10 www.jyvaskylasinfonia.fi 014 624211 Sat 18 April PMMP Live Come and experience the acclaimed live act of PMMP; the Finnish pop/ rock duet consisting of Paula Vesala and Mira Luoti. The band was formed in 2002 and has hits such as Pikkuveli and Rusketusraidat. Open to all ages.

Lutakko, 20:00 Messukatu 3 Tickets €15/14 www.jelmu.fi 014 617866

Theatre_Dance Sat 28 March and 3/4/19/22/23/25 April As it is in Heaven A play based on the movie by Swedish film-maker Kay Pollak about Daniel, a famous conductor who has a heart attack and return to his old neighbourhood to rethink his life and start from scratch. A play about love, happiness and good will.

Jyväskylä City Theatre, 19:00 Vapaudenkatu 36 Tickets €20/18/15 www.jyvaskyla.fi/kaupunginteatteri 014 624200 Sun 5 April Moomin Play A play consisting of two Moomin stories: A Forest in Moomin Valley, and The Island of the Hattifatteners. The play lasts for one hour and is suitable for the whole family. The excellent set, lighting and sound effects succeed in bringing the characters to life.

Paviljonki International Congress and Trade Fair Center, 17:00 Messukatu 10 Tickets €14 www.muumitapahtumat.com 15/16/17 April Tell Me on a Sunday A one-woman pop musical starring Petra Karjalainen. A play

by Andrew Lloyd Webber about an English woman who moves to New York to make her dreams come true. Choreography by Mikko Ahti. The performance lasts 1 hour 50 minutes.

Jyväskylä City Theatre, 19:00 Vapaudenkatu 36 Tickets €30/20 www.jyvaskyla.fi/kaupunginteatteri 014 624200 Wed 22 April Pinocchio on Ice Combine 30 talented ice dancers, over 100 costumes, excellent lighting and catchy music and you’re left with this 90-minute performance.

We all know the story of Pinocchio; let’s watch it on ice! Performed by the Hungarian Ice Theater.

Ice Hall, 18:00 Rautapohjankatu 10 Tickets €22/18 www.icetheater.hu

Exhibitions Sat 18 to Sun 19 April Garden and Balcony 2009

THIS

By Amira Elbanna

Issue 3 2009

MONTH’S PICK Tanya Bekasova

Cheese People from Russia perform in Jyrock.

Jyrock Jyrock, Finland’s most intriguing and entertaining indie music festival, is filled with amazing new talent and music. It has been organized since 1985, and the organizers continue to keep an open mind when it comes to new and fresh underground music.

This year will be no exception, with an excellent lineup in store.

Jyrock is known to be the festival where indie music from Finland and abroad get a chance to be heard and appreciated. The full programme for the event is available on the festival website as well as links to the pages of the performers. So get ready for acts like: Cheese People (Rus), Twiggy Frostbite (Swe), Zebra and Snake, Cats on Fire, Messer Chups (Rus) and many more.

Tickets can be bought from ÄX record store in Väinönkatu as well as from the Jyrock website. Tickets can also be bought on campus.

Fri 17 to Sat 18 April Ilokivi, 19:30–03:00 Keskussairaalantie 2 Tickets for 2 days €26

An exhibition dedicated to gardening needs. Look at the numerous grills, gardening machines, decorations, flowers, seeds and much more. Also, get advice from professionals in the field.

Paviljonki International Trade and Congress Center, times to be announced Messukatu 10 Free admission www.paviljonki.fi 020 7473319

Others Tue 14 April Open Play Group This play group gets together every Tuesday and it is your chance to meet other moms, dads and children of course. Just show up and have fun. You can bring your own lunch.

Torppis, Kortepohja, 09:00–12:00 Emännäntie 10 M Free admission www.torppis.fi Fri 17 April Fashion Gala A catwalk fashion show featuring top model Karita Tuomola and a performance by the Scandinavian Hunks. The evening includes a warm buffet dinner, as well as a dance show by The Golden Velvet.

The event has an age limit of 18.

