Non-English Nonfiction

[Linguaphile]

Crecer a golpes is a collection of stories and essays about conflicts throughout the Americas written by authors from those countries where they took place.

This one looks interesting, thanks! I've added it to my list of things-to-get-around-to-reading-someday.

La tentación de lo imposible is a long essay about revolution by Peruvian novelist Vargas Llosa, who seems to be very well known in South America in general.

Yes he definitely is very well-known! He also won the Nobel Prize in Literature back in 2010. I haven't read any of this work yet, though, other than some excerpts in college (for literature courses). Largely I think that's because I do prefer nonfiction over fiction. A lot of his better-known works are fiction, and even those that are nonfiction tend to be about fiction. (La tentación de lo imposible, for example, is about Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. If you do decide to read it, I get the impression it would be helpful to be familiar with Les Misérables first.)

[vijayjohn]

I haven't read any of this work yet, though, other than some excerpts in college (for literature courses).

Me, neither. I haven't read any of it at all.

La tentación de lo imposible, for example, is about Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. If you do decide to read it, I get the impression it would be helpful to be familiar with Les Misérables first.

I read volume II in French many years ago, though in a great rush, and volume I was nowhere to be found in French class where I picked up the second volume. So I'll probably end up being clueless anyway, which is just as well considering that that's how I am with most of the literature I've been reading lately.

[Linguaphile]

I'm reading La cigüeña vino de Miami by Luis Melgar right now and thoroughly enjoying it. I'd previously read Los blancos estáis locos by the same author and liked it; it is about the author's time as a Spanish diplomat in Equatorial Guinea. (The title comes from his Equatoguinean housekeeper, who IIRC basically "came with the house" after working for the home's previous residents, and she made that comment on finding out that the author was married to a man - after which she, the author and his husband became great friends.) Both books are written with subtle humor and a thoughtful, balanced attitude toward the places he has lived and the people he has met.

In La cigüeña vino de Miami he is working as a diplomat in Venezuela but the book mostly focuses on his and his husband's journey towarding having a child, which they do thorough a surrogate from Trinidad who lives in Florida. The book focuses in alternate chapters on his own life and on the life of the surrogate mother. It's fascinating, as they all have interesting lives and I knew nothing about the process of surrogate parenting. This is also what makes the book seem so well balanced: he'll end a chapter with something difficult that has happened in his own life, but instead of dwelling on it, he launches straight into the next chapter with the bigger challenges the surrogate had faced years ago in her own life.

I also absolutely love to find books written by non-U.S. authors who write about the U.S. in a balanced way (not overly praising everything nor constantly criticizing everything) and Melgar does that beautifully, although it's not the focus on the book but instead just little nuggets here and there. He mentions frustrations (and shock) with the U.S. health care system and with student loans but just in passing (explained for a Spanish audience, which makes it more interesting to me).

In what I read just now, he's trying to figure out which race/ethnicity to put on paperwork in Florida, or more specifically to try to put down the race/ethnicity for a potential egg donor who will be of the same race as he and his husband and - after pointing out that it's scientifically inaccurate to classify humans into races in the first place - he puzzles over whether to put Hispanic (Mandaría narices que los descendientes de los primitivos habitantes de la Hispania romana no fuéramos hispanos), Latino (Igual de disparatada es la idea de que los latinos solon estén en América, cuando el significado original del término latino es «natural de Lacio, región de Italia», and finally says "pero los americanos son así y, tras profundas deliberaciones, decidimos incluirnos en el grupo de los caucásios, a pesar de que no creo tener ningún antepasado que venga de Georgia, de Armenia ni de Azerbayán." That was in the part I just read. So I'm only about a third of the way through the book so far, but I've found all of it very interesting, thought-provoking and a fun read.

[vijayjohn]

I've been reading a good deal of non-English nonfiction (and fiction) lately. The last thing I read was an interview with a British musician in the Croatia Airlines in-flight magazine from like 11 years ago. I think it was originally an e-mail questionnaire in English and then translated into Croatian (the magazine is completely bilingual in these languages).

