Will Travel for Food: Romania Beyond Dracula
John Morris
Issue date: 3/25/09 Section: Entertainment
By John Morris
He slumped to his knees, mumbling the same tired lines he's said since he first learned to talk, not too many years before. At least his begging and that of his two friends or brothers wasn't based on some parent-inflicted money-making deformity that some people have. He's probably a gypsy, and, therefore among a hated and marginalized group of people who don't seem able to share the same rights and privileges as other Romanians, despite their Romanian citizenship. This is due to the prejudiced mindset of many Romanians, but just as much to the stubborn nature of the gypsies, often refusing to apply traditional Romanian customs, values and laws to their own lives. Many Romanians believe gypsies are responsible for much of the country's crime especially as the gypsies, within their various clans and under the officially unrecognized control of wealthy, self-proclaimed gypsy king, Florin Cioaba, and competitor and self-proclaimed emperor, Iulian Radulescu, are so very poor. The gypsies have protested and petitioned for rights on numerous occasions, in accordance with external reports revealing the disproportionate amount of anger and horrors they've suffered over countless years.
The boy's companions may live with him on the street, and it is only too common on hearing any foreign word or accent, a hand goes out, cupped upward on the sidewalk, in a square, or in a restaurant where one beggar stops to buy a slice of pink cake. Yet the majority of Romanians work the same jobs people work anywhere in the world. Taxi drivers flock to Sibiu's train station; grocers stock and supply a surprising amount of fresh produce, previously hard to find, on a Bucharest street; advertisements adorn buildings, old and new.
The ominous, crumbly gray of Bucharest's proletariat paradises -the massive, Communist apartment buildings- with streaks of rust from precarious balconies and window sills, is only broken by the occasional bright article of clothing hung to dry. The younger generations have embraced a more western style of dress, often much less conservative than their parent's. These new clothes and styles are imported and sold under the new economic system of free enterprise. Capitalism has sprung up everywhere, from sidewalk vendors peddling stolen goods atop discarded, flimsy tables, to the luxury of sports cars and modern shopping. Casinos blare their neon into the night sky to attract locals, often found lined up for hot, fresh pastries.
He slumped to his knees, mumbling the same tired lines he's said since he first learned to talk, not too many years before. At least his begging and that of his two friends or brothers wasn't based on some parent-inflicted money-making deformity that some people have. He's probably a gypsy, and, therefore among a hated and marginalized group of people who don't seem able to share the same rights and privileges as other Romanians, despite their Romanian citizenship. This is due to the prejudiced mindset of many Romanians, but just as much to the stubborn nature of the gypsies, often refusing to apply traditional Romanian customs, values and laws to their own lives. Many Romanians believe gypsies are responsible for much of the country's crime especially as the gypsies, within their various clans and under the officially unrecognized control of wealthy, self-proclaimed gypsy king, Florin Cioaba, and competitor and self-proclaimed emperor, Iulian Radulescu, are so very poor. The gypsies have protested and petitioned for rights on numerous occasions, in accordance with external reports revealing the disproportionate amount of anger and horrors they've suffered over countless years.
The boy's companions may live with him on the street, and it is only too common on hearing any foreign word or accent, a hand goes out, cupped upward on the sidewalk, in a square, or in a restaurant where one beggar stops to buy a slice of pink cake. Yet the majority of Romanians work the same jobs people work anywhere in the world. Taxi drivers flock to Sibiu's train station; grocers stock and supply a surprising amount of fresh produce, previously hard to find, on a Bucharest street; advertisements adorn buildings, old and new.
The ominous, crumbly gray of Bucharest's proletariat paradises -the massive, Communist apartment buildings- with streaks of rust from precarious balconies and window sills, is only broken by the occasional bright article of clothing hung to dry. The younger generations have embraced a more western style of dress, often much less conservative than their parent's. These new clothes and styles are imported and sold under the new economic system of free enterprise. Capitalism has sprung up everywhere, from sidewalk vendors peddling stolen goods atop discarded, flimsy tables, to the luxury of sports cars and modern shopping. Casinos blare their neon into the night sky to attract locals, often found lined up for hot, fresh pastries.
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