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Romanian Culture Today |
 
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(The Short Version)
Romanians are still recovering from years of Communism, and are
relishing their new lease on a future with European Union
membership.
They aren't really like anybody else, sharing Latin and Slavic
dispositions, and can generally be delightfully surprising or
inexplicably mercurial.
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Romania's powerful culture has been fortified by a rich history of
influences from it's Dacian tribal origins through Roman, Slavic, Ottoman, and Austrian
empires.
The Romanian language shares it's vibrant Latin roots with the other
romance languages of Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
Romanians persist in behaviours which visitors from English-speaking
countries find to be conflicted. With a saucy in-your-face Latin
attitude, you will not find a familiar docile version of Western street
etiquette in Romania's capital city Bucharest (which ranks lowest
amongst European capitals).
Yet being a guest in somebody's home or even being a
friend of a friend will afford you remarkable warm and giving courtesies
from your host.
English-speaking travellers and English-speakers who have made
Romania their homes (see
Mike Ormby's book about life in Romania here) often see Romanians in
a very humorous light.
For a Westerner, it's actually hard to take the very entertaining
ranting during city traffic very seriously, because it seems to have a
surreally comical edge for most denizens of the English-speaking world.
Even the sardonic responses of a slightly-too-snobby front desk clerk
are likely to bring more of a giggle than actual annoyance for the
average Australian traveller.
If you're not suspicious of the overly exhuberant taxi driver, with
his lively can-do attitude and offers of increasing levels of
assistance, then you should be.
Check the
cab fare immediately and keep smiling!
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The Palace of the People, the second largest
building on earth, looms in the distance behind the centre of
Bucharest on a rainy June afternoon
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 The photo immediately preceding this notice is Copyright (c)2005 - 2008 Rest
Romania SRL, All rights reserved.
Photo:
© REST ROMĀNIA
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From the Rest Romania Website at
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An Average Romanian
Doing an average thing whilst waiting for the
trolleybus. The enormous pretzel is a "corn", a larger version
of the "covrig" more normal-sized hot and
fluffy fresh pretzels endemic to small alleyways in downtown
districts and along major thoroughfares
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Understanding Your Romanian Hosts
First of all, think carefully about what over 40 years of cold,
crushing, and cruel communism might do to a warm and vibrant largely
peasant culture.
What would the older members of your family be
like after endless years of hopeless poverty, insanely stupid government
policies, and almost complete lack of affordable food?
Even as the old Communist guard slowly waned out of the political
ranks through the 1990s (they were all still there, just re-named),
normal people suffered equally dire hyperinflation, more shortages, lack
of basic services and massive unemployment.
The Paradox of Being Romanian
These systemised cruelties ingrained the Romanian psyche deeply, and
produced a rather striking paradox, at least to historically less
challenged Westerners.
It is the curious situation that Romanians are forever
at once warm and suspicious, welcoming and paranoid, generous and
greedy, loving and resentful.
Still, they slowly recover from the most disastrous social experiment
ever visited upon their nation, which saw prisoners forced to torture
each other, family members blackmailed to spy on each other, and the
fanatically bizarre destruction of entire villages and neighbourhoods,
replaced with stunningly ugly concrete blocks.
Thrown fairly violently from the extreme regime of Communism over the
Western wall to a sharply all-for-yourself rampant consumerism, the
long-hardened and rusted State-controlled mindset cracked suddenly with
the influx of all things commercial, shiny and new.
Peasant
living conditions are piquantly spiced with new microwaves, and mobile
phones are used on horse-drawn carts along 110kph freeways.
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Generational Upheaval
Not just your average generation gap, but
these elders of Sibiu knew a radically different world under the
communist dictatorship and now marvel at the changes in their
culture walking by.
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Politeness Delayed
Almost as surprising as
having New York on top is finding Romania at the bottom of the
politeness stakes.
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New York
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USA
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80%
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Toronto
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Canada
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70
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Berlin
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Germany
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68
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Auckland
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New Zealand
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67
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Mexico City
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Mexico
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65
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Budapest
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Hungary
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60
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Madrid
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Spain
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60
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Prague
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Czech Republic
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60
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Vienna
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Austria
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60
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London
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United Kingdom
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57
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Paris
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France
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57
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Amsterdam
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Netherlands
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52
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Milan
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Italy
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47
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Sydney
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Australia
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47
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Moscow
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Russia
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42
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Bucharest
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Romania
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35
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Mumbai
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India
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32
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World Cities Ranked by order of
politeness, in a recent Reader's Digest test of politeness using
several basic activities to elicit responses. See
the full results here
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Comrade Elephant in the Living Room
The past is still too painful to be fully explored for most, or is
simply an irrelevant and unfortunate chapter best left in the past.
