1. Tax

When you live in Hungary, this is the first thing you should prepare to face. The tax rates are definitely not the most expensive in the world, let alone the Scandinavian countries. But compared to average Hungarian income, they are killing! I am not only talking about the amount, but also about the way it is set. Hungarian government is very creative indeed. For electricity, for an instance, we have to pay 25% tax, and after the tax we still have to pay another tax for the first tax. The result maybe a lot, or maybe not. But whose idea was it to ask people to pay tax after the tax?

The election is coming this year so understandably politicians are spreading “good deeds”. The most anticipated one is the tax slash. Earlier the PM had announced that it would be cut onto 20% starting from this year. Theoretically it would make the prices to fall, eh? Now we have found out that the tax cut does not include food and general things, bus tickets and we just received announcement that gas and electricity companies will increase their price. What was it all about again?

2. Price

January 3, 2006, folks! What did we find? Everything is the same, only more expensive—despite the tax cut. Monthly ticket for public transportation has also been increased 550 Ft (almost US$ 3) into 6,850 Ft (US$ 34.25) from 6,250 Ft (US$ 31.25). What can be so wrong here? The tax or the price, or both, I wonder?

A friend who is living in the USA told me last night that she bought a Motorola Razr V3 with two-year subscription on T-Mobile for US$ 69. I checked Hungarian T-Mobile and found out that the same mobile with subscription is Ft 90,900 (US$ 454.5) http://t-mobile.hu/keszulekek/keszulek_arlista.shtml. That is almost seven times more expensive! And compare the minimum wage in the USA which is US$ 5,15/hour, and in Hungary it is about 45,000 Ft/month, which makes it US$ 1.4/hour (US$ 1 = 200 Ft).

What is funny is when I bought a Cosmopolitan. It was written on the cover: $3.99 US/ $4.99 Canada/ Foreign. It costed me 1850 Ft (US$ 9,25) nevertheless.

3. Crime
Zsolt is always worried to leave our house empty. If I had never lived in Hungary before, I might have thought he’s paranoid. But he has been having burglars broke into his house twice. Last year it also happened that somebody broke our car window while we were in a graveyard and took my mother in law’s hand bag.

The keyhole on our front door in Budapest also has some scratches. I never paid attention before. I just hope it has been there since we haven’t moved in. It is scary to think of what the person could have done if s/he could ever enter.

In August 2004, we just moved in. Zsolt called Chello for our internet cable. A guy came after that to set our connection. He dressed like Eminem and didn’t look too convincing. He checked our cable for a few minutes then saying that he couldn’t set the internet because our cable was too old and we needed to get it changed first. Afterwards we called Chello and they said they had never sent anybody to our flat. Zsolt then talked about it with his friend. He said that it often happens in Budapest that a group of people hacks phonecalls to Chello somehow and then come to people’s house pretending like they work for the company and steal what they could. Jaj!

My father in law even had an interesting experience. When he went into a store, he saw a big sign hanging on the doorway, written: Magyar (trans. Hungarian) Don’t Steal! The more embarassing thing is that the store is in Austria.

4. Medical Treatment
Recently I visited a dentist and gynecologist for a regular check—nothing special. Health insurance here doesn’t cover them; in fact it doesn’t cover anything. I paid 12,000 Ft (US$ 60) for the dentist for the same service that I regularly had in Indonesia for about $ 20. The dentist used the same tools like in Indonesia, but without TV (duh). How often do people with minimum salary of 45,000 Ft have their teeth checked? Sheesh!

The gynecologist was slightly better. He didn’t even touch me for any blood pressure check or heart beat or things like that. He asked me to take blood and sonographic test at the hospital and then return the results to him. He asked for 5,000 Ft (US$ 25) for that. And because I couldn’t return there, my mother in law took the results back there. She also had to pay another 5,000 Ft plus a message from the doctor that I had to take the same test because from the last result it could be seen that I hit myself before. Yeah right, and who doesn’t?

A week before, my mother went for the same sonographic test for herself with the same doctor in the same hospital. There she was told she had myoma . She then asked the female doctor who checked her. The woman answered, “Well, you went to another gynecologist, so why don’t you ask him? Don’t ask me!” Would she still response the same if my mother in law slipped a piece of 5,000 Ft in her pocket?

