HUNGARIAN and HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE : PALINKA IS OUR REMEDY, a CURE FOR EVERYTHING

I enjoy investigating and commenting on Hungarian and Hungarian-American stereotypes so much I kind of hate spoiling this one with a definitive article (below) about drinking Palinka. But here's the thing, this is a stereotype of the Hungarians very much more than the Hungarian-Americans because there just isn't much Palinka to buy here. I don't think I've ever had a taste of the good stuff that legend has it will cure just about anything - even the hangover you got from drinking it too innocently, as it pickles your liver very very slowly, until suddenly you're so drunk everyone and everything in life is sweet. I'm not much of a drinker and far too self controlled to have more than a sip so how could I be a judge of it? 

Just try it. Go into a good hotel, the kind of place that boasts a well stocked bar, and ask for Palinka and you'll find out that it is rare indeed in America.

This article suggest it be used as the basis for a cocktail.  You know, one jigger's worth.

https://dailynewshungary.com/myth-or-reality-the-health-benefits-of-drinking-palinka/https://dailynewshungary.com/myth-or-reality-the-health-benefits-of-drinking-palinka/

Excerpt: Before you set out to make 70 degrees plus pálinka, you must know that it brings more pain than pleasure to your taste buds and throat. You will no longer be able to taste the fruit, and it will be so strong that your organs will be thrown off balance, so you should rather not try distilling or drinking such pálinka.

C 2026 Magyar- American BlogSpot

HUNGARIAN HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE : WE LOVE EVERYTHING TO DO WITH SPA CULTURE AND ARE NOT SHY ABOUT OUR BODIES

 There is no doubt about it. We do! 

In the United States, if you visit some of the less expensive day spas, or places where you can go in natural surroundings to put clay on yourself, scrub with bristle brushes, float around in the shallows on rafts, submit yourself to the strong fingers of a deep tissue therapist, or simply soak in mineral rich thermal waters, YOU WILL FIND HUNGARIANS and HUNGARIAN-AMERICANS.

That's not to say that no one spends on the expensive day spas. The trouble with them is that these days the expensive ones may also put you on a diet that is too extreme for someone who cares not to loose weight, or they may expect you to hit the gym, which is not the Hungarian-American/Hungarian point of going to a spa.

That has been my experience and so you can't argue with it!

As for the part about not being shy about our bodies, I'm not claiming that we are immodest. Rather, we are practical. We have a body. Everyone does. And very few people are in excellent shape.  And you do not have to be in excellent shape to enjoy feeling good or soaking in thermal waters with other people, some who are friends, some who are not.

Smile!

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Want to see what other stereotypes I tackle? Click on the tag below!

OUR DRY SENSE OF HUMOR PROVES WE ARE TOO PESSIMISTIC TO SEE THE HUMOR IN THINGS : HUNGARIAN/ HUNGARIAN- AMERICAN STEREOTYPE

                                                    

HUNGARIANS are PESSIMISTIC and ALWAYS COMPLAINING.....?  Apparently we are only light-hearted when we dance.   Otherwise, we can bring anyone down.  That is, unless we unveil our DRY sense of humor.

OK, I've been accused of having a dry sense of humor, so dry it's imperceivable. On the other hand I've been known to laugh at my own jokes before I get to the punchline but I tell a jokes only once every few years and then it's usually the same old ones.  So I must not be insufferable...

What's wrong with looking at the dark side?  Well, to answer this we must be aware that we're in a hyper-positive culture in which every superlative is used to exaggerate importance, effort, as well as size.  Must we use so many adjectives?  Stunk and White would not be proud of our overuse of the English language in this way.  We should let words stand alone, allowing them the originally intended impact as is.

What about in Hungarian?

Do  you 'feel' this?

Let me know!

C 2023  Magyar American BlogSpot

LARD PORK LARD - REFORMKONYHA - HEALTHY EATING : HUNGARIAN/ HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STERETYPES

A stereotype of Hungarians is the use of pig - hog - pork fat - LARD in every recipe. In fat, a prize pig is mostly LARD.

This item can barely be found on supermarket shelves in California.  I swear this is true.  Maybe twenty years ago you could find some in blocks.  Even the tubs of Crisco, a pure white sanitized shortening, that were available when I was first learning to cook seem to have gone missing... You can find lard on the bottom shelf of some Mexican grocers, which there are very many of.