Paviljonki International Congress and Trade Fair Center, 19:00–00:00 Messukatu 10 Tickets €45 www.jklpaviljonki.fi Fri 17 to Sun 19 April Iiris Film Festival 2009 A film festival created to enrich the cultural life of Jyväskylä by

For the members of student Union €23 and for 1 day €16 www.jyrock.fi

presenting interesting movies for low prices. The festival combines children’s films with horror and other genres. It is possible to buy a 3-day pass for the entire festival.

IT-Dynamo, various times Piippukatu 2 Tickets €5/4 www.iirisfilmfestival.net 050 3470286 Tue 21 April Baader Meinhof Komplex German film based on the non-fiction book that deals with the early years of the West German terrorist group the Red Army Faction in 1967/1968.

Directed by Uli Edel. Doors open at 18:30 and the bar is open before the screening. Subtitles in Finnish.

KampusKino, 19:00 Keskussairaalantie 2 Tickets €4/5 www.jyy.fi/kampuskino 014 6203356 Fri 24 April to Sun 10 May Suomen Tivoli Yes, it is once again the time of the year for the tivoli to come to town!

So you can enjoy rides such as the twister and sombrero, and roller coasters, bumper cars, ghost trains and even some new surprises are in store! Ticket prices for rides are available on the tivoli’s website.

Hippos, Mon-Fri 16:00–21:00, Sat-Sun 12:00–21:00 Rautapohja Free admission www.suomentivoli.fi 040 5244990 The event listings in the Out&See section are based on the available information at the time of printing the issue. SixDegrees is not responsible for possible changes, mistakes, cancellations or lack of information concerning the events mentioned.

Out&See Oulu Issue 3 2009

where to go what to see

Music_Clubs Wed 1 April Apulanta Finnish rock band Apulanta is on tour after the release of their latest album Kuutio. Age limit for the concert is 18.

Nightclub Tähti, 21:00 Pakkahuoneenkatu 19 Ticket prices TBA www.nightclubtahti.fi 020 7412420 Sat 4 April Age of Love cooperation with Potku Two floor dance concept with several DJs, Orkidea will play a special three hour set.

Radisson SAS & Night, 21:00 Hallituskatu 1 Tickets €15/12 http://klubitus.org/tapahtuma. php?id=15804 Thu 16 April Dmitri Sitkovetski Azerbaijani Sitkovetski started his career as a violinist but has also become well known as a conductor in the past few decades.

Madetoja Concert Hall, 19:00 Lintulammentie 1-3 Tickets €18/14/7 www.oulusinfonia.fi 044 7037221 Wed 22 April The Mokners Jazz songs composed by all band members as well as arrangements of well known tunes. Severi Pyysalo plays vibraphone, Timo Hirvonen bass and Jussi Lehtonen will be behind the drum set.

Valvesali, 19:00 Hallituskatu 7 Tickets €10/8 08 55847500 Thu 23 April Operagala This collection of scenes from operas such as Valkyrie and Tosca has toured Helsinki, Turku and Tampere and will finally arrive in Oulu.

Madetoja Concert Hall, 19:00 Lintulammentie 1-3 Tickets €18 www.oulusinfonia.fi 044 7037221

Theatre_Dance Sat 28 & Sun 29 March Arctic Footsteps Dance acts from all over Finland showcase their talent during this twoday event. Ballet, jazz and modern dance are some of the categories participants will take part in.

Pohjankartano Suvantokatu 1 Sat 13:00-20:15 Sun 9:00-15:30 Sat 4 April Moomin fairytale play Loved Moomin characters take the stage in two stories: “Jungle in Moominvalley” and “Island of the Hattifatteners”. This one hour show is suitable for all ages. The play is in Finnish.

Madetojasali, 14:00 and 17:00 Lintulammentie 1-3 Tickets €14 www.muumitapahtumat.com

Exhibitions Wed 1 Apr to Sun 19 April Elina Sipilä and Kaisu Sirviö Northern Light Graphic art by two female artists.

Gallery 5 Hallituskatu 5 Wed - Fri 12:00-18:00 Sat - Sun 12:00-16:00 Free entrance www.arthouse.oulu.net/galleria5 044 0313631 Until 13 April Human Traces Ten contemporary Finnish artists’ work discusses the act of leaving one’s trace and the concept of humanity.