[Linguaphile]

My other current and recent reads are Gente casi perfecta by Michael Booth about the Nordic countries but that one is translated from English; Viaje a las estepas by Cristián Pérez about a group of Chilean students who ended up stranded in the USSR during and after the 1973 coup in Chile; Chernóbil: 25 años después by Santiago Camacho ,which is partly about the Chernobyl accident itself and partly about a Basque group (Chernobileko Umeak) that brings children from near Chernobyl to Spain for the summer; and 101 Eesti vana aja asja by Piret Õunapuu about aspects of old Estonian culture.
I've also just barely started Una ventana a la historia: relatos de la ciudad de México by Patricia Guerra Frese about the history of Mexico City and I'm not really far enough into that one to know how good it will be, but from the little I've read it seems interesting.
I'm actually reading too many books at once, it's taking me too long to finish them because I read a bit of one and then move on to another. At this point I think I am going to try to finish La cigüeña vino de Miami and 101 Eesti vana aja asja before continuing with the others or starting anything else new. (I'm about a third of the way through La cigüeña and about 80% of the way through 101 Eesti vana aja asja, well, in that one I'm on #81 of the 101 two-page "chapters".)

[aaakknu]

I've read a dozen or so of the 140+ books in the "Minu"-sari series of books in Estonian.

I heard about this series, but I completely forgot about it! Thank you for reminding me. Can I buy an ebook somewhere?

I haven't seen ebooks, I've read them in paperback. But you can get the paperbacks from Apollo, Rahva Raamat, or pretty much any other online bookstore that has Estonian books. You can also order from Petrone Print directly.

Hey, I'm wrong! I guess I just hadn't paid attention to the ebooks since I preferred paperbacks. It turns out you can get them as ebooks from Petrone Print, Rahva Raamat and Apollo. Küllap ka mujalt aga lisaks neist kauplustest ma ei tea kust. Head lugemist!

"Minu Ukraina" on ilmunud!
https://www.facebook.com/1194812675/pos ... 715747234/

[Linguaphile]

I've read a dozen or so of the 140+ books in the "Minu"-sari series of books in Estonian.

I heard about this series, but I completely forgot about it! Thank you for reminding me. Can I buy an ebook somewhere?

I haven't seen ebooks, I've read them in paperback. But you can get the paperbacks from Apollo, Rahva Raamat, or pretty much any other online bookstore that has Estonian books. You can also order from Petrone Print directly.

Hey, I'm wrong! I guess I just hadn't paid attention to the ebooks since I preferred paperbacks. It turns out you can get them as ebooks from Petrone Print, Rahva Raamat and Apollo. Küllap ka mujalt aga lisaks neist kauplustest ma ei tea kust. Head lugemist!

"Minu Ukraina" on ilmunud!
https://www.facebook.com/1194812675/pos ... 715747234/

Ooh, nice! Another new one that just came out is another about the US, "Minu Colorado". The most recent ones I have are Minu Kihnu and Minu Viljandi which came out last summer. And I haven't read them. I've got to catch up!

[vijayjohn]

Currently, I'm reading Kızlarıma Mektuplar ('Letters to My Daughters') in Turkish by Prof. Emre Kongar, which is just what it sounds like, since his daughters were studying abroad at some point (at least one of them in the US). I've also been reading a trilingual guide to Yakutsk in English, Russian, and Sakha and a book of poetry in Urdu by the late poet Ahmad Faraz. I briefly attempted to read a bit of 最新国語資料集 (see the end of this post) and finished reading Practical Chinese Reader V and the grammar in Malayalam I was reading before.

[azhong]

In La cigüeña vino de Miami... The book focuses in alternate chapters on his own life and on the life of the surrogate mother...he'll end a chapter with something difficult that has happened in his own life, but instead of dwelling on it, he launches straight into the next chapter with the bigger challenges the surrogate had faced years ago in her own life.