In the main cultural museum in Bucharest, across from the Victoria
Palace, you will find world-class beautiful displays of traditional
Romanian culture and folk art. Yet lurking in two ominous small
basement rooms, well apart from the rest of the museum, exist the bitter
relics from the Communist reign.
Even at one of the best history museums in Europe, located on the
sunny Black Sea coast at
Constanţa, proudly presents room after room of
rich displays, comprehensively covering the vast sweep of history from
Greek and Roman days through the Middle Ages and towards today.
But all stops suddenly at 1947. The rooms end, the
displays of amazingly well done treasures stop, as if history and hope
itself died the day Romania's King Mihai was forced to abdicate and fled
to the West. Funding for any such exhibits are similarly lacking.
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Newlyweds in the Grey Old Days of Communism
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This couple have now retired to a gentle life in
the Dāmboviţa countryside |
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The Immovable Core
"Tenacious" is the polite form of "stubborn" in English, and both apply
to the amazing perseverance of Romanian culture, in a region where by
all rights, even the strong Latin foundation of it's language should
have been washed away through 20 centuries of other influences.
The fertile alluvial plains of the Romanian heartland (Ţara
Romāneasca) have clung mightily to the essence of Romanian
tradition, lifestyle, religion and lore. Romanians were one
identifiable people ever since Wallachians (or Vlachs) were first
mentioned in English, and before then the Dacian tribes with their early
Kings were spread throughout the region (see Origins of Romanians for
more detailed history).
From the Rest Romania Website at
It is remarkable and sociologically significant that a cohesive Romanian
culture has so clearly survived and been enriched by the notably strong
tides of first Greek, Roman and Slavic civilisations,
followed by Ottoman, Austrian, and Russian cultures.
Rarely have historians have had such a compelling reason to continue
their search into the 21st century for reasonable supporting evidence to
explain a culture as compelling as that of the Romanians. Some
postulate that Carpo-Dacians (or the Carpi peoples of what is now
Moldova) and their progeny clung to the Carpathian foothills.
Still, to this day, it is hard to explain convincingly any complete
theory of why and how the Romanian culture has survived.
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From the Rest Romania Website at
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Ai Dreptate: You Have Right
Standing In the Road of Progress
Romanians consider themselves controlled and sensible when arriving
at a judgement of whether somebody "has right". To have
right is a self-evident sort of proof that relies on a few bewilderingly
obscure set of unwritten rules. But, it is this
standing which must be established prior to you or anyone else imposing
their wills on any other person.
The unwritten rules cannot be written here, although a partial list
of corollaries can be roughly assembled.
Despite all this, you must still be given the right formally, which
may well come at as the speaker feigns to lose interest in a trailing
remark, a harrumph of resignation and mock boredom to save face.
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In-Built Elegance or Snobbery?
This confident Romanian woman deftly summons the presence to
combine a red velvet dress with a casual cigarette flick whilst
gazing with acuity at the passing concrete blocks. Nothing out
of the ordinary in Romania.
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The photo immediately preceding this notice is Copyright (c)2005 - 2008 Rest
Romania SRL, All rights reserved.
Photo:
© REST ROMĀNIA
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Snob Appeal as Mass Appeal
One of the quickest and easiest ways "to have right" in Romania is
to have money and/or act like a snob. Centuries of conditioning
produces an automatic yield for this behaviour where the most snobbish
wins, as ludicrously
repugnant as it may be to the eye of an English speaker.
Romania's middle class is still anaemic (roughly 20%), resulting in
few choices for most but to be stuck in an underclass. But not
particularly the form of underclass North Americans, Australians, New
Zealanders or Britons would recognise. The bulk of Romanians
are very well educated by any Western norm, yet the same majority also
are very much below the poverty line.
Snobbery has been almost humorously reinforced rather than softened
by the agonising wane of Communism in Romania. A deluge of
pervasive advertising and new products have introduced the
heart-wrenching scourge of aspirational purchasing, that is, purchasing
to bring the lifestyle to which they have come to aspire.
Washing machines, air conditioners, microwaves and kitchen gadgets are
now desired where previously hopes were directed towards wanting a
vegetable garden, building a barbecue, raising animals or just hoping to
get by.
