Exploring Cultural Heritage

By Luca Oakman

To explore some of the vast cultural heritage that is a part of the UCC community, I interviewed four students from across the world and asked them various questions on their culture and traditions.

I interviewed Cătălin “Zenby” Luntrașu (CL) ,Vilma “Will: Autio (VA), Boris Leon Hoskins (BLH) and Francesca Seigel (FS). 

Luca: What’s your name and where are you and your family from?

CL: My name is Cătălin Luntrașu, I’m from Romania, Sibiu specifically, in Transylvania. My mom is from the countryside, in the mountains. My dad is from Moldova. 

VA: My name is Vilma or Will Autio and I’m from Finland. I’m from western Finland in a town called Parkano, both my parents are from the same area.

BLH: My name is Boris,I was born in Ireland but I moved to Slovakia. My dad is Irish and my mum is from Slovakia, she’s from a little village called Pokryváč.

FS: My name is Francesca Seigel, I’m from Hamden Connecticut in the US, both my parents are from there but my mom’s parents are from Transylvania. My dad’s parents are from New York, but their parents are Ashkenazi Jews from Lithuania.

Luca:What are some traditions from your home?

CL: For Easter, we boil eggs in coloured water, traditionally you would use beets and that dyed the eggs red. The religious idea of it is when Jesus died on the cross, a servant of Jesus put a basket of eggs under him and his blood dripped and dyed the eggs red. But we play a game, where everyone has an egg and we say ‘Hristos a înviat!’ which means ‘Jesus has resurrected’ and then you’d say ‘Adevărat a înviat!’, meaning ‘true, he did’. Then you’d hit each other's egg together and whichever one cracks, loses. When I was little I had a wooden egg, a red one, and everyone pretended not to know. It’s fun for the kids and now I always do it for my cousins and they love it. 

We have Mărțișor, the story is a girl went to a river to wash clothes in the winter and it was harsh and she didn’t think she could do it so she started crying.This prince came to her and he was basically an angel with white hair. She then touched the clothes and they were suddenly clean. He then gave her this red flower and that’s the Mărțișor, they’re little red and white bows that sometimes have charms, on the 1st of March every year, the boys would have a load of these to give out to the girls.

VA: We’ve got the Sauna, so it's every building in Finland or every house, and some apartments have saunas. Some apartment buildings have communal saunas downstairs in the basement, basically you have access to a sauna wherever you live. People would go to a sauna once or twice a week, some people go every day.

BLH: Historically for Easter, boys would dress up in traditional costumes and run around the village with buckets of cold water, little whips made out of plastic, they’ll have perfume or cologne spray and they’d visit houses. They’d pour the cold water on the girls, whip them with the little stick and spray cologne at them and the girls have to give them back money or chocolates or little decorated eggs. 

FS: There's not particularly many from the US but This is a thing that is specifically a tri state area thing, the night before Halloween is Mischief Night. Where the local kids go around and cause mischief, they’ll throw eggs on things, tp houses, cover things in silly string

Luca:Do you have any examples of folktales, myths, fairy tales or legends?

CL: The Ielele, they are the fairies, they are ethereal female beings in the forest, they are known to dance around in circles. They lure young boys to the forest and kill them there so that they would stay young. It’s really dark but a really fun story. It was a warning not to go into the woods and if there was ever a fire in the forest it was said that it was the Ielele.

VA: We have a National Epic and it’s called Kalevala and it’s problematic because it’s known as the Great Finnish National Epic but there is cultural appropriation tied to it. Because a guy in the 1800’s went around Eastern Finland and took their traditional oral poetry and decided to change it from Karelian and made it Finnish. So that’s where it all comes from, a lot of them are based around animals, nature gods and different elemental spirits.

BLH: It’s half folk legend, half true story, during the reign of the Habsburgs, there was a guy called Juraj Jánošík. Slovakia was a part of the Monarchy/Empire that was around at the time, and this guy adopts a Robin Hood persona from the town of Terchová, he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. He was real and is a national hero.

During Easter, there is Death Sunday. During this, they made a little figure of a lady out of straw and she was made to represent the goddess of death called Morena. People would then walk around the town to ward her off and to ward off evil.

On the 13th of December, on St. Lucia’s day, the girls would dress up in white and put sheets over their heads. It was supposed to be that they go around and sweep away evil but it became more of a mischief day

 FS: There’s the legend of Sleepy Hollow, it’s the legend of the Headless Horseman, the legend is that if you see a guy riding a horse but the guy has no head, then it’s the Headless Horseman! None of the legends tend not to go into any more detail, that is kinda all there is to know about it.

