Someone sent me a, rather strange, video using a service that lets you subtitle clips from Bollywood movies… Which can be quite hilarious. Have a look at the clip below… And leave a comment. 😉
Go make your own and leave the link in the comments! 🙂
Author: Bas
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Bulgarian employees sick a lot, Turkish not – Work mentalities compared
Research done by consultancy firm Mercer for The Economist has shown that out of their selected countries for research, Bulgarians take the most sick days per year.Have a look at the graph on the right, you can click it for a larger version.
Coincidentally, I don’t just live in the country with the highest number of sick days, but have also lived in the country with the lowest number of sick days taken per year; Turkey. Whereas Bulgarians take an average of 22 sick days per employee per year, Turks take just 5. This might be due to very different work mentalities.
In Bulgaria there is a saying: “They pretend to be paying me and I pretend to be working.” As you probably know, Bulgaria is a rather poor nation (the poorest of the EU), but besides that I’ve also noticed something else in the work mentality of many people. I’ve heard a lot of expressions of powerlessness. People believe they can’t change things, things are just the way they are… This is logical, given the history of Bulgaria, which consists of 500 years of Ottoman occupation, about 40 years of freedom, followed by roughly 50 years of a communist system.
I’m not saying everyone in Bulgaria is like this, but having worked in Bulgaria, I completely understand the above mentality… The pay for most jobs is quite low and when you try to make a difference, it’s really tough to seriously get things done. The high number of sick days could also be explained in a different way also. Since Bulgaria is a country with a very tough climate and it’s also quite poor, maybe the national health level is not so high. Who knows (research firm Mercer doesn’t).
For Turkey it’s very different. When I started a job in a restaurant, they wanted me to spend all the time that I wasn’t in university in the restaurant. I was working from 10 in the morning until 10 in the night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and was working from 3 in the afternoon until 10 at night on Wednesday and Thursday. I had class from 9 to 5 on Monday and Tuesday and from 9 until 2 on Wednesday and Thursday. Every day I started early in the morning and finished late at night. It was very exhausting. This is the work mentality in Turkey though. They’re not the most effective workers, but they work a lot and they work very hard generally – even when they’re sick.
It’s a rather dangerous thing comparing Turkey to Bulgaria, so let me add that I don’t think either of the work mentalities is better than the other. The Turkish work mentality is quite fanatical and insane, although worthy of admiration. People seem very stressed and they need a break (come on, let people take a day off when they’re sick). The Bulgarian work mentality is generally lazy and a bit powerless. Most people I know here would agree with me. Bulgarians need to be given the feeling that they can actually change something, can actually make a difference, can actually achieve something, plus they shouldn’t feel like their bosses are “pretending to be paying” them. The Bulgarians I know that feel like this, are achieving great things and inspire me constantly. An injection of motivation would be great for the work mentality and with recent protests of farmers and students, things are looking up, because who would take to the streets when they feel powerless?
Photo by kozzmenIs your country listed? How do you think your country racks up? What’s the work mentality in your country? Does it match with your own work mentality?
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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Expat Business!
Firstly, last week I had a guest post published on Top Ten Blog Tips. Go have a look at it, it’s called 10 Reasons Why Expats should blog.
Secondly, quite a while ago I set up a blog carnival for expats called Expat Experience (the only one, as far as I’m aware). I will not have time to maintain it anymore and am looking at someone to take it over. Have a look at the last edition of Expat Experience. Also have a look at the idea behind it. If you’d like to take it over and host it on your blog, let me know. It’s very rewarding and gets you lots of traffic and linkback! I will not pass it on to just anyone though. So leave a comment or shoot an email to
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Thank you.