Onions, paprika, lard... It turns out that while the die-hard traditional Hungarian cooks are using their recipes that call for pork lard, the reformkonyha Hungarians are moving towards vegetable oil and poultry.  However it is very difficult to impossible to cook authentic Hungarian meals and go vegetarian or - goddess help us - vegan.  (That said, I've tried to work it - all the spices and vegetables - in olive oil or butter.  It's tasty but I can't compare with authentic Hungarian.)

Sour cream is also an essential for traditional Hungarian cooking. That said, a significant percentage of Europeans become or are lactose intolerant. (It's true that most lactose intolerant people can eat or imbibe a small amount of cow milk product and that switching to goat milk can often work and that some people only develop this inability to digest as they age.)

If you are adverse to animal fats of any sort, perhaps watching your waistline expand, you might be able to up your Hungarian authenticity by where you serve your meal.  An outdoor garden, a checkered tablecloth, real, not plastic, utensils, and the right attitude may make all the difference.

So the jury is out.  Is this STILL a Hungarian / Hungarian-American stereotype of not?

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PAPRIKA PAPRIKA PARIKA : HUNGARIAN/ HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE

 

Hungarians supposedly use PAPRIKA generously and more so that salt.  I mean on EVERYTHING not just Chicken paprikash.  When I started this series on nationalistic stereotypes, I mentioned goulash.   You say "I'm Hungarian."  They say "Oh, Hungarian goulash."

 Well, it seems goulash has paprika in it too.  So do many recipes that have become traditional.  Hungarian cooking is said to be the only European fare that embraces heat.

 So what's the 'scoop?'

In Hungary there are many varieties of the peppers that were introduced, like tulips were, by the Turks, who were so much the enemy that they slaughtered two thirds of the Hungarians in order to occupy and take over the country. But then maybe the Hungarians only borrowed the name for the plant from Turkish words and were more comfortable with the notion that the peppers originated in Portugal. The Hungarians liked these peppers, not to be confused with the Spanish/Mexican peppers, as these have a more sweet taste. Peppers are higher in Vitamin C than citrus and provided much of the vitamin C at a time when citrus was a tropical fruit that didn't grow in a temperate climate and wasn't imported much either. There are a variety of these peppers with different degrees of heat, from none to mouth burning.

Supposedly if you buy paprika you should use it within 6 months because of flavor changes that could mean the taste goes bitter but I've had the same tin longer than that, from an American grocer too, and it's just fine sprinkled on boiled eggs after 'deviling' the yolks, and on potato salad or on freshly made humus.

So here's the catch. In the United States only one type of paprika spice is generally sold (but for a little importing into rare specialty stores) so many a Magyar-American may not even know about the other flavor varieties available in Hungary and so have a limited number of recipes to use it in. (American paprika is often a product of California.)  Depending on the region of Hungary, the soil there, the pepper has a different flavor.

Which means that Hungarians in Hungary have the variety and the knowledge on how to use the various peppers and paprikas made of them and are judicious.  And get this : a pepper is a pepper and a chili is a chili... sometimes they look the same but they are not, so if you enter a hot chili eating contest you're not eating hot pepper. Sweet, hot, or smoked, you basically have two varieties, and the one that began to be integrated into Hungarian cooking in the 17th century is from Szeged. 

No, Hungarians DO NOT lavish paprika on everything or without first tasting the dish before deciding to sprinkle more on.  However, paprikas are used in very many recipes. So, as for this stereotype, perhaps it's one to be applied more to the Hungarians than the Hungarian-Americans?

Here is a good discussion about the history and use of paprika! THE HUNGARIAN PAPRIKA

C 2022 Magyar-American BlogSpot

HUNGARIAN GENES GIVE US EXTREME SCIENTIFIC GENIUS! : HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE

 

AMERICAN HUNGARIAN FEDERATION LIST OF FAMOUS HUNGARIANS 

Well, if you take a look at this list, you will find out that this stereotype seems  to rely on lots of evidence that it's true.!

