Hungary and Hungarian idiosyncrasies

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Our son used to  call his father," Mr. Spock" when he was little due to his monotone voice and always serious mood.
Gota either love it or not...

Mrs Fluffy and I have had this conversation several times and we think it's a hang over from communism. She was literally taught to be serious all the time.  It took her years to loosen up and ultimately be her happy self.  Westerners are generally brought up to be individualistic and expressive and actually enjoy having a laugh at work.  Not so here and it seems like it still pervades. 

It took me a while to know that when I give presentations, not to try and do any jokes. None.  Mostly they will think you are not a serious person to be respected. I always thought it would come over as more friendly and to lighten the mood.  Upside is however, at least the number of slides reduced and I didn't have to waffle on so much and considering the subject matter, it's probably for the best.

Grew up in S Cal, where strangers would call out to you growing  up to smile, if one walked around with a sad miserable expression on their faces people would call you out about it.They would say why is a pretty young girl so sad, the sun is out and the sky is blue.
Parents would ask why you looked so mad and make you do some housework or something horrid to make one happy that they had been free to have fun and smile without a care. Best to look happy even if one is not, after awhile you usually find you start feeling better if smiling and not frowning, besides makes one look old and ugly.
I can not tell you how many times I landed good jobs in the US just because of my smile.
Now in Hungary it is sometimes strange to see young people walking around looking like the weight of the world is on their  shoulders. Grumpy and miserable expressions on everyone's face most times.
I have tried to not smile and look happy while walking in Hungary, my husband used to tell me that if one smiled and looked happy that people would assume one was either, drunk, insane or trying to pick somebody up!
I will admit sometimes to 2 out of 3!  Just kidding...
Yes, Hungarians and most Europeans are very good at keeping their emotions under check.
Americans are too, we usually are happy and show it and if not then people also know about that.
Too expressive, have to go dark and laugh inside in public.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Our son used to  call his father," Mr. Spock" when he was little due to his monotone voice and always serious mood.
Gota either love it or not...

Mrs Fluffy and I have had this conversation several times and we think it's a hang over from communism.

here I go over the cliff.....

Maybe. Or maybe not. It seems if anything goes wrong in Hungary, one blames the Communist period.

Communism certainly had a lot to be blamed for. Terrible things. But I have been to other "communist" countries (there are still a few left in the world), and none of the people there seemed even remotely as downbeat and sullen as Hungarians are even today. But oddly my wife's parents are not sullen and incredibly atypical: and this proves nothing being only anecdotal, but her father (a retired surgeon) is a voracious reader, and also does a lot of psychological and philosophical self study -- he is constantly giving me books on theses subjects (his last one was a massive volume on Jungian theory, in English)

The communist period ended 25 years ago. Yet the behavior persists even in the youth (not universally, but also not uncommonly). So, maybe, this is one example for my comment above: to tendency to find an external issue to justify a behavior while the underlying cause goes unexamined and allowed to persist (i.e. finding an external reason "why" excuses and avoids the act to take a more introspective personal examination of one's own contribution to the issue).

Maybe the way Communism was applied here was just an additional layer applied to an already existing foundation and it affected many. But, IMHO, this issue may go back further in history, and maybe communism just more institutionalized it. I am no expert. Just my opinion. The rather common lamenting of the loss of Mohács as if it were yesterday by some here, and all the historical and cultural baggage that event continues to have till today in Hungary, does lead me to ponder such things.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I have tried to not smile and look happy while walking in Hungary, my husband used to tell me that if one smiled and looked happy that people would assume one was either, drunk, insane or trying to pick somebody up!

My wife, being a public figure in Hungary, has quite a media presence. She is also always smiling, kind and pleasant.

At some online forum, I do not remember what it was or the topic, someone (in Hungarian) commented about my wife:

"Why is she smiling? Is she on drugs?"

When my wife told me that, I could only but shake my head. How sad is it when someone can not imagine being just happy, but rather believes the only way to smile is if one's brain has been altered by ingesting a foreign chemical substance. If so, it is no wonder alcoholism is such a problem in Hungary.

