While I was home for the holidays I met Gabby a Peace Corps Volunteer in my town, Piatra Neamt. We talked a lot about Romania and the way we feel about solving the problems the country faces. Recently she asked me to write a short piece about my image of Romania after five years of living in the States. In case anybody else is interested, this is what came out. Again, thanks Gabby for doing what you're doing. I know not very many Romanians see the importance of you being there, but I hope you will be able to open many minds.
Making fun of yourself is an important survival skill, and the main reason why Romanians have been around for thousands of years. One of my favorite jokes about Romania goes like this: In the third day of Genesis God created Earth and went around distributing the natural wealth and riches. At the end of the day Hungary and Bulgaria came up to God and said with an angry voice: “God, you are so unfair. Why did you give so much wealth to Romania? They have oil, natural gas, three feet deep of the blackest soil, beautiful beaches, tall mountains, and hills filled with gold. We don’t even have a tenth of the stuff that they do. Why God, why?” With his well known fatherly grave voice God replied: “My dear sons Hungary and Bulgaria, just wait until you see the Romanian people”.
Although I am a Romanian, I love this joke and I never felt offended by it. It is a paradox that all the Romanians criticize their own country and people. “Romanians are this”, “Romanians are that”, but nobody really mentions that they are themselves Romanian. And, if I may be excused for my honesty, this is the exact kind of hypocrisy I will use in this letter.
When I think about the joke I obviously realize that there must be something bad about these “Romanian people”. The first thing that comes to mind is: they must be stupid. They must have an average intelligence below that of their fellow neighbors. They are probably intellectually incapable of managing all those natural riches that God gave them for free. But when I think a little bit more I understand that stupidity can’t be the real reason. I was born, raised and educated in Romania and my family, friends, and teachers were some of the smartest people I’ve known in my life. Each year Romanian high school students top the charts at math, physics and chemistry international Olympiads. From personal experience I know that Romanian researchers and professors are well respected in the US academia. In my recent visit home I met with some of my old friends from high school and I was impressed with their knowledge of American geography and politics: “So, it’s going to be Condi vs. Hillary in 3 years. That’s something, huh?” or “So you’re in Colorado now. That’s actually a few degrees latitude lower than Romania, isn’t it? And a little more deserty, no?” It is clear now. Romanians are definitely not stupid, but rather smarter than other people in the world.
If they’re not dumb, then maybe they’re lazy. They don’t like to work and hence can’t use all those beautiful things God gave them. They probably just loaf around all day, doing the minimum to get by and not caring about being rich or poor. Some might partially agree with this, but I found out when I was in Romania for the holidays that this reason doesn’t stand either. Recently there has been an exodus of Romanians to Spain, Italy and France in search for jobs. They are going there to pick strawberries, tend for retired people and build roads and houses for a minimum wage. These are all hard jobs and you can’t be lazy to do them. Even the Americans agree with me. The coordinator of a work exchange program that takes skilled Eastern European teenagers to work in restaurants, camps and nursing homes in the US recently declared that the most sought after workforce are the Romanians. The American employers find the Romanians industrious, responsible and motivated. Ok, ok, I get it. Romanians are not lazy, they’re actually harder workers than the other eastern Europeans, according to these accounts.
I could go on like this for pages. Every negative attribute that I can think of is immediately neutralized by a strong counterexample. The Romanian wine makers are just at passionate and careful as the French, the cheese makers just as skilled and traditional as the Swiss, the writers, poets, and journalists just as witty and funny as Bill Maher, and the politicians as wicked and conniving as Carl Rove. However, the joke stands true like a prophecy. Romania has one of the lowest standards of living in Europe and the Romanians are officially the unhappiest people in the world. How is this possible? After living five years in the States I can bet that if one would transplant all the Romanian people in America, the vast majority of them would integrate quickly and become soon examples of the American dream. The solution is now very clear: we should move all the Romanians in the US and bring back 22 million of Americans. All the Romanian resources will be put to good use and America will benefit from all the wonderful qualities of the Romanian people.
On a more serious note, I think that two are the main reasons why this joke is unfortunately true. First reason is an acute lack of organization and planning. The leadership is lacking accountability and is generally incompetent. Romania is like a salt solution. The individual ions are very potent, charged, and reactive. But in solution, the positive and negative ions rearrange spontaneously so that the overall result is a neutral boring Saline nasal spray. I find it therefore essential to have people like the Peace Corps Volunteers to come in and bring a sense of organization to Romania.
The other reason is the existence of this joke itself. Many times I am confronted by my friends: “Don’t you have anything positive to say about Romania?” The truth is I tend to be such a Debbie Downer about my motherland not because there are not enough positive things to say about it, but because I am myself deep inside a negative Romanian. A tiny bit of self esteem and a more positive look on life would go a long way for us Romanians. That’s why I encourage any American in Romania to do what they know best: smile. One day it might rub off.
Here's some pictures from the frisbee party taken with the new phone camera. Pretty bad quality in the low light environment, but at least I don't have to carry another brick with me.
Jason is not very happy with the bright light on my camera either.