Here's an excerpt: ...the developers of the atomic bomb and nuclear engineering; the holography; the moon and mars rovers; the Model T Ford' Microsoft Office' the fathers of the seat belt and passive safety; binary code, BASIC and computer programming; supersonic flight and the U.S. aerospace industry; the California wine industry' the U.S. light cavalry; matches' color television; full-length motions picture' jet propulsion, the carburetor and the automatic gearbox; the Zeppelin; and the founder of Intel Corporation are all Hungarian Americans...

I just thought you might need a little ego boost today!

C 2022 Magyar-American BlogSpot

ARE YOU A HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN WHO HAS BEEN DEALING WITH STEREOTYPES?

 

I would like to hear from you?  What have you dealt with?  Was it funny? Were you offended?

Send me a message in COMMENTS!

THANK YOU!

HUNGARIANESS IS WHAT?

 

What is HUNGARIANESS?

I recently went out to a coffee house and got to talking to strangers who were discussing ethnicity and race, and the recent issues that make it a too sensitive subject to discuss.  Several people excused what it was they were about to say by mentioning that they were NOT going to be "politically correct."  There was a Jewish American person and a Native American person there and then me, a representative of Hungarianess - or at least Hungarian-Americaness.  I thought about all the stereotypes I've presented here at MAGYAR AMERICAN BLOGSPOT.  Certainly some of these are silly and some are possibly trouble.  I mentioned how we Hungarians are supposed to be extra hairy people.

Perhaps what was most upsetting is that these people were NOT INTERESTED in the subject.  Perhaps being a Magyar-American is just too European for them.  The Native American person went on with a fractured history lesson of the Hungarians and a Irish-American blurted the whole story about us coming from Attila the Hun...  They drummed me out and went on discussing Black Lives Matter - which, by the way, they were all disgusted with.

Well, a coffee house may be the last bastion of free expression and they are allowed to think as they think.  What spawned this conversation was that the Jewish American walked outside a convenience store where he had purchased a cold soft drink when a Black man who he described as possibly a teenager bashed his face for no good reason with his fists.  He fractured this man's nose, split his lip, and gave him a concussion and a day spent in an emergency room.  Security cameras may have captured the assaults but the police were not interested and gave no home of finding or prosecuting the offender.  He wondered if it was an anti-Semetic attack or simply because he looks White.

What do most Americans who have no Hungarian heritage think of Hungary and Hungarians?

Not much.  That it's a conservative nation that hates gay people...?  That Hungarians are not tolerant about immigrants?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

C 2021 Magyar-American BlogSpot

WE LOVE ICE CREAM : HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE

 

Of all the silly stereotypes I've heard of, this one is the most harmless, unless it collides with the stereotype that Hungarian women are either skinny and hot or fat and not. You know how stereotypes are - absolutely everyone has to be a certain way. 

So, I presume most if this ice cream is eaten in the summer. 

By the way, it's so enjoyed one can't help but get it caught in one's mustache.

Smile.

What's your favorite flavor?

C 2021 Magyar-American BlogSpot

WE THINK COLD WET FEET WILL CAUSE SICKNESS : HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPES

 

I've been posting on stereotypes of Hungarians and Hungarian-Americans for some time. Some of these stereotypes are well known. Others have been told to me or I've read about them. Some stereotypes are harmless, others worrisome. 

A harmless stereotype is that Hungarians are excessively worried about their feet getting cold because they think this causes illness. Walking on wet pavement with bare feet? I do that.

Someone's going to tell you, you'll get sick? Well, a woman who is concerned about me walking outside in the cold of morning to walk my dog, barefoot, did give me a pair of slippers made of a new bamboo fiber.

I can't validate the truth of it. Have you heard of this one?

I wonder if my ancestor Hungarians knit thick wool socks to wear in their boots. There's a condition called Trench Foot that is caused by long term immersion of feet in water but I doubt Hungarians spend more time with their feet in water than other ethnicities?

I've been wearing hats for years because I believe most of our heat goes out our heads.

If anyone knows more about this please leave a comment!

THE SOUP COMES FIRST - THE NUTS COME LAST : HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPES

 

This Hungarian / Hungarian American stereotype is certainly true about me.  It's that Hungarians love their soup and start most meals with soup.  It's one of those stereotypes that does no harm and so it's one I like.

