No photo blog. Didnt go to the zoo today. I must have lost my touch of Scottishness: The all day rain bothered me, didn’t like the ida of spending too much time outside. So we were at home, the highlight of the day was probably a pillow fight then a fry up for lunch and an afternoon snooze. Liliom was bored beyond measures. She seems to have forgotten how to think.
In the evening I had a go at her which turned into talking about leaving. She is sad to leave for leaving her friends here behind. There were tears, in numbers. Jens asked her if she was scared of something going back to Finland to which Lili answered in the most matter of fact take no nonsense voice ‘what should I be afraid of?’ kind of are you mad tone in her voice.
We do have to make sure we are better at keeping touch this time around with friends here, at least her friends. Unlike with the ones in Oulu, although we knew we were coming back there. We know at most we will come to Szeged for visits. Altough I must have reminded her that while I spent the first 20 years of my life living in the same flat going to a total of 2 diferent schools and a daycare for 12 years hanging out with the same 2 sets of people through these institutions and another set through my parents’ friends, with not one I keep in touch today and call my friend. So potentially there is a possibility that moving about leaving people behind is not that big of a deal.
However, we did realise this morning that while w ehave planned to regularly skype back to Oulu, we never really did and it was really stupid. Oh well
Another small matter , the car. I mentioned when buyin a car here 3 things one needs to do;
a, get a mechanical check to make sure it is the car that is says on the papers
b, get an insurance for the car under the name of the new owner
c, go to the local gov. administration office to change the owner’s name on the car’s papers.
Logic says that one should do a, c, b,
At a, in person and at c, on the website plus various help you get trhought this websites say to do a, b, c,
The car insurance people tell you to do a, c, b,
Suggestions?
It’s interesting that in real life pillow fights rarely ever happens that the pillows burst and there is feather everywhere.
Showing posts with label central europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label central europe. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
15th March
This afternoon once again I had the opportunity to watch someone drifting out of consciousness. Although if I am honest I of course have to admit that he wasn’t exactly drifting out only but also drifting into another one, into dream world. And it was a real pleasure to watch. I think in many routine, daily rituals I have forgotten to appreciate their beauty and use the occasion to move on, do something else while… but every now and again it is nice to anchor back to the reality of that other person.
Ernest used to go to sleep on his own, even for day naps. He now proudly walks off to bed in the evenings and changes his mind only once or twice banging on the door. Day-aps at home are different. Once he gets really tired he would prefer to lie down on my lap, his legs tucked under my arms, his head balanced between my knees not quite rolling of either side, not quite hanging down but not resting particularly stable either. He used to be more relaxed about the posture but his recent experience with the Hungarian Health Care system (HNHS) made him a bit more fixated on these details. He would fall asleep like this while I read the papers (this would be news portals on the net), read some other article on the computer or perhaps play a game.
I watched him drift away to dream world today. Perhaps recent experience called me to pay more attention, don’t know, it could also be a case of Jen using the computer and I couldn’t be bothered to reach for a book.
In the morning, we were still in bed, just resting, relaxing, contemplating if we should get out of bed at all. It was the last morning before Lili is coming home, school starts and everything is back to normal. Ernest have been up for some time. He was hungry so I have provided him with some snacks. He kept bashing bread into our faces demanding we share his food. Eventually he got it, we weren’t hungry and it pissed him off so much he threw the whole thing in the corner. Than he sat down and pulled his socks off with a face ‘you called for this!’
He knows we prefer him to have socks on, it’s a bit cold for the feet otherwise. So he wanted to hurt us by removing them. But he is a very organised and decent rebel because after taking his sock off he carefully put them back in his clothes cupboard making sure they are easy to find for later use (once they feet will start getting cold).
But I was going to write about the big pompous celebration today. Some 150something years ago there was some kind of a revolution – there have been a whole bunch of them around Europe that year – which in Hungary turned to be longer war. The canon says it’s an independence war but I consider it more a civil war. (of course my perception is not that of the nation state, after all I look at WW1 as primarily not in inter-state but an intra-state war, a civil war as well between different classes within given societies)
It’s a big thing! People walk about with the tricolour pinned to their chest all day, some even does it for days before. I have quit doing it 16 years ago, my motivation wasn’t that of the conformist ‘don’t get into politics’.
But it’s a big day, even the prime minister has given a speech, and they say he really pulled out all the stop. Apparently he told the European commission to go and f#”k themselves, although he may have used slightly different wording. I bet you he enjoys all the pompous nonsense. He believes in some crazy stuff, they have a lot to share with Cameron. I couldn’t decide which one of them I would prefer. Probable neither.
