Orbán’s Speech with Twitter Feedback

05Feb10

The number of hashtags, tags, links and other sort of referring to the parliamentary elections in Hungary is increasing as we are getting closer and closer to the first round (April 11). Four years ago blog was the new buzzword of internet and politics, people were excited to read the posts of the former PM, Ferenc Gyurcsány.

Now Hungarian politicians are competing for the most internet friendly politician title. Almost everyday there’s an article which is rounding up the social media achievements of the parties and the PM candidates. Of course Facebook is one of the main interfaces of the fight: How many fans does the other former PM, Viktor Orbán (Fidesz-KDNP) have? Why has Attila Mesterházy (MSZP) so few? What’s the goal of those young electors who created an “I love Bokros Lajos” (MDF) page? And what does the “Jobbik? No!” group reflect?

The new year is a good reason to confuse the voters with annual evaluation speeches. Though people are mostly skeptical about these, they are listening to them. Probably they are still hoping to hear something new. Or to experience something new. Today the first didn’t happen but the second did.

Viktor Orbán’s speech was being streamed live on a website embedding tweets with #evertekelo (“annual evaluation”) hashtag and two buttons for on the spot feedback. Whatever anyone thinks about politics, it was an important event in the history of election campaigns in Hungary. The first time ever for using this kind of IT support to a public event. The voter who usually uses his internet connection for watching TV just went to the website, and even though there was a 3-4 seconds difference between the internet stream and the television broadcast, he preferred to stay on the site because he could participate in the event.

Orbán used a joke for criticizing the work of the party governing since 2002: once the Hungarian composer, Zoltán Kodály is staying at a friend’s place where he has to listen to a lady playing the violin, he’s asking the woman how long had she been playing the violin. The woman’s saying she had already been playing for eight years, but why the question. Kodály’s reply: because you could forswear all those eight years. Those who liked the joke just had to push the “like” (Y) button, and their vote appeared on a diagram. A twitterer mentioned it was like a click game. Which party’s electors are the best in clicking the button “like” and “dislike”?

Those who wanted to share their thoughts through Twitter with the link to the site and the hashtag, there was a pale blue t-button. Afterwards the tweet appeared in the embedded feed. It’s still working, since the speech is available on the site for those who couldn’t attend.

Virgo, the company which created this special live stream on behalf of the news site called [origo] stated that the diagram was not a representative sampling, they just wanted to show Hungarian netizens a new experience. However in the last paragraph of their description they shared an e-mail address for those who are interested in this kind of solutions. Do you remember Mark Zuckerberg promoting Facebook polls last year in Davos?


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Party till Mash Comes

04Feb10

I’ve recently realized it’s sometimes worth to post a few lines about Hungarian music, so I also created a category for it on this blog.  Since now it’s not the time for complex thoughts to me, I am doing this few line thing with a young Hungarian producer, Yvein Monq (S*10 Records) who released his first album “Hookers in my Strings” this Monday.  The release party was at Tűzraktér—frequently mentioned here, I see now—with some guest artists performing and also proud parents attending…

I know the fact we had a release party on Monday is a bit surprising. Well, it’s not that unusual because party happens at Tűzraktér every Monday under the name Monday Session (by S*10 Records). Sometimes we are only 20 and after a light chat with friends we find ourselves in bed at midnight, sometimes we are countless in the bigger room and the mash comes… Though Yvein Monq mentioned in the description of his first video this mash phenomenon, I have to admit my “mash” is a bit different than this but the music is highly appreciated.

Yvein Monq’s first video for the song “Growin’ up” is shot by Tamás Ungor, with the beauty of stillness. It’s about baroque, tech, woodcutting and party ’till the mash comes. And a bit about relating to women too…

More info:


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What if: Slovak-Hungarian Rap

28Jan10

Today the admin for the Slovak and Hungarian get together FB page Štastný nový rok, Slovensko! / Boldog Új Évet Magyarország! published a link to a song which I thought everybody should listen to at least once. To hear Hungarian rap (MC Busa), Slovak rap (Bene) and all summarized in English (MC Sena).

Štastný nový rok, Slovensko! / Boldog �j �vet Magyarorsz... on Twitpic

The “Happy New Year, Slovakia!/Happy New Year, Hungary!” campaign has been officially launched by January to show that there are citizens in our countries who don’t care about politics, they just like each other and don’t want to fight just because the high politics is forcing the image of a bad relationship on Slovakia and Hungary. (Read more on Global Voices Online.)