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Fasted For 2 Days & Why Fasting Works
As I wrote in my previous blog post I intended to fast one day in solidarity with the people in Zimbabwe, but mostly by accident, I actually fasted for two days.First things first. I fasted for Zimbabwe, because it’s a great cause in my eyes. The South African hunger strikers were strengthened and fortified in the knowledge that they were backed, through action, by 35,000 people from over 190 different countries. I talked about why I was fasting to friends and I pointed their attention towards the disastrous situation in Zimbabwe. Yesterday, Kumi Naidoo, a South African activist and the ‘face’ of this protest shared:
“We are stunned by the response of Avaaz members around the world. I have not eaten a bite of food for eleven days, but when I speak to the African Union summit tomorrow, I will be fortified by your hope and energy. The press and leaders I address will know that they are contending with a serious global movement that will not settle for anything less than bold action. You are making a difference for millions of Zimbabweans. Thank you.”
I ended up following Avaaz’ fasting rules of not eating between sun up and sun down, but just drinking water for two days. The first day since I woke up quite late and had a hangover, so when I felt like eating, I figured I’d wait until it was dark – half an hour / one hour. Today, I fasted again… I didn’t eat anything after going to bed on Saturday and didn’t drink any water either until after dark on Sunday. It wasn’t so tough. Although the dehydration started to get the best of me and left me very exhausted after dinner, but it’s nothing compared to what the people in Zimbabwe are going through. My girlfriend stayed with me all day, as I was told in Turkey that if you’re participating in the Ramadan fast, it’s important to be with a friend if you can… The support makes fasting easier.
Now I’d like to say why I fasted and why fasting works, but be sure to have a look at how Gandhi achieved his goals 5 times through fasting!
Someone left a critical comment in the StumbleUpon reviews of the last blog post. I really wish they had left it as a comment, so I could reply directly to it, but let me do it now. They said:
“And that will help how exactly? I’m all for helping and charity, but I loathe people doing stuff only so they could say “I did something” (meaningless) and now I’ve done my part. If you’re going to do something, do it right you conformist bitch.” (Moorwind)
I’ve heard this view a lot in the past years. My view is the following… If everyone did the least they could do, to change this world in a positive way, to fight injustice, then this world would be a lot better place. Alas, not everybody does even the least they could do, but I will not be a hypocrite, so I will do the least I can do – and if I can I will do a little more. If you want to change the world, start with yourself – it’s the easiest thing that you can change RIGHT NOW.
Secondly, I wanted to fast for more reasons. No action exists by itself and any action’s vibrations will spread. I hope through fasting, I have encouraged others or at least informed others. Secondly, fasting is an important spiritual practice. I’ve never fasted and decided that now that the call for a fast was there, why not. Thirdly, I’ve always been curious what Muslims have to go through during their holy month of Ramadan (or Ramazan in some languages). I cannot imagine what it’s like to do this for a full month, but at least I got closer to understanding – and I have a lot more respect for it now. Finally, unlike the critical commenter, I do believe these small acts make a difference. How about you?
Can small acts have great impacts? Do you have examples from your own life? Have you ever fasted? Why? Did you fast in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe? How was your fast?
Photo by centralsq, shared under a Creative Commons license.
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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I’m Fasting in Solidarity with the People of Zimbabwe
The situation is getting very bad in Zimbabwe. Hyperinflation, lack of clean drinking water or food, violent oppression of citizens, Mugabe is destroying his country through clinging on to his power. We’ve all seen the images.I got word from Avaaz that hundreds of activists, including Desmond Tutu, have started a hunger strike in solidarity with the 11 million people in Zimbabwe who can have only one meal per day, or less.
It’s time for a change. This Sunday, February 1, heads of state are meeting in Ethiopia. A call has gone out for people to fast in solidarity during that day. The pledge is as follows:
We, the undersigned, pledge to fast for a day in solidarity with the Zimbabwean people. We call on leaders throughout Africa—and the world—to act now to decisively support their struggle for justice, democracy, and survival.
