May 05, 2004
Budapest on the 1st of May
Travelogue, again:
Thursday, the night after the conference, was busy. I made it to the opera1, talked with my advisor and a future student about fornicating baboons2, and then stayed up late talking job search and school gossip and possible collaborations and all sorts of happy life events. We found a bar called Yellow3, and talked late into the night.
And Friday was a mellow morning. After so tiring a conference, the day of outgoing flights is a quiet one. A cup of coffee, some orange juice to nurse a headache, a little talking while the Vienna streetside goes by. Then I met a friend of the family, Veronika, who drove me down to Budapest for the weekend.
Veronika lives in Krems, Austria, but visits her family most weekends. Which, in turn, means she passes through passport control on the Austrian-Hungarian border each week. On Friday, she passed that checkpoint for the last time. (I will have to admit that the border guards did not, perhaps, put much care into the task.) On Saturday, May 1st, Hungary joined the European Union; the checkpoints and border crossings were reduced and taken down.
Updated 5/10 with pictures
This once-Communist country, scarcely a decade old, is joining with France and Spain and Germany to form a part of the growing union. The feelings thoroughout the country are fascinatingly mixed. Rumors fly about what life will be like within the EU. We will be unable to eat poppyseed cake! fear some of the older generations: the EU's stricter drug controls may limit poppy imports; the popular home poppy gardens might be seen with disapproval; and the traditional, mildly narcotic bread, made densely out of pounds of the seeds, might be controlled4. But overall there is a great deal of excitement: that fifteen years ago they needed to wait for years to visit the West, and now they are part of it!
I spent the weekend with Veronika, with her mother (a woman old enough to remember the rise of Communism as well as its fall, who has lived at various times in California, Italy, and both sides of Germany), and with her nephew (raised under a Communist government, but lived for 13 years in Florida). They were happy to share their thoughts about this momentous occasion.
The younger generations are angry at the leadership. Yes, joining the EU is probably the right long-term move, they agree. But in exchange for providing a hungry consumer market to the Union with greatly reduced taxes, they want something back. Poland apparently negotiated for a fairly substantial subsidy, and kept the negotiations active until the very last moment.
The Hungarian government--some say with a bit of a sneer--capitulated. It's the same scoundrels as during communism, but now they act capitalist. They point out that the prime minister was recently revealed as a former secret police officer; that the local Museum of Terror (looking at both the German and Soviet periods) has pictures of many cabinet members from the old files, and so is periodically threatened by the government. And why not? They spent the years before obeying Moscow; now Paris and Berlin speak, and again they say "yes sir."
And how does that make them different from the rest of the Iron Curtain? Their stunning lack of military success5. Since the 15th Century, I was told, Hungary has not won a war. It has temporarily taken Vienna; it was then conquored by the Habsburgs for the Austro-Hungarian Empire... and the Austrians, my friends said, definitely wore the pants. It was the Austrians who led the empire into yet another losing war in 1914. Austria survived that largely intact; Hungary was humiliatringly It joined with Germany in World War II--and was occupied twice in a row, once the Germans to keep them from running; then liberated and occupied by the Soviets.
Now, perhaps, they have hitched their fortunes to a more winning horse. Or so they hope. Perhaps this will be one with fewer wars, and more success stories.
There will be a few years of hardship--the farmers are scared of competing against French subsidies; the economists want to control climbing interest rates and inflation; the government will lose tarrifs--but everyone thinks that things might someday look better. Immigrants will come looking for jobs; the educated might be more able to leave and send money home. How, and when, all those changes will happen still seems a little mysterious. My guide, who works for a large multinational, is worried that local businesses still aren't used to the new capitalist system and will get crushed by the newly-incoming hordes. The corporate email about unification came out on Wednesday. We were called in on Friday, at 2 in the afternoon to try to turn over all the systems. And when I asked what happens to our supply trucks in transit--who are suddenly experiencing a change in regulations--my supervisor shrugged. "They'll figure it out," he said.
The celebration, then, is something to note. The entire city--indeeed, much of the nation--comes out for the parties on the 30th, as a big sand-timer counts down the hours until unification. The 1st of May is International Worker's Day; like everything else associated with Socialism in the US, it is viewed with a little bit of distrust. In Europe, it is celebrated with picnics and parties. And now that day has another layer of meaning; it is unification day. The city had taken its various famous bridges and modified them for the occasion: the Chain Bridge is a pedestrian pathway; a second has been layered with sod and planted with trees; the last has fountains pouring off either side, and huge silk-screens of a water-polo scene. The Danube-side on both edges is packed with people wandering through booths representing the various nations (Greek Gyros; Italian tourism; Dutch beer; British fish & chips; Swedish fighter jets). Concert stages at Heros' Square feature a wide variety of international bands; the city park is a fair-grounds, turned over to beer-halls. The glossy papers declare "EUphoria," while a museum runs a racy exhibit, "EUrotika".
Planes fly over a bit later: helicopters, classics (both Soviet and American); passenger. The new Swedish fighters--subjects of tremendous controversky--do not show, however. Last a stunt plane zips under the chain bridge and then climbs, spiralling and tumbling over the Danube river. At sunset, fireworks lit the sky. This city, which ordinarily matches its postcards in calm beauty, is thronging with celebrating crowds, shouting at each other in Hungarian.
Walking again through the city that night, it looks a little different. The parties are settling down and the bars are closing, but for the drunkest few singing to old songs on the radio. The ground is covered with a layer of trash--empty cups of Coke and beer; chicken wrappers; glossy programs detailing the celebration to join the EU. May 2nd celebrates mother's day in Hungary, and you have to look good enough to bring her flowers and introduce her to your date.
Just how bad will the mess and the hangover be?
1 There is something very pure about going to an opera like the one I saw in Vienna at the Volksopera. It was "La Traviata," in Italian with German subtitles. I didn't understand a word, and the sets were highly modern, gray highlights over dancing clowns, trying to suggest that the whole play might largely be the fever-dream of a sick young woman. And so I felt obligated to neither the words nor the plot, the sets nor the actors, and laid back and let Verdi wash over me for two hours. It was perfect.
2 About which I need not repeat if you know; if you do not know, you ought to hear it from him rather than me.
3 One of our party taught the bartender how to make dirty martinis. This seems to be an obscure drink out here. "Wait--you want me to put olive brine into a vodka martini. Are you sure?"
4 My host thought that American poppyseed use--sprinkled lightly for texture and decoration--is largely funny.
5 Remember that web search for "French Military Victories"? Hungarians will tell you that France has done far, far better than they have.
May 5, 2004 11:26 AM | TrackBack | in CHI 2004