Oulu Museum of Art Kasarmintie 7 Tue – Sun 10:00-17:00 Tickets €3/1/0 www.oulu.ouka.fi/taidemuseo

THIS

29

By Mari Kaislaniemi

MONTH’S PICK Bodil Frendberg

e Flexibel s i Stud

NowTourism

SixDegrees

Tourism Activities Professional

One year, practical studies, national exam

25 euros / year

Axxell, Pargas www.axxell.fi/pargas pargas@axxell.fi Pjukalantie 134, Parainen Puh: 0290 01 7220

Bodil Frendberg’s use of light and shadow creates dream-like photographs.

Bodil Frendberg Metamorphic[s] Photographing carefully chosen props and people, transforming them into poetry. Bodil Frendberg’s play with light and shadow creates strong images that bring to life objects that have been forgotten by others.

Frendberg combines lifeless objects with people in surprising ways. The interaction of the objects and the people convey fragility of the self as well as determination of the human spirit.

Settings for each photograph have been carefully selected as well as the gestures and postures of the figures. Figures remain almost in shadows or they are seen intersecting the light, either way the end result is slightly bizarre and almost like a dream.

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MASTER OF EDUCATION, INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME University of Oulu, Finland

This 5-year degree programme focuses on educating experts in educational tasks who are able to respond to the challenges of an increasingly international and multicultural society.

The programme is divided to 3-year Bachelor’s degree and 2-year Master’s degree and it provides with primary teacher’s qualifications. The syllabus includes studies in school subjects taught in the Finnish comprehensive schools and courses in educational sciences focusing on Global Education. The language of instruction is largely English.

Application deadline is 30.4.2009.

For further information and details on application procedure please refer to our website or contact us.

http://wwwedu.oulu.fi/master Mr Jani Haapakoski International Coordinator Tel. +358 8 553 3715 Jani.Haapakoski@oulu.fi

Ms Saila Lassila Student Affairs Tel. +358 8 553 3680 Saila.Lassila@oulu.fi

Bodil Frendberg’s exhibition is part of the Year of Photography 2009 exhibition series. The aim of the series is to bring joy and expand understanding of photographic art.

Until Mon 13 April Kummigalleria Hallituskatu 7 Mon – Sun 10:00-20:00 Free entrance

Until Thu 16 April Olli Joki Vivid colourful paintings by Olli Joki, depicting people from all over the world.

Neliö-Galleria Asemakatu 37 Tue - Fri 11:00–17:00 Sat 11:00–15:00 Sun 12:00–16:00 Free entrance www.neliogalleria.com 040 5108680 Sat 18 April to Sun 6 September Season of Frost This photography exhibition is part of the Year of Photography 2009 exhibition series.

Oulu Museum of Art Kasarmintie 7 Tue – Sun 10:00-17:00 Tickets €3/1/0 www.oulu.ouka.fi/taidemuseo 08 55847450 Sun 19 Apr to Sun 10 May Eija-Liisa Löyttyniemi Calm paintings mainly of landscapes.

Neliö-Galleria Asemakatu 37 Tue - Fri 11:00–17:00 Sat 11:00–15:00 Sun 12:00–16:00 Free entrance www.neliogalleria.com 040 5108680

Sports Sat 28 & Sun 29 March Sun 19 April Bowling competition The final competition of an open bowling tournament.

pohjoinenvalokuvakeskus.fi 08 3110611

You

will love

Oulu Bowling hall, 12:30-16:30 Isokatu 97 http://keilahalli.faarao.fi Sat 28 March International Oulu Fight Night 2009 Finnish and foreign names step into the ring to battle each other in boxing as well as amateur and professional mixed martial arts matches. Daytime combat exhibition 11:00-16:30 will showcase different sports and matches in boxing and mixed martial arts. Exhibition is free with the night ticket, otherwise tickets are €5.

Club Teatria, 18:00 Härkätie 1 Tickets €20/25/50 www.ons.fi 27 – 29 March Marathon Ice Fishing A 48 hour long marathon in ice fishing. This is the world’s longest continuous ice fishing competition.

Near Oritkari harbour Fri 18:00 – Sun 18:00

the way

we print it.

The bigger printing house gives you more possibilities.

