The Rest of the Story

Dear Fulbright friends and curious browsers,

Please have fun browsing this blog, and if you wish to read about life after Fulbright, you will be welcome at my current blog, "Da Da Da Da Life Goes On." 

Noroc şi sănătate!

Duncan

Christmas Memories

Craciun Ferecit, Fulbrighters in Romania! 

Please click the headings on the images below for links to stories that you may enjoy.  They provide a glimpse of what you may soon experience.

Christmas Week in Romania

Family and food will fill the table for day after day.

The Christmas Spirit 

City Hall in Oradea, Christams Week, 2008

Craciun ferecit, şi La Mulţi Ani!

Thanks and love to all at The Romanian Fulbright Commission.

from Duncan and  Shirley

Once a Fulbrigter, Always a Fulbrighter

My first opportunity to share a Thanksgiving dinner with Romanians, and with a host of other visitors to Babeş-Bolyai University (UBB), came in Cluj, during my Fulbright year.  But, as is often said, one never stops being a Fulbrighter.
 
This year we were at our home in Campton, New Hampshire, for Thanksgiviing, where Shirl and I were hosts to seven Romanian friends, including Monica Zaharie, Ph.D., my UBB colleague from my Fulbright year.  Here is a photo essay.

A Foreshadowed Relationship with Romania

Please see this link for the non-coincidence of the year in my relationship with Romania.

October 2012 Update

Early in October I attended the First International Conference on Sustainable Business and Transitions for Sustainable Development, held at Selcuk University in Konya and Akşehir, Turkey.  Thereafter, I took advantage of the opportunity to spend ten days back in Romania, where I visited my Fulbright friends in Cluj, and made a trip over to the Banat to visit in the village of Covasinţ the parents of Roxy Fera of Sibiu, much mentioned earlier in this blog.  While in that western region of Romania, I paid a visit also to colleagues in FEAA at West University in Timişoara, thus completing my wish list of beautiful cities to see in Romania.

Apartment in Cluj for a 2012-13 Fulbrighter

My friend Raymond Wright of Philadelphia spent time in Cluj in the early Nineties, and adopted a baby girl while he was there.  He also bought an apartment in Zorilor, a nice neighborhood in Cluj located on the hill above the Botanical Garden.  In 2010, he went to Cluj and spent two weeks working with a construction crew, thoroughly renovating the place.  I was teaching at Babeş-Bolyai University that fall, so I was there at the time.  I visited Ray's apartment, and can attest that it has a brand new bathroom, new appliances, new floors, and new windows.  It is gorgeous.

So, if you are a Fulbrighter, and are going to be living in Cluj for the school year, you might want to contact me by leaving a comment below with your e-mail address, and I'll send you Ray's contact information.  (Ray is hoping for a school-year rental, so that he and his family can use the apartment in the summer.)

Only a Cockeyed Optimist?

In South Pacific, the Broadway musical by Rogers and Hammerstein, Mary Martin sang an uplifting tune called, "A Cockeyed Optimist." 

While teaching in Cluj-Napoca, I was reluctant to form opinions about Romania's politics, or about her politicians.  Part of the reason for that was my glaring ignorance about both.  Still, I could not help but hear the complaints of my students, friends, and acquaintances, and I had several opportunities to observe the solid locked doors, long unruly queues, and seeming unconcern for those waiting, that characterized the government offices with which I had contact.

During my first semester as a Fulbright professor in Cluj, President Obama was elected in the United States.  During my second teaching stint in Cluj, in the fall of 2010, an idea occurred to me built on the lessons of that 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign.  Until last week, apart from describing it orally to a few friends, I kept that idea to myself.   Then, last week, I read in The Boston Globe a news report of the result of the referendum in Romania in which President Basescu retained his position due to a low voter turnout.  That report stimulated me to publish my idea, which takes no sides, but advocates some positive governmental principles and a mechanism for bringing about their implementation.

Perhaps my idea is merely the fond wish of a cockeyed optimist.  But it comes from one who loves Romania, and wants to see her well-governed and prosperous. For whatever it is worth, you will find my idea here: Romanian Youth: Join T.H.I.S!

If you were looking for Diane McDonald's Page...

Ms. Diane McDonald, whom I do not know, e-mailed me yesterday as follows:

I just brought up my website yesterday, www.dcmcd.info (Diane C. McDonald) and thought I ought to check out www.dcmcd.com in case it was something I didn't want friends to accidentally stumble upon.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that your website chronicles your travels in Romania, while mine is fundraising for a Habitat for Humanity trip to Romania.  

Just thought the coincidence was too good not to share.

