It is really thoughtful and sweet of someone to actually spend the time, effort & money to buy a souvenir for somebody else; especially when we have limited to look at everything and anything when traveling. The process itself might be very tedious at times when there are a lot of people in our mind where we hope to make them happy. It is more so when you are visiting countries where the stuff are expensive, not just for the sake of parting the money from tourists, but more so the country with stronger currency. Thus, it is always a headache when a poor student like me had to buy A LOT for A LOT people back home. So if possible i'd ask what they want, so I could budget, and I usually buy contingency souvenirs for unexpected or friends that I just don’t know what to buy for! I don’t like to buy in bulks or buy conventional souvenirs, but there’s only so much I can find different in each country,
For myself, I like to purchase books printed locally in foreign countries, so far I’ve only got Russian, German, Philippines and Liverpool books. You must wonder if I could actually read some of the foreign language, of course I can’t! These books purchased are translated version works of the local author, another good buy is to get a book of local famous people, like Jose Rizal for Philippines, like if you want to purchase a Malaysian book, I would recommend Hang Tuah or the Malay Legends which could reflect our national culture, you get my drift on this? One of my friend, brought a ‘free’ copy of magazine only available in Korea featuring popular sensation, Rain! That’s like the ultimatum for me, lol, it’s a great souvenir idea really! Also, I think CD’s alright, but that’s more like my mom’s taste, she purchased Russian Folk Songs, Netherlands Encyclopedia (!LOL!) Ukraine Folk Songs, Little Pearls of Czech a Classical Collection (gift from the gracious wife of the Republic’s Senator). If I could, I would like to purchase traditional costume, but usually that cost a bomb, so I could only take pictures instead if I’m allowed. And the easiest souvenir that could please me is to print a postcard like picture that you’ve taken for me, that’s also one of the best kind of souvenirs.
My mom likes fridge magnets and is developing a liking to porcelain plates too.
My cousin loves to collect dolls, truth is, that is also one of the most expensive hobby to maintain.
My aunt loves nature, so she would ask me to get her pebbles from different streams, rivers or sea that I stopped by, which I’ve the utmost convenience when I visited Scotland.
Sometimes I’d buy according to their hobbies too, for example, my brother likes football, so it ranges from football jersey to size 1 football or anything that is football related. One of my friends loves MayDay, a band from Taiwan, and when I was in Taiwan I bought the local version of their CD which is not available back in Malaysia, so its pretty exclusive, and before I was a fan of them I think its pretty cool to own something from a foreign country where no one else back home has it.One of my friend loves pig, so anything with pig should be able to pass; another loves red and pink, so I basically can decide to purchase anything within this color range!
Sometimes I would buy according to gender, I mean, this is the easiest trap to fall into, being stereotypical, but it does reduce a lot of hassle. When I go to different states in Malaysia, its always easy to buy a lot of pretty bracelets for ladies, and tough looking ethnic bracelets for guys, hehe.
Of course, we can’t ignore the fact that cliché things are the easiest to buy and also to fulfill all the request back home, for example, to buy anything with the image of Eiffel Tower can pass for a souvenir from France, but I also purchase bars of soap made especially in France from natural ingredients like rose, lavender and olive which is really a novel idea. Another example is to buy souvenirs from HK, what comes into your mind? If you think of buying the usual key chains or fridge magnet or fashion accessories, these could be either too Chinese and you might just also get it from China or Taiwan too…but now that they have Disneyland in HK, heck its actually one of the most significant souvenir you could possibly get from HK now!
Sometimes, practical things that I heard my friends or family mentioned that they would like to have could be helpful, but that’s usually bulky items which I wont buy unless it is super out of the world things we can’t get back home. I mean, I do know a lot of people around me has this thing for Balinese stuff, the point is, its usually big and heavy because they want it as a deco for their homes, so… its usually best if they desperately wants it, with the technology we have now, to take a picture of that item, wired it back to the person and purchase on behalf of them. Sometimes, what you could do is budget a sum of money for them, so they can pay you before you leave for any traveling and you won’t get into the trouble of buying things on behalf of others and doesn’t have much left for your own shopping!
Well, just face it, you probably won’t be able to get enough souvenir for EVERY single person that you know, so learn to prioritize darling!
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