Lili asked me today what do people celebrate. I had difficulties answering. It’s a ritual of the state to craft and make-believe an imagined community in order to get people to do things in the name of and for this imagined community that otherwise they wouldn’t do in their right mind. She claimed she understood. We went to the park then.
Yesterday, when I saw the communist party gathering on the square I wanted to ask them how can they match communism with displays of nationalism. It’s a question that could have been asked of those regimes this party is a remnant of. But I didn’t ask.
Ernest used to go to sleep on his own, even for day naps. He now proudly walks off to bed in the evenings and changes his mind only once or twice banging on the door. Day-aps at home are different. Once he gets really tired he would prefer to lie down on my lap, his legs tucked under my arms, his head balanced between my knees not quite rolling of either side, not quite hanging down but not resting particularly stable either. He used to be more relaxed about the posture but his recent experience with the Hungarian Health Care system (HNHS) made him a bit more fixated on these details. He would fall asleep like this while I read the papers (this would be news portals on the net), read some other article on the computer or perhaps play a game.
I watched him drift away to dream world today. Perhaps recent experience called me to pay more attention, don’t know, it could also be a case of Jen using the computer and I couldn’t be bothered to reach for a book.
In the morning, we were still in bed, just resting, relaxing, contemplating if we should get out of bed at all. It was the last morning before Lili is coming home, school starts and everything is back to normal. Ernest have been up for some time. He was hungry so I have provided him with some snacks. He kept bashing bread into our faces demanding we share his food. Eventually he got it, we weren’t hungry and it pissed him off so much he threw the whole thing in the corner. Than he sat down and pulled his socks off with a face ‘you called for this!’
He knows we prefer him to have socks on, it’s a bit cold for the feet otherwise. So he wanted to hurt us by removing them. But he is a very organised and decent rebel because after taking his sock off he carefully put them back in his clothes cupboard making sure they are easy to find for later use (once they feet will start getting cold).
But I was going to write about the big pompous celebration today. Some 150something years ago there was some kind of a revolution – there have been a whole bunch of them around Europe that year – which in Hungary turned to be longer war. The canon says it’s an independence war but I consider it more a civil war. (of course my perception is not that of the nation state, after all I look at WW1 as primarily not in inter-state but an intra-state war, a civil war as well between different classes within given societies)
It’s a big thing! People walk about with the tricolour pinned to their chest all day, some even does it for days before. I have quit doing it 16 years ago, my motivation wasn’t that of the conformist ‘don’t get into politics’.
But it’s a big day, even the prime minister has given a speech, and they say he really pulled out all the stop. Apparently he told the European commission to go and f#”k themselves, although he may have used slightly different wording. I bet you he enjoys all the pompous nonsense. He believes in some crazy stuff, they have a lot to share with Cameron. I couldn’t decide which one of them I would prefer. Probable neither.
Lili asked me today what do people celebrate. I had difficulties answering. It’s a ritual of the state to craft and make-believe an imagined community in order to get people to do things in the name of and for this imagined community that otherwise they wouldn’t do in their right mind. She claimed she understood. We went to the park then.
Yesterday, when I saw the communist party gathering on the square I wanted to ask them how can they match communism with displays of nationalism. It’s a question that could have been asked of those regimes this party is a remnant of. But I didn’t ask.
Monday, 14 March 2011
March 14th
Recently I have been getting some kindly placed feedbacks that sound something like this ’reading nice life in Szeged is good...’ And accustoming myself with the stats page on blogger I realise it is true, people do like to read fun stuff, not so much not so fun stuff and politics definitely puts many of you off. It has been a difficult week and there have been some difficult experiences. There is politics and considering tomorrow’s pompous display of central European nationalism to come…
But lets not get ahead of ourselves.
We put Lili on the train on Saturday afternoon with some classmates of Jen, my sister was waiting for her on the other end. She is spending a four days long weekend at my mother’s. Just as well, the rest of us aren’t the greatest company. I wouldn’t go into Ernest’s case now, that is for another time but I got ill too on Saturday although I managed to sleep it out within a day and Jen has fallen ill as well. It seems we picked up the bad stuff somewhere along the way.
Still recovering but letting Jen have a rest Ernest and I went for a walk yesterday afternoon. Only a week ago it was around minus 10 in the mornings and we were happy if it was above zero in the afternoon now it gets up to 20 on the sun during the day. Even easy-going fellows like us are still perceptible to put on too much clothes when going out.