My good school friend of over 45 years was just given brain surgery on my BD in Dec.
She is , dare  I even say it, terminal for the most part.
She flew to Las Vegas a couple weeks ago, just before undergoing treatment for her brain cancer.
( More treatments, radiation, chemo etc) Bald on half her head, she didn't try to hide it or be embarrassed for not having hair, just happy to be alive.
Dam, if I was not impressed by her sunny Cal. nature, she is so upbeat and positive about life and people.
She is a dental hygiene teacher  at Washington State University.
She loves everyone and all her students just love her.She a bright spirit that makes people happy to be near her.
If she can smile and be so upbeat then I can not even understand why so many people are so down and out without any good reason.
She is dying and telling us all to be happy and not to worry because she has it covered. Guess not everyone can be so cool.
Her family came over from Poland in WW11, her old granny was a typical older Polish lady, one of my regulars all through my time in beauty college.
It can not be about money, my parents lived through the depression years in the US and they were always happy people even though they could write a book about bad times if they so chose to.
My husbands family is about 50-50 with the negative emotions, thank God  ( or whom ever) my husband got a full dose  of positive energy and can not even say why so many of his fellow Hungarians are so ill tempered.
I find it is mostly the younger HU that have a bad outlook about life, so rude and angry all the time.
I was also a rebel in my youth but never went out of my way to be rude to anyone,'No excuse in my opinion, one reason leaving HU is on my future agenda. I need to see some happy faces before I check out.
I agree not all people from former communist countries are so negative. Two years ago a bunch of odd but interesting things happened to lead me to find my fathers birthplace in rural Poland.
We drove to a family reunion there .I found  everyone in my family was just so positive, so educated and so kind.
Some were very elderly in their 90's and they others were barely out of their teens.
Not sure if being educated mattered or if the culture of Poland is more about family and not about money and who has what.

I had nothing but good energy coming off of all of the people I met in Poland ,hate to say it but in Hungary for some reason people seem to think they are better and deserve more just because they were born.
Can not figure it out, goes against everything I ever was taught about life, be kind and kindness finds you, be negative and be alone.
My husband swears the youth of his generation had it hard but all got on well and no one was as negative as he now finds this younger generation in HU. Someone as filled their heads up with pipe dream and they blame the world for not kissing their feet. It is so bad we are almost happy to not have any grandchild,no reason to give to self serving brats.
I know most older Hungarians worked and gave allot for HUngary and now the younger people can barely stand them to be alive and in the way.
I know my husband who was always so proud of being a Hungarian can barely stand the site of many of his fellow countrymen, way too materialist for his taste.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My good school friend of over 45 years was just given brain surgery on my BD in Dec.
She is , dare  I even say it, terminal for the most part.
She flew to Las Vegas a couple weeks ago, just before undergoing treatment for her brain cancer.
( More treatments, radiation, chemo etc) Bald on half her head, she didn't try to hide it or be embarrassed for not having hair, just happy to be alive.
Dam, if I was not impressed by her sunny Cal. nature, she is so upbeat and positive about life and people.....
If she can smile and be so upbeat then I can not even understand why so many people are so down and out without any good reason.
She is dying and telling us all to be happy and not to worry because she has it covered. Guess not everyone can be so cool....

My older brother died a couple of months ago of a brain tumour.   And a tumour of the worst kind (glioblastoma multiforme).  Still fresh in my mind.  It's a throughly nasty disease. 11 months from diagnosis to death and that's with surgery, chemo and all sorts of treatment. Prognosis is 3 months without any treatment.  It's just a nasty business.  Depending on the tumour location, it will take away the mobility, personality, intellect, articulation, reasoning and eventually the victim's life. 

His philosophy was that life will go on.  It was obvious it would kill him and he knew it. And of course, it has done that.  On the upside, all the family has become closer and it united us.  And we rationalise that in some ways the loss of his intellect and abilities was a godsend because it may have removed many of the tensions, fears and so on associated with what was happening to him.  We will never really know for sure as he lost the ability to communicate and could only listen.  At the end he was completely out of it on morphine.  I mean by that he was asleep and just faded away   Perhaps the best under the circumstances.

Good old lady morphine.
I suppose the older we get the more we experience the loss of friends and family. Very well put Marilyn.

So very sorry about your brother.
Off topic yes, but very real.

Thanks all. Sad business all around.  At least there was chance to say goodbye.

I have asked admin to open a new thread and redirect the off topic posts there.

Hello everyone,

This new thread has been created from the off-topic posts of the thread Poor soundproofing in Budapest apartments.

You are most welcomed to share on your real life experiences on this thread Heart touching real life experience

All the best
Bhavna

It has been my experience that Hungarians I have met and Hungarian friends, can become very sentimental about their losses in life but offer little sympathy to foreigners.
Whenever bad things happen like worries about family, changes, burst pipes, jobs not completed properly, needing someone to collect your mail, as a newcomer I feel that Hungarians don't show any sympathy.
Maybe it is because we are just expected to buy our way out of situations.
I have lost count of the times I have asked Hungarian friends to help me fill in forms or answer letters and they expect to be paid or worse do it incorrectly. All completed in a monotone.
Anyway that is my moan for the day .

I don't think "Heart touching real life experience"  is the right name for this thread.

It should be something like "Hungary and Hungarian idiosyncrasies".

