Over the weekend, I had the misfortune of watching the (Romanian) internet blow up over a video posted on YouTube. Ostensibly, it shows a faceless Romanian man filming with a hidden camera as he tries to order some food at a Kaufland in the town of Odorheiu Secuiesc but get refused service because he didn’t speak Hungarian. Antena 1, the conservative television news network, covered … Continue reading Race Baiting for Fun and Profit
One of the great difficulties in learning any foreign language is when there are two words in the new language for something, but you only have one word in your own. Nearly 20 years ago now (my goodness, how the time has flown!), I remember asking the woman who taught me so much about Romanian cooking what the difference was between brânză (bruhnzuh) and cașcaval … Continue reading Brânză vs. Cașcaval
The biggest non-Hungarian statue in Cluj-Napoca is of Mihai Viteazul, known as Mihai “Bravu” in the southern regions of Romania and “Michael the Brave” in English. Today, there are statues of Mihai all over Romania and several villages bear his name. His incredible claim to fame is that, in the year 1600, he united all three of the majority-Romanian lands – Transylvania, Moldova, and Wallachia … Continue reading The Ballad of Mihai Viteazul
Unfortunately, this tongue-twister of a word is not some rarely used, technical word like jhgeaburi. Instead, it is literally a plague of a word to learn, and if you spend any time in Romania (or Moldova), you’ll definitely have cause to try to wrap your mouth around this particular bon mot. You can’t blame Romanians for creating this word out of thin air like they … Continue reading The Hardest Word to Say in the Romanian Language (for English Speakers)
I realize that there are few texts as boring to read as a white paper, but if you’re not afraid of charts and a mountain of statistics, you can read a very informative World Bank report on Romania in English here and in Romanian aici. Entitled “Magnetic Cities” in some versions (oops!), it is, nonetheless, quite a lot of data that backs up what I’ve … Continue reading World Bank Romanian Cities Report
All Things Romania 