Expat In Romania

To my knowledge, this national self-loathing is a uniquely Romanian experience. Maybe we share it with some of our neighbours, but I doubt it. I've never seen a people dislike their own as much as the Romanians. This is going to be highly generalized, but as with most things I write here it's rooted in personal experience and observations. Don't hate the player, hate the game. 1. Romanians like the exotic, to be Romanian is the antithesis of what it means to be exotic. 2 . Romanians are often prejudiced. The thought process goes something like this: If you're Romanian you're probably bereft of interesting experiences and financially limited. You're from 'the-worst-country-on-earth', after all. If  you're well off, then you're just a rich asshole (probably a thief, too). Either way, your Romanian-ness ensures you're seen as a person with limited horizons who likely can't offer anything new or different. If you're Western Europe...

This week's big story in Romania is the first episode of a Channel 4 Documentary entitled " The Romanians Are Coming ." There's a lot to be said when a controversy-stirring documentary comes out of one of the world's most politically correct nanny states. For one, somebody at the British Censors Bureau realized that as long as Muslims wouldn't be offended, it was safe to air. But seriously, I'm glad it has come out because it says a number of things: 1. "The Romanians are coming!" (Though it's a sorry invasion, if ever there was one) 2. "The Romanians are working the jobs no Brit would do" 3. "The Romanians are claiming sensible benefits in light of their living situation" 4. "The Romanians are leaving" The documentary as it stands on its own doesn't really say much more than that. I mean sure, there's the whole bit about "America's trying to send people to Mars, Romanian Gypsies r...

It started over a year ago. I wrote  about it in February 2014 , after buying the domain and getting people on board to do the coding. In my mind I was thinking, 'a couple of months of easy coding and we're live, no problem.' But it's rarely ever like that when you start anything -especially with software. The designs were done sometime later that month. But only the first version. It was easy to get lost in the details and to over-design. My initial search-driven vision was replaced by a geo-location based, map-driven design on the advice of somebody who knows a thing or two about User Experience (UX) design. I liked it and we went with it. A friend helped with a logo and social media designs, another took on the coding responsibilities, and little things stated to happen. Except that they didn't, really.  Sometime towards the end of April or May, the cause had lost its momentum. There was a lot to do at work and I didn't have my 'eye on t...

Yesterday I glossed over some of the more mundane facts of life in Romania . I want to follow-up with a deeper analysis this time around, though. When people ask, "what is it like to live in Romania?" I always say the same thing. "It's great!" Okay, let me step back and qualify that a bit. Living in Romania is great for me . Just like living the US, Germany, or China is great for others even though I don't want to live in any of those countries. Your life history, your personality, and your priorities also have a lot to do with it. Who's to say I 'm not going to hate living in Romania ten years from now, and that France or Malta won't start to sound really good at some point? I don't know. (But probably not). Before talking about why I think it's great, I'm also going to talk a bit about why it isn't -or more like, who it isn't -  great for. Romania is not that great for Romanians living in rural areas. Less so fo...

1 . People still live in the infamous commie blocks, though many are cheerfully painted now and the  apartments within are renovated. Houses often stay in the same family for many generations. Cookie cutter subdivisions are not very common, nor popular (for now). 2 . Rural life is still part of the equation. Many Romanians have an ancestral home somewhere in a small town or village. Often grandparents still cultivate vegetable gardens and raise chickens and other farm animals (for food, not as pets). This comes in especially handy at Christmas and Easter. 3 .  British lawns aren't a thing here. Why manicure a lawn when one can plant beautiful flowers, a vegetable garden, or fruit-bearing trees? 4 . Romanians place a lot of emphasis on family and personal relationships. Going home for family dinner is a lot more common than after-work drinks. 5 . Speaking of dinner, Romania is a very meat and potatoes country. As long as you're not a vegetarian, you'll love t...

When you can say, "it's been a quarter-century" about something, it's not surprising that it feels like a lifetime ago. But during the most violent uprising of 1989, I can only remember peace. On the 22nd of December in Blaj, not a soul stirred. I remember looking out the window and all I could see was a ghost town. It seemed as though even the stray dogs knew it wasn't the time to be out in the open. I think we were all expecting the army to come in. We heard about the uprising and deaths in Timisoara, we knew that Bucharest was in full revolt, and there was little information beyond that. I don't know why I don't remember anything on TV that day - maybe the antenna was broken and we had no signal. I was secretly excited by the thought of seeing a real-live tank rumble past. And anyway, in my mind, the soldiers were the good guys. We also kept waiting to hear the gunfire that would signal that the revolution had arrived to Blaj, but there too, I was dis...

If I translate my English posts into Romanian, it's only fair to return the favour. Although I'm going to cover the central theme of the previous post (written in Romanian), I'd rather let my writing take its course and let the text speak naturally, without relying on a source text. The Presidential elections in Romania marked the end of the Basescu era. During his ten year mandate, he oversaw Romania's integration into NATO and ascension to the EU as well as Romania's most significant level of economic growth since 1989. He also presided over the ongoing theft of national and natural resources,  supported corrupt colleagues  and businesses, and was the star of numerous scandals including two referendums aimed at his removal. During Basescu's mandate, I'd wager that Romanian morale reached an all-time low. The '90s, wild as they were, carried a certain optimism. Over time, however, the incompetence of Romanian leaders and their flagrant disrespect fo...