Morjes!

Welcome to my blog. I write about fitting in, sticking out, and missing the motherland as a serial foreigner.

Finnish bathroom sign

Finnish bathroom sign

I see signs like this (with this exact wording or very similar) in bathrooms in Finland fairly often. And I do not understand the literal words. I understand the meaning is something like, "please keep the bathroom tidy!" (I think!?!? Leave it to me to get this totally wrong.) But I can't figure out the actual grammar of the thing. And "I saw this sign in the bathroom..." is just not a way I have been brave enough to start a question to actually ask a Finn about this.

Now I'm trying to think if other countries have whimsical "keep things tidy" plaques in their bathrooms. I know the UAE sometimes had signs asking people not to stand on the toilet seats, and I know there is an unwritten "if you sprinkle when you tinkle, be sweet and wipe the seat" rule for ladies' bathrooms in the US, but I can't remember if I've ever seen a sign quite like this one.

A different food landscape

A different food landscape

June 9th, outsourced