Far from being spurned for their riches as under the official
Communist dogma, the wealthy in Romania have become entrenched role
models. Snobbery has become an art form in the new Romanian
republic, and the trickle-down implications on the behaviour of the
young is noticeable.
The Haves and the Have-You-Got-It-Yets?
The Golden Ages Meet
A woman born during Romania's first Golden Age
waits for her grandson, inheritor of the next one.
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The photo immediately preceding this notice is Copyright (c)2005 - 2008 Rest
Romania SRL, All rights reserved.
Photo:
© REST ROMĀNIA
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Consumerism Arrives with a Vengeance
Romanians think they deserve more, although much of this is still a
hangover from post-Communism expectations. Whilst spurning
materialism as a bad thing, the list of must-have items lengthens as
incomes slowly rise.
Amusingly, so much is new for Romanians. As the curtain has
lifted on what will hopefully become Romania's Second Golden Age, the
uptake of mobile phones has been astounding, and mobile phone
advertising is omnipresent and persistent at every turn.
The older relatives living out in the country shake their heads in
bewilderment in what their nephews, nieces and grandchildren are buying
in the cities.
Of course, this is true for any rural/city divide
in any country, but in Romania it is still the striking disparity of
availability and affordability between the two counterparts.
Daily Life Changing Quickly
The relative influence and power of traditional western food
companies is fast encroaching upon the traditional neighbourhood
marketplaces as more and more Romanians in cities are able to afford a
weekly visit to the new supermarket.
Development and re-development of local restaurants and accommodation
too mean that the streetscapes change quickly these days.
- I passed a familiar restaurant and I noticed something odd. A few years
ago this place was a cosy cafe with wobbly tables and good pizzas. But
everything looks different now.
- The cosy cafe has been upgraded, transformed into a swish restaurant.
Somebody has obviously invested in it, spotted the business potential.
Smart move -- could be a prime location -- city centre, lots of passing
trade.
- But the little wobbly tables are long gone. The door is no longer made
of dull steel. The decor is nautical -- the front of the restaurant
resembles the back of the Spanish galleon. Bronze lamps hang from rusty
looking chains in the lobby casting a yellow glow. It wasn't like this
1994. I wonder what it's called now.
- A faded plaque hangs above the entrance: The Boat
Yard: Since 1880. Since when?
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The Commercial Side of Romanian Culture
A few sights not seen in English-speaking
countries are fairly prevalent in Bucharest, here giant cigarette
packs with unlikely trade names loom over the main plaza in
Bucharest
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The photo immediately preceding this notice is Copyright (c)2005 - 2008 Rest
Romania SRL, All rights reserved.
Photo:
© REST ROMĀNIA
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Romanians are quite hospitable. In the countryside and
small towns, they welcome foreign tourists and, occasionally, they might
even invite you for a lunch.
As common in Balkans, Romanians will insist
when offering something, as no doesn't always mean no, they just think
it's polite for you to refuse, and polite for them to insist.
Don't worry unnecessarily but still you should take some
normal precautions to study your host first. In adult circles, men
sometimes show their respect towards women by kissing their hand, a
possible shock to some.
A Kiss on the Cheek
Quite Romanian, and not to be discouraged for
any celebratory event, here with two national police officers at a
Police Day commemorative ceremony.
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The wedding party one by one queues to do the congratulatory
kiss and handshake (for men) with the bride and groom
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The photo immediately preceding this notice is Copyright (c)2005 - 2008 Rest
Romania SRL, All rights reserved.
Photo:
© REST ROMĀNIA
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The Kissing Thing
It is common for friends to kiss both cheeks upon
greeting or parting. Respect towards elderly is highly appreciated
inside buses and subways. The phrases used to greet friends and
strangers alike is "Bună ziua" (Boo-nah Zee-wah) which means "Good
afternoon" or "Good day."
Even the rough soccer stud will kiss his close male friend
or relative once a year on his birthday, a true mark of affection.
And of course, at weddings and any celebration, the kiss on the
cheek combined with a firm handshake for men is considered both polite
and appreciated!
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From the Rest Romania Website at
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Traditional Begging
The formalised tradition of the
colinde allows people to sing for money from door to door
during the Christmas and New Year's seasons.
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It Beggars Belief
Begging in Romania is as integral as the snobbery. Romanians
large and small will know how to ask for something if it is needed.
Although not quite elevated to an honoured role in society, to beg is
nonetheless as much a Romanian cultural component as is being a snob,
and it is a skill very much needed for basic survival at least some of
the time for many.
