The Culture

As for the gypsy culture itself, their music is beautiful, and their dances fast paced and incredibly fun to dance to. They are a great addition to Romanian culture, and some artists have been trying to integrate them into normal society for years.

Loredana Groza, a famous young pop star in Romania, has performed songs such as "Made In Romania" a song about uniting all of Romania's different social groups and having peace between them.
















Babi Minune, born into a gypsy Satra (caravan), begging on the streets to survive, is now a famous singer, all because one man filmed him singing on his phone and uploaded it to youtube. He could never have imagined that he would become a huge star and would perform with the likes of Denisa, in "Aproape De Inima Ta" (Close To Your Heart) and a place in the show "Inima De Tigan" (Heart Of A Gypsy).


































Trupa Lu Peste, a group of mixed talents has performed such songs as "Romanes Love Story" and "Cati Bani Ai Tigane?", about gypsy romances.




Hara, who have rewritten the age old song "Muro Shavo" meaning "My Son", a story a father tells his son about being careful of the world. The original sung only in gypsy, and the Hara version partially in Romanian.



Copilul De Aur, another young gypsy boy, taken in by the famous Romanian producer, Dan Bursuc, was part of the movie "Poveste De Cartier" or "Story From The Block" about forbidden love, with such hits as "Buzele Tale" (Your Lips) and "Daca Nu Eu Atunci Cine" (If Not I, Then Who?) featuring Laura Vass.




And Dan Bursuc himself:




Each of these artists are an important part of culture, and it is usually frowned upon when non-gypsy celebrities support them. It is more important to people to keep their hatred than to follow in the right path of somebody they look up to.

An even more jarring example, which may sound more familiar, happened during one of Madonna's concerts in Romania, when she stated:
"It has been brought to my attention...that there is a lot of discrimination against Romanies and Gypsies in general in eastern Europe," she said. "It made me feel very sad. We don't believe in discrimination… we believe in freedom and equal rights for everyone."



It was disturbing to hear that after such a righteous statement over such a thing as human rights and discrimination, the crowd began to boo her for supporting the gypsies while very few cheered.

Piranda And Miklos Make Wave In Romania

In June of 2009, my family had decided to visit Romania for the rest of the summer to see our friends and relatives. And although I was happy with reuniting everybody again, on my agenda for the time I had there were numerous social experiments to perform, of course including my cousin, mom, grandma, and aunt as victims of this little plan.

The perfect day came to do this, when my great cousin had invited us to his new apartment to celebrate his moving in. The apartment was in downtown Timisoara, close enough to my grandmother's house to walk there. With this knowledge, several hours before the actual party, my cousin and I had prepared ourselves in full gypsy attire, not missing a brilliant detail; hair braided perfectly so that there would be a gap for my ear, with red ribbon in the braid, a long flowing gypsy skirt, a man's dress shirt, tied at the waist, and long gold coin earrings. As we got ready, we decided that we were in fact the bride and groom of a gypsy wedding, and that I was the daughter of a rich gypsy.





Thus we began our trek to my great cousin's house, my aunt at a distance to take pictures and record the glorious moment, my grandmother looking at us with only a slightly mocking smile, and my mom, tagging along claiming to be our "indentured servant." The beauty of dressing this way on this particular evening was that downtown Timisoara was sure to be teeming with people and their questioning, hateful, or amused expressions.

As we made our way through, no worse for wear of the glares we were getting from "respectable Romanian citizens" who would have absolutely NOTHING, to do with such corrupt behavior such as the gypsy culture, we made it to my great cousin's house, being followed by only one young gypsy beggar, asking us if we could lend a fellow brother some money.

A Forgotten Culture

There are many cultures throughout the world that have their own value to the people who are a part of them. But have you ever thought of giving value to something that is not yours? To see the beauty that other people see in their heritage and their lives and understand what it means to them.

The Tigani, or Gypsies, have long been passed off as dirty criminals in Romania, not even given a second look when passed by. But why is it that people can let this form of racism go, when other forms are instantly shot down?



This is not a blog hoping to make gypsies look holy and innocent, many of them are criminals, however it is the same case for humans, so will you hate your own species and be represented by the bad individuals a part of it? Will people never realize that you cannot hope to generalize a whole nationality as innocent or guilty? And that it is wrong to treat a person a certain way based on what you have seen others like them do.