FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS

On the occasion of Father’s Day, Szigeti Magyarság has visited Kinga (Apt) Menu in Duncan and asked her the following questions:

(1) Tell us briefly about Kamill as your father. (2) Your parents' tradition is Hungarian, while yours is basically Canadian. Has it had any effect on your growing up and on your every day life? And (3) have you managed to retain much from the Hungarian heritage?

Kinga Menu: God Bless You, Sapa!

Kamill as a father shaped our family’s world. His passion for life, learning and humanity influenced every aspect of our growing up. We read, we traveled, we participated in life, we shared our blessings with anyone who crossed our path, we were encouraged to think, to argue, to question and to take responsibility.

I’m not sure that the statement that my tradition is basically Canadian is accurate. Unless of course we view multiculturalism as fundamentally Canadian, which it is more and more true. I often felt, especially growing up that I was somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic: Neither fully Hungarian, nor fully Canadian. Disconcerting as that might be sometimes, it of course had its advantages as well. I am able to slip in and out of both cultures with relative ease, a bit of a chameleon maybe. Of course I am most familiar with Canadian social norms, but am heavily influenced by Hungarian ways of looking at things, particularly Hungarian ones as passed through my father’s experiences and perspectives.

It has had a huge effect on my everyday life, especially of course when I was living with my parents, but even now it has influences. For example, the “you can speak whatever you want outside the house, but at home we speak Hungarian” rule was quite firmly adhered to until I was about 10 or 11. So I am fluent in everyday Hungarian. (Philosophical conversations get a bit tricky given that my vocabulary is at about a 10 year-old's level…) The tradition of overwhelming hospitality is part of my world. I was in the Hungarian dance group for about 10 years consistently, so Hungarian folk dance, music and folk culture are engrained in my growing up years. My parents took us to Hungary a couple of times when my brother and I were younger, and then I started going on my own. I spent many happy summers with my cousins on the banks of the Danube, and even attended university in Budapest for 5 months. Now my own children have been to Hungary as well, and love their cousins as much as I love mine.

Many of my friends as a teenager were second generation kids, not necessarily Hungarian, but others whose home world was apart from their “away from home world”. Home had often different rules, different tastes, a different language, colours and expectations. We all looked and acted Canadian at school and work, but knew what it was to be a little different. It was often a combination of pride and awkwardness that our mixed worlds were viewed by us.
One huge gift from the being immersed in two traditions is that you have the ability to see things a bit from an observer’s perspective as well as a participant’s. So that norms, ideas and ways of understanding the world that are rooted in culture, become something to choose and be aware of as option rather than a gut reaction, or an unexamined “truth”. For example, in Canada the idea that one must make our children as independent and responsible as early as possible or they will not be responsible adults is countered by the Hungarian idea that families stick together, maybe even over a life time. During the growing up time, the parents do everything for the kids, practically wiping their bottoms for them until they are adults themselves. And Hungarian kids grow into as responsible, caring and functional adults as Canadian kids, just underpinned by a different philosophy.

What have I retained? Well: language, folk culture, world perspective, increased understanding of history and politics, many customs especially around holidays and a constant urge to feed people who walk through my door. My identity is completely inseparable from my Hungarian roots, though it is not solely Hungarian.

Thank you Sapa! (i.e. [Éde]Sapa)

Kinga

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