Life simply is not very pleasant for many, and lacking the sort of
well-woven safety net familiar to citizens of Commonwealth countries,
Romanians' DIY safety net is the well-practiced beg. Any
American familiar with city streets however will not find the practice
entirely foreign.
However, unlike in the West, people who beg are not necessarily
looked down upon routinely -- everyone knows it IS hard out there, and
the well-heeled can be routinely observed giving fairly generously for
those without, sometimes stopping their Mercedes to spread the wealth in
an almost ritualised fashion.
From the Rest Romania Website at
The Long and the Short of Cons
It is hard to find a kind word for deception and thievery, but when
performed by a Romanian in need of money, it is usually at least well
done. Being a "sly boots", or "şmecher" is
a time-worn role in Romanian culture, as much a part of society as the
village priest.
In the early 1990s, tourists were confronted will all manner of
light scams in the main tourist destinations of Bucharest and other
major cities, varying from on the spot "fines" by bogus (or real) bus
conductors to fraud artists pretending to be undercover police or
security intelligence operatives. The risk of course to anyone
with half a wit about them today is very minor, and you are more at risk
of being given the wrong change at McDonald's than losing your travel
money to a fraudster.
Yet the trickery culture still lives on, which probably explains the
corresponding perennial scepticism of the average Romanian.
- The clerk in the next office scrutinises my documents through
gold-framed spectacles. I show her the three red wax seals on my expensive
parchment from the notary.
- "They're official. They cost me EUR200," I explained.
- She glances up from her desk and gives me a grin. A plastic name tag
says Lucia. She has brown hair cut in a neat French bob and wears a grey
polo-neck sweater.
- But suddenly she looks puzzled and says: "What are you, stupid?
EUR200? You don't need candle wax." She reaches into a steel drawer and
pulls out a yellow form, nudging it across the desk. "You just need
this."
- Then she explains: first, I must fill it in. Then I must photocopy it
three times. Then I must take it across town for another stamp. Then I must
bring it back.
- "Wow, so easy?" I ask. She gives me another grin and replies:
"By the way, the notary ripped you off. There's no charge for what you
need."
Paying it Forward: $1 billion
Much as with the majority of the Hispanic community resident in the
U.S., Romanians abroad send back an astonishing amount of money each
month back to their families (estimated at over 1 billion USD annually).
In the Republic of Moldova this remittance "industry" is the biggest
source of foreign currency and is believed to rank in the top three
contributors to the GNP. Romania's "exported labour" in this
way funds many families who can subsist marginally to very well on only
the portion of the guest worker's income sent home from abroad.
Romania is by no means alone in relying on remittance income amongst
EU nations. Other labour exporting countries in the EU such as
Portugal and Greece rely more heavily on this national income source
than does Romania, although Romania (with remittances estimated at about
7% of exports) is about double that of neighbouring EU nations Hungary
and Bulgaria. Roughly the same as Romania are Poland
and Turkey in the importance of remittances in their economies.
In the end, Romanians abroad greatly assist Romania to avoid crushing
foreign account deficits, making up a fair few percentage points of GDP
(2%? 4%? who knows? The Romanian government doesn't track it very well).
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From the Rest Romania Website at
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Alinuţa
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Alinuţa isn't in school for 3 days. When
she attends the next day, the teacher asks her:
Teacher: Why you were missing from school?
Alinuţa: My mother died!
Teacher: Oh! How did she die?
Alinuţa: She was trying to put a nail into wall and she hit her
finger.
Teacher: Okay, but Alinuţa, this is no
reason to die!
Alinuţa: It tortured her, so my Dad had mercy and shot her!
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Bulă
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Bulă has a bicycle. One day he comes to his mother, very happy:
-Mom, mom look: I can ride the bike with no hands!
-Bravo Bulă! But be careful, don't hurt your self!
After few days, Bulă comes to his mother again:
-Mom, mom look: I can ride the bike with no legs!
-Bravo Bulă! But be careful, don't hurt your self!
After few more days and Bulă comes to his mother :
-Mom, mom look: I can ride the bike with no teeth!
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Păcăla, Bulă and Alinuţă
The earliest Romanian character found in an anecdote is Păcală. His name
is derived from "a se păcăli" ('to fool oneself') and, since this word
cannot be found in any other related language, we can safely assume that
he's part of pure Romanian humour.
The Ottoman influence brought the Balkan spirit and with it other
characters and situations. Nastratin Hogea of Anton Pann is a classical
example of an urban tradesman. As Jewish people from Russia settled in
the Romanian lands, two other characters joined Romanian humour: Iţic
and Ştrul, a pair of cunning Jews, mainly seen as ingenious but
avaricious shopkeepers.