You've done a wonderful introduction to the two books by the Spanish gay diplomat, I am attracted, and I am wondering if it's possible for you to help me know more about what I've quoted. What problems does he have? Is it because he is a gay, a Spanish lives abroad in Venezuela, he worked as a diplomat or something else? And what problems does the surrogate have? Does her problems show us something special related in her culture, politics, etc? And, what's more, do their separate problems have relationship, so that the author write their problems together? Thank you.

[Linguaphile]

In La cigüeña vino de Miami... The book focuses in alternate chapters on his own life and on the life of the surrogate mother...he'll end a chapter with something difficult that has happened in his own life, but instead of dwelling on it, he launches straight into the next chapter with the bigger challenges the surrogate had faced years ago in her own life.

You've done a wonderful introduction to the two books by the Spanish gay diplomat, I am attracted, and I am wondering if it's possible for you to help me know more about what I've quoted. What problems does he have? Is it because he is a gay person, a Spanish person lives living abroad in Venezuela, he worked works as a diplomat or something else? And what problems does the surrogate have? Does Do her problems show us something special related in to her culture, politics, etc? And, what's more, do their separate problems have relationship, so that the author write connects their problems together? Thank you.

I was vague about the challenges because it's not just just a single event; many of the chapters involve various challenges that they face, and so in many chapters he ends with something that has just happened in his own life, and I'll not want that chapter to end there because I want to know what happens next and I know the next chapter is going to be about the surrogate mother so I'll have to wait until the chapter after it to find out what happens. But then in the chapter about the surrogate mother, there is something equally or more captivating, so that I'll forget about the author's own problems in the meantime. I think it's a good writing style.
So some of the challenges the author and his partner face in various chapters are things like this:

► Show Spoiler

they were given the news that due to a medical condition they would have to wait a year before having a baby; they were given the news that the process would cost $18,000 more than they expected; the author's partner had acute appendicitis while vacationing on an island without good medical facilities, and was too sick to travel off the island; they found out that their medical insurance would not cover the baby, and that without insurance, costs at birth could reach $300,000, which they can't afford; and so on. At one point, the author and his partner believe that their unborn child has macrocephaly (enlarged head) and a brain malformation; then they could not get in contact with the surrogate mother for several hours to get more details (this one turned out to be a linguistic misunderstanding).

Some of the challenges the surrogate mother has faced in her past are things like this:

► Show Spoiler

her mother moved her to United States from her home country because she was in a relationship with a boy her mom didn't like and that was a way to separate them; her brother, who still lives in Trinidad, was beaten up and nearly killed; after recovering, her brother is at risk of being beaten up again or being arrested because he is gay and that is illegal in Trinidad, but they are unable (so far) to arrange for him to come to the United States; her mother kicks her out of the house while she is studying to be a nurse, and so she has to pause her studies to get a job and live on her own; her mother does not speak to her at all and shows signs of having a mental disorder; she is afraid to tell her mom that she is pregnant, and especially afraid to tell her the circumstances of this pregnancy, that it is not going to be her own baby, etc; she has constant nausea during the pregnancy, can hardly eat, and refuses to take medication; and at the point in the book where I am now, a hurricane is coming and she has to prepare for it (at this point, where I am now in the book, she's having trouble finding bottled water to stock up on, and tape to protect her windows, as she prepares for the coming hurricane).
A funny moment in the hurricane preparations occurs when she asks a friend to bring her "duct tape" (the strong gray tape that can be used to hold up plastic to cover the windows during the hurricane) and instead the friend brings her "duck tape" (in this case, not very strong tape that has pictures of the Donald Duck cartoon on it). It turns out it was not actually a misunderstanding, but the store had no duct tape, so the friend brought the duck tape as a joke.

And yes, their separate problems do have a relationship.

► Show Spoiler

The surrogate mother was about to decide that she didn't want to have someone else's baby; she had tried several times (with other couples) already and there had always been problems so it didn't work out. And initially, she had decided to do it for the money that she would be paid, because of the problems she had when her mother kicked her out of the house. She had decided not to try again, when her brother came out as gay. Seeing how difficult things were for him, she decided that she wanted to help a homosexual couple to have a baby, as a way of helping them to reach their dreams, and that's what made her decide to try again.

