Thursday, September 22, 2011

FAT TAX IN HUNGARY STARTS TODAY : PAY MORE FOR FOODS THAT ARE BAD FOR YOU

All we eat is goulash? Apparently not. Hungarians are getting fat on junk food - just like Americans. So, to encourage Hungarians to eat more Healthy, a FAT TAX begins today (or yesterday depending on which clock you use.)

... "Hungarians will have to pay a 10 forint (€ 0.037) tax on foods with high fat, sugar and salt content, as well as increased tariffs on soda and alcohol. The expected annual proceeds of €70 million will go toward state health care costs, including those associated with addressing the country's 18.8 percent obesity rate, which is more than 3 percent higher than the European Union average of 15.5 percent according to a 2010 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In Germany, by comparison, 13.6 percent of adults are obese, with Romania at the bottom of the list with 7.9 percent."

Sunday, September 18, 2011

WHAT'S IN A HUNGARIAN NAME? NAME DAYS ARE CELEBRATED

What's in a name?

Perhaps your Hungarian family named their children by tradition, naming their first son Andras (Andrew), their second Janos (John), their third Istvan (Steven), a first daughter Maria, a second daughter Elizabeth, and so on.

PERHAPS INSTEAD THEY USED NAME DAYS. Children could be named based on a calender of saints celebration days, Catholic saints, and the calender would differ from the saints celebration days calender used in Poland.

A bride had her choice of what her name would be after marriage. She could keep her maiden name. (When I do Hungarian genealogy research I find that the maiden name is used in birth and marriage records. I do not find notations that tell me that this person continued to use the maiden name however. I believe in small towns where everyone knew everyone it was common knowledge.)

A bride could also keep her given name and use her husbands last name as we do most of the time in the United States (where some brides choose to keep their maiden name). However, in Hungary the family name is the first name and the given name the last. Therefore someone called Maria Szabo in the United States would be called Szabo Marie in Hungary.

Another option : The bride could be called her husband's name such as Istvan Szabone (the ne suffix at the end) as her official name, though her friends would still call her Maria.


Tuesday, September 13, 2011

RUSSIA : GERMANY : TURKEY : THE CZECH REPUBLIC : POLAND : READ MAGYAR-AMERICAN : ETHNICITY and 9/11 CELEBRATION

Thank You to new readers for stopping by my blog from these countries!

You know, my blog is about the Hungarian American experience and connection to the motherland of Hungary. But as we all know, due to war and politics, borders in these countries have been redefined many times as have the names of cities and towns which sometimes have three or four different language variations. "Ethnic" populations of Hungarians are in all these countries as are people of various "Ethnic" populations living within the borders of Hungary.

And in the United States people of Hungarian family origins are everywhere, though there are concentrations of Magyar-Americans in places where people who came during the industrial revolution resided.

There's a challenge because just about everyone is proud of (or at least not ashamed) of their ethnicity. WE CAN BE PROUDEST OF HAVING MUTUAL RESPECT for our similarities as well as our differences. I believe in the United States intermarriage has, one relationship at a time, made a big difference in how we think about what makes an American. There is a lot of diversity here. I have one friend who counts 6 different ethnicities in her blood; Irish, Polish, Croation, Hungarian, Slovak, German; in the United States we suspect that everyone has a "wee bit" Irish.

On Sunday I attended one of the many small community 9/11 memorial services in a big city. There were beautifully singing young girls, a bag pipe player, a violinist, and representatives from five different religions from Jewish and Moslem, to Catholic and Christian to New Age speaking, as well as representatives from the fire department and the police. It wasn't a spectacle but it was well attended. Fire department helicopters flew over in formation, the boy scouts carried flags, and the names of the 83 Californians who died in the terrorist attack were read, while 83 white doves were let out to fly around the park.

Friday, September 9, 2011

MAGYAR AMERICAN ASSOCIATION SEATTLE WASHINGTON

"The Hungarian American Association of Washington is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Hungarian heritage and to creating better understanding and appreciation of the Hungarian culture in the community.

Founded in 1984, the Association serves people of Hungarian descent and those interested in Hungarian culture with educational and social events. The Hungarian American Association of Washington is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Hungarian heritage and to creating better understanding and appreciation of the Hungarian culture in the community."

Want to go hiking?

LINK CHECKED JULY 2022  https://haaw-seattle.org/en/home-2/