And a good Scottish name to boot!

Diane McDonald

I have confirmed the authenticity of Diane's Habitat.ro project.  My donation to Diane's Habitat for Humanity project is already sent.  I hope a few of my loyal readers will also be able to send a few bucks.

In Romania, dear Diane, I predict that you will learn that there are no coincidences.  Godspeed, and Drum Bun!

The Rest of the Story

Thank you to all who have visited, and especially to those who have followed this blog, and left such fine comments. The successor blog, "Da Da Da Da Life Goes On," is found at dcmcd2.blogspot.com.

Let's Improve Romania's Image

In the Facebook Cause "Let's Improve Romania's Image," one Vincent Kuiper recently posted a recommendation that Romania emphasize its "beautiful girls and cheap beer" to attract student visitors to the country, whom he feels may one day become foreign investors. This was my response:

Vincent Kuiper may have more marketing insight than I, but as a 66 year-old American who spent the 2008-09 academic year teaching in Cluj-Napoca and traveling throughout Romania, I have another perspective. The Romanians are hospitable. The Romanians are diverse. The Romanian countryside is spectacularly varied and beautiful. Romania is rich in both culture and cultures, having had in its history the influences of the Greeks, the Romans, Mongolians, Turks, the French, Germans, Celts, Russians, Serbs, Austrians, Hungarians, and God-only-knows how many others. Rural Romania, especially in the north and southwest, is characterized by family farms still being farmed with human and animal muscle. The haystacks and stork's nests are present-day models for the illustrations I saw as a child as my mother read to me from Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Romanian education is excellent. My university seniors in the Englishline at Babeș-Bolyai University's Faculty of Economics were well-read in the classics, competent in mathematics, and a delight to work with. If Romania has a long-term problem, it is that the country's business community is not yet large enough to employ all of the qualified graduates of its many fine universities. Talent-seeking foreign companies would do well to invest in such a country.

Romanian culture is colored by the religious traditions of the Romanian Orthodox church, which along with the Roman Catholic church has leant a strong sense of values to the majority of Romanians. The 40-year nightmare of Communism was unable to kill the Romanian spiritual core, hence Romanians appreciate their freedoms more than do we who grew up taking freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and free elections for granted.

Romania still has its share of problems, of course. But in my view it is about to soar into prominence as a productive and culturally advanced member of The European Union, in which Old Europe's charm and work ethic still prevail.

Yes, Vincent, the Romanian women are self-assured, confident and charming, and many are very lovely, as well. And yes, a bottle of Ursus Dark in a pub costs only one buck. But those facts are but surface decorations on this emerging jewel of a nation.

Allandra de Aiud

Tonight I met Allandra de Aiud in an online play money poker game. Watch out for this lady. She cleaned my clock! But I must say that her English is excellent, and that at the table she put a nasty heckler very neatly in his place.

To answer your question, Allandra, I drove Klaus through Aiud on several trips from Cluj to Sibiu or to Bucharest, and on one trip with my wife Shirley that took us all the way to Calafat and back. As you peruse this blog you will learn of my many travels in your wonderful country over the past year.

I hope to hear from you again, either online or in person, as Shirley and I intend to return next spring to visit our friends in Romania.

If you want to keep in touch, please leave me your e-mail address in a comment. (I promise to delete that address from the blog in the interest of your privacy, so please make it the whole of one comment.)

Noapte buna!

Oldrider

Comment:
allandra_popa said... Thank you for all your nice word about me,:)))well mostly about my game. It was interesting to meet you and sorry for cleaning you up.:) I've started to read your blog and it was truly impressed to find out about your work. It must be really fascinating. I'm anxious to read all your impressions about our small and colorful country, because I'm sure it was something totally different from what you were accustomed, but not in a bad way. I would love to keep in touch on e-mail and even meet you and your wife, but only if you make a quick stop in Paris on your way to Romania. If not in a couple of years I want to come to New York and maybe then. But until hope to hear from you.

Alexandru & Alexandra

MICAN Alexandru of Bistriţa has played a major role in this blog, as he was both my student and sometime tour-guide during my Fulbright Year. Prof. PhD. MUŢIU Alexandra of UBB-Cluj was one of his second-year professors at UBB, and was my teaching partner in the Englishline Management Accounting course at UBB last spring. This past week, the three of us had a chance to renew friendships here at Plymouth State University, where Alexandru is an MBA candidate and a graduate fellow, and where Alexandra came to meet with her PSU/UBB Joint-MBA Program colleagues, and to do research on our methods of teaching accounting, which I can honestly report to have long been a strong point of the Plymouth State business programs.