Edit: added spoiler tags so that if anyone else wants to read the book, I don't reveal too many details here.

[azhong]

Thank you. This is a very special experience that through a foreign firend's help I can catch what a book is taking about in details, especially that the book is written in a language I don't know at all, which made your help more precious.

From the problems they face separately in their lives, it can be clearly seen that they live in two different worlds. It sounds to me like that the deplomatic is trying to get more delicious snacks, cinnamon rolls for example, for enjoying their afternoon tea time, but the surrogate mother, some basic rice and meat to survive. All their experiences are also uncommon to me, too.

BTW, the dual-line narration used in his book, I touched it for the first time when I read the novel “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” (1991) by the prolific Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who is seemingly quite in favor of this writing form and repeated it in his later books. I am mentioning this just because it comes to my mind but I know I'm being off the topic.

Thank you again. Your introduction to the books are really brilliant.

[vijayjohn]

I've started reading A Ditadura Envergonhada by Elio Gaspari. It starts with an explicação followed by the introduction, which is something like twenty pages long, I think similar in length to each of the chapters that follows it. I'm not quite sure how to translate either the title or the word explicação in this context. Normally, I'd translate explicação into English as 'explanation', but it feels more like a foreword or preface. Would "explanatory note" or something like that work? But that feels like it's suggesting something shorter than this explicação.

Thank you. This is a very special experience that through a foreign firend's help I can catch what a book is taking about in details, especially that the book is written in a language I don't know at all, which made your help more precious.

I guess I would say:
Thank you. It is a very special experience to be able to catch what a book is talking about in detail with the help of a foreign friend, especially when the book is written in a language I don't know at all, making your help more precious.

From the problems they face separately in their lives, it can be clearly seen that they live in two different worlds. It sounds to me like that the deplomatic

I guess you mean "diplomat"?

is trying to get more delicious snacks, cinnamon rolls for example, for enjoying their afternoon tea time, but the surrogate mother, some basic rice and meat to survive.

What gives you this impression? I don't understand how you came to this conclusion.

All their experiences are also uncommon to me, too.

I guess you mean "unfamiliar"?

BTW, the dual-line narration used in his book, I touched it for the first time when I read the novel “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” (1991) by the prolific Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who is seemingly quite in favor of this writing form and repeated it in his later books. I am mentioning this just because it comes to my mind but I know I'm being off the topic.

Thank you again. Your introduction to the books are really brilliant.

I think I would say I touched the dual-line narration used in his book for the first time...seemingly very much in favor...being off-topic...Your introduction to the books is...

[azhong]

It sounds to me like that the deplomat is trying to get more delicious snacks, cinnamon rolls for example, for enjoying their afternoon tea time, but the surrogate mother, some basic rice and meat to survive.

What gives you this impression? I don't understand how you came to this conclusion.

(Before our chat goes on, I thank you for your language help, Vijay.)

The original reasons for the diplomat and the surrogate mother moving to USA are of different social levels already, and their financial abilities differs, too.

The diplomat is expecting a baby with his partner; they are richer and capable of buying labourious services with money. The surrogate mother, on the opposite, is less rich and has to make money by providing services which well-educated people wouldn't like to do.

The diplomat's partner infects the acute appendicitis; it happens on his trip abroad. The brother of the surrogate mother, on the other hand, also needs to see the doctor (if he has money for that) but it's for another reason: he is beaten up because he is gay, which is illigal in his country. The latter is poor and not able to travel to a gay-friendlier country to enjoy his life; he can only stay in his home country and face the descrimination and violence for his sexual tendency. The Spainisch gay couple, however, are wealthier and able to afford a trip abroad. As for their money-costing plan of have an offspring in a foreign country (perhaps because the surrogate mother system is still illegal in Spain, I guess?) I think it's not what the beaten gay can afford, perhaps nor what he dare dream of.