The fast is just from sun up to sun down. I’ve always wondered about fasting, about ascetics, or Muslims during Ramazan/Ramadan, what they go through. I’m quite sure I won’t enjoy the fast, but it’s for a great cause and after all, I have a choice. Many people around the world do not.
Take the pledge. Do it with me and 25,000 others. Just for one day, between sun up and sun down, how hard can that be?
Photo by Sokwanele – Zimbabwe, shared under a Creative Commons license.
Are you in? Why is this worth fasting for?
Keep in touch with me next Sunday to see how I’m doing. Follow me on Twitter.
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The Cannabis Villages of Bulgaria
Cannabis is always a very controversial topic. Some of us have tried it, most of us haven’t. Some of us regard it as innocent, many of us regard it as a dangerous drug. In Bulgaria, marijuana is illegal and I’ve been told the justice system here doesn’t make a distinction between hard and soft drugs, so marijuana is essentially treated as a hard drug. Even though this is the case, a lot more young people I know here regularly smoke weed or have tried it than the young people I know in Holland.While doing research for a presentation on The Netherlands – Drugs, Prostitution and Same-Sex Marriage, I already discovered that in the United States about 35% of all people have smoked marijuana at some point in their lives, whereas in the Netherlands it was around 19%. Makes one think about whether the policies of banning cannabis are effective… Whether you smoke it or not.
In some areas of Bulgaria, particularly the south-west near the Greek and Macedonian borders I’ve been told, there are entire villages of farmers that rely on cannabis harvests for their daily bread. Supposedly the entrance road to the village is protected by mafia who most likely have deals with the police to keep them away – although in recent years there have been a few busts in these villages, such as in Gabrene, where 1600kg of cannabis was found. One look at the news articles shows that it’s just simple villagers between 50 and 70 years old who are doing this, even a 63 year old priest was caught.
Bulgaria is the poorest nation in the EU and these people are doing what they have to do to survive. The people allegedly pretend to be growing crops and herbs and if you tell them it’s weed they will go “Oh really? What’s that?” It’s right in the center of their normal crops, like corn.
Another problem is that organised crime buys the cannabis from the farmers for low prices and sells it in the cities for much higher prices, so every time someone consumes cannabis (which is more innocent than alcohol), they make the mafia money and help them strengthen their grip on Bulgarian society.
Photo by elrentaplats, shared under a Creative Common license.
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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Happy Birthday To Me!
It’s my 23rd birthday today! Over the last few years I’ve started to care less and less about my birthday, maybe partly due to be away from my family. I remember last year I hardly cared about my birthday, but due to the fact that it coincided with my last day of my internship in the Bulgarian National Radio, I had a great day.This year I felt the same apathy towards my birthday, partly because I’ve just been very busy arranging things and getting myself settled here in Sofia. Bulgarians are great when it comes to birthdays. In Holland you might get a call or a text message saying happy birthday from a few close friends and your family, but that’s about it (in my experience). In Bulgaria however, you can expect almost everybody who has your number to give you a call to wish you a happy birthday, a great life, great health, great love, luck with any new plans or projects, great friendships et cetera.
Probably the best thing about Facebook, besides the fact that it’s really useful to keep in touch with your networks of friends, is the birthday reminders. I’ve had a lot of great birthday greetings from my friends today and would like to thank them all. Dutch, Russian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Spanish, German, English… Dankjewel, спасибо, благодаря, teşekkürler, gracias, danke, thanks!
Oh, and I was just sent this Bulgarian popfolk/chalga happy birthday music video. The video’s probably not supposed to be funny, but it’s making me laugh a lot.
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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Groove Armada’s New Mini-Album… For Free!
Groove Armada, the famous big beat, electronica and trip-hop producers, are sharing their newest EP freely with their fans through a nifty downloading scheme. One of the guys from Groove Armada recently stated about filesharing that “it’s utterly futile to try and stop people, just like it was stopping people creating mix tapes once they had two decks and a tape recorder”.You can download Groove Armada’s newest mini-album by clicking here or on the picture (provided by aeter). All you need to do is enter your age, since the deal is sponsored by Bacardi rum and you have to be above the legal drinking age in your country, and your email address to receive the first song of the album immediately and to acquire the rest later.