After the park Ernest decided on going to our regular café but now sitting on the terrace. On the street down at the end of the square an ambulance screamed by. It was the ‘new born special unit’. I had to fight off my tears. I was still in a messed up state.
After leaving our regular café we started walking home walking by the other café, on the corner which I just call ‘the café on the corner’ although it has a ‘proper’ name too. The terrace was full and the waiter was not so gently trying to help a man away from a table, I noticed it only a moment before the man toppled over the waiter and fell on the ground so I couldn’t have told if there was any ‘grievance’ between them or it was a genuine accident. He fell hitting his head on the stone, the waiter walked away hurriedly.
Shocked instantly, with Ernest sitting on my arm I was the first one trying to help, he was lying on his back. Only had time to try to see if he could understand/hear me and wonder for a moment why am I the only one there, how will I turn him on his side as he was losing consciousness. Fortunately a paediatrician – as I later found out talking to her – came and helped me with the move and as the waiter was coming back around, delivering orders and taking new ones we asked him if they have called the ambulance yet? ‘ah, no.’ he said ‘we called the cops’. The two of us practically yelled at him to call an ambulance.
I could do nothing more but I was shaken. I stood around, clinging to Ernest, feeling weird. I’ve never been looking into to eyes of someone who was slowly drifting out of consciousness. I watched the waiter. He was working, he was stressed, he was stressed already with work and he was stressed for what has happened. Eventually the paediatrician told him to wait for the ambulance where the fallen person was (she was rude, not gentle in her request, she was right although the manager of the café was nowhere to be seen to take charge). When the ambulance came he rushed back to work. The terrace has at least 50 tables, a busy day, only the two waiters.
I went into the café and told the manager to give the guy a break, he most certainly needs it. The manager just looked at me with big eyes, unable to understand what my problem might be. I walked off.
A brave new world it. On a Sunday afternoon a man falls on the street and the person who has been the closest to him when this happens, I am convinced an accident, does not have time to stop, think, help. I am sure the customers could have waited ten minutes. I am sure, I want to be sure. But no, he didn’t have the time, perhaps he didn’t have the will either. Maybe he knows this drunk, not paying for his bills, he has had enough. Maybe he pushed him a bit.
There was an atmosphere at the ‘place on the corner’s terrace. As if that man has not deserved empathy for he didn’t belong there, he shouldn’t have come there, a semi-homeless drunk and crazy Christian whit his silly little gypsy blessings written on scraps of papers. He deserved his faith…
Ernest and I went out for a walk again today. I wanted to go for a walk while he was asleep in the morning but since his recent sleepovers he wasn’t so keen. He heard me quietly getting ready and I could not go undetected. So we went together. More or less the usual route. We had cheesy treats today instead of the ginger biscuits.
We also saw the local communist party gathering for the pompous nationalist celebration. (more on that tomorrow). And we met him. He was there, with the communists. But then he seemed to have gotten bored of them and walked off. I approached him and we had a chat. Through me he now knows how he ended up in accident and emergency. I appreciated the blessing even if… but let’s not have a discussion on believes. ‘do take care of yourself!’
empathy
But lets not get ahead of ourselves.
We put Lili on the train on Saturday afternoon with some classmates of Jen, my sister was waiting for her on the other end. She is spending a four days long weekend at my mother’s. Just as well, the rest of us aren’t the greatest company. I wouldn’t go into Ernest’s case now, that is for another time but I got ill too on Saturday although I managed to sleep it out within a day and Jen has fallen ill as well. It seems we picked up the bad stuff somewhere along the way.
Still recovering but letting Jen have a rest Ernest and I went for a walk yesterday afternoon. Only a week ago it was around minus 10 in the mornings and we were happy if it was above zero in the afternoon now it gets up to 20 on the sun during the day. Even easy-going fellows like us are still perceptible to put on too much clothes when going out.
After the park Ernest decided on going to our regular café but now sitting on the terrace. On the street down at the end of the square an ambulance screamed by. It was the ‘new born special unit’. I had to fight off my tears. I was still in a messed up state.
After leaving our regular café we started walking home walking by the other café, on the corner which I just call ‘the café on the corner’ although it has a ‘proper’ name too. The terrace was full and the waiter was not so gently trying to help a man away from a table, I noticed it only a moment before the man toppled over the waiter and fell on the ground so I couldn’t have told if there was any ‘grievance’ between them or it was a genuine accident. He fell hitting his head on the stone, the waiter walked away hurriedly.