Have I added too many personal, subjective imaginations? Don't get me wrong; I am not saying that "the richer, the happier". I think the two families are seeking life dreams of different levels.

All their experiences are also uncommon to me, too.

I guess you mean "unfamiliar"?

How about "unusual" or "unordinary"? Are there any differences between "unusual" and " uncommon"？

In Chinese, I'll say 不尋常:

（他們的經歷 我也覺得都很）不尋常。
（All their experiences are also uncommon/unusual/unordinary to me, too.）

We won't say "不熟(悉)”(unfamiliar) in Chinese in this case.

I am reading nothing nonfictional. I am learning German, and at times I sample a simple passage out of the German novel "Das Parfum" and study it.

[Rí.na.dTeangacha]

I've started reading A Ditadura Envergonhada by Elio Gaspari. It starts with an explicação followed by the introduction, which is something like twenty pages long, I think similar in length to each of the chapters that follows it. I'm not quite sure how to translate either the title or the word explicação in this context. Normally, I'd translate explicação into English as 'explanation', but it feels more like a foreword or preface. Would "explanatory note" or something like that work? But that feels like it's suggesting something shorter than this explicação.

I can't remember seeing an explicação in any books I've read, but looking it up in this online dictionary, the third definition looks like it might fit:

Preleção (feita pelo professor), sobre o texto.

A preleção can be a discussion or lecture, something which certainly implies something longer to me that what you'd see in a typical prelude or foreward.

[vijayjohn]

(Before our chat goes on, I thank you for your language help, Vijay.)

No problem!

The original reasons for the diplomat and the surrogate mother moving to USA are of different social levels already, and their financial abilities differs, too.

Well, the diplomat and the surrogate mother are definitely of different social levels, and yes, their financial abilities differ, too. Thus, their original reasons for moving to the USA are different. Is that what you meant?

The diplomat is expecting a baby with his partner; they are richer and capable of buying labourious services with money.

I think I might say ...they are richer and can hire domestic workers.

The surrogate mother, on the opposite, is less rich and has to make money by providing services which well-educated people wouldn't like to do.

I would say on the other hand, is less wealthy and...

The diplomat's partner infects the acute appendicitis

I think I'd say suffers from acute appendicitis or just has acute appendicitis.

illigal in his country. The latter is poor and not able to travel to a gay-friendlier country to enjoy his life; he can only stay in his home country and face the descrimination and violence for his sexual tendency. The Spainisch

I would spell those words illegal, discrimination, and Spanish and say face discrimination (without the the).

money-costing

Expensive?

plan of have an offspring in a foreign country (perhaps because the surrogate mother system is still illegal in Spain, I guess?) I think it's not what the beaten gay can afford, perhaps nor what he dare dream of.

I think I would write plan to have...(perhaps because the surrogate mother system is still illegal in Spain, I guess?), I doubt the gay man who suffers from harsher discrimination can afford or dare to dream of it.

Have I added too many personal, subjective imaginations? Don't get me wrong; I am not saying that "the richer, the happier". I think the two families are seeking life dreams of different levels.

I'm not sure the diplomat is literally looking for better food than the surrogate mother. I agree with your overall point, though.

All their experiences are also uncommon to me, too.

I guess you mean "unfamiliar"?

How about "unusual" or "unordinary"?

Ah, yes, "unusual" would work! I think I would say I find all their experiences unusual, too; I also find all their experiences unusual; I think (that) all their experiences are unusual, too; or I also think (that) all their experiences are unusual.

Are there any differences between "unusual" and " uncommon"？

Strictly speaking, I don't think there are, but I find the use of "uncommon" a bit more unusual than "unusual."

I've started reading A Ditadura Envergonhada by Elio Gaspari. It starts with an explicação followed by the introduction, which is something like twenty pages long, I think similar in length to each of the chapters that follows it. I'm not quite sure how to translate either the title or the word explicação in this context. Normally, I'd translate explicação into English as 'explanation', but it feels more like a foreword or preface. Would "explanatory note" or something like that work? But that feels like it's suggesting something shorter than this explicação.