Others Until 5 April Winter Village A Winter Village with activities for young and old such as snow golf and all-terrain-vehicle riding for children.

Nallikari Hietasaarentie Sat & Sun 12:00-17:00 Free entrance The event listings in the Out&See section are based on the available information at the time of printing the issue. SixDegrees is not responsible for possible changes, mistakes, cancellations or lack of information concerning the events mentioned.

www.iprint.fi

SIXDegrees

30

Issue 3 2009

FakeNews

COMMENTARY Column Schopenhauer on blogging James O’Connor

THEY SAY everybody has a book in them, and it would probably be best if most people didn’t let theirs out. To take a culinary analogy, of the many different kinds and classes of writing we could say that the great works of literature are the equivalent of gourmet dining. They require unusual talent, time and great care in their preparation, and are scarce and not to everyone’s taste.

Made up by Ben Hughes

Pilots demand a stop to all flying HELSINKI – The Finnish pilots labor union released a statement yesterday indicating that they are unsatisfied with their current working conditions, and are threatening to strike.

“We’ve talked about this a lot, and come to the conclusion that flying just plain sucks”, described the spokesman of the group. “I mean, I know we’re getting paid ridiculous amounts for basically being glorified bus drivers, but we really feel that compensation isn’t the problem here,” the spokesman added. According to the press statement, the pilots feel that flying is just too arduous a task for anyone to occupy themselves with day in and day out. The document outlines several problems with the whole concept, starting from the uncomfortable seats in the cockpit and ending with the ridiculously boring takeoff procedures. As of press time, the airlines are running tests to ascertain whether or not having a pilot on board during flights has any safety implications.

Kamppi centre to be converted back to hole in the ground HELSINKI - Roughly four years after its opening, the Kamppi shopping center will now be torn down again and replaced with a gigantic hole in the ground. “It turns out people liked the big hole in the ground much better than the swanky new shopping mall,” said the city coordinator responsible for the project. “We were pretty surprised too, and sorry to see the fruits of the fiveyear construction project go to waste like this, but you can’t argue with the people,” he added. Meanwhile, the city is also looking into the feasibility of converting the entire Töölö area back into a sheet of ice.

FakeNews is a madeup fictional column.