Shocked instantly, with Ernest sitting on my arm I was the first one trying to help, he was lying on his back. Only had time to try to see if he could understand/hear me and wonder for a moment why am I the only one there, how will I turn him on his side as he was losing consciousness. Fortunately a paediatrician – as I later found out talking to her – came and helped me with the move and as the waiter was coming back around, delivering orders and taking new ones we asked him if they have called the ambulance yet? ‘ah, no.’ he said ‘we called the cops’. The two of us practically yelled at him to call an ambulance.
I could do nothing more but I was shaken. I stood around, clinging to Ernest, feeling weird. I’ve never been looking into to eyes of someone who was slowly drifting out of consciousness. I watched the waiter. He was working, he was stressed, he was stressed already with work and he was stressed for what has happened. Eventually the paediatrician told him to wait for the ambulance where the fallen person was (she was rude, not gentle in her request, she was right although the manager of the café was nowhere to be seen to take charge). When the ambulance came he rushed back to work. The terrace has at least 50 tables, a busy day, only the two waiters.
I went into the café and told the manager to give the guy a break, he most certainly needs it. The manager just looked at me with big eyes, unable to understand what my problem might be. I walked off.
A brave new world it. On a Sunday afternoon a man falls on the street and the person who has been the closest to him when this happens, I am convinced an accident, does not have time to stop, think, help. I am sure the customers could have waited ten minutes. I am sure, I want to be sure. But no, he didn’t have the time, perhaps he didn’t have the will either. Maybe he knows this drunk, not paying for his bills, he has had enough. Maybe he pushed him a bit.
There was an atmosphere at the ‘place on the corner’s terrace. As if that man has not deserved empathy for he didn’t belong there, he shouldn’t have come there, a semi-homeless drunk and crazy Christian whit his silly little gypsy blessings written on scraps of papers. He deserved his faith…
Ernest and I went out for a walk again today. I wanted to go for a walk while he was asleep in the morning but since his recent sleepovers he wasn’t so keen. He heard me quietly getting ready and I could not go undetected. So we went together. More or less the usual route. We had cheesy treats today instead of the ginger biscuits.
We also saw the local communist party gathering for the pompous nationalist celebration. (more on that tomorrow). And we met him. He was there, with the communists. But then he seemed to have gotten bored of them and walked off. I approached him and we had a chat. Through me he now knows how he ended up in accident and emergency. I appreciated the blessing even if… but let’s not have a discussion on believes. ‘do take care of yourself!’
empathy
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
March 9th
Spring cleaning. It's spring now. Of course locals don't quite call it a spring when it's regularly around minus ten in the mornings but we know better. I got an urge to spring clean. Maybe it has nothing to do with spring but the regular cleaning and tidying just cannot go on any longer. All the corners are full with clutter that is regularly or at some point some time ago has been shoved there so when we try to shove things away they just instantly flow back out. Lili's desk is like that, we clear and clean it sometimes than agree that she shall tidy away what she works on and with after finishing, for it is impossible to keep Everything there. Then things start to gather till only a very tiny worm or caterpillar could just wriggle there a little.
Yesterday I had a go at their room and now the desk is clean. Finally it is ok for Ernest to work there too and he does love it. While Liliom is in school we gather some paper and very nicely play with the felt pens. I am surprised how long he manages to play 'nice', putting the tips back on and the pens back in their holders. I think soon grandparents and other volunteers can start receiving sophisticated pictures from Ernes. Lili really liked the one I put up in the kitchen today, she liked the colour coordination.
In the afternoon when everyone was at home already I was in the kitchen while Ernest in the kid's room was drawing at the desk. Lili was reading. And Jen in the kitchen too when Ernest started shouting 'Apa, apa...' didn't stop. It turned out one of the lids fell on the floor and he needed help, someone to pick it up for him! He by the way also said Mum today. Lookin at one of Lili’s drawing he almost said cat, ‘cica’ but bother only with the second syllables. He might turn out a mumbler like the rest of us.
Liliom wasn’t so keen on Ernest enjoying some drawing at Her desk. And the two of them cannot really handle it together. I think they both think that the other is just an extension of their own will and it is unbearable and unprocesseable to realise that it isn’t so.