With modernization and urbanization, especially during the Communist
regime, Romanians needed a new character, different from the traditional
Păcală, and it was found as Bulă, the tragicomic absolute idiot. With
the fall of Communism and facing the harsh realities of Capitalism, a
new kind of joke became popular: those of Alinuţa, a sadistic and stupid
10-year old girl.
One feature of Romanian humour is that apart from the ethnic jokes,
there are also jokes about people of other regions. They are usually
told using the way each region uses the Romanian language. For example,
Moldavians pronounce /tch/ as /sh/ and /p/ as /k/, Oltenians make use of
the perfect simple (rarely used in other regions) and the Transylvanians
use some words of Hungarian and German origin such as 'musai' (meaning
must) or 'fain' (meaning fine), as well as starting most sentences with
the interjection "No" (not used as a negative).
- Moldavians (Moldoveni) are seen as stupid and primitive.
- Oltenians (Olteni) are seen as trying to be ingenious, but failing
every time. Nea Mărin is a character created by Amza Pellea (himself
an Oltenian) who is the archetypal traditional Oltenian.
- Transylvanians (Ardeleni) are seen as patriarchal and slow, both
in acting and thinking.
Question: How do Oltenians make a fence?
Answer: They put in a post and write "etc".
Two Oltenians are on vacation. At 3am one wakes up
the other one.
-Marine!
-What?
-Open your eyes and tell me what you see!
-The sky!
-And?
-The moon!
-And?
-The stars!
-And?
-And Ioaneee! They stole our tent!
Those Funny Romanians!
 The
hit movie Borat
was popular for making fun of both Americans and non-descript eastern
Europeans at the same time, filmed in the little village of
Glod in the Bucegi
foothills near the royal palace at
Sinaia.
The villagers were excited when the movie set arrived in their very
humble village, although it was not until much later (when the movie was
released) they'd realised they were basically the victims of rather
unfortunate humour. Few felt their pride was worth the relatively
low wages paid; most simply wanted more compensation and took the
producers to court. Read more on Borat and
Romania
here and
at
Hecklerspray here
In American popular culture, Romanians are once in a while portrayed
as Soviet-bloc stooges for comedic effect (such as
when Jerry Seinfeld dated a Romanian gymnast), or as simple
peasants, as in the 1998 Billy Crystal movie
My Giant.
The placename Moldova is used (almost overused) as "that
European place nobody knows about", almost to underscore it's obscurity
in the American gestalt.
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From the Rest Romania Website at
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Democracy is still a slightly shaky proposition for most Romanians.
You can try to convince them of the merits and what a great system it
is, but that ever-present scepticism kicks in pretty quickly.
Romanians have little true faith or trust in either their current
political system or their politicians. Perhaps this can be said
for many nations around the planet, but Romanians are still a bit behind
others in similar parliamentary republics.
Social institutions did not develop particularly quickly after the
Ceaşescu executions in 1989, in fact, the whole
economy lurched sickeningly for years, the "new" system taking more than
it's share of blame.
Activism in civic society is almost a foreign concept to Romanians,
with the lack of trust in their totalitarian government spilling over in
spades to their proclivities towards their modern rulers.
Civic groups had owed their funding to the former governments, and
nothing much have independently replaced those to any great extent
today. As such, the capacity of the such social organizations to
promote activism and provide incentives for their membership is still
dismally low.
In the last European values survey, only about 9 percent of Romanians
belonged to at least one association, against an average of double that
for eastern Europe and almost triple that, or 29.8% average in Western
Europe. Confidence in the ability of government to listen to
people was also quite low.
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According to Romanian Philosopher, Alexandru Dragomir (1916-2002):
"Four things are, in my view, important for a philosopher:
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"First, to experience at first-hand all that life has to offer: how
mornings and nights are, how a love or a quarrel unfolds, and so on.
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"Second, to think for himself and be honest with himself when he
does so.
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"Third, to read the great philosophers (when you look into
Aristotle after you have thought yourself about something, you realize
that out of, say, ten things Aristotle says about that something you
have said only three, and two of them badly).
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"Finally, not to fall in love with his own ideas and not to forget
that our human accomplishments are derisory. "
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Religion in
Urban Romania
Jokes in Romanian
Consumer Ethics in Europe |
Migration and Remittances
The Role of Romanian
Remittances
The Romanian Economy
Friends and Partners Romania |
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