I usually have soup only, or soup as a starter for mid-day or evening meals.  The broth is a wonderful way to get all the water you need without drinking water.  The heat is good for your sinuses!  You can use whatever needs using in the fridge or garden.  You can low simmer broths for hours made of the same.

Over the last several months I've cooked big pots of soup almost weekly and of course I share.  I've tried new recipes using spices including paprika, of course, but also coriander and cumin.  I've used yellow peas, lentils, kidney beans, black beans.  Green, yellow, red peppers.  Cloves of garlic.

I've used cracker crumbs to create the not-Kosher version of matzo ball soup.  Basically you mix eggs, a little water, and olive oil , then throw the cracker crumbs in.  Mix it up to a sticky consistency.  Put it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.  Bring water to a rapid boil.  Put spoonfuls into the boiling water.  Let the balls rise to the top and stay there three minutes.   Take them out with a slotted spoon and put in the broth, which you can enhance with your choice of celery, carrots, onions, garlic, parsley, etc.

If you are a polite person, here in America  you scoop your broth and soup away from you to the far north of your bowl.  Slurping too loudy is considered rude.

So what is not true of this stereotype is that it always has to be "Goulash."

I recently ate soup at a new Japanese noodle restaurant which features three different broths and five levels of hot.  I'm not into hot.  Their claim to fame is that they simmer their broth for 24 hours.  They say what makes a good broth includes an ingredient called SOUL.  Everyone is wild about this place, which opened as a minimalistic hole in the wall, and has been so busy the waiters are going crazy.

WHAT INGREDIENTS IN HUNGARIAN COOKING WOULD MAKE FOR SOUL?

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DRACONIAN CAVES and REPTILE PEOPLE : HUNGARIAN HUNGARIAN/AMERICAN STEREOTYPES

 

Although VAMPIRES have captured our imaginations in pop-culture books and films, it concerns me that there are people on earth who think that Hungarians (from the days when Transylvania was not Romania) are not just related to Vlad Tepes the Impaler like Prince Charles is, but that present day people are, due to their DNA or bloodtypes, actually being born and bred in a place called "The Draconian Caves," a place you will NOT find on any map or on Google Earth.  These people may actually be part REPTILE, which of course links into conspiracy theories of ALIEN-HUMAN hybrids and thus linked to EVIL. The Reptilian theory has something to do with copper levels in the blood and is also linked to having RED HAIR.

Red hair is in my family. 

Now BLOOD TYPES and the differences in human biology because of BLOOD TYPES is of interest to me.  I've read all the Blood Type Diet books by D'Adamo and think there is something to the idea that populations evolved along with the food they were eating depending on if they were Hunter-Gatherers, Agriculturalists, or Nomads. It's possible that your body adapted or mutated to eat some animals and plants as your ancestors have been for thousands of years for benefit and that others are going to be perceived by your body as allergens. I've met people who swear that when they stuck to their blood-type diet they just naturally lost weight, their skin cleared up, their breathing improved, and most of all, their energy levels went way up.

But if you start reading around Draconian Caves and Reptilians then you also begin to realize that there are some scary people out there who may possibly use this fantastical belief of theirs to start isolating and killing other humans. And it get's tied into END TIMES and SATAN.

While I'm complaining here, I'm also concerned that the extremely popular (among born again Christians) series LEFT BEHIND, makes the ANTICHRIST an Eastern European - actually a RUSSIAN.

We are considered ALIENS - strange -  dangerous - possibly not 100% human - and thus targeted - due to ethnicity.  

It really makes me want to sharpen my talons. 


C 2019  Magyar-American BlogSpot All Rights Reserved

WHATS ALL THAT SMILING ABOUT? : HUNGARIAN STEREOTYPES

 

Are you a "smiley-smiley" person? Smiling at strangers you walk past?  (You don't even know them.  You're not even in a conversation with them!) Do you feel the need to act like a welcoming committee?  When you're around sour people, do you think cheering them up is important?  And you don't work in entertainment or tourism?

Well, then, you are NOT a stereotypical Hungarian.

Hungarians do not understand all that smiling, all that showing of teeth.  YOU'RE ONLY SUPPOSED TO SMILE WHEN YOU ARE HAPPY. Smiling when you are not happy is gratuitous.  It's phoney.  It's being someone you are not.  A people pleaser.