I have been having a somewhat moody day. Had a nice day, yet, I feel a bit unexplainably not so good. Perhaps worried about something although we finally managed to get access to our bank account so we can re-engage with the money system. Yet there is still something. I spend a lot of time with Ernest and as he is not quite well (some diarrhea) I have plenty of time to worry about him. probably that's it. Or maybe somehting else. Can't quite put my figner on it. It's a shame though. Maybe it is just a lack of sleep and rest when spring is coming ( so I sit up blogging). I wanna do a spring cleaning, hang out with the kids all day, do a couple of online course and about a dozen other things. Silly. Anyways, I sit in a café while Liliom was in her ballet class and Jen prepped dinner with Ernest. Started reading a book.
I got through reading much of the introduction of a book collection of existentialist writings. The book was published in 1966 in 'communist' Hungary. It eagerly provides a Marxist analysis and critique of existentialism explaining in detail how it is nothing but another example of the crisis of capitalist societies and a half-hearted reaction to the imperialist expansionism of capitalist states, to the fight for hegemony in the international system.
The critique however seems to forget to maintain its own Marxist analysis and critique. But of course in '66 free speech was even more an issue in Hungary than nowadays. Or actually less an issue as there was not much to go around. Anyways, the Marxist criticism of the so called Marxist reality of the revolution would be that the personal cults were not the only immoral, damaging, unnecessary and false aspects of these regimes. After all 60s Hungary was also playing, and playing big time on nationalism, proto-fascist militarism and bourgeois greed. Besides, the so called communist countries while had a degree of barter system at the end they were also integrated within the international state system, an inherently capitalist system and they were also engaged in the same game of hegemony and imperialist expansionism as those evil capitalists.
Funnily the editor of the book, writing the introductory analysis seemed to have difficulties placing some French fellows, Camus and Sartre who happened to be more or less Marxist themselves, Sartre convicted that existentialism was merely a critical development of Marxism, arguing similarly to Guevara (yes, that guy with the same first name as Hemingway) that drinking milk these days doesn't require one to declare himself to be a Pasteurian
, it's just simply how it is now, thus Marxist analysis isn't 'an' alternative to capitalism for instance, just this is how it is and would be foolish and inconsistent to think otherwise. (or something like that, can be googled). Camus was probably a syndicalist and few get more communist than them.
Have you noticed my amasing list of tags?!
Jen thinks they are stupid
Yesterday I had a go at their room and now the desk is clean. Finally it is ok for Ernest to work there too and he does love it. While Liliom is in school we gather some paper and very nicely play with the felt pens. I am surprised how long he manages to play 'nice', putting the tips back on and the pens back in their holders. I think soon grandparents and other volunteers can start receiving sophisticated pictures from Ernes. Lili really liked the one I put up in the kitchen today, she liked the colour coordination.
In the afternoon when everyone was at home already I was in the kitchen while Ernest in the kid's room was drawing at the desk. Lili was reading. And Jen in the kitchen too when Ernest started shouting 'Apa, apa...' didn't stop. It turned out one of the lids fell on the floor and he needed help, someone to pick it up for him! He by the way also said Mum today. Lookin at one of Lili’s drawing he almost said cat, ‘cica’ but bother only with the second syllables. He might turn out a mumbler like the rest of us.
Liliom wasn’t so keen on Ernest enjoying some drawing at Her desk. And the two of them cannot really handle it together. I think they both think that the other is just an extension of their own will and it is unbearable and unprocesseable to realise that it isn’t so.
I have been having a somewhat moody day. Had a nice day, yet, I feel a bit unexplainably not so good. Perhaps worried about something although we finally managed to get access to our bank account so we can re-engage with the money system. Yet there is still something. I spend a lot of time with Ernest and as he is not quite well (some diarrhea) I have plenty of time to worry about him. probably that's it. Or maybe somehting else. Can't quite put my figner on it. It's a shame though. Maybe it is just a lack of sleep and rest when spring is coming ( so I sit up blogging). I wanna do a spring cleaning, hang out with the kids all day, do a couple of online course and about a dozen other things. Silly. Anyways, I sit in a café while Liliom was in her ballet class and Jen prepped dinner with Ernest. Started reading a book.
I got through reading much of the introduction of a book collection of existentialist writings. The book was published in 1966 in 'communist' Hungary. It eagerly provides a Marxist analysis and critique of existentialism explaining in detail how it is nothing but another example of the crisis of capitalist societies and a half-hearted reaction to the imperialist expansionism of capitalist states, to the fight for hegemony in the international system.