This is very interesting to me, since I’ll be doing my final thesis of my bachelor degree very soon and it will be about the future of music distribution. It is very obvious that labels need to adopt new business models and that the old models simply don’t work anymore, since music is going back to being a service, instead of a product, so access is the most important thing. Groove Armada have realized this very well and have started this music distribution campaign which is bound to go viral (it already is).
Apparently Groove Armada spoke about this deal with Bacardi at the MIDEM Conference in Cannes, France where the music business meets every year. Below is an example of one of their chillout songs, for two more famous songs, check out Superstylin (big beat) or My Friend (lounge/electronica) on YouTube.
Groove Armada – Fly Me To The Moon from Giul Viera & Fabia Oliveira on Vimeo.For Groove Armada’s new mini-EP, click here. If you’re a music lover like me, also have a look at The MiX-Files where I post my DJ sets as Spartz (for drum ‘n bass), spacescape (experimental & psychedelic), and EvilAngle (house/eclectro/breakbeat).
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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Finally found a flat!
So I finally found my flat for the time to come. I moved from Istanbul to Sofia, Bulgaria one and a half week ago and have been flathunting each day, but it took quite a while to find something.I lived here one and a half year ago and prices were quite low, but to find something decent near the center for a reasonable price is very difficult now, especially for a foreign student.
What an awful process. Going from flat to flat, waiting for agents, replying to online ads for apartments that have been given out already, saying yes to a flat to find out that they’d rather have a Bulgarian living there and not a foreigner. Saying yes to a flat to hear the next day that they are only interested in people for a long-term stay. Seeing all corners of the city, resisting agents’ arguments on why some nasty remote suburb is a great place to live (which it is not).
What a painstakingly exhausting process. Hence the pic, from Flickr by hiromy.
Well, yesterday I found my apartment. I still have to sign the contract later today, but it looks like all is well, but you can follow my Twitter feed to get an update when everything is all done, or wait for the next blog post.
The flat is quite close to my old apartment where I lived up until a year ago (how time flies), although my old apartment had a much better location. It has a separate living room and kitchen, although I prefer the two combined because I’m lazy, plus I like to listen to my DJ sets or other music while I’m cooking. A bedroom with a nice double bed; bigger bedroom than the last one, for those in the know. Since I’ll be spending a lot of time at home behind the computer, to write my final thesis, I wanted to make sure I’d be comfortable at least. Now I’m sure. A video soon!
Below are two videos of my old flats, the first one is of the flat I previously lived in in Bulgaria, the second is the flat I shared with 3 other students in Istanbul.
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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So Virgin founder Richard Branson took my friend to Washington today
What the f…, Len! Apparently he was being his usual cheeky self this morning when attending a speech of Richard Branson, the British industrialist famous for founding Virgin. You could SMS questions to him during the speech, which he would then answer afterwards. Well, Branson said that he would be taking his private jet to Washington later to attend the inauguration of Obama, so Len Hulsbos and his friend Omar sent him an SMS asking if he could join.
I guess the conference hall was filled with laughter as Richard read out the SMS, followed by surprise when he said that they could come. Congratulations, mate! Looks like your cheekiness got you somewhere! 😉
Omar, Richard and Len (photo from here)Can’t wait to hear Len’s stories. I hope he’ll send out some more messages to his Twitter feed or posts a story on his blog, Pomtidom.com. Let’s stick this in the face of our university professors. Me meeting Philip Kotler, you flying on the jet of Branson.
Cradle of Design and Mankind is no Island are destined to be successful!
Apparently he’s been eating caviar and drinking champagne on his way to Washington. More about his adventure soon! Right here, or there.