It'll run forever with a better name and the depth of oddities we all experience from being in HU.

Totally agree.  A very odd place.with odd practices but I won't go on unless fully encouraged.
However my eyes were popping out at New year when mother and sons did a naughty version of dirty dancing ...very friendly  neighbours so friendly the dad was trying to get me into this bedroom..
I was thinking all kinds of things but he just wanted me to admire the tv.
My English friend, through his alcoholic haze , didn't understand that my social conditioning, being one of five girls , wouldn't let me go into another room with a strange man. Especially after witnessing the other raunchy parent in action.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I don't think "Heart touching real life experience"  is the right name for this thread.

It should be something like "Hungary and Hungarian idiosyncrasies".

"idiosyncrasies"? 

I had another word in mind. But I admit, it may not be child friendly......

anns wrote:

I have lost count of the times I have asked Hungarian friends to help me fill in forms or answer letters and they expect to be paid or worse do it incorrectly.

I would say two things:

1) Do not assume anyone in Hungary is your "friend". There are two tight social groups in Hungary, (1) family and (2) those "school chums" you grew up with. Everyone else is just an "acquaintance". People here are very nice and publicly polite to their acquaintance, but there is no guarantee they are not saying the most black tongued gossip about you behind your back.

2) If someone does me a favor, I either do them an equal favor in kind or pay them (or given them some gift). I do not think this is unreasonable. To do anything else assumes their time is not of value. In some tiny way, even a very helpful "friend" may get to the point of wondering why you simply do not learn Hungarian or hire an expert to do what you need here, and your requests for them to help may start to seem a bit "too much" of a bother.

Otherwise, the forms and requirements here shift and change so often, even an "expert" may fill out forms "wrong". That is just part of the as others said "idiosyncrasies" (what I would call ********) one finds in Hungary.

Hello everyone,

Following your remark about the title of this thread, I have changed it to Hungary and Hungarian idiosyncrasies as fluffy2560 has suggested.

Thank You,
Naomi.

Wow, where to begin?
After some 42 years years of being around native born Hungarians both in Hungary and in the US I have more stores then I can possibly post in one sitting.
Anns, I do think you are 100% correct that most inside of Hungary see outsiders as not much more then either a free ride or easy prey.
Not everyone but most think money was just handed to us and it was all easy street, they resent people moving to HU and having a bit of savings etc.
They do not ever consider what you had to do or give up to move to a new country.
They feel you are taking something away from them personally.
My father and his family came to the US in the late 1920's from Poland,a similar story for many Americans and people from the UK.
nothing was handed to anyone without allot of hard work behind it.
Enough about that for now...
I know many Hungarians are very nationalistic and feel that they deserve more then some foreigner who just came in a bought everything up.
I can only say, if that attitude was prevalent in the US no one would of bothered coming over.
I personally am stuck in the middle, not political much at all, believe if someone wishes to work hard for something then they should get the chance to for fill their dreams, I also believe there should be a good social safety net for those who either can not find their groove and make a go of it. A bit of a capitalist and socialist at the same time, I believe in freedom to find your own path if you chose to without limits also freedom to sit under a tree and cloud watch all day long if one is into that.
Hungarians seem to put people in tiny boxes, your this age you should dress or act this way, your to this or too that, too many boxes for my liking.
We pay or give back in some way to everyone in Hungary that does anything for us.
A bottle of booze for this, a dinner for that or just some cash or a return favor.
It is in the culture, I know in the US I and my friends never expect a return payment for anything but again it is another culture.
I know my husband and I were married at the time for a good 15 years had our son with us and visited my in-laws in Hungary for 6 weeks.
My mother-in-law kept asking my husband why he had not married a HU women. Insane stuff, we met in Calif and not in Hungary, what could she expect when her son lived in the US?
Out right hatred of outsiders even in our own family.It is ok to insult a foreigner but don't even look sideways at a local or their feeling will be hurt.
Isolation from the outside world for too long, going to take awhile to change.
I do know allot of stuff as happened to me in Hungary that if had happened in the US would of meant the cops were coming out and someone would be hauled off. Just have to let some stuff slide, the nice thing for me is having my husband understand everything but keeping allot of it to himself, just a barrier from the BS.
He often discourages me from trying to learn Hungarian, says it is all for nothing since most people he speaks with inside of HUngary don't have a clue and really are not worth the hassle to get to know.
He has turned away mentally from his country after being outside of it for so long and getting to know people from other more friendly cultures.
You may ask why we are even in HUngary, well the cold hard facts are yes, it is cheap for outsiders otherwise what else would bring people to a place where everyone seems to dislike them or get something out of them.
For the most part most HUngarians seem to like me, other then my in-laws that is.

anns wrote:

It has been my experience that Hungarians I have met and Hungarian friends, can become very sentimental about their losses in life but offer little sympathy to foreigners.
Whenever bad things happen like worries about family, changes, burst pipes, jobs not completed properly, needing someone to collect your mail, as a newcomer I feel that Hungarians don't show any sympathy.