Save your smiles for when you really feel them.

(And that goes for your emoji's too!)


C 2019  Magyar American BlogSpot  All rights reserved.

TEMETNI TUDUNK : HOW TO BURY PEOPLE THAT'S ONE THING WE KNOW : HUNGARIAN STEREOTYPES

 

THE MAN WHO LOVED ONLY NUMBERS by PAUL HOFFMAN : BOOK EXCERPT

pages 62-63

"Death and tragedy have long been part of the Hungarian character.  According to the historian John Lukacs, on All Soul's Day in Erdos's youth, "thousands of people steamed toward the cemeteries of Budapest, with flowers in their hands, on that holy day which is perhaps taken more seriously in Hungary than anywhere else because of the national temperament.  Temetni tudunk - a terse Magyar phrase whose translation requires as many as ten English words to give its proper (and even then, not wholly exact) sense: 'How to bury people - that is one thing we know.'" The phrase was coined long before Hungary had experienced the devastation of the two world wars, whose carnage would come disproportionately from within its borders.

Few countries have had as violent a history as Hungary.  In the ninth century, nomadic Magyar warriors from the steppes of Easter Europe crossed the Carpathian mountains, and renouncing their peripatetic way of life, settled in the middle Danube basin at the heart of what is now Hungary.  The Magyars, also known as the On-Ogurs ("people of the ten arrows"), were skilled archers and javelin throwers who raided their neighbors, plundering Germany from Bavaria to Saxony.  Recent converts to Christianity, the Magyars had to defend their own new territory against a series of invaders.  They held their own until 1241, when several hundred thousand Mongol horseman from Genghis Khan's empire slaughtered half the Magyar population and enslaved much of the rest, a bloodbath from which the country barely recovered "

The problem with Hungary," Erdos once joked, reflecting on his country's history, "is that in every war we choose the wrong side."

HUNGARIAN/ HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN MEN STEREOTYPES! (FOR THOSE WHO ARE CONSIDERING LOVE AND ROMANCE WITH SUCH A PERSON!)

 

Just in time for VALENTINE'S DAY, I present to you the stereotypes of HUNGARIAN and HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN MEN. This is just in case you are considering love and romance with such a person!  (Those of you already in the love and romance already know!)

 1) THEY ALL WEAR MUSTACHES, and even spend a lot of time grooming their mustaches.  You should be prepared to be tickled or abraded with the mustache when you kiss him. So you can never lie to anyone and claim you were not making out. Prepare to be abraded - unless he is one to groom the ends into points using wax, in which case, you may find that one of the ends of the mustache goes up into your nose when you make out!

2) THEY ALL READ OR WRITE POETRY as a way of seducing you. Beware the Hungarian or Hungarian-American who shows up at street poetry slams or tries to RAP in the Hungarian language!

You may need a translator, but ask yourself this.  What is the SUBJECT of the POEM?  IS IT ME?

3) ONCE A YEAR IN SPRING THEY FEEL COMPELLED TO SPRINKLE YOU WITH CHEAP PERFUME.  Don't get this cheap perfume confused with the real, expensive perfume you actually want as a gift for Valentines Day or your Birthday, that subtle scent that you use only one drop of, in the crook of your elbow!

4) THE MEN ARE ONLY A COUPLE GENERATIONS FROM WEARING DRESSES.  Do not automatically think of him as a cross-dresser if he shows up in one.

5)  HE'S NOT BI-POLAR it's JUST THAT HIS MOOD GOES UP AND DOWN.  Particularly if you refuse to say you love him frequently. He will be disappointed if the card you give him for Valentine's Day isn't mushy. (This attitude apparently began after the nobility stopped arranging marriages and began to marry for love!)

6) IF HE IS THE ONE PURSUING YOU, HE REALLY MIGHT CONSIDER SUICIDE if your romance DOESN'T TURN INTO TRUE LOVE AND MARRIAGE!  (Buy him one of those sun lamps sold to combat seasonal depression. Remember the lost homeland of the Hungarians must have been a sunny place and now they are forced to live in the cold, damp, foggy, and dark.)  (You Vixens out there should know that a Hungarian man will rarely turn down a woman who is after him, but he may not ask her out!)

