A Country Full of Aliens : a Briton in Hungary
Colin Swatridge2005

It ?was George Mikes, a Hungarian journalist, who called Hungary "a country full of aliens”. He recognized, in this self-mocking description, that Hungarians are different from other people living in Central-Eastern Europe. How different are they; and how deep do the differences go? Why do Hungarians resolutely, stand up on buses when there are empty seats to be had? Why do they write their names backwards? Why do they applaud a performance in a way that would seem insulting to Western performers? Why do they so enjoy making long speeches? Why are they still so bitter about what happened in 1920? These are some of the questions raised in this book. It does not laugh at Hungarians; when it laughs, it laughs with them.