October 6, 2010: 1848 Memorial Day

October 6, 2010: Today started out to be just like every other teaching day at Ujpest Bilingual Technical High School, except at noon, the school speakers came alive with the Hungarian national anthem. The boys immediately stood at attention, hands by their sides, and some sang the national anthem. It was a very patriotic sounding song and began what was to be a fifteen minute tribute to the 1848 Freedom War from Austria. Recall that in a previous posting, I mentioned the Hungarian superstition of not clinking beer mugs when drinking beer with friends. It was only recently when I learned the gory details of this superstition where, on this day in 1848 a dozen or so Hungarian men were executed by the Austrians. With each execution, the Austrians would celebrate by clinking beer mugs and drinking a mug of beer before executing the next Hungarian with the same celebration twelve times. A sobering and brutal reminder of how sour things became between Hungary and Austria. Although I could not understand the Hungarian being spoken over the loud speaker, it was obvious that what was being described was of historical significance; the boys listened in rapt attention. At the end of the historical description, a second "national anthem" was played and the boys again stood at attention. (This national anthem was not the same as the first, but is often played along with the other one on national days.) (I believe I got all of the history correct above since my students tried to explain it to me with their limited English abilities; if not, I leave it to my Hungarians readers to let me know what needs to be corrected in this description and I'll update it later.)

Hungarian windows: In the afternoon, the school arranged for Istvan to drive me home with a second dining room chair that could not be delivered the other day because it was broken and had to be replaced by the store where they bought it. He and another gentleman came to also fix a window that I had reported broken in my apartment. What I did not realize is that my windows open two ways: by turning the lever 180 degrees, the window opens from the top and leans back into the apartment about 5 degrees to allow a slight breeze to enter my room. (I did not know this, thinking when the window opened in this way that the hinge was broken and that the window would fall on top of my head!) However, turning the opening lever only 90 degrees opens the window the way many American windows open (i.e., rotating on a vertical axis) to allow more air to enter the room. I was embarrassed to learn that all of my windows open this way by design, but am happy to learn about this feature so that I can open the window from the top occasionally since I note that my neighboring apartment owner(s) smoke and the second hand smoke seeps into my apartment. In fact, I'm a bit surprised at how little many Hungarians realize about the dangers of second hand smoke. It's very apparent that Hungarians love their children by the way they lead them to school in the morning, take them for walks, and allow them to play on the playsets outside. What I can't understand is how these same loving parents smoke so that the fumes of their cigarettes are inhaled by their children. Perhaps the word about the deadliness of second hand smoke hasn't been publicized in Hungary yet. But everything in its time: I note that Hungarian restaurant and cafe waiters still ask me whether I'd like to sit in the smoking or non-smoking area, and of course while I'm seated in the "non-smoking" area, I can still smell cigarettes being smoked. Such a difference from California where smoking is prohibited in any restaurants or public buildings at all!

I also pointed out to Istvan my "faulty" oven and stove. I learned that both the stove top and the oven cannot be operated at the same time. When I mentioned this to the other English teachers at school, they all said that the stove must be broken and it should be fixed before I leave and the apartment owner claims that I broke the stove. All along I felt that the reason for this "feature" is because using both at the same time would perhaps blow a fuse. When I showed Istvan this feature, he told me in Hungarian "Amperes!! one, not two!" I realized from this brief Hungarian description that my assumption was correct.

After Istvan's visit, I asked Istvan to take me with him back to school so I could go to the Ujpest market to buy some food. After I arrived at the market I went to my usual vegetable and meat stalls and put to use my newly learned Hungarian sentences: "I want to buy one kilo of chicken breast.", etc. It was kind of funny because my vegetable seller would practice his English with me in his getting what I ordered and telling me the cost in English, and I would speak Hungarian to him in requesting the next item. The good news is that these sellers didn't flinch a bit when I spoke my Hungarian -- they understood it the first time I uttered it and even responded by speaking Hungarian which unfortunately I could not completely understand but realized had to do with what I had just said. I returned home with ingredients for a chicken stir fry which I hope I can remember the recipe for. We'll see... 

I also purchased a loaf of bread at a bakery. Below is a picture of the breads in this bakery. Note the large loaves of bread -- each one weighs about 3 kg (about  6.6 pounds). Customers can order just a piece of this piece of bread.

Lipoti Bakery