Responses

I appreciated Cheri's comment below about how our environments change us. What we would do in one place would be totally unthinkable (or not of interest) in another. This observation is exactly what I am getting at too-- I want my environment to have an influence on me. I want to try out new ways of living and enjoying life. Although i do not plan to go hunting again any time soon, I still enjoyed the new acquaintances, the fresh, chilly air, the food, the sense of feeling like I COULD, sort of, belong. Or, at least, i am accepted. Not because I cozied up to their traditions or what was expected. I definitely acted out of my own free will, having alternating feelings of skepticism and joy.
Cheri wrote:
"I wonder how much our moral, even aesthetic (?), sensibilities are bound up with the communities we find ourselves in. or more, the communities we want to identify with and those that we're defining ourselves against. when i was in china with you, i found myself much more willing to eat pork than i've been anywhere else. while in france, i conscientiously recycled, at home i don't even recycle my newspapers."

Hunting in Slovakia Part II

The process of hunting pheasants is rather repetitive--going to similar types of landscapes (rivers, marshes, with plenty of underbrush, low-lying brushes and trees) and dogs searching through the brush, and men also going through yelling "hai, hai" or something...
When a person is given a mission (or just along for the experience) it is easy to fall into the desires of the group, the goals become similar. I found myself wanting to be a dog...wanting to search the underbrush and chant a monosyllabic call to the birds.
There was an obvious hierarchy of people also...the older the men, the more directed in his actions, the youngest did more of the schlepping around of crates, dead animals.
In the end we piled into an old Romanian jeep-like auto with the thinnest, fake leather seating, no shock absorption, everything felt thinner--structure, flooring, windows---with all the smells of dead animals in the back (meaning just behind the back seat). We end the day in a small (dive) bar/pool room.

I've eaten large pieces are bread, sausages, raw paprika (green/yellowish peppers) and tomatoes, but somehow all the movement makes these things vanish from my stomach. Now I am prepared to embibe with the rugged companions, who look a little awkward knowing our communication will be limited...
They drank beer, but in a shift of comraderee, they discovered my elementary Hungarian abilities, and we started drinking Czecho-Slovak liquor named ___, Washing it down with the Slovakian hybrid of Coca-Cola. In the end, I had about 6 of these VERY strong shots with them, and they said I was becoming more and more Hungarian (and speaking better and better) the more I drank...
These conversations included the short and simple dictum from the thickly-bearded dark man in the corner who exclaimed "Capitalism - ME" and "Communisim - WE" and joking that Capitalism was better. It is too hard to judge what people's true feelings are about this change-over, other than you can be sure they are glad to have certain freedoms. But Capitalism is everywhere taking over people's livelihoods that formerly didn't have to be dominated by buying and selling of material goods processed by any other country besides their own.
I simply said: "Én goldokozik azt: Kapitalismus es Kommunismus között jóbb!" ("Somewhere between Capitalism and Communism is the best") This met with loud laughter and, I think, overwhelming agreement. History (Tórtenélem) is very important to these people...and to us. Every person of every nationality thinks back to when their country was great.