There is still time to register for this year's specialized tour to Ukraine (August 22-Sept. 8) with me as your "glorious leader" -- as one group named me.
You can travel on your own (we all become friends and family) or you can bring a friend, relative, or significant other -- or a tribe -- as the Marykuca/Torbiak family did a few years ago. This is Marvin's travel tale:
http://orysia.blogspot.ca/2012/03/my-good-friend-marvin-marykuca-wrote.html
please check out, and contact Martha:
http://www.greatcanadiantravel.com/europe-ukraine-culture-escorted-tour
Monday, March 4, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
A DIFFERENT KIND OF BULLYING
It is so terrible, so very wrong, that bullying exists. At least now there is discussion and action to curtail it, if not to stop it. Do young kids learn this on their own? Do they just follow others? Or do they learn by example from adults?
There is another type of bullying out there -- in the media. Switching channels, I came across two sad excuses for "entertainment" -- TMZ and The Fashion Police. Sure, celebrities are in the news and need to be in the news. It's a vicious circle -- you have to be out there to be current, but you hate to be pursued by the paparazzi and other "reporters." But you need that photo or article -- but to what degree? Where is the fine line?
So, the above-mentioned programs (and there may be others that, mercifully, I don't know about) do cover celebrities, but in a most cruel way.
Fashion Police discusses and disses what celebrities wear. Yes, many of the outfits are pathetic and wrong, but who are the people dissing them and how qualified are they to do so? A young woman with lavender/gray hair with too many tattoos all over her body, a plastic-surgeon-stretched foul-mouthed woman who needs to turn the mirror on herself, and the rest of this entourage? What do they look like? And they're judging others, with such downright cruel vicious comments? Watched this once, and wanted to take a shower.
Same with the childish and cruel TMZ -- this gaggle of arrested adolescents, permanently attached to their bottles and cups, not exactly very well groomed themselves, are dissing and mocking others? If you can't say anything cruel, don't say anything at all? If this isn't public bullying, I don't know what is.
Yes, some celebrities need to look in the mirror before buying an outfit, and not listen to the supposed stylist who has no taste him/herself, but that's their choice.
The tabloid journalism in print, on TV, and online feeds on itself and on the cruelty it spouts in mocking and belittling and bullying others. What a great job! What a great example to others! Do you feel good in what you have accomplished?
_____
So today I see this item. I cannot fathom Lady Gaga. But there she is, also talking about bullying!
There is another type of bullying out there -- in the media. Switching channels, I came across two sad excuses for "entertainment" -- TMZ and The Fashion Police. Sure, celebrities are in the news and need to be in the news. It's a vicious circle -- you have to be out there to be current, but you hate to be pursued by the paparazzi and other "reporters." But you need that photo or article -- but to what degree? Where is the fine line?
So, the above-mentioned programs (and there may be others that, mercifully, I don't know about) do cover celebrities, but in a most cruel way.
Fashion Police discusses and disses what celebrities wear. Yes, many of the outfits are pathetic and wrong, but who are the people dissing them and how qualified are they to do so? A young woman with lavender/gray hair with too many tattoos all over her body, a plastic-surgeon-stretched foul-mouthed woman who needs to turn the mirror on herself, and the rest of this entourage? What do they look like? And they're judging others, with such downright cruel vicious comments? Watched this once, and wanted to take a shower.
Same with the childish and cruel TMZ -- this gaggle of arrested adolescents, permanently attached to their bottles and cups, not exactly very well groomed themselves, are dissing and mocking others? If you can't say anything cruel, don't say anything at all? If this isn't public bullying, I don't know what is.
Yes, some celebrities need to look in the mirror before buying an outfit, and not listen to the supposed stylist who has no taste him/herself, but that's their choice.
The tabloid journalism in print, on TV, and online feeds on itself and on the cruelty it spouts in mocking and belittling and bullying others. What a great job! What a great example to others! Do you feel good in what you have accomplished?
_____
So today I see this item. I cannot fathom Lady Gaga. But there she is, also talking about bullying!