7) YOU GET TO DOMINATE HIM IN THE HOME, just make a show of rushing around to serve him beer when his friends show up to watch soccer or football!  Also, if he decides to sit under a tree with some Slovak men to watch the clouds in the sky and let the women do all the work, remember matriarchy!

8) LET HIS MOTHER SHOW YOU HOW TO COOK HIS FAVORITE RECIPE, but don't actually ever try to make that meal for him when the two of you are home alone, until she is dead.  (Never ever make a show of showing up his mother as a cook!  You will never ever get that stuffed cabbage in the slow cooker recipe right!)

9) HE MAY HAVE ADVENTURES BUT HE ALWAYS MARRIES THE HOME TOWN GIRL!
(Even if she becomes the town spinster while waiting.)  Seriously good news, it just takes going to the same school to be a home town girl!

10)  NOBODY ACTUALLY HAS SEX TO HAVE BABIES.  Where do you think STORKS come from?  Poland? WHY DO YOU THINK THERE ARE STORKS NESTING ON HUNGARIAN CHIMNEYS?   All that public passion is just for show, to fool people.

ARE YOU LAUGHING YET?


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HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE : INSECURE and ALWAYS TRYING TO PROVE YOUR PEOPLE ARE INTELLIGENT!

I've known people like this, so I started thinking about their ethnicity.  This is my no means a poll, but most of the braggarts I've met were Jewish.  "So and So does This and That - Very Successful!"  I've heard that one a lot.  It makes me feel sorry for the Jewish person who is NOT successful in a worldly way.

A free weekly magazine called The Jewish Journal that is available for the taking in libraries and around town dedicates a space to all the Jewish people of accomplishment in history, to stroke ethnic- religious pride. It's paid-for advertising.

However, I've heard that Hungarians of every religious type bring up famous scientists and inventors in particular, to prove that they have their geniuses as a way of letting other people know they should not dismiss their own intelligence.  Defensiveness mixed with ethnic pride!

I do tend to think of braggarts as insecure, and maybe Hungary, being a country that is more like David than the Giant Goliath of the Old Testament of the Holy Bible, has more to prove.
So far I have not encountered Hungarian braggarts here in the United States!

C 2017 Magyar-American BlogSpot

THEY ALL PLAY VIOLINS HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE

 

 

Picture from GRAPHICS FAIRY Said to be from 1923 and Oscar March

Public Domain Vintage search

 

 

This stereotype is one of the least offensive, considering that so many of the inaccurate stereotypes of Hungarians and Hungarian-Americans can hurt.  

Sure, the violin is a well appreciated and valued instrument.

 

But the "they all play violins" idea is actually more based in the reality that violin playing GYPSIES (ROM) were and are often hired to play for weddings and other important occasions.

Clip art from ALL FREE DOWNLOADS

It's tied into the wrong ideas that ALL GYPSIES ARE HUNGARIAN and that all HUNGARIANS have at least some gypsy in them.

C 2016 Magyar-American BlogSpot

LOW INTELLIGENCE and the MILL HUNK HUNGARIAN AMERICAN STEREOTYPES

 

Although my own father didn't work in a factory, several of my ancestors and relatives did, and like many of those immigrants and first-generation Americans who came from agricultural Hungary to work during the Industrial Revolution and then some, the stereotype of low intelligence was stuck on them.  What a convenient and easy way for people who had command of the English language and some time in here to "other" the Hungarians (as well as others from Central and Eastern Europe) so that they could, pre-union, use them up and spit them out in those days before there was any SSI, SSDI, or other Disability programs. So many men were injured permanently, killed, or sickened and died early from unsafe conditions including pollution into their lungs, and even working long shifts six days a week wasn't enough to support a family.

 

Now some of these people were uneducated and without skills when they came to the United States and employment was one of their goals in coming here.  And perhaps you didn't need to be an "astronaut" to work in the mill but...
 

But, if you want to bust through this stereotype, consider that given the opportunity, many of their children, grand-children, and great grandchildren are college educated, and Master's Degrees as well as Ph.Ds. and membership in the professions are not at all unheard of.