The song was recorded at party featuring Bene, a rapper from Slovakia. The party was called My City: Bratislava and was the part of a series of events (2009) to promote Slovak music, places etc. to Hungarian audience.

Bene’s profile on SoundCloud, there you can download the song.


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Hungarians in the USA

20Jan10

“Not everyone is going to pack up now and move to Hungary so that they can be a part of that community. We live here, and this is where we make our home. We are at home here,” says a woman in a newly released film, Incubator about Hungarian who left the country to the USA after the 1956 revolution.

Stephen, the king is a famous Hungarian rock opera about the first king who led the “pagan” Hungarians to the Christianity, and so to “Europe”.


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The Chosen Nation

14Jan10

This map was published some days ago by Szabolcs Sándor here and here. As it can be seen from the comments he got in English, there were some people who didn’t like that someone’s making a funny map  using by the way mostly well-known stereotypes. He didn’t receive so many nice comments from Hungarian readers either, but of course there were more from the “chosen nation” who understood that it was just a joke. At some parts a joke that hurts and makes people sad, at others a joke which is 100% funny.

I don’t know if it was he who made the map, but I have to admit that this map is quite accurate in showing what main characteristics come to the mind of a Hungarian when thinking about countries in Europe. Some of my friends raised the question whether the author of the map was someone in the field of international relations/studies, because even if for some countries he used the simplest stereotypes, he sophisticatedly marked UN troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina, indeed followed the way of gas down to Central and Eastern Europe from Russia through Ukraine.

Probably some parts should be made clear, or a bit unfolded.

  • “Gyros” for Greece and “Döner Kebab” for Turkey. As far as I know in Central and Eastern Europe, it’s only in Hungary where one will never see the word “shawarma“, even if they sell that under the mentioned other names on every corner.
  • The “Hungarians” around Hungary meant to point at the Hungarian ethnic groups remained in the neighbouring countries after the Trianon Treaty.
  • Polish people are the “brothers” of Hungarian because the relations between the two nations are historically considered to be very good. According to the famous saying still in use in both countries: Polish and Hungarian are two good friends, they fight and drink their wine together.
  • Finland and Estonia are marked as “relatives” because Hungarian and the mentioned two are Finno-Ugric languages. Language (and drinking) relatives. The next video about Europe according to Estonians  is also referring to this by saying: “This is the place where we have some more Estonians, but they decided to call themselves Hungarians for some reason.”


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Sculptures from a Little Big Country

07Jan10

I swore to myself I wouldn’t complain, just mention that today I went to the Central European Cultural Institute (CECI) in Budapest to attend a discussion about 1989 in Romania, and they received me with this sentence: “We are sorry, but the discussion is cancelled due to technical problems.” I checked their website ten minutes before I left home (I live some 15 minutes from the institute), and there was nothing about the cancellation. I am disappointed.

So, I thought if I was already there, worth checking the Slovak Institute situated right next to CECI. They have an exhibition of Vladimír Morávek’s carved wood sculptures till the end of January. And one can take a look at some magazines and brochures promoting Slovakia, now called the “Little Big Country.”

Morávek's sculpture


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Real Retro

04Jan10

This Friday there will be a big “Neighbours party” organised as the closing event for Rükverc Fesztivál. Rükverc was a series of university sessions on the 1989 transitions aspects this fall, they chose to hold the event at Tűzraktér with a retro music remix line-up, discussions with the actors of Neighbours, and also an exhibition with the objects appearing in the series, etc.

Szomszédok (or Neighbours) is a Hungarian soap opera originally aired from 1987 to 1999. The series’ actors were representing a community of people living in a tower block building on the Buda side of the capital. Don’t imagine a too special thing in terms of film production. The reason why this soap opera is more important and very particular for Hungarian people is that it’s the total and perfect reflection of the Hungarian society around the transition. Still showing and remembering the communist era, but also trying to represent the “democracy arriving” to the country.

I’ve already published a post about a generation born around 1989 mentioning that they started to re-collect the memories of their childhood where apparently a lot of things show that it had been the time of the transition then, basically: having fun in an ambiance fulfilled with political debates and doubts.

http://polopokol.hu

I think it was in 2006 when I first saw people at the university wearing T-shirts with Vágási Feri’s — one of the protagonists — face on it. I didn’t know then, but probably that was the first wave of the “Neighbours trend”. It’s not really related to the très à la mode retro fanaticism of the communism, but to something which makes people ironically laugh at how funny had been the time when a whole society first had seen more than one logo of political parties when voting at the elections, or drug addicts appearing in the forest nearby, or the first time experiencing the usage of the internet.