Yesterday, Shirl, both the Romanian Alexes, and I visited Cambridge and Boston, including a tour of the Harvard Business School. The "dear old halls" of alma mater are, I was pleased to see, as stately and well-kept as ever.

To my Romanian friends, I reiterate: we love it when you visit. Please come to New Hampshire and spend some time with us!

Craciun Fericit!

Postscript: Romanian Visitors to New Hampshire

Shirley McDougall and I are happy to report that already we have hosted three visitors from Transylvania at our home near Plymouth, New Hampshire. In July Lucian BOGDAN, my Teaching Assistant in American Studies at UBB-Cluj, made a two-day side trip to Manchester, NH, on his way home from an American Studies conference in Philadelphia. He and I drove the long way home from the airport, stopping in Portsmouth to see the colonial architecture and NH's seaport, then had boiled lobsters for lunch in Kittery, Maine. From Kittery we came north to Campton via the shore of Lake Winnepesaukee, from Alton Bay to Gilford on Route 11. The next day was sunny and warm, so we rode on my 1982 Honda Silver Wing Interstate up through Franconia Notch to Littleton for clam chowder at the Littleton Diner, then over to the Mt. Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, where the famous WWII economic conference was held.

In August we hosted my former FSEGA student Radu BENCHEA of Sibiu, who flew up from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to visit us prior to heading back to Romania after a summer working as a pedicab driver in that resort city. While with us, Radu also made a three-day rail trip to visit relatives in New York City, so he got to see that not all of America is sun, sand and bikini-country.

This month we have hosted new FSEGA grad Alexandru MICAN of Bistrița, who has been admitted to the PSU MBA Program as a full time student. Alex was one of my guides (along with his friend Dora FAUR) on our long weekend in Moldavia, back in October of last year. Alex has also seen some White Mountain geography during the past two weeks, and has now moved into his own apartment right next to the PSU campus. Alex has played golf with me three times already, and scored his first par on a hole, just yesterday. Is the game of golf really that easy?

So, all my Romanian friends, please take notice: our invitations were seriously given, and your visits will be welcome.

Goodbye, Romania (not "Goodbye Romanians")

It has been a beautiful drive. Shirl, Klaus and I are safely back in Fellbach. We left Cluj only the day before yesterday, and already our home in Romania seems a thousand miles away. Oh, yeah. It is a thousand miles away. But we’re still in Europe, some 3,500 miles from our American home, so are we really going to leave Europe and fly to New England, or are we just on another Fulbright adventure, and will Klaus be taking us back to our wonderful apartment in our adopted city to see our good Romanian friends as he has faithfully done for the past nine months?

Goodbye, Romania! But not “Goodbye, Romanians.” We will keep in touch. We have Yahoo mail, we have our University work connections, and we have our lives to share.

If you get to New Hampshire, please do not forget that our big old house in Campton has a guest room, and we love showing off our beautiful home state to visitors.

Farewell, Latest Lover!

Though it traces its roots to a Jesuit school founded in 1581, prior to 1919 all teaching at the university we know today as Babeş-Bolyai was either in Hungarian or in Latin. Ninety years ago, with the unification that incorporated Transylvania as a region of Romania following World War I, the new Romanian-language Babeş University was founded in Cluj. About forty years ago, under the Communist government, Babeş-Bolyai University was formed by the merger of Cluj's Hungarian-speaking institution of higher learning with its Romanian-speaking one, and together they formed the amazing multicultural, polylingual university in which I have taught this year.

To celebrate the Nintieth Anniversary of there being a Romanian University in Cluj, Rector Marga today hosted a glorious musical event at the UBB Auditorium Maximum. The concert lasted almost three hours, and I wept each hour. First, I was moved to tears by the beauty of the music provided by the Transylvanian Symphony Orchestra. Then came a romantic operatic duet performed by a magnificent tenor and soprano from Bucharest. Then, I wept with emotion at having to leave Romania when traditional folk singers came on stage in their regional finery, and sang Romanian tunes.

I will detail the concert in a later post, for it deserves a full report. For now, suffice it to say, 'tis trrrrue: "We Scots ha'e but two emotions, weepin' and angerrrrr." Today, mine wa' weepin'.

And, to make perfect the event as a cultural culmination of my Romanian Fulbright adventures, during the standing ovation that followed the finale (Brahms' "Academic Overture," which ends with the famous theme known as "Gaudeamus Igitur"), the world-famous Romanian soprano Florentina Văduva tossed a rose from her bouquet to the audience, and I caught it.

