Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2014 (26. évfolyam, 1-39. szám)

2014-02-14 / 7. szám

“How can you miss me if I won’t go away?” Allan Boyko, the chief editor of the Budapest Times (a newspaper for English readers in Hungary) left his job after 10 years and moved back to Canada last year to work on an 011 field. Reading his last column is an instructive lesson. A priest once told me that I would have to spend 10 years in Purgatory for my sins. Time’s up. After a decade with The Budapest Times (I have been here since Issue 2 back in Septem­ber 2003) I have written my last sarcastic headline, mangled my last metaphor. As I sit typing my send-off column, the team that is taking over the newspaper is huddled around a monitor, chattering in Hungarian as they redesign it and its sister paper, Budapester Zeitung. I am not sticking my nose in. Let them learn from their own mistakes, I figure. It feels akin to a plastic surgery team discussing how to best rearrange your face. The Times has been an interesting gig, the longest post I have every held (aside from being married). Yes, relationships, especially big ones, are work. But if you approach the task with wanting to understand the other party, make a sincere effort, admit mistakes, forgive and make adjustments, any relationship can flourish... depending upon the willing­ness of the other part to make the same effort. Lady Hungary is who she is Then there is Lady Hungary. Although a little worse for wear, she still has a beauty about her and she has so many stories to tell. But as exotic and intriguing as Lady Hungary is, she doesn’t work on relation­ships. She’s stubborn. She is unyielding. She is depressed. She is jealous. She is hurt. She is broke. And yet she knows best - the Hungarian way. Getting in on the way up I was warned all about her traits before dragging my young family over here from Canada. ‘Don’t go there. You will never succeed. You don’t have any connections’, Hungarians who had settled in Canada warned me. But it was 2003. Mankind had just entered a new millennium and Hungary was soon to join the Euro­pean Union. I had hope and was young enough for adventure. I was going to move to a country that was on its way up. Surely joining the EU would break the shackles of bureaucracy that were holding Hungary back. A little western capitalism and good governance was all that Hungary needed. If I put in the same effort I did back home I could prosper, I figured. Plus if the whole plan turned sour I could return to Canada at any time and restart. It’s that kind of country. For some people. A lot of the time. So much to do that was worth doing The plan worked for a while.. I went from English teaching (the first profession for every wet-behind­­the-ears expat who landed here without a job) back to journalism in a period of months. A couple years later, I was sitting in the big chair. Hard work rewarded. The job was never dull: so much scandal, so much intrigue, so many lies, so much corruption and oh so much red tape. There were huge piles of dirt for jour­nalists to shovel, exposing the truth and uncovering misinformation. What difference does it make? But shovel as I may, no good is coming out of it. It’s starting to feel like working in one of those jobs during the full employment days of communism where you did not necessarily need to accomplish anything, just show up and do your job. Despite all the BS and rot that have been exposed in this paper and other media, Lady Hungary has not been moved to change. My shovelling, my earnestness, matters not. It is a land without consequences; lots of noise is made about wrongs but rarely does the punishment - if there is any at all - suit the crime. Nor is anything effectively done to change it from happening again... let’s just tie a new brand of red tape around it. See. We did something. Writing on the wall I could stay. I have a garden. I have a fireplace. I live next to a forest. If worse comes to worse I can find a way to survive. But I will never thrive. Five years of economic crisis have taught me that. I doubt I will have any Hungar­ian pension to count on either after a few more decades of labour. I need to look out for my family. My kids, bordering on teenagers now, need to be assured of a future; the idea of them speaking three languages and working in a call centre does not appeal to me. I guess I should only say two languages. Their native level English doesn’t count. They don’t have a Hungarian cer­tificate that says it does. I want my clan to be indoctrinated with a lot more “Why can’t you do it! ” than “Why you can’t do it.” A leap of faith I am not alone on this path leading beyond the borders. I know people - expats and Hungarians - who are relocating their whole families. Others are commuting to jobs abroad, coming home on weekends or when they can. Others are quitting their jobs here in order to search for a better job outside Hungary - not having a local address when applying for a job is the quickest way to get your resume in the recycle bin, recruiters tell me. These men have been trudging on for years, yet the light at the end of the tunnel seems dimmer, further away. So I am throwing my hat in with those who are throwing their hands up in desperation. I will return to Canada and try my luck. Maybe I will end up in the oil patch. Or the tar sands. Or something really dirty like PR. A lesson no one else can learn for you Hungary will always have a place in my heart, like that girl that everyone told you not to date because she would break your heart, your bank account, or worse. You may have been blind to