From the entrepreneur’s corner (15): Far and away from the civilized world

Here’s a brief comparison between Romanians and the Dutch, with five simple, real-life facts on why we won’t make it to the civilized world this century, unless…

Most of the Romanians don’t care about the fight against plastic, emissions or other environmental sins, and don’t recycle. In the Netherlands, we and all our neighbors were regularly carrying three bags with paper, organic/food and plastic waste to various bins, even if at more than one hundred meters from our apartment and in various locations.

Romanians (most) freely throw their “small” waste, spit and/or clean their sinuses on the streets. The streets are full of plastic wraps from cigarette packs, cigarette butts, dirty papers, tickets and napkins, bottles and cans (and the list is longer), and the cleaning services do a poor job; don’t forget the dust turned mud (in the cities,) and the sunflower seed husks… (the photo represents a parking lot in Bucharest at some 50 meters away from my temporary home; nothing changed since I’ve taken this photo till date, although at some five meters there is a business selling mainly refreshments and alcohol.) In the Netherlands, I travelled for some 12 days all around the country, and never had to remove the dust from shoes, and streets are thoroughly cleaned and washed; you might be even verbally admonished if throwing waste. In addition, the seagulls do a good “warning” job when you’re not careful with the waste bags.

The (trivial) “pw_a” word, which repeatedly “melts” in the mouth of lots of ordinary Romanian males (and not only) walking on the street, denotes lack of education, morality and primitivism. There’s no such density of trivial language on the streets of Netherlands.

Even though a Dutch house’s toilet may be small and within a narrow space, and back a few centuries, when they had a formidable fleet, there were no toilettes on board and sailors used ropes, soap and deodorants are widely used, and walking around the cities, or taking the trams or busses, won’t make you turn away your nose or move away… plus that air conditioning is already a commodity. Try taking a tram or bus in Bucharest and you’ll realize how many have not yet discovered the soap and water. Needless to say we’re one of the nations with the most outdoor toilets (in the back of the yard) and large areas with no sewage infrastructure.

Saying a simple “hello” or smiling to the unknown you meet in the alleys/street is a habit in the deep rural areas of Romania as well as in many regions and cities of the Netherlands; and this is a positive and factor of “ancient” normality; however, still far away from the attitude of those living in the (main) Romanian cities, which will rather spit sort of a “f@#k you” than giving “good morning” or so. The seven-years-from/at-home have a lot to do with the kindly salute, because the child is supposed to be at home learning how to act right; the first seven years should be enough to have manners, politeness and a “proper” behavior — difficult to accomplish nowadays. I encourage you to visit other parts of the world, and discover the smiles.

Well, these are only five minor facts and I won’t expand to the reversed pyramid of values, education, services or else. It takes more than one generation to fix these and rest, if ever this will happen. On the entrepreneurial side, there are no terms of comparison yet, as the gap is of centuries; step by step though, the Romanians will turn to entrepreneurship, and the young generation of Romanians studying abroad will be instrumental.

The change in good starts with us and I hope not to stop here, because the ones in charge and responsible, for the moment, do not give a(n) isht about us; they don’t read posts on LinkedIn, Medium or else, but only mock the struggle for normality on fb and in semi-articulated speeches.

Romania is a wonderful space on earth, and to get introduced to its rural and pure beauties just type “My Romania — Vlad Dumitrescu” on fb, for example, and you’ll discover a collection of great photos.

Just an angle.

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