I can't remember seeing an explicação in any books I've read, but looking it up in this online dictionary, the third definition looks like it might fit:

Preleção (feita pelo professor), sobre o texto.

A preleção can be a discussion or lecture, something which certainly implies something longer to me that what you'd see in a typical prelude or foreward.

It's only eight pages long, so I'm not sure, maybe.
I think I was wrong, btw; most of the other chapters seem to be about twice as long as the introduction.

[Linguaphile]

It sounds to me like that the diplomat is trying to get more delicious snacks, cinnamon rolls for example, for enjoying their afternoon tea time, but the surrogate mother, some basic rice and meat to survive.

What gives you this impression? I don't understand how you came to this conclusion.

The original reasons for the diplomat and the surrogate mother moving to USA are of different social levels already, and their financial abilities differs, too.

Yes. I understood what you meant; you are using the foods as a metaphor for differing socioeconomic situations and the options available to them. Your metaphor surprised me a bit at first but it does make sense to me.

(perhaps because the surrogate mother system is still illegal in Spain, I guess?)

Yes, exactly, you've understood the situation very well.

The diplomat is expecting a baby with his partner; they are richer and capable of buying labourious services with money.

I think I might say ...they are richer and can hire domestic workers.

Well, no, I think azhong meant the services of the surrogate mother and whatever other difficult things they may pay others to do so that they don't have to (or, in this case, because they simply can't do it without this help). No domestic workers involved.
"They are richer and capable of paying for the services of others" if you want to say it in a very general sense, or maybe "They are richer and capable of paying others to do laborious work for them" if you want to include the word "labourious". (Laborious in American spelling, labourious in British spelling, either one is fine for you but I personally used "laborious" in my sentence because I use U.S. English.)
Also, when you are using the word paying, you don't need to include the words with money. It will usually be assumed that the payment is with money unless something else is specified.

[azhong]

I actually have had a question in mind about the author since I read Linguaphile's introduction: will the author be discriminated in his diplomatic career because he is a coming-out gay person, coming out with such a big step that he even publishes a book to announce he seeks a surrogate mother abroad, a behavior still illigal in Spain?

I guess the diplomatic circle is more conservative than, for example, the entertainment industry; diplomatic personnel represent their country. Does the author just doesn't care to be marginalized because he is not ambitious in his career? Or can the Spainish people already accept a gay deplomat as normally as accepting a non-gay deplomat? Can that be really true so far?

I don't know much about the Western countries; I've never stepped onto any of them.

[Linguaphile]

I actually have had a question in mind about the author since I read Linguaphile's introduction: will the author be discriminated against in his diplomatic career because he is a coming-out gay person, coming out with such a big step that he even publishes a book to announce he seeks a surrogate mother abroad, a behavior still illegal in Spain?

I'll answer your question below, but before that, just a side note: as I understand it, the reason it is illegal to pay a surrogate mother to carry a child for them in Spain has nothing to do with the fact that they are a gay couple, but rather to do with ethical issues related to things like paying a woman to carry someone else's baby, potential health risks to the surrogate, etc. (It's a very complex issue and in the United States, it is legal in some states and illegal in others.) So the fact that it is illegal in Spain is not a sign of anti-gay sentiment or discrimination, but it does affect the gay community more, because it is the only way that a male same-sex couple can have a baby that is genetically (biologically) their own.
It is not illegal for people from Spain to travel to other countries for it, as the author did. In other words, they didn't sneak off to find a surrogate mother secretly - others have done it the same way and it's accepted. The laws in Spain only forbid women in Spain from being the surrogate mothers.

I guess the diplomatic circle is more conservative than, for example, the entertainment industry; diplomatic personnel represent their country. Does the author just not care about being marginalized because he is not ambitious in his career? Or can the Spanish people already accept a gay diplomat as just as normal as accepting a non-gay diplomat? Can that be really true so far?

