The "Bulevard" blazes with all its luminous signboards and resembles for just a minute 42nd Street, but it’s only playing a game; it just wanted to play at being New York on a 100-meter stretch; in Bucharest, yesterday is quickly forgotten, today doesn’t count, the only answer you get is: ‘mâine,’ that is to say, tomorrow.
Paul MORAND, Bucharest, Paris, 1935
Neither entertainment nor pleasure is a matter of wealth, at least not in the case of Romania, whose problems appear to be permanent all along its history. And yet, a whole tradition of manifesting lust for life is transparent both in popular and cultured expression. Delight is bubbling in literature and the arts, in music and especially in dance, in lavishly ornamented popular costumes, in gastronomy, in urban mores, customs and lore, in tales, pranks, curses, sayings, and even in (merry) epitaphs!
Erwin KESSLER
Romanians hiking about the mountains today (perhaps the most cherished pastime alongside beer-drinking with friends) are like Jews remembering each year their flight from the oppressor: protective, soothing memory has converted the past fear for one’s life into a pleasurable holiday.