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Kohtauspaikka, Turun kauppahalli, Turun kaupungin kirjaamo, Turun kaupungin matkailutoimisto, Turun kaupungin musiikkikirjasto, Turun kaupungin pääkirjasto, Turun lentoasema, Turun Taidemuseo, Turun ulkomaalaistoimisto, Valokuvakeskus PERI, Wäino Aaltosen Museo, Yliopiston päärakennus Oulu: 1st Bar, Amarillo, Bar&Cafe Milou, Coffee House, Cumulus Hotel Oulu, Galleria Harmaja, Hemingways/Kirkkokatu, Hemingways/Kajaaninkatu, Hesburger/Isokatu 32, Holiday Club Oulun Eden, Holiday Inn Hotelli, Kahvila Humus, Maailmankauppa Juuttipukki, Makuuni/Hallituskatu, Makuuni/Torikatu, Neliö-Galleria, Nuku-Nuorisokeskus, Nuorten tietoja neuvontakeskus Nappi, Nuortenkeskus Walda, Oulun ammattikorkeakoulun osakunta/OSAKO, Oulun elokuvakeskus, Oulun kaupungin matkailupalvelut, Oulun kaupunginkirjasto, Oulun lyseon lukio, Oulun vastaanottokeskus, Oulun yliopiston keskusaula, Linnanmaa, Oulu-opisto, Pohjois-Pohjanmaa-museo, Radisson SAS Oulu, Ravintola Amica, Ravintola Torero, Robert’s coffee, Rockpolis – Musiikin tiedotus- ja neuvontakeskus, Tiedekeskus Tietomaa, Subway, Uusi seurahuone Jyväskylä: Agora, Anttila/Forum, Anttila/Sammontie, Bar 68, Cafe Libri, Coffee House/Kauppakatu, Elosen Konditoria/Jyväskeskus, Hemingways, Hennes & Mauritz, Ilokivi-baari, Intersport Megastore/Tourula, Jyväskylän AMK/Mankolan kampus, Jyväskylän kaupunki/hallintokeskus, Jyväskylän taidemuseo, Kahvila Eeden/Viherlandia, Kasvisravintola Katriina, Kaupungin kirjasto, Kulttuuriravintola Ylä-Ruth, Kumppanuustalo, Kuntokeskus Elixia, Kuokkalan Messi, Lozzi, Luontaiskeskus Torikeskus, Luontopuoti Kurjenkello, Matkailuneuvonta, McDonald’s/ Jyväkeskus, McDonald’s/Keljon keskus, McDonald’s/ Tourula, Memphis, Monikulttuurisuuskeskus Gloria, Nuorisoasiainkeskus, Old Corner, Parnell`s/ Gummeruksenkatu, Parnell`s/Väinönkatu, Piato/ Mattilanniemi, Pizza best/Lutakko, Ravintola Idea, Ravintola Rentukka, Sohwi, Tanssisali Lutakko, The Old Brick’s Inn, Vakiopaine, Wilhelmiina, Yliopiston pääkirjasto, Yliopiston päärakennus, Ylistö, YTHS, Muu Suomi: Etelä-Karjalan ammattikorkeakoulu, Kainuun monikuttuurinen toimintakeskus / Kajaani, Kuopion kirjasto, Lahden Multi-Culti, Mikkelin Monikulttuurikeskus Mimosa, Mikkelin AMK Kasarmin kampus, Helsingin Business School /Mikkeli Business Campus, Etelä-Savon Ammattiopiston aikuiskoulutuskeskus / Mikkeli, Työväen akatemian kirjasto / Kauniainen, Vaasan yliopisto / Kansainväliset Asiat, Hanken / Vaasa, Joensuun Carelicum, Hyvinkään Kirjasto, Kotkan vastaanottokeskus / Karhula, HAMK Hämeen ammattikorkeakoulu / Riihimäki, Kokkolan koulutuskirjasto, Diakonia AMK: n kirjasto / Järvenpää, Lappeenrannan kaupunki Maahanmuuttajat / Kirkkokatu, Seinäjoen AMK Kampustalo, Haaga-Helia Porvoon yksikkö

CRIME and romance novels and the like, on the other hand, the Barbara Cartlands, John Grishams, Stephen Kings and umpteen others of that sort, are the McDonald’s of the written word. Most autobiographies and memoirs are at the same level. Vladimir Lenin held that democracy was the right of the village idiot to express his views, and eight years of George W. Bush in the White House proved that village idiots can go far with the right connections.

Now that Dubya is writing his life story, scheduled for a 2010 release and tentatively titled Decision Points, there will soon be another high-profile addition to the massively bloated junk food section of published work.

CONTINUING the food analogy and moving still further down the line, it’s fair to suggest that the modern phenomenon of blogging represents the final stage of the literary alimentary canal, the written equivalent of what comes out at the end of the digestive process.

I’M NOT being nasty. There are an estimated one billion blogs in existence, and among that vast number there are certainly a few that do not fit the above description. But it seems safe to say these are swamped by the amount that do.

WITH this in mind, I thought I’d pass on a few lines of wisdom I came across recently in an essay by the melancholic nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. What he had to say about reading and books seems prophetic of the state of writing in the era of “The Daily Me”, the mind-numbing, narcissistic outpouring that seems to make up the vast proportion of the blogosphere.

I’LL leave all further complaints about blogging to The Great Pessimist. Substitute “blogs” for “books” in what follows and you might agree that my heading isn’t too much of an anachronism. Then again, you might not.

“IT IS the same in literature as in life: at every turn we encounter the unreformable rabble of mankind, present everywhere in droves, filling and spoiling everything, like flies in summer. Hence the immense number of bad books, those plentiful weeds of literature, which deprive the wheat of nourishment and choke it. They use up all the time and attention of the public, which by right belongs to good books and their noble aims. In this way they are not just useless but positively harmful”.

AND here is what in my view clinches the link between Schopenhauer’s attack and the mindless self-promotion of not all, but most blogging: “Because people always read only the newest instead of the best of all times, authors remain in the narrow sphere of circulating ideas and the age becomes more and more clogged up in its own sludge”.

James O’Connor is a doctoral student at the department of political science at the University of Helsinki and a freelance writer.

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