Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1985. július-december (39. évfolyam, 27-48. szám)
1985-09-26 / 36. szám
Thursday, Sep. 26. 1985. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ 13. On a Cultural Mission Since Hungarian is a minor language, it seems quite incredible that two thousand foreign students would sign up to learn it every year all over the world. As it was pointed out at a recent conference of language assistants, these adventurous students learn Hungarian in institutes of higher education. Half of them are taught by language assistants sent abroad from Hungary on a cultural mission. Question: How does one become a Hungarian language t assistant? (I asked Dr. József Csapó, former university lecturer at the University of Debrecen, now language assistant at the University of London.) Answer: Each prospective language assistant must meet certain qualifications before he can be considered for a foreign posting. A perfect command of the language of the receiving country, a degree in Hungarian as well as experience in teaching Hungarian to foreigners are preconditions for applying. Question: Fewer and fewer people seem ready to undertake language assistant assignments abroad. What could be the reason for this? Answer: Going abroad for some years not only involves a change of life-style but it is not particularly rewarding financially, since language assistants in Britain and the USA receive grants wich provide for no more than the bare necessities. Still, I applied, mainly because I'm doing my Ph.D. thesis and in Britain I have all the source material I need at hand. In London most of the people I teach are university students, though there are exceptions. I find it quite characteristic of the English to immerse themselves in a branch of scholarship just for the sake of the intellectual challenge. This applies Springsteen: A Spark Starting a Kre ? BY BOB DEAR Bruce Springsteen's 'Born In The USA' album released in 1984 has been in the top 10 for over a year. It has long since gone platinum and has become the best selling LP in Columbia Records history. The 'Born In The USA' world tour began June 1984 in New Jersey: 202.000 tickets for ten shows at Byrne Meadowland Arena were sold out within 28 hours. After touring the United States, Europe, and Japan, Springsteen and his E Street Band are ending the tour with appearances in the U.S., where it all began a year ago, as if to say thanks to their fans for the warm sendoff. Two concert dates this past weekend at Giant Stadium in the Meadowland - 160.000 tickets - were sold out within 8 hours. Despite the grueling pace of the tour, Saturday's performance still packed all the energy and intensity Bruce's concerts are famous for. Besides the high energy, the other common denominator in Bruce's work is the humble, working class sincérity and lack of artifice. Says 'the boss'. "I generally try to write songs that are about real life, not fantasy material. I try to reflect peoples lives back to them is some fashion." President Reagan, running for reelection on September 19. 1984 in New Jersey, apparently recognized Bruce's amazing popularity as a possible tool for his campaign and exclaimed "America's future... mostly to those attending the evening courses, as most of my day-time students learn Hungarian because of other ties, like family ties and friendships. All my English students master Hungarian pretty well. Helping them along in their studies is the opportunity to visit Hungary in the course of their studies. This year, for example, seven or eight students have been granted scholarships to study at the summer course of the University of Debrecen. Question: Do you have any problems in the course of teaching? Answer: My greatest problem is that there is no adequate, usable Hungarian grammar book written especially for foreign learners and what we have is rather outdated as far as the texts are concerned. We expect some improvement in this field, however, with the publication of the doctoral thesis of a London colleague of mine who is working on a grammar of Hungarian and a complementary textbook for English learners. _ . , . Zsuzsa Mátraházi (Condensed from Magyar Nemzet) rests in the message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen." In typically low key but blunt fashion, Springsteen found an opportunity to respond two days later. Before his first show at Pennsylvania's Pittsburgh Civic Arena Bruce met with Ron Weisen, chairman of the steelworkers union local in Homestead which runs one of the largest food banks in the country. During the show, Springsteen said:"The president was mentioning my name the other day and I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album musta been. I don't think it was the Nebraska album. I don't think he's been listening to this one." Whereupon he and the E Streeters played "Johnny 99", a song about an auto worker who can't find a job after the plant in Mahwah is shut down, and gets a 99 year sentence after a doomed robbery attempt: "Now judge,I got debts no honest man could pay The bank was holdin' my mortgage and they was takin' my house away Now I ain't sayin' that makes me an innocent man But it was more'n all this that put that gun in my hand"» A month later Bruce made a $10.000 donation to the Local 1397 food bank, thus starting a practice which has persisted throughout the tour and has expanded to include local grass roots action and environmental groups setting up tables to dispense information and sell T-shirts and posters at every performance. Professor Frank McConnell, writing in COMMONWEAL, said Bruce "is a legitimate American mythologist, a storyteller of clear and authentic talent and, I would say, a major American poet." Victor Garbarini, in the Los Angeles Times: "Springsteen is probably the purest manifestation of rock's ability to touch and awaken one's conscience, potential for growth and understanding." Midway through Saturday's performance, Bruce paused to slow the pace and mention some of the inequities and injustices in American life: "... the hungry and the homeless. It's up the those of us who can help, to do something, and maybe do something about the environmental destruction of those toxic waste dumps", a problem par- ticulary severe in New Jersey. "Talk with the people manning the booths outside" the audience was encouraged, and then, with only acoustic guitar and harmonica for accompaniment, Bruce announced one of his "favorite songs by Woody Guthrie. I don't know if the words are still true, but they ought to be". He then delivered a haunting, ballad version of "This Land Is Your Land" producing a thunderous applause from the 80.000 fans present, perhaps half of whom were hearing that important classic for the first time. • Copyright 1982 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)
