Showing posts with label canada. Show all posts

I just learned of two significant Romanian movie events in Toronto: Porumboiu's Whistlers is having its (wide?) release and TIFF a "survey" of 50 years of Romanian Cinema.

I haven’t been able to find many movies with by Romanians or about Romanians at TIFF 19 (Toronto International Film Festival) I thought I mention them before the Festival is over.

I just learned about two Romanian-Canadian people, mother and daughter Ana Constantin and Lisa Maria Paun being banned for life by Air Canada and left stranded without proper notice. This is not discrimination, just incredibly poor customer service and it’s an issue almost all of us have to deal with every time we fly.

I watched these days Simona Halep having to retire due to an injury, Bianca triumphing over Genie Bouchard and though I certainly rooted for Bianca, I do regret somewhat both Serena’s and Genie’s respective losses.

The title means “Romanians vote anticorruption”, but then I realized that Romanians know what happened, it’s foreigners who might be more interested in what I have to say about it. I wish I could write a celebratory article, but I can't. Most Romanians who lined up seem to think that they are voting against corruption, but have they really?

The elections for the European Parliament are coming up soon, and this time around, I decided to ask all candidates a few questions and post their answers. But before sending these questions, it makes sense to look at the details, the first and most important being that the voting day is May 26 between 7:00 and 21:00, local time (EST) and there’s not voting by correspondence.

..except in Romania. Part of the reason why is that I’m not in Romania. But it’s also because so many have left the country and the population is in a precipitous decline.

I have previously echoed on this blog news about Romanians in the #diaspora. This time, we’re discovering the story of a girl born in an #Austrian refugee camp to a Romanian mother and an (absent) Italian father, who was reborn in an aboriginal village.

Whenever I talk to Romanians who want to come to Canada and I answer questions, I always end up being a bit upset. I find that people ask me too many simple questions they could answer themselves with Google and too few of the “important” questions. Maybe there’s a guru hiding inside of me, and here’s where I set him free.

I continue with my answer to a friend, started in asa.zamo.ca/immigrate2canada.

When friends ask me about immigrating to Canada, my first answer is always DON’T!. However, though I’ve already written about this in the past, I have yet do so in English, so I’ll do so here, especially since yesterday I answered another reader.

Based on my mistaken belief that there may be people reading this, I go ahead with my recommendations, after the intro and Asia. PISA is not just a set of tests, it comes with suggestions and recommendations.

The results of the latest PISA testing have come out. Will I manage to write about the educational styles in Canada (which is 4th, tied with Finland, after Singapore, Japan and Estonia) and Romania (48th out of 70)?

There was a time when talking about TIFF meant an image. Then, starting around 1975, it meant the Toronto International Film Festival. Then Romania thought that copying this name is OK, and now I find that I have to differentiate between tiff.ro and tiff.net. Here we are simply listing the Romanian movies at TIFF.net (in Toronto).

It's a sad day for Ioan Pop, his family, and Romanian Christian Orthodoxy in general, but on the bright side, the abused women are finally getting some closure and Ioan Pop won’t have a chance to repeat his weird brand of sexual religiosity. As usual, I am not content with only reporting on the news; I have a few other things to say.

It happened a week ago, but I needed some time to sort out my feelings. It’s complicated, because Alexandra Dulgheru is Romanian (i.e., from my native country) and Eugenie Bouchard is Canadian (i.e., from my adoptive country). Alex is nicer and a winner, Genie is a blonde, confirming the stereotypes that come with that categorization.

A recent Op-Ed in New York Times seems to have caused a fair amount of consternation in both Romania as well as among my diaspora friends. Ion could equally be Ion Iliescu, recently green-lighted to be re-investigated in the “Mineriada” file, Adrian Nastase, the suicidal former premier and failed presidential candidate who had become the first test case of prosecutorial overreach in the case of an elite aparatchik, or even Patrick Basham, not afraid to confront the warm, fuzzy racism/scepticism/antiziganism-fuelled consensus that Romania is “doing something”.

A a couple of years before 1900, a Transylvanian village followed its lucky star West and moved to Alberta, in the Canadian prairies, where they (the villagers) each got a nice piece of land with quite a few strings attached.

I’ve two heavy things on my mind right now, and unlike WhatsApp frustrations, I don't think I'll be able to balance them with some happier, care-free thoughts. The second part of the title was inspired by a comment left by Blegoo about a year ago.

Not only did Klaus Iohannis manage to snatch victory from the claws of the Red Menace, but he did so by a huge, devastating margin AND on the surge in voter participation not only in the diaspora, but also in our birthplace. It’s a November Christmas miracle!