There is a tribute people must pay for the doctor and any staff who tend them in a hospital. It is called as hálapénz. It is nothing if it’s legitimate, but it’s not. There is no fixed law on this but it is definitely a must. For giving birth, one must give 50,000 Ft (US$ 250) to the doctor, 20,000 Ft (US$ 100) to each nurse and a little to everyone who ever touched them—in addition to the insurance one must pay each month. Just another warning for Indonesian friends, despite that Hungary is a member of EU which is supposed to be developed countries compared to our village, the hospitals are not so. Outside Budapest often there is only a state-owned hospital in a city. The rooms are like barrack. No tv and if you are not lucky sometimes you have to stay at the corridor—like in economical hospitals in Indonesia during an outbreak of disease.

5. Shopping
To be honest I have never had any pleasant experience for shopping in Budapest. If not for the prizes and taxes, shopkeepers can ruin your day. They might simply stand and ignore without even greeting you a good day, or busy playing with their mobile; or worse they would be frowning at you. Zsolt had a guy at the grocery nearby almost cursed at him because we decided not to buy his carrot. We wanted to buy a few carrot and without telling us, he started to pick a bundle—which consisted about 20. We didn’t know that we couldn’t buy only a few since he hid the stupid carrots. And when Zsolt apologized and told him we were not buying it, he almost threw the carrots to us and said the f*** word. Nice!

We do now know several shops who are kind enough not to snub us on sight: they are Chinese shops. I am no Chinese, but usually they think I was. or something like that As far as I know they are basically kind, also with other customers. And folks, the chinese gyors buffes have the cheapest food in Budapest.

6. Services
This is one of the worst things here. If your computer is broken, your stove stops working or anything like that in Indonesia, you could simply ask the service to go to your place and get them fixed or simply take the item and they’ll let you know when it’s ready. Here things may get a little bit out of hand.

Last November we bought a new video card and processor for our good old computer at the Extreme Digital. We were surprised on how professional the shop seemed to be. We were expecting that things would go wrong, actually, as it usually happened. Then we took the computer to the EDigital service so they could set everything. We took it home afterwards and happily tried it. We wanted to play a game together, mind you. But the darn thing always restarted everytime we ran a 3D game—or after a while. Our guess was that one of the two items we bought was damaged since it worked perfectly before. On Tuesday we took it back to the service. They refused; saying that they had no time to fix it until Friday. So Zsolt had to carry the 5 kg thing all the way home again. On Thursday we returned so they could start to check it Friday. What a surprise, they said they could only do it the next Thursday—a week later! We then left it to their gentle care until the promised day. The next Thursday Zsolt called, they said they hadn’t gotten the time to touch it. Maybe the next day they would. Maybe! Zsolt called them almost everyday with the same answers.

Yesterday he called again only to be told that they couldn’t even start the computer. That’s all! After almost a month. Zsolt got very upset because the computer is like our own baby. He called them again and asked them to return our money and we’ll get our baby fixed somewhere else. They refused to do so, but promised to really check it right away. Hopefully they can really fix it at last.

Another good impression I got is from banks. Here if you leave your money in the bank then sooner or later you will lose all because you have to pay each month for keeping an account. You have to pay to withdraw on the ATM, of course—but that is normal I don’t mind it. But you also have to pay to withdraw at the cashier—the more you withdraw the more you have to pay. If you take some loan then you have to open another account—despite that you have already one, and then you’ll have to pay some management fee each month until you pay all back besides the interest and the monthly fee. My mother in law opened an account in Budapest and one day she wanted to withdraw in Eger. The officer refused to let her do so. He said she should withdraw in Budapest because she opened the account in Budapest. Huh? Imagine if I opened an account in Papua and then I moved to Jakarta and had to withdraw it in Papua everytime.

Buying a mobile is also not easy. Last year when we visited the graveyard, somebody broke the car’s window and took my mother in law’s hand bag—contained the flat key, her money, all her papers and bills, and her mobile. We went to Pannon to get her new mobile, it was not an option as they asked for her gas and electricity bills for the last two months. She couldn’t get them, they were in her hand bag also. We didn’t have those bills at that time, so we offered our internet bills, which were more expensive than the two combined. Pannon refused. So we left.

