Mongolian Pop Music and Pink Telephones

Well, all the Budapest bloggers are sharing this little YouTube item, so I figured what the heck….

Despite the truly terrible music heard here, this video combines my two favorite things: Budapest and weird languages. It’s a Mongolian music video shot for some reason in Budapest. I can make out enough Cyrillic to tell that the title has the word “Budapest” in it.

Who knew Mongolia was turning out music videos? Anyway, there are some lovely shots of Budapest (and some not so lovely), and the language is certainly interesting to listen to, if you can stomach the music.

P.S. – Yes! The payphones in Budapest are all pink, since Deutche Telekom a.k.a T-Mobile owns a big stake in the former state telephone company.

P.P.S. – Stick with it, because it get’s really silly in the last ten seconds. (OK, not fair: If I understood the lyrics it might make perfect sense.)

Hungary’s 2006 Uprising Turns My Stomach

So, immediately after completing my last post, I went on to do my usual cursory scan of current news, and discovered that my last post was the wrong post.

As I was writing, throngs of thickheaded people were in the middle of making a mockery of the 1956 uprising by disrupting the day’s events, chanting inane nationalistic slogans and provoking the police to resort to teargas, rubber bullets and water cannons.

So much for national unity.

Just in case you happened to read about this in the American press, I must clear up a few things, because the reporting has been fairly shallow and misleading.

• There is no parallel between this and what happened in 1956
• There is no parallel between what happened in 1956 and what happened in 2003 in Iraq.
• Yes, the Socialist Prime Minister recently stepped in dogshit, and he’ll need to face that sooner or later.
• No, he shouldn’t resign
• What happened today was clearly planned carefully by extreme-right elements, hoping to exploit the PM’s current weakness.

You might say I have a point of view on this, I guess.

Thanks to Scott for use of the photo above.

Hungary’s 1956 Uprising Turns 50

Today, October 23rd is the 50th anniversary of the 1956 uprising. Ordinary citizens took to the streets, temporarily forcing Soviet tanks out of the capital, Budapest. For a two-week period, Hungary was free. Of course, the Soviets returned on November 4th with reinforcements, and that was that.

I lived in Budapest in 1989, when the uprising began to be discussed freely for the first time since it happened, and I’ve been fascinated with the topic ever since. Over the past summer, I helped out a bit with some translation-related work on the upcoming documentary film Torn From the Flag and had the priviledge of seeing some unbelievable archival footage. You can view some similar footage, as well as photos and other information, on the 1956 Portal.

Dubya by the Danube

Hey buddy, siddown, will ya? You’re blocking the view!

President Bush’s attempt to draw a parallel between the Hungarian freedom fighters of 1956 and the Iraqis of today struck me as a bit freakish.

The 1956 uprising was largely about ejecting the military occupation of an invading foreign power, namely the Soviet Union, who invaded Hungary toward the end of World War II and flushed out the oppressive Nazi-installed regime.

Now, in Bush’s analogy who are the Hungarians and who are the Soviets? Weird, huh.

Making things worse was the 800-pound gorilla there on Gell�rt Hill with the President: Bush was completely silent about this country’s failure to act in any way on the Hungarians’ behalf during the 1956 uprising, despite hints that they might. But then, I suppose if any U.S. President is going to apologize for that, it’s not going to be this one.

(Sorry for the off-topic post. I just had to share.)

Ligeti György: Saját Szavaiban

Here is my favorite Ligeti tribute so far.

Budapest Under Water

OK, I exaggerate, but I thought I’d show you some pictures of the Danube at its highest point, like, ever.

It strikes me as a little odd that I would never have known about this if it weren’t for my “Budapest” feed on Flickr. True, it looks like no one’s life is in danger, but sheesh!

Some more great pictures here, here, and here.

Oh, parenthetically, speaking of things the American press isn’t really addressing, what’s going on in Belarus is more interesting and important than CNN would have you believe. For detail and depth, please visit my friend Garth.

(Thanks to Mark Richards in Budapest for the use of the photo above.)

Watching America

OK. This is way off-topic, but I haven’t posted for a while, and this is pretty interesting.

Watching America is web site that digests articles from the world press that take a point of view, one way or the other, specifically on American issues. Articles are taken directly from the foreign-language source and translated by volunteers. So, in other words, you can be assured that this material is not sanitized and repackaged for English-speaking readers.

There’s some pretty nail-biting stuff here: An interview with an al-Qaeda leader, interviews with Iraq insurgents, and some very harsh comments from journalists in Europe.

I lived in Hungary during the first Gulf War, and I always found it fascinating how different the coverage was there from what I was getting from CNN, Voice of America and the International Herald Tribute. More recently, I’ve been casually following the Hungarian press out of the same fascination. So guess what: Watching America has accepted me as an occasional translator.

Last week, I translated a few articles from various Hungarian news sources. Surely the most controversial one so far is this one, from the portal site Index.hu. It’s not in the best taste, but it’s sure interesting.

(Don’t worry; I’m still a composer. More about that during the week.)

About the Concert, Finally

I’m back home for good now, and have finally had time to put my thoughts together around my latest premiere, which took place on November 18th in Budapest.

Into the Future

There’s too much to say in one post about this Budapest trip and the premiere, plus I’m not at home this week. So, I’m going to try to drop a few tidbits here and there as I get the odd opportunity.

Visiting Budapest after 13 years was wonderful and surreal. I’d been reading up on it recently, and had come to expect drastic changes, but I was very relieved to observe that in fact very little had changed. Sure, there were a lot more shiny stores and a lot more in the way of conveniences, and yes many of the buildings had been spruced up. But, being there still felt exactly the same; people on the street looked exactly the same, if perhaps a bit younger and happier.

A building I lived in for about 6 months in 1990

My memories of my three years there in the early 90′s are so unbelievably vivid that the experience was a bit like what it must be like to travel into the future. Suddenly, the lousy state-owned Russian restaurant on Andr�ssy �t wasn’t there anymore, replaced by a Chinese restaurant. Suddenly the Blue Metro line had become extremely rundown. Suddenly, there were a great many interesting, well-lit, well-decorated restaurants and bars all around the city. Suddenly, there were people out and about at all hours.

It was also a surprise how immediately I felt right at home — like I’d never left. By Thursday I was pretty much thinking in Hungarian again, which was nice. I’d been brushing up over the past year or so (coincidentally to this commission). But I found myself in some very strange situations. For example, one day a woman approached me on the street asking if I had change for the parking meter. I had no trouble understanding what she wanted, or even responding (which would have been a problem up until about a year ago). The trouble was that I didn’t know the new coinage! Here was this foreign guy, clearly having been in Budapest and understanding the language, but acting like a tourist with the money. She must have thought I was nuts.

More observations and anecdotes coming soon…

Much to Report

I’m back, and the whole thing was a huge success.

There are many details I’d like to share, but no time right now. I will be fleshing out this post, but it might not happen this week. Off to D.C. for Thanksgiving. Sigh.