An interesting presentation

After the embassy attaches gave us worst worst worst care scenario warnings and then cheerfully left, a member of the Romanian parliament spoke to us. I hope I can describe exactly how interesting and amusing he was. He was probably over 50, tallish, really ‘Romanian’ looking (dark hair, olive skin, dark eyes that had an intense but wary look). He entered in an unpresumptuous way, sat down at the front desk facing us, and spoke like he was talking to us while sitting across from us at a pub rather than addressing us in a semi-formal/lecture type format.
He said his name, and “I am a member of Parliament. I serve for two terms. Some mistake, you make two times. I have no big house, no car, no nice apartment. But everyone hates me anyway.
“In Romania, there was an opinion poll about public trust for institutions. The Romanians trust the church, the army, and mass media. They trust mass media!” he emphasized. “They do not trust, levels of 10% or lower, the parliament, the president, the state, the bureaucracy, or politicians. “
He rubbed his face tiredly and started telling us how he was a sociologist who lived under Ceasescu , initially working to gather statistics. “Until 1987, there were opinion surveys taken. We ask level of satisfaction with government, with life. There were only two copies made of the results. One for the president, one for the police. Unfortunately, he did not know you can keep databases. So we still have them.” He smirked slightly, still keeping his somber demeanor. The polls showed increasing levels of dissatisfaction, and by 1987, they stopped taking opinion polls. He became a dissident, but at that time, he said, there were no groups of dissidents, only individuals, and the regime could quash the dissident, and he had spent time in jail. He described how isolating it was to be a dissident under Ceasescu.
Afterwards, he said started working for a Hungarian Jew who had made money on Wall Street, “maybe you know him, George Soros,” he said, delivering the whole speech in his thickly accented English with an understated wit, deadpanning his sarcastic comments. At this point he said something that made us realize how frank he was: “George Soros worked in many countries and I worked with him. But I stop. Because he was a f*cking boss.” The room was pin-drop silent and someone said, “ahem, he was what?” With a stone cold look and unabashed honesty, he repeated “a f*ck-ing boss.” Well, so there. I liked his frank demeanor and his serious sense of humor, but I’m not sure if all the Americans could follow all of it. He then said he was nominated to run for parliament.
“Mu wife heard the announcement on the radio. I was too afraid to tell her. I came home and I had to say, yes, this is true. She said she want a divorce.” He paused and looked at us with a dark half grin. “I finish one term, and I say, never again do I want to run. So they nominate me again. My wife heard it on the radio. This time, she say nothing because she know I will let divorce.” His somewhat mistranslated phrase took a moment for us to register, and then we realized how upfront he could be about himself. Hm…
He concluded his speech. “I am done.
Any questions, no ok great, bye” abruptly standing, which I found funny.
He did stay and answer a few questions, telling us that in the Georgia/Russia conflict, Georgian troops were firing on NATO peach keeping troops from Russia. They attacked 4 times, and each time, the NATO troops appealed to Brussels, describing the casualties from each attack. When the Georgians attacked with missiles, the NATO troops appealed to Brussels one more time and were told they were allowed to leave, which they did, after 10 days. This struck me as a different version than the one the American public hears, which tends to place a lot of blame on the ‘aggressive’ Russians.
He was the highlight of the speeches, I felt.