Upon reflection, of course it was I who caught Florentina's rose. If this year has taught me anything, it is that there are no coincidences. She was but Fair Romania, bidding farewell to her latest lover.

Final Fulbright Days

We are facing the final days of our adventure in Romania. Yesterday was the final Friday. The highlight of the day was my dinner at Agape with Prof. Marius Jucan.

Marius Jucan is a Prodecan (vice-dean) of the Faculty of European Studies, and founder and head of the Program in American Studies at UBB. He is also author of a number of scholarly books in both Romanian and English, a member of the original UBB delegation that visited Plymouth back in the early days of our cooperation, a veteran of the Romanian Army under Communism, an ardent advocate of democracy, and a brilliant conversationalist. One of his books in Romanian is entitled Maştile libertatii, America în scritorile lui Thomas Jefferson, which translates roughly as, "The Faces of Liberty, America in the Letters of Thomas Jefferson."

Shirley was not up to joining us, so Marius and I enjoyed one of those rare occasions when two guys of sixty-or-so get to have some wine, eat whatever they want without apologizing for it, and talk about whatever comes to mind. I treasure such occasions.

At Graduation with Marius Jucan
Today I stopped by Marius' office and gave him three books on American History that my brother Walter was kind enough to send me for use in my course. Two were autographed copies of the paperback editions. I know that Marius will read them. He is that kind of a man. But I don't know if he will agree with Wally on all that they contain, for Marius definitely thinks for himself.

Walking back to Piaţa Mihai Viteazul at close-to-midnight, Marius and I encountered two young men standing and talking on the sidewalk. It was PETEAN Flaviu and BENCHEA Radu, two of my beloved graduates from the Englishline at FSEGA. I introduced them to Professor Jucan, then learned they were waiting for the bus to take Radu to Budapest where he would catch a flight to Fort Lauderdale to work for the summer. There are no coincidences, only a very small world. Have fun, Radu, and while you are there, look up my son Brian in Miami Beach!

Visit Went Well - Packing Proceeds

Visit went well

Trent Boggess flew to Budapest yesterday after three cordial days of meetings (and social mealtimes) here in Cluj. The teaching team for our Joint PSU-UBB International MBA is gelling, with the next step to come at the end of the month, when Roxana Wright will return to spend a week here to provide training in online course delivery of our specific MBA curriculum. A renewed Agreement of Cooperation between UBB and PSU was signed Wednesday by Rector Andrei Marga, and is now being hand-carried back to Plymouth's president Dr. Sara Jayne Steen, who was unable to make the trip at this busy time of year. After the signing, we were invited to join the Rector at a reception for the Vietnamese Ambassador to Romania over lunch at the Pyramids, UBB's nicest restaurant. (Trent has a story to tell about that event, so I'll say no more about it at this juncture.) On Thursday morning, I presented a talk on the ACBSP's Baldrige-based approach to quality management and continuous improvement in higher education to the UBB Quality Assurance Council, headed by Vice Rector Andrei Marcuş. Then, I took Trent back to the Faculty of Economics, where he bid farewell to our colleagues and to our program partner, Prodeacon Dr. Mihaela Luţaş.

Packing proceeds

After a delightful home-cooked meal with his parents last Sunday, Lucian Bogdan, my volunteer teaching assistant in AE&B this term, and I went to Carrefour at Polus Center (a large shopping mall), where I acquired the biggest piece of hand-luggage I could find. It is a hard-surfaced check-in sized roller-case. It is now full to the sit-on-to-close level with my winterwear and formal suits, souvenir hand-woven wool blankets and Romanian flag (gifts from the Econ-Englishline Seniors), five "Romania" T-Shirts in bright yellow, which I had here for the kids but forgot to give them, my J&M dress shoes, protected on their Rochester Shoe Trees, of course, and everything else I didn't think I'd need before coming home. That monstrous bag is now in the trunk of Klaus. Probably, it will cost me extra on my flight home late next week.

So, today...

It is Friday, and I have stayed in the apartment, ostensibly to work on candidate reviews for The Fulbright Commission of Romania. But I have had trouble staying awake today. A day without meetings? Unheard of! "Rest, old man, while you have the chance," my body keeps telling me.

Tonight Shirl and I will dine with Prodeacon Marius Jucan of the Faculty of European Studies, and head of the American Studies Program. We will be brainstorming further avenues of cooperation between our universities.

The end may be in sight for the Fulbright Year in Romania, but as Mort Sahl used to say, "The future lies ahead."

The Senior Song

Fellow nostalgists ('tis a term just coined) will enjoy my musical gift to the UBB Class of 2009. Click on the link to hear it sung by the Amherst College Glee Club.