 

Now consider, if the "mill hunk" was so stupid, how did his offspring and grandchildren end up smart enough for all that?  Intelligence is part of our genetic heritage.

 

Instead, I think these men worked long and hard and with pride.  The mill hunk was also the patriotic man who joined the military and loved his family. 

C 2016 Magyar American BlogSpot

STEREOTYPE OF HUNGARIANS : PARTY ANIMALS or DEPRESSED and DRUNK? WHAT ABOUT POETRY?

 

Since I personally have never been anything close to a "party animal" and rarely get drunk, that stereotype sure doesn't fit me.  I've been depressed, though not seriously deep or for too long.  A bad break up or the death of a loved one can do it to me, and everyone is entitled to one bad break up so that one can mature, but it seems to me that my response is usually long walks in nature and morning shakes with lots of vitamins and protein powder.  I also suspect that most depression is actually anger that is unexpressed and unexpressed because it is considered antisocial to do so.  So making lists of things I hate often brings me to humor.

It mostly seems to be a waste of time to me to be depressed but yes, sometimes one must entertain their depression till they figure things out, and while entertaining it, one might wish to have a glass too many of wine.  (Read my past posts on STEREOTYPING Hungarians and Hungarian-Americans including the wine versus beer issue!)

OK, the PARTY ANIMALS are usually drinking beer and they chug it, they like LOUD parties and concerts, they don't want to have conversations, just to yell at each other, and speak in bumper sticker messages.  They call other men who they are not related to "Bro!"  Too much beer (or hard liquor or drugs) allows some of these beasts to actually BOND to each other, and show emotion and support for others, without actually being thought of as homosexual!

OK, the DEPRESSED AND DRUNK, they want to be alone, they may actually be picky about the wine labels - the brands - as they drink themselves into sleep. How deeply depressed can you be when you also actually EAT FOOD and GAIN WEIGHT?  Seriously depressed and you would be unable to entertain food, and just waste away, thinner and thinner, till you were nothing.  Seriously depressed and you cannot answer the question, "What would you order if it was your last meal?"

Then there is the next day when the sun must not come through the window bright and early, but there is always a pillow over the head anyway.

Are you laughing yet?

The fact is that while "party animals" and the depressed and drunk people exist, they do not especially exist in Hungary. And so this is a worthless stereotype.  You can find such people all over the world who use or imbibe substances in order to feel. 

Hungarians also write and read and recite poetry in order to feel and express feelings.  So there!

C 2015 Magyar American BlogSpot

HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE : ONLY BOYS COUNT? ARE HUNGARIANS SEXIST?

 

A Russian woman told me that Hungarians only count boys, so if you ask a Hungarian mother how many children she has, and she has five children, but three are boys, she will say 3.

In 2015?

I personally cannot believe that it's this bad, that Hungarian's do not value females as much as males, but since MAGYAR-AMERICAN is now available in Hungary on a Hungarian server, I would love for some of you who are presently living in Hungary to make some comment!

I have heard and overheard women in my own family, of the previous generation to mine, say things like "now our name is carried forth,"  when a son's wife gives birth to a son, showing some concern that the surname continue on to the next generation, which it might not be if their son's only have daughters. 

But to not value their daughters?  To not speak of them, to have no pride in them, to act as if they had never been born?

No way!

While the women of my family in the previous generations were raised to be wives and mothers, and thought that this was the most important thing they could do with their lives, they were also not educated to have meaningful work or careers, and then if they went to work for pay, it was after the children were launched into adulthood.   Still, their work was valuable to the family. In their households, boys and girls performed tasks that were assigned by gender.  This, however, doesn't seem to be exclusively Hungarian. 

It also seemed to be about living in the city, rather than the country.  Country living, agricultural living, is hard work for both sexes. Many tasks that were "Women's Work"  in the Old Country or In the Country, would be considered by some to be not especially feminine.

For instance, breaking the neck of a chicken (killing it), plucking the feathers, butchering it, and turning it into food, isn't work that most people do now.  The last person I ever met who did it was an immigrant born in the 19th century.

It might be that the husband and boys were supposed to do the yard work and the wife and girls do the housework and cooking, but what I witnessed was that husbands were also stuffing home-made sausages, "manning" the outdoor grill, and wives were heading out , driving cars, to buy groceries. 

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