her faults or thought you could help her overcome them. But in the end, she was who she was and no amount of coaxing or goodwill was going to change her. Lady Hungary - she is fun to visit, but damn near impossible to live with. And I guess it’s obvious that I am taking part of her with me. Allan Boyko Managing Editor The Budapest Times, budapesttimes.hu Claustrophilia: Budapest’s top tourist activity In the Hungarian capital, tourists are lining up to ... escape from a room. A grow­ing trend, inspired by computer games and horror movies. Viktor Oszvald got the idea for Budapest’s top tourist activity a year ago while juggling dressed as a clown. His daughter had just been born and that evening, while working at a horror-themed show in a suburban factory, he dreamt of breaking free and had a brain­wave. Now Oszvald is founder of Claustrophilia (claustrophilia.hu), TripAdvisor’s top-ranked thing to do in Budapest, and part of a tourist craze sweeping Europe: room escape games. Essentially live-action puzzles (think the Crystal Maze or, for readers of a certain age, Knightmare), the games combine riddles and physical tasks, with the aim being to, well, escape from a room. Teams of up to five usually get an hour to make a successful exit, paying between £13 and £30 depending on the game. Few succeed. Since late 2012 Claustrophilia has been “beaten” by just 11 teams unaided, of the “many hundreds” Oszvald claims have played. He sometimes takes pity on contenders and hollers hints via a speaker. Claustrophilia is one of over 30 escape games to crop up in the city since the first, ParaPark (parapark.hu), arrived two years back. Some, like the popular TRAP (Team Race Against Puzzles, trap.hu), use imagery from the likes of ancient Egypt and medieval Europe. ParaPark’s dank setting, beneath a pub in the city’s rapidly gentrify­­ing Józsefváros district, could have been lifted straight from Saw - the horror movie franchise said to have partly spurred escape games’ popularity. Other influences include TV shows like Survivor, but most claim the format emerged from point-and-click PC games of the early 1990s. Claustrophilia’s own theme lies somewhere between steampunk and Twin Peaks, working in a thinly woven backstory of an old eccentric’s enigmatic bequeathment to explain the cramped assortment of props and furniture - ranging from gas masks and coal stoves to Victorian maps and pork-pie hats. It’s spooky but never scary, and held in an apartment within a disused building (the precise location is shared only upon booking). Like the famous ruins pubs, escape games have flourished in Budapest, thanks to an abundance of pretty-but-dilapidated apartment blocks that owe much to a violent, tragic past, wedged between fascism and communism. Rents in the centre of town cost as little as £200 per month, and property rental site Housetrip recently reported the destina­tion its cheapest. Buoyed by their successes, many games companies are now branch­ing out: TRAP has a franchise in Berlin’s fashionable Friedrichshain district (trapberlin.com), while Oszvald is eyeing several destinations in western Europe. Meanwhile, the games’ popularity at home contin­ues to soar. Most people come to Budapest for the architecture or the nightlife. Many more are coming simply to escape, theguardian.com Hello from Hungary! Lee Ann Jackson of Uhrichsville is a Claymont High graduate who is attending Cleveland State University. She is currently studying inter­national supply chain management at Corvinus University in Budapest, Hungary. My first two weeks living in Budapest has been a whirlwind! During the first few days, we spent a lot of time exploring the city and attend­ing orientation. My first Hungarian meal was delicious! The first course was goulash (a Hungarian staple- broth soup made with beef, vegetables, noodles, and of course paprika) served with bread. Fun fact: when you are done eating your soup, the waiter takes away the basket of bread. They do not leave bread on the table throughout the whole meal like most restaurants in America. My main course was Paprikas Krumpli. It was made with potatoes, sausage, peppers, sour cream, and once again, paprika. The stereo­type that Hungarians put paprika in everything is absolutely true. For dessert, we had a delicious Nutella white chocolate ice cream cake. Nutella is to Hungary what peanut butter is to America. Peanut butter is difficult to find here and it is very expensive. During my first week, we attended one of the famous thermal bath houses. Die bath houses contain several different baths at different temperatures, both indoor and outdoor. Even though it was about 11 degrees when we visited, we were roasting up in the outdoor baths. It is very common to find older men playing chess in the baths, and on the weekends, they have a college night. Most Hungarians do not go to the gym. They support a healthy lifestyle by going to the bath houses where they can relax and absorb minerals through the water. I have gone running along the Danube River (the river that separates Buda - the hilly side and Pest - the flat side of the capital city) and people stared at me like I was a crazy woman. Staring is a cultural norm for Hungarians. They do not see it as rude like in America. Also, they do not smile or make a lot of facial expressions. A Hungarian told me that they could tell that I was Ameri­can by how often and by the way that I smile, timesreporter.com ' • .................. ..............'V.V AMFRICAN ■ Hungarian Journal * mm Február 14,2014 SUBSCRIBE TO THE HÍRLAP - amhir.com

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