Friday, May 25, 2007
Earlier on tonight I went over to my Portugal friend Felipe's place for a sushi dinner, there was also his flat mates, 2 French girls, and their French girlfriends plus one guy from Israel. You would think I would've gotten better at this by now, but I didn't manage to catch or retain ANY of their names. I feel kinda guilty, and the only saving grace is that I tell myself they probably can't remember mine rightly either. Despite this though, we had a nice time at dinner.
We ordered take-out sushi, which meant that it was delivered to us. I miss sushi a hell of a lot, so naturally I jumped at the chance of a sushi dinner (I suppose I could order it in myself, but how sad and lame would that be, to eat by yourself?). To the Europeans, sushi, much like Chinese food, is exotic and mysterious (for lack of a better word), so it was really amusing to watch everyone fumble with chopsticks and wasabi, and poring over the sushi filling trying to determine what it was.
Anyhow, it was interesting just to meet new people. The Israeli guy was dating one of Felipe's flatmates, this French girl Emanuelle, who was telling us about her really cool summer job in which she would be going all over France as a juggling act promoting the Tour de France. How come these European kids get all the cool jobs? Did I mention they get paid a hell of a lot too? The other day my Italian friend Sasa told me he would come to Singapore if I promised I would bring him around, and I said it wasn't well worth the 500euros (or more) it might cost to fly from Italy to SG because, well, you could probably stay in SG for 3 days without getting bored and that would be that. He said money's not a problem because in Italy they pay you 50euros a day to be a waiter. He said he would work 10 days and then come visit me, hehe. In SG you have to work for like a whole MONTH to get that kind of money=/ As a consolation though, not all of Europe's that lucky- I checked and they pay much, much worse here in Hungary- like SGD$3 per hour (minute of silence for underpaid struggling Hungarian students).
That's the thing about Europe too- the countries in it are really, really different. Obviously there's much more to this disparity than just wages and standards of living, but this is one thing that's really puzzled me. The Hungarian people aren't that lucky at all- in fact, my friend Chantal (who's American/Hungarian and lives with her Hungarian granny here) says that most Hungarians live in flats that were way less nice than the ones us exchange students live in. Hungarians are poor, period. I heard their average salary was something like 500 Euros per month, which is really downright sad, because at the same time the cost of living is supposed to be rising (but us foreigners cannot tell). Of course, the Western European countries are flush with money, not to mention the Scandinavian states. In Finland for example, homeless people on welfare are given a stipend of 1500 Euros per month. And the students are similarly paid whilst they are studying- 4oo Euros per month. It isn't as if that money is too hard to come by either, my friend Saki said they all have to fill out and submit some form with their semester credits to get their allowance, and once he took a semester break to travel but got the money anyways because he made up a story about how he had problems with his girlfriend and couldn't study. I guess in some places money does grow on trees! Finnish homeless people can afford to travel here and there too...which I reckon would be a smart plan: If I were a homeless person in Finland I would collect my stipend every month and jet off to some new place where the cost of living was less high (virtually anywhere else in the world) and hang out there till my next stipend was due. I could go skiing in poorer countries like Slovakia, lie out on the beaches of Madagascar, scale the pyramids of Egypt, pick up surfing in Bali, learn yoga in India, go shopping in Hong Kong... ...you get the picture. Must be nice to know you're making more than most people in the world even though you're not doing anything! =p
Being homeless in good ol' Hungary on the other hand, is entirely another story. These are people who sleep in railway stations wrapped up in dirty sheets (if they are lucky enough to have any) that smell like pee. Everywhere they go they are looked upon with a mixture of pity and revulsion; when they beg others for money they are at best ignored like they were invisible and at worst shooed away like stray dogs. They spend most of their money on alcohol, sometimes you see them randomly slumped over stairways in a puddle of their own puke/pee, and they have to scavenge in dustbins for food people have thrown away (how gross is that?!). I got chased home by a homeless person just that other day- it was late at night and I was going home from a flat party over at Theo and Paniakos' place(they are Cypriot/Greek boys). Budapest is not a very dangerous place, and when said homeless man came up to me I was more irritated than afraid, because he looked really skanky and smelled even worse, and I worried he would grab me and dirty my new dress. I shooed him away but he kept following me, and I noticed with alarm his footsteps behind me were catching up, so I started brisk walking and then outright running, and for a whole stretch of road he really did chase me! It got to this point where I was kinda scared and very VERY pissed off (more accurately, I was so scared I got angry). I stopped running, turned around (he was almost right behind me too) and yelled, "FUCK OFF you homeless piece of shit!" and glaring at him continued "Stop. Following. Me." (the effect from pausing between words made them sound all emphasized and firm, although in truth it was only because I was panting=D). He looked stunned for a moment, and then he just turned and walked off meekly. Haha...score one for Chai!
Friday, May 25, 2007
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