The next video is from the first episode of the series. When Feri and his wife, Jutka are moving into the new apartment in the fantastic tower block building. The blue captions are explanations of some details of the story, because the soap opera was partly aired again to “teach” the audience with captions providing interesting facts. Anyway, it was on air “normally” last year, but somehow the Hungarian public TV channel, mtv (Magyar Televízió) will restart it again by tomorrow. (12:55 PM live stream here)

So if you are interested in coming to the party, check these sites:
http://www.myspace.com/szomszedokparti
http://szomszedokreloaded.blog.hu/
Facebook event (almost 600 ppl coming!)

And the flyer of the party:


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Video on Hungarian Christmas Tradition of “szaloncukor”

24Dec09

I never thought I would finally find something which I’d consider good enough about Christmas and Hungary to publish here. But this video with szaloncukor caught my attention.

Boldog Karácsonyt!
(Merry Christmas!)


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Rally for Dunakeszi Marsh

15Dec09

Citizens of Dunakeszi, activists in environmental protectionism and students rallied on Saturday for the marsh of Dunakeszi. Some weeks ago a debate had broken out among the defenders of the marsh (in Hungarian: láp) and the Auchan supermarket deciding to extend its parking lot on the marsh.

Dunakeszi Marsh

Two organizations, the Live Chain for Hungary (Élőlánc Magyarországért) and the Dunakeszi Peat Pond Environmentalist Foundation (Tőzegtó Környezetvédelmi Alapítvány) started a campaign against the extension of the supermarket, as according to them, the permission for the constructions is based upon an inappropriate statement made by László S. Nagy. The National Inspectorate for Environment, Nature and Water announced that they had asked László S. Nagy to investigate the application of Auchan (Immochan Hungary) as he was an expert in the topic. By the report of S. Nagy stating that there was no “ex lege” defended natural area concerned in the application, Immochan got the permission to extend their main building and the parking lot to the area of the peat ponds and the marsh.

By 1996, such natural formations as the Dunakeszi marsh and its peat ponds are protected by the law. The two organizations published their open letter to Imre Szabó, the Minister of Environment and Water, asking him to investigate the case, and also a petition was introduced on Saturday for the same reason.

A video from the Saturday rally, Péter Pacsuta, environmental engineer is reciting the statement of László S. Nagy, which was based upon an examination made not in the area of the planned construction, but farther in an area which is not the part of the marsh.

This video is in English with the students of Karinthy AMK Primary School, who decided to put the case of the Dunakeszi marsh in their project. They examined the effect of the urban development on the insects living in the marsh and its peat ponds.

More information in Hungarian:
http://tozegto.freeweb.hu


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Slam Poetry in Hungary

14Dec09
By 2009 Hungary can proudly announce that the country has a very organized and active slammer society. Slam poetry is a kind of performance poetry which is related to spoken word, and also very close to freestyle rap, cabaret and stand-up comedy.
The first so-called Budapest Slam had been centrally organized by cultural institutions in 2006. The main organizer of the first two events had been the director to the Budapest Kunsthalle, Zsolt Petrányi. Budapest Slam and Budapest Slam no. 2 (in 2007) had been at Kunsthalle, with singers, poets and rappers performing. In 2009 Radio Tilos had a big slam contest at Budapest Jazz Club, and lately, in November the members of Kőleves slam evenings had another one at Sirály.
After the centrally organized starting events, there have been more and more jams and events organized by those who have not only been dedicated to one field of expression: poetry, music or art grouped into one – but who finally have become a special society of slammers practicing regularly the new style.
These people now hold their events at Kőleves restaurant every month, reading and reciting their poems, and raising new topics for freestyle poetry. English-speaking slammers are also more than welcome to participate in Kőleves club evenings, but also expats living in Budapest organize events for foreigners at Spinoza House. (More info below.)
Slam evenings are regularly organized in Veszprém city, too, and it seems like Zalaegerszeg and Pécs will also join the list of those having slammer societies.
This video shows Id who gained the 4th place at the 1st European Poetry Slam contest.
INFORMATIONS ON SLAM POETRY IN HUNGARY

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