We’re renovating our house and I’m scraping wallpaper off a wall, when one of the construction guys arrives and asks how I am.
“Well, to be honest my hands are really hurting. I keep catching them on this wall and my knuckles are starting to bleed.”
I stop for a moment, but then realise that I’m not done.
“I mean, there’s just so much to do and so little time to do it so maybe I’m rushing. But I’m a bit stressed that we’re not going to get the place ready in time. I don’t know. I didn’t get much sleep last night, so maybe I just need a proper nights sleep.”
The construction guy stares at me blankly.
“I’ve bought these gloves to try and stop my fingers from getting too bashed up, but I don’t think it’s working too well. Look at the state of them.”
I take a glove off and wave a battered knuckle at this man I barely know.
“You think I need different gloves?”
The guy shrugs.
“I’ll be okay. Just got to battle through, you know, but it’s tough. I’ve had better days.”
“Uh huh.” says the construction guy, smiles weakly and wanders-off.
I turn back to the wall and carry on scraping wallpaper, but then a moment later I freeze.
What just happened!?
I playback through the previous couple of minutes in my mind to try and make sense of it, but try as I might, I can find no other explanation.
I’m becoming Hungarian!
Let me explain. This is not how a good old fashioned Brit should have answered if someone had asked how they were. If someone enquired as to how their day was going, no matter how it was actually going, a Brit would say something along the lines of “not too bad”, then they’d both nod, smile and carry on with their own business. Even if it was a truly shocking day and they’d just been told that their home had been burnt to a crisp and that a neighbour had punched their kitten in the face, a likely response would be “Good.” Or, if a Brit was having a truly spectacular day and was literally zip-a-dee-doo-dah through the daisies with joy, they might even say “yeah, alright”, but anything else even remotely touching on the truth? Don’t be daft.
Hungarians on the other hand will always tell you EXACTLY how they feel and to be honest, they rarely seem to feel that things are going well for them. I first realised this at a wedding just outside of Budapest. I was sat next to a guy who I vaguely knew and foolishly asked him how he was. Thirty minutes later, having found out all about how badly his job was going, his inner thinking as to why he was finding it so hard to have a successful relationship, and just how he loathed his life in general, I’d learnt a valuable lesson. Don’t ask a Hungarian how they are unless you really want to know. This lesson was then reinforced a couple of years later when a stranger started making small talk with me in a sauna, In a moment of weakness I asked him how he was and then almost boiled in the sauna heat as he regaled an epic tale of his daughter’s divorce. To clarify, I did not know this man.
A few hours later and I’m taking my sore knuckles to nursery to collect my youngest, Lola. I ask her how her day was?
She thinks for a moment, contemplating a suitable response.
“Yes playing. No painting. No drawing. Yes potato. No beans. Yes fighting. Yes crying.” she responds, taking me through her absolute rollercoaster of a day
FYI, everyday she tells us “No beans”. Lola does not like beans.
“Yes crying?” I ask.
“Yes. I been sad.” Lola pulls a sad face just incase I’d failed to grasp the gravitas of her despair.
Check. Lola is Hungarian.
We both go to the school and collect our eldest, Mila. I ask her the same question.
“How was school, Mila?”
“Good.” she says.
I nod, we smile and walk home in near, good old fashioned British silence.