The critique however seems to forget to maintain its own Marxist analysis and critique. But of course in '66 free speech was even more an issue in Hungary than nowadays. Or actually less an issue as there was not much to go around. Anyways, the Marxist criticism of the so called Marxist reality of the revolution would be that the personal cults were not the only immoral, damaging, unnecessary and false aspects of these regimes. After all 60s Hungary was also playing, and playing big time on nationalism, proto-fascist militarism and bourgeois greed. Besides, the so called communist countries while had a degree of barter system at the end they were also integrated within the international state system, an inherently capitalist system and they were also engaged in the same game of hegemony and imperialist expansionism as those evil capitalists.
Funnily the editor of the book, writing the introductory analysis seemed to have difficulties placing some French fellows, Camus and Sartre who happened to be more or less Marxist themselves, Sartre convicted that existentialism was merely a critical development of Marxism, arguing similarly to Guevara (yes, that guy with the same first name as Hemingway) that drinking milk these days doesn't require one to declare himself to be a Pasteurian
, it's just simply how it is now, thus Marxist analysis isn't 'an' alternative to capitalism for instance, just this is how it is and would be foolish and inconsistent to think otherwise. (or something like that, can be googled). Camus was probably a syndicalist and few get more communist than them.
Have you noticed my amasing list of tags?!
Jen thinks they are stupid
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Day of the Dead,
There hasn’t been an all saints day since we have known each other with Jen that I haven’t lit a candle in the evening as a small act of admitted ancestral worship from my side. I still remember my days in Denmark thinking how really i was getting into ancient practices and all the stuff about shamanism – which by the way I still associcate with on some level for so far shamanic way of thinking (pre-pagan if you like) is probably the oldest and most honest form of social constructivism. Back then I seemed to take it far more seriously, rediscovering something that reaches far beneath than what I can contemplate, disconnecting from my roots and past... hm... and practicing rather traditional and everyday forms of ancestral worship.
So far in this blog, supposedly about Szeged i managed to offend just about anyone and everyone. Mostly for my unabashed criticism of nationalism and the idea of nations. The trick is always finding the line, to be drawn to separate practices from one and other; this is culture, and that is nationalism. Ancestral worship, although I do not know how common it is around the Carpathian Basin all together I am pretty sure it is particularly Hungarian and is a cultural characteristic that easily slips by the eye yet is particularly uniquely Hungarian. Some ten years ago leaving everything behind I took this with me. In the last thousands or so many years neither Catholicism, the Reformed churches nor the nation state project has managed to ‘touch’ it.
Where to go from here than? Not a clue. I don’t think it really matters but I am pretty sure surprised. Especially that I am in it. About a week ago I was in Budapest and so I decided to go out to the cemetery where my grandmother was buried. It was that time of the year. And of course there is the candle every year. Well, some belief claims if you ever in a desperate need for an honest advice you shall ask you own death for it is just about the only thing in the universe that will be truthful at all times. Thinking of that talking to the dead, who have had some more subsequent dealings in the death department, besides, they also at least wouldn’t care to lie, may be altogether a good idea. But the more interesting lesson perhaps is the one about culture. It’s in the guts. The bits that you don’t notice at all. The rest probably is acquired luggage.
So far in this blog, supposedly about Szeged i managed to offend just about anyone and everyone. Mostly for my unabashed criticism of nationalism and the idea of nations. The trick is always finding the line, to be drawn to separate practices from one and other; this is culture, and that is nationalism. Ancestral worship, although I do not know how common it is around the Carpathian Basin all together I am pretty sure it is particularly Hungarian and is a cultural characteristic that easily slips by the eye yet is particularly uniquely Hungarian. Some ten years ago leaving everything behind I took this with me. In the last thousands or so many years neither Catholicism, the Reformed churches nor the nation state project has managed to ‘touch’ it.
Where to go from here than? Not a clue. I don’t think it really matters but I am pretty sure surprised. Especially that I am in it. About a week ago I was in Budapest and so I decided to go out to the cemetery where my grandmother was buried. It was that time of the year. And of course there is the candle every year. Well, some belief claims if you ever in a desperate need for an honest advice you shall ask you own death for it is just about the only thing in the universe that will be truthful at all times. Thinking of that talking to the dead, who have had some more subsequent dealings in the death department, besides, they also at least wouldn’t care to lie, may be altogether a good idea. But the more interesting lesson perhaps is the one about culture. It’s in the guts. The bits that you don’t notice at all. The rest probably is acquired luggage.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
