Well it's quite normal to scratch out the country you are living in, so that's what I am doing. Plus, unfortunately, 2010 was not my best trippie year ever unlike previous years or next years, so this why recently romania-related posts are welcoming you. This time, I remembered all the comments when I first decided to come to Romania. My friends, people that I met, my family, everyone had different images of Romania, naturally. And after one year of life experience, it's good to enlighten people, totally subjectively, from my perspective. Here comes the top 5 stereotyped comments that I was told and it's my time to make a comment about them.

1. Are you going to a gypsy land ?

This is quite a common stereotype about Romania. How Romania felt into this situation relies on the historical facts. Orginally coming from India, Romani people spread whole Europe, If you are more interested in their historical background, I highly recommend you to read about the Holocaust times, some sad Nazi facts about assimilation on gypsies. So shortly and very basicly just update your knowledge about the roots of gypsies. Plus, there is nothing wrong with them, just same old story, integration, cultural and socio economical incoordination..Similar immigration problems occur in any other countries. Approximately gypsy population in Romania is around 2 million. (where population of Romania is around 21 million)



2. Romanian music = Big boobs sexist lolipop blondies' popular songs ?

Well, pop music is trendy. In US, popular hiphop is no different. And, as an effect of post communism this consuming style also exists in Romania of course. But just following some certain shity tv channels, do not expect to get more than this from Romania. They have various kind of songs, singers, bands, etc...and people that are choosing them. Shortly, Romanian music is not just this :


3. You can not walk on the streets because of the dogs !

That's true that there's quite a lot of dogs on the streets. There has been some governmental tries (!)  to stop this, but still there are many untended dogs around. I haven't bitten by any of them yet and most of them seem OK :) I can't controvert this observation, but I think there are some other more disturbing reasons not being able to walk on the streets.It will be a topic of another post.

4. Romanian girls' teeth are ugly.

This was a funny comment from some friends and I don't think it's a national issue :)

5. We are cheated, stolen, etc....

Just take care ! Yes, you are not in the world's safest country, but rest of 6 billion people are also not. You are not in Luxemburg, Zurich or Stockholm. Yes, some taxi drivers cheat; yes I have been stolen also; yes I saw crying ladies stolen, etc..But, I still think Bucharest is quite safe ! I think it depends on your safety criterias.

More to come...