The Day I Went Totally Jó Reggelt!

Hungary's population is around ten million. According to UN projections, by mid-century, that figure will drop by more than a million. By 2100, it will drop another two million to just over six million. In other words, the country will see roughly a 38% population decline by century's end. That's a lot of Hungarians not being born. Compare that with first on the UN list (alphabetically), Afghanistan, whose current population of twenty one million is projected to grow to ninety million by 2100, an increase of 323%. Those Afghanis are going to be busy!


So, what's wrong with Hungary? Has it lost its spunk? Or is it simply living out some enlightened plan for population control in a world propagating out of control? 


I'm no demographer, but I've got a hunch. It has to do with eye contact. Hungarians don't make any. Not with me, not with each other, though occasionally while strolling I have lifted my eyes from my toes to catch somebody off-guard, clearly eying me, only to see them then seek immediate refuge in their own toes. No wonder Hungary's population is declining: Hungarians are afraid to look at each other, so how, then, are they ever going to meet, fall in love, have families (and maybe babies)?


At first I took the no-look-see thing personally, as though there is something peculiar about me too startling or ogreish to glance upon, an American Medusa. But, now, after a month, I am convinced it is not me, but them.


And, as I hinted at in my second blog posting, this aversion is likely an inheritance from the Soviet era, when a wrong look could get you in big trouble. Understandable. Hungarians were battered under a repressive police state. But this is 2011: the Soviet Union, and AVO, the Hungarian version of the KGB, have been dead for twenty two years, and the free state of Hungary has been alive for twenty-two years. Perhaps it's time.


So, I decided to see if maybe I couldn't put my hosts at a little more ease, with each other, and with me. I decided that rather than bend to their no-look-see tradition, I would try to shock them out of it. I decided that I was going to say hello to every person I passed, and see what happened.


I put my plan into action a few days ago, when, early in the a.m. and on my way to the coffee shop, walking along the stone-walled stream I said flatly -- because saying so cheerily would, I thought, have been over the top -- to each passerby, "Jó Reggelt" (pron: yeo rreggelt), "Good Morning."


Results were instantaneous. Every person -- men, women, boys, girls -- each one upon hearing "Jó Reggelt" raised their eyes to meet mine and came back at me with their own "Jó Reggelt," tentative and confused as it might have been. "Alright!", I beamed inwardly, "I don't have to be the invisible man!"


Inspired, emboldened, on a roll, I put off the coffee shop and continued walking the plaza, the streets, "Jó Reggelting" left and right, and, okay, perhaps this was a bid madcap, but I also began doffing my hat with each greeting.


It all seemed so simple to me. A simple hello, a little tip-o-the-hat. "Jó Reggelt." "Jó Reggelt." "Jó Reggelt."


I had a fantasy: I would single-handedly break Hungary out of its Cold-War legacy. I would melt their fears. I would warm their eyes. Statues would be erected in my honor all over Hungary: Jerry Blitefield, The American Who Went Jó Reggelt. I was quite proud of my little breakthroughs, and energized by them, I spent the rest of the morning roving Eger and "Jó Reggelting" with abandon.


Around noon, "Jó Reggelted" out, I finally made it to my coffee shop, where I have become a regular, and where the shop's owner, a friendly woman about my age with better than passing English, greets me warmly with each visit. 


Once inside from the cold I removed my hat and jacket and sat down at a little round table. When the shop owner approached we exchanged smiles and "Jó Reggelt." Then I got down to business: "Hosszú kávé, kérjük,"  (pron: hoesue kahvey kairr yeuke), "Large coffee, please." "Of course," she said, visibly amused (bemused?) by my mangled Hungarian.


As she left to prepare my coffee, outside I heard the slow approach of bullhorn and someone exhorting something or other through it. As it got closer, and its message became more audible, I had hoped to maybe pick out a word or two, but no use. 


My host returned with the coffee and stood at the table with a blanched look, listening to the approaching public announcement. A police car, the source of the announcement, rolled slowly past the shop door and carried its message up the street. My host looked past me to my jacket and hat on the adjacent chair, then turned her eyes to me gravely and without removing them put down the coffee with two hands.


"What did they say?" I asked, curious and a bit alarmed by her change in demeanor.


Still fixed on me, she said, "They, um, are urging caution. They say, um, that a crazed person is on the loose. That, um, he is likely not dangerous, but that he is clearly unpredictable. Erratic. Out of his mind. That everyone should proceed with caution, and call the police at once if they spot him or come across him."


"A crazy person. That can't be good. What should I look out for?"


"Well, um, the police said that he is about your height. And that he is wearing a red jacket, very similar to the one you came in. And that he wears a white hat tied at the top, very much like yours. And that he has been seen saying "Jó Reggelt" freely, all over town, and tipping his hat, too."


Korty (pron: korrtch). Gulp.


When I left the coffee shop soon thereafter I shoved my hat in my pocket and walked straight home, unobtrusively. I suspect none of the people I passed looked up to take notice of me; I didn't look up to take notice of them. I arrived back home and in my apartment, undetected and unidentified. I stayed in the rest of the day, and all the next day too, long enough, I had hoped, for that crazy person to have been caught or run out of town.