Now that's so true! I have the same experience, even though I'm Hungarian myself. Left the country for the UK when I was 18. Nowadays, I hardly have any contact with friends or even family from Hungary; cannot see the point. Any time I speak to them, the conversation consists of them telling me about their various troubles and problems at length. If I mention any problem I might have in my life, they dismiss it completely, often using a phrase to say 'you have it easy' ('konnyu neked'). I stopped wasting my time years ago explaining that I and my English partner do not have everything easy, just because we happen to live in Western Europe. This is especially strange to me as I am from a 'middle class' family in Hungary, went to a good school and most of my friends and family are well off, some even by Western standards. Still, they seem to have an ingrained belief that life for them is so hard and tragic, and 'foreigners' have no idea what suffering is. I basically stopped caring and let them think whatever they like.

ExpatHungarian wrote:

......Any time I speak to them, the conversation consists of them telling me about their various troubles and problems at length. If I mention any problem I might have in my life, they dismiss it completely, often using a phrase to say 'you have it easy' ('konnyu neked'). ....

Mrs Fluffy seems to have developed a style/interaction with her fellow natives where they all feel obliged to confess their lives to her.  And often in inappropriate detail as well. That's usually the same story - a lot of whinging and complaining and so on.  Usually about trivia. And indeed they couldn't give a damn about anyone else's problems.  But she's a good listener, is calm, very discrete and does not try to actually actively participate in the conversation. She just has to sit there nodding and saying the odd word. Usually they say thank you at the end. But what for? Could be that she's a neutral party, uninvolved and therefore safe.

We often joke she should have been a priest taking confessions.  Or maybe a psychotherapist and get paid for it.

There might be some systematic issue where HU people just cannot openly discuss things and keep it all introverted.   No real idea why it's like that unless it's one of those things like "two people can agree, three cannot" or something.

fluffy2560 wrote:

"two people can agree, three cannot" or something.

That is a good one.

But I still prefer:

  If there are only two Hungarians alone in a room, there will still be three opinions.

It is not only more akin to Hungarian's sense of humor (it was first told to me by a Hungarian), but also... oddly.... seems to make some sort of sense here when dealing with daily reality......

klsallee wrote:

....
  If there are only two Hungarians alone in a room, there will still be three opinions.

........

I was paraphrasing because the original version I heard was somewhat less polite and concerned a certain body part....along the lines of opinons are like .....everyone has one...except an opinionated person has two.  Nice turn of phrase though and it works in English too.

I used to be a hair stylist, actually still have all my papers in order to still ply that trade.
Used to hearing and seeing the odd.
Hungarians are not alone in being "weird" at times.
Did a young cowboys hair in New Mexico, I am not kidding, he actually brought in a huge oil painting of himself, his ma and his pa!!
Said it was a happy day and he wanted me to fix his hair exactly like in the painting!
Another young man took me aback for a second, He had a huge and I mean huge scar from his forehead down the middle of his head to his neckline.
I asked him what happened, he said some guy was jealous of him for taking away his former girlfriend so he hit him on the back of the head with an axe!!
Another older women I knew from my gym in NM was always very friendly and nice but nothing personal was shared between us, until... she sat in my chair, heard all about her sex life with her husband or rather lack.
Maybe New Mexico really was invaded by aliens!
One reason my husband dis ways me from trying to speak Hungarian is he says I will just open myself up for boring long   stories about how horrible everything is. Seems he may be right.

Yes, blame everything on the old commie system, or as Obama has done, blame it all on Bush.
I actually never was a fan of Bush or for that matter any president ever.
The entire system of all gov. need changes and most of these puppets are not up for the job of real change.

I have had one repeating experience with my HU buddies: they r all like to promise great things (Let's go to the wine country next time you in BP, let's go skiing to AUS, let me help you with ....insert an issue.....), but none of these offers ever meant as a real offer, to my surprise. I don't know if others have had similar experiences with their Hungarian friends? I find it really unexpected from Eastern Europeans (myself included). Usually people in E. Europe are pretty straight forward and don't say things unless they mean it.
That is one of the things that annoy me in HU or anywhere in the rest of the World for that matter.

MOHCTEP wrote:

.............Usually people in E. Europe are pretty straight forward and don't say things unless they mean it. That is one of the things that annoy me in HU or anywhere in the rest of the World for that matter.

It's not just HU people, the British do that as well.