The other day, in talking with The Woman’s parents, they began to lecture me on how things were in the Communist days. Out of respect, I listened attentively and said nothing in disagreement. But the truth is that I’ve heard every word before (sometimes almost identically) from many other people, many times before. I’ve referred to this as the “narrative” before but in my own … Continue reading The Script
I don’t talk about Twitter too much but the truth is that I use it quite a lot. Amongst watching Markovian chains unfold in real time and other fun with ngrams, it’s an extremely useful tool to see what people (worldwide) are saying about Romania at any given time. Imagine one of those TV-style heart monitors in a hospital with the green background and the … Continue reading Let’s Talk About The Flipping Witch Tax
I was a little puzzled to see yet another hit piece out on Romania from The Economist, this one in the m-fing print edition, meaning literally every member of the English-speaking so-called “intelligentsia” around the globe is reading this garbage. And then suddenly the clouds parted and a golden beam of sunlight struck me squarely in the forehead, opening my eyes: Many Romanians see the … Continue reading Last Verse Same As The First
Despite the Facebook, despite the Twitter, despite the literally thousands of wonderful and amazing Romanians who visit this site, talk about this site or link to this site, a tremendous number of visitors are drawn to this blog by searching for two things – “gypsy” and “Romania”. I’ve written about this (seemingly) hundreds of times, from their slang to their music to the Chocolate Chip … Continue reading Poor Widdle Racist Romania *sniff*
Grazie mille to commenter Grumps for providing a link to a blogpost that some American wrote, mostly talking about Romanian cinema. The discussion then segues into Romania’s “image”, as in what people know about Romania who know nothing about Romania. This entire topic makes me sigh with exasperation precisely because several different interests are conflicting here, resulting in a stalemate and unchanging condition, which is … Continue reading Romania’s Image
All Things Romania 