If I've understood you, I think you are asking whether his career is limited by the fact that he is gay? No, it is not. My impression is that because (just as you said) diplomatic personnel represent their country, the Spanish government considers it good to have diplomats who are as diverse as the general population (or at least has no problems with it). There are same-sex couples in Spain, so there are also same-sex couples among Spain's diplomats. Same-sex marriage is legal in Spain. It seems like a non-issue that doesn't limit his opportunities career-wise. But he wrote very little about this in this book (which I've finished now), and I can't remember specifically what he may have said about it in his first book. If he has encountered much discrimination, he hasn't written about it in these books.
There are a few problems that arise that could be considered a form of discrimination. He cannot take the same maternity leave to be with his daughter that a biological mother would take, instead taking a shorter paternity leave; this is because the laws for mothers (who have health issues of their own related to pregnancy) are different from the laws for fathers. His newborn daughter can't be covered by his own medical insurance when she born until (if I remember correctly) several months after her birth because it takes that much time to add her to his insurance policy; that's an issue that a biological mother wouldn't have. (And add to this the fact that there are three countries involved, for the insurance to deal with: they are Spanish citizens, but they live in Venezuela, and the baby is born in the United States.)
So there are issues like the question of maternity leave and the question of health insurance, arising from policies that were written with only non-surrogate biological parents in mind. I don't think it is deliberate discrimination, just policies that haven't adapted to new situations. (This type of surrogate parenting wasn't even biologically possible until the 1980's, and same-sex marriage wasn't legal in Spain until 2005, so policies that are based on anything older than that aren't going to take this type of situation into account - it wouldn't have even been imagined. The current policies are probably newer than that, but probably based on older policies, without anyone thinking at the time about changing them.) Policies like that could be changed, and probably will be someday, but haven't been yet. One of the benefits of writing a book like this is to bring awareness to issues like those. I certainly wouldn't have even thought of those issues myself, before reading the book, not from any lack of acceptance but simply from never having had any exposure to the situation and therefore never having known enough about the policies to have any clue how they would affect people in unequal ways.

I've finished the book now. It's funny, your questions caused me to look things up online that I hadn't investigated while I was reading the book, so even though I've finished the book, I'm still learning more about it!

[azhong]

I also browsed on the internet after reading your explanation. The law in Taiwan about raising offsprings for a same-sex couple seems quite similar as that in Spain. It's not allowed for a same-sex couple to adopt a kid having blood relationship to neither of them both, but it's legal for a heterosexual couple. For a same-sex couple here, they can raise a kid only if one of them is the biological parent of the kid.
And the surrogate mother system is also illegal in Taiwan.

[Linguaphile]

A bunch of non-English nonfiction recently added to my collection, hopefully to start reading sometime in 2022:

In Spanish
Todo bajo control y nada resuelto Armando Carvallo Llanos (currently reading this one)
La isla de los ingenios Fernando García del Río
La memoria del Ararat Xavier Moret
Los reyes también lloran Jaime Peñafiel
Cuandos los chinos hablan Ana Fuentes
Viaje al Mekong Javier Nart y Gorka Nart

In Estonian
Minu Ukraina Jaanika Merilo
Minu Poola Anna Tiido
Võta isiklikult Ene Hion
Meie taluelu Epp Petrone ja Väike Myy

Lots of armchair travel plans for 2022!

Edit: Looking back at my posts from last month, I'll give an update. I finished four of the books I mentioned in previous posts: La cigüeña vino de Miami by Luis Melgar, Viaje a las estepas by Cristián Pérez, Chernóbil: 25 años después by Santiago Camacho and 101 Eesti vana aja asja by Piret Õunapuu. I have done more reading lately than I'd realized! But I stopped reading Gente casi perfecta by Michael Booth and Una ventana a la historia by Patricia Guerra Frese. I guess I should add them to the list above - books to get back to. There was nothing wrong with them, I was just reading so many books at once that I stopped reading those two, and I'd kind of forgotten about them.

So with this list of books my "armchair travel" should cover these places: Armenia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Laos, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine, and Vietnam.