You say Keltainen, I say Oranssi

One of the few seemingly immutable things which most people assume to transcend cultural and language barriers is colour. The sky is blue, the grass is green and snow is white. Just don't tell Finns that their postal boxes are orange since, to them, they are most certainly yellow. When does yellow become orange? I don't know but I think it is far more subjective than I had previously considered.

There is a lot of my orange and their yellow all over Helsinki and I have mentioned this to Leon Brocard a few times since he is a man who is quite taken with the colour. I don't think he believes that Finland would be so fond of orange so I put together Helsingin Oranssi for kicks. I won't say which is orange and which is yellow to the Finns but if you calibrate for yellow with the posti box it sholdn't be too hard to guess. :)

7 Jul 2003 at 1:44, Helsinki