The Senior Song
by Jimmy Hamilton, Amherst College, Class of 1906

Strangers once, we came to dwell together,
Born of a mother, wise and true.
Now we're bound by ties that cannot sever,
All our whole life through.
Gather closer, hand to hand.
The time draws near when we must part.
Still the love of college days will linger,
Ever in each heart.

Chorus:

So raise the rosy goblet high,
The senior chalice, and belie,
The tongues that slander and defile,
For we have yet a little while,
To linger, youth, and you, and I
In college days.

We have climbed together up the pathway,
On to the goal where life doth wait.
Where in bright, and beck'ning fields of promise,
Lieth fame or fate.
Born among these dear old halls,
Friendships that can never die.
Strength to keep us faithful and devoted,
To our purpose high.

Chorus

Trent Returns

[Note: the post of June 3, 2009, "At the Danube Delta" has been amplified, in case you would like to read more about our weekend in the Southeast.]

Our last full week in Romania begins today, Whitsunday, which is a new national holiday in Romania, but an examination day nevertheless for some of our Faculty of Economics (FSEGA) students.

For me, the day will be accented by a speech at the Aula Magna at UBB's downtown campus given by Nobel Prize nominee Leszek Balcerowicz, the Polish economist famous for inventing "shock therapy" as a way of converting former Communist Bloc economies into free market economies.

Following that event, I will go to the airport to meet Dr. Trent Boggess, chairman of the Business Department at Plymouth State University, who will be arriving for his second visit to our International MBA Program partner school, UBB's FSEGA.

This evening, Shirl and I hope to take Trent to an early dinner, then to his hotel to give him a chance to rest before a busy week of company visits and faculty meetings here in Cluj.

A Full and Festive Graduation Day: UBB American Studies Program,Class of, 2009

Yesterday I gave my second graduation speech of the year, this one to the graduates of the Faculty of European Studies, American Studies Program. They had given me a day's warning that they would like me to speak, so I prepared brief remarks, which I will include below, just for the record.

With Professor Raluca Moldovan and Prodeacon Marius Jucan, congratulating the new graduates.

Cristina Guglia, the coordinator of the event, also asked me to send my remarks ahead of time for translation into Romanian, so that their parents and guests could hear them and understand what I had said. Rather than do so, I was aided by my colleague in accounting Alexandra Muţiu, who provided the Romanian version. (If any reader would like to have that version, please send a remark with your e-mail address, and I will provide it.)

Remarks made at American Studies Graduation:

Dean Gyemant, Professor Jucan, Colleagues in the Faculty of European Studies, parents, relatives, friends of our honorees, and especially, dear “about-to-be graduates” of Babes-Bolyai University:

I thank you for inviting me to say a few words at your celebration today. Let me begin by thanking your parents for raising such wonderful kids, and for sending those wonderful young men and women to UBB. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with the UBB American Studies students this term.

And thank you, students, for your active participation in our many discussions this semester.

The past few months have not been “the best of times” in America, but that fact has made this semester an especially good time to be teaching a course in American Economy and Business.

Given the excesses and corrupt practices represented by the “Sub-prime Lending” and “Bernie Madoff” scandals, among others, humility has been the only possible attitude for an American teacher of such a course. Yet, in the global financial repercussions of problems that began in America, the global importance of the American Economy was made obvious. Truly, as has been said many times, “When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.” So, for a European undergraduate interested in taking part in the global economy of the coming decades, to have focused one’s studies on understanding America was a sensible choice.

I hope that the three books you have read in our time together will continue to inform your views of America, and of the effects of Prices, “Animal Spirits,” and Central Banks on free market economies.

I hope that our wide-ranging class discussions of both American and Romanian cultures, of their similarity as topographically varied, diversely peopled, and naturally fertile countries, of their differing diversities, and of our shared “human condition” in many of its aspects, will be food for your thoughts as you progress through your lives.

Finally, I hope that you will keep in touch with “Professor Duncan,” the last American professor that you met in your undergraduate years at UBB, and keep him informed as you, no longer children, but now licensed adults, make your own paths in our shared, increasingly connected, and interdependent world.

Again, to you parents, as the father of six, I know what a proud moment this is for you good people.

Thank you, and may God bless us all.

Then, A Spontaneous Fulbright Dinner Party:

After the graduation, at which Charles Harris, Fulbrighter and AmStuds teacher at Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu was a welcome visitor/photographer, Charles, Kathy O., Shirl and I repaired to the bistro across the river from the apartment, and shared a festive dinner, our final dinner with each other for this Fulbright Year.