Luca: Are there any traditional songs, music or dances where you are from?

CL:We do Hora, it is so cool, it happens at every wedding ever. It is so hard though,it gets really fast.Also have Manele, which is like Balkan music, which is associated more with dancing and culture. People won’t admit they like Manele but if it comes on at a party they will enjoy it.

VA: There’s the traditional folk dance called Tanhu. We’ve got instruments like fiddle, accordion, harmonica but we’ve got a traditional instrument called a Kantele. So in our epic poetry there is some singing and when it gets to a specific metre you’d use the Kantele.

BLH: We have a lot. Survival of Folklore is a big thing in Slovakia. Our national anthem comes from a folk lullaby, the melody is a lullaby and the chorus was written during the uprising when trying to get the language and country recognised.

FS: People do consider Sea Shanties, there a lot of New England Sea Shanties. Square dancing is also a thing a lot of people did in schools, especially for May Day.

Luca: Are there any dishes you can’t get here?

CL: We have Sarmale which are stuffed boiled cabbage, either with meat or rice. We also have this Cozonac for Christmas and Easter, you roll it up, and you can put Turkish delight in it, but I love it with nuts and coco. 

VA: So firstly we’ve got Salmiakki which is salted black licorice, which is really good but you either love it or hate it. Then we have this savoury pastry called Karjanalanpiirakka. It's Karelian pie, so it’s a rice porridge in a rye dough. Also Rye bread isn’t a thing here. Then we have Mämmi which is a thing we eat at Easter which is like a black goo, it’s made from Rye flour and you eat it with cream as a dessert.

BLH: We have our own Skalický trdelník and I think it’s like a funnel cake, and covered in sugar, cinnamon or nuts. We also have a sweet cheese, we’re big on our cheeses and it’s called tvaroh and you’ll find it in cakes a lot. My grandmother makes cakes with it called tvarohovník , which is a cake with just sweet cheese in it.

FS: We do Zwetschkenknödel which are plum dumplings, that is a potato dough that's boiled and rolled in cinnamon sugar breadcrumbs.

Luca: What is something you like and/or dislike about where you’re from?

CL: I love the culture, I feel like we have such a deep culture. People say that big cities like London or Dublin are big multicultural melting pots but they're not. They have a lot of cultures but they're not a melting pot, they're not all together, it's each one for themselves. They are all different and there isn't one thing that combines them all. Romania is that though. Even Romanian it is like 60% Latin and there is a lot of Slovak influence and some really potent Turkish influence. There is all of this influence but it is one culture, so that is the melting pot, I would say.

Another thing I love is Dracula, it's the biggest myth in the world and we don't do anything with it. The only tourism we have is the actual castle, and I might be wrong but we don't even have like a ministry of Tourism, everything is privately owned and managed. 

One thing I like is the culture, one thing I don't like is that we do nothing with it.

VA: I really have gotten more into the language recently, like I have a bigger appreciation for it. It's so intricate and complex that it is a nightmare for a foreigner to learn. Particularly in literature and music, I like observing the language. I love winters. It's my favourite but it does get really dark in Finland, in December and January we only get a few hours of sunlight

BLH: I miss the snow in Winter, you can ski and ride a sledge and make a snowman. You can go out and enjoy the snow on the mountains with all the sheep.

FS: I do love Autumn in New England as a whole. I really miss the Apple Cider Doughnuts. My family goes on long drives to Vermont in the fall to see the mountains. I do also miss having actual all four seasons. 

Luca: Is there anything about Ireland or Irish people that surprised you?

CL: It surprised me how kind and open you all are, but that also has been really annoying. It is a good thing but it gets too much. There’s no shame in people and they have no boundaries with anyone.

VA: I was surprised by how friendly and easy going everyone was here. Irish people were very helpful, very friendly, and very welcoming. 

BLH: My mother had a big issue with how friendly Irish people were. So whenever we’d go into a shop everyone would be so polite and we’d leave and she’d be so angry. She’d be convinced they were all faking it and she’d get annoyed at all my aunt. Everyone in Slovakia tends to be more closed off. Shops are very stressful in Slovakia. The attitudes are very different.

FS: Nope. I’ve been here before, I know other Irish people and I do Irish dancing. There were no surprises.