I may be wrong in asserting that in Japanese culture, one rarely says "NO" outright. So I have read. Now it turns out that there are Swedes who do the same. All summer, I have been trying to talk about stringing for a major Swedish newspaper from Latvia. I was led along for a couple of months with all kinds of semi-excuses, but never a clear NO, we don't have the money, and moreover, we are probably not interested. So finally, after one visit to Stockholm mainly to try to see this editor, and a second visit, having to do with my work, I get the word I could have been told in May or June or whenever I first thought these people were nibbling at my offer. Waste of my time and theirs.
Evidence, yet again. that the Swedes, aside from some narrow channels of information for specific audiences, or through their own company networks, really don't give a flying f**k about Latvia or the Baltics, nevermind how much of their business is done their, etc. etc. A strange provincialism from a people who claim their market is the whole world, and whose foreign aid agency SIDA at time worked on the principle -- the further from Sweden and the stranger the country, the more money we will pour into it.