Vodafone was worse, they asked for more papers. And in the end my mother in law gave up and prepared all of them. When she came again to Vodafone, she was told that beside the mobile price and her subscription fee, she had to pay another thing. The amount wasn’t decided yet. They would send a request to the central office so then they could decide how much she should pay. She was too upset to hear this all, so she left and finally bought a mobile from T-Mobile. It is not an advertisement of T-Mobile whatsoever but I think they were the most sensible. They don’t require you to submit any bill or anything.

7. Pork Fat
Hungarian food is in general nem rosz (trans. Not bad), I would say. I like that there are so many kinds of mushrooms. I love mushrooms and it was not so easy to buy it back in Indonesia. And there are also lots of delicious parizsi and sonka which I have never seen before. My only problem is that people use pork fat for everything—which I try to avoid. First of all, Muslims don’t eat pork, mind you. I cannot say I am a very dedicated Muslim, but I simply cannot eat red meat. Because I hate the way it tastes, and I don’t need anymore cholesterol, kösz (trans. thank you). I thought people used butter or margarine or olive oil or even cooking oil. But here most people use pork fat—even for frying doughnuts which I find very difficult to eat. Even when you buy chicken soup in package, it is sometimes written that it uses pork fat instead of chicken stock. I have never checked the price so far, is fat lot cheaper than cooking oil / butter?

8. Nudity
We have more than 50 channels on the cable tv. Mostly I watch CNN or Cartoon Network or MTV. First of all because I can understand them, and second because they are all quite safe—from nudity, mind you. Hungarians seem to enjoy nudity a lot. Each program has its own rating and the lowest is 12. Don’t worry, people still get naked there. Sex sells, people say, and they are buying it in Hungary. Advertisements are mostly full with scantily clad women—or even naked. The country is famous as the European porn stronghold.

There is a dull quiz called “Ciao Darwin” where two groups of people have to compete with each others. They have groups like fat and thin men, theater and porn actresses, small and big breasted women. They have to answer questions and do some erotic dance down to their undies. I doubt they are even paid. Serious news also cover news about porn stars who are shooting their latest movies—they are artist. They are also invited to quizzes and redcarpets where they signed autographs like divas. There is no clear limit on what is considered to be pornography or not. I would say Playboy is porn, here they said the opposite. It’s art, don’t cha know?

Zita Görög, perhaps the most famous actress, model, presented and a lot more titles at once, had done a spread for Playboy. Recently she went all the way by having threesome with a couple for a cheap American movie—and I still remember she cried earlier last year because her picture was posted on a porn website where people could hire her as professional prositute with her picture topless. She said that picture was taken for modelling. Well there is no smoke without fire, I say.

9. Open Hour

Most people work eight hours a day (some work more, and some less) from 9-6 with an hour lunch break. I know it is supposed to be equal for everyone, but have you ever thought of how difficult it is if something go out of our plan? For an instance when we had to take our computer to the service. The service is opened until 5, and closed in the weekend. Since Zsolt also works until 5, he has to start to work earlier so we could go to the service before it is closed. That is why we were very upset when they simply told us they were too busy to repair our computer and asked us to return later.

Many shops and services are closed in the weekend, which makes me wonder why. Don’t they know that is the only time people could go to shop? Plazas are still opened but you cannot get your computer fixed there, can you? Doctors are also not practising in the weekend. The last time we had to wait three days for a guy to fix our boiler because he couldn’t come during the weekend. When he came, he stayed for 15 minutes to change a cable—about 10 cm long. We paid 15,000 Ft (US$ 75) for all his trouble and time.

10. Cold

Now the everyday temperature in Budapest is around -1 degrees Celcius. Not too bad, I say. What I hate is rather the effect. I am caught cold each winter, and my skin got so dry that once I had to see a doctor for it. His advice was easy: I had to avoid water for a month! What, no shower for a month?

Going out is a good reason to ruin my mood. I hate to dress like Michelin man and have to go home with dirty pants because of the snow or rain water

But then again, which one is better? Heat or cold, I cannot say. I used to hate to go out in the heat in Indonesia also for afraid for getting sunburnt. Either way I think I am merely so hard to please! Happy New Year 2006, everyone!

UPDATE:
For Zita’s fans who still haven’t heard of her movie I was talking about, I wouldn’t cover the story in detail but you can read it on Pestiside. Hopefully it’d satisfy the curiosity.

Related Article: Ten Things I Love about Hungary