Monday, January 7, 2013
NOT ALL KOLIADY ARE HAPPY
A koliada/carol from the late 1940/early 1950s from Ukraine -- one we did not hear about openly till after Independence -- not joyfull at all, but tells the story of what it was like in Ukraine just after the war.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
MY BONNIE BRAIDS DOLL - FROM ST. NICHOLAS
St. Nicholas - Sviatyi Mykolai has come and gone, in mid-December. I just remembered I has written this about an early gift I had received waaaay back.
She was the first Christmas gift I remember -- Bonnie Braids, the baby doll with two short yellow braids sticking straight out at either side of the top of her head. I was about six, and Saint Nicholas, the good bishop, brought her to me during the night of his feast day (according to the Julian calendar). On the morning of December 19,1951, I awoke and moved my head from side to side, hoping to hear the rustle of paper. St. Nicholas (Sviatyi Mykolai) always leaves your gift under or near your pillow. Well, if it was a bicycle or something else really big, it would be near your bed.
My doll did not come in the original box, but in a cradle basket, lying on and covered with pink and blue satin brocade, one colour per side. There was a ruffled pillow, a thin quilt for a sheet, and then a puffy duvet-like cover. She was wearing a hand-embroidered flowered nightgown, and had pink ribbons in her braids. The baby doll was beautiful, and I carried her everywhere, even to school and church.
Although I was not aware of it at the time, Bonnie Braids was the daughter of comics heroes Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart. In the early 1950s, this was as complicated as spins-off got. At the time, I did not read the comics and would not have understood them anyway. Even though I could read at the age of four, it was Ukrainian, not English, that I knew. My parents were Ukrainians who had been forced labourers in Germany during World War II. That is where they met, and where I was born after the war. An older sister I never knew, Lesia, was born to them during the war, but died of pneumonia at 14 months, and is buried somewhere in southern Germany. After the war, we lived in the displaced persons (DP) camp in Berchtesgaden, waiting for some country to take us. Because my parents had been involved in the Ukrainian underground in both Ukraine and Germany, and were fiercely anti-Russian-Communist, there was no way they would return home to the now Soviet Ukraine under Stalin. After four years in the camp, we arrived as refugees in New York in September 1949, and settled in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Even though my parents knew a number of European languages, English was not one of them. For young adults, it took quite a while for them to figure out this strange language with no declensions nor articles. I, on the other hand, was speaking English within two weeks. Playing with other kids will do that, and soon I was helping my parents when they shopped. Our lives were the same as those of the rest of the refugees – no matter what professions or education the people had back home, in America they worked at the most basic jobs until they could pick up the language. My father worked in a mattress factory, a bus factory, and a place that made brass horse clocks. I was fascinated with the one he brought home – a lovely horse on a stand, with a big round clock in his middle. He would come home with his hands full of cuts from the coils and metal. My mother cleaned offices across the Hudson River in Manhattan. He worked during the day, she at night – that was daycare back in the early 1950s. They greeted each other on the doorstep. They were also the janitors for the apartment building in which we lived. Later, Mama worked as a seamstress in sewing factories and bridal shops. Despite all their hard work, we still had time for church and Ukrainian school and cultural organizations.
Growing up, I was unaware that we were not exactly wealthy. We had arrived with a trunk filled mostly with books, a down-filled peryna (duvet) from Ukraine, and my grandmother’s big, precious coral necklace. There was love, warmth, culture, songs, and stories surrounding me. For those first few years, I do not think anything we had was newly-bought. I was probably about 10 or so before we acquired a brand-new major piece of furniture. Now that I think back, that original old furniture would fetch a good price on the Antiques Road Show.
One of the first things my parents bought in America was a sewing machine, second-hand. Mama had learned to sew at home, but involuntarily perfected her sewing during the war, sewing German army uniforms. Afterwards, in the DP camp, she remade clothing for us from donations received through UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association). I had some interesting dresses out of men’s suiting, and a beautiful ruffled dyed-pink dress of parachute silk. As I was growing up, rarely if ever did I have a store-bought outfit. Mine were all one-of-a-kind, designed and custom-made by Mama. So it was no wonder that the outfit that Bonnie Braids originally came in the box was just not good enough.
It would be nice to hold Bonnie Braids again. She is available on eBay, but I do not need her. I have the memory of her, and the enveloping memory of loving, devoted, very hard-working parents who sacrificed everything so that we could have a new life in a free land.
___
orig. published in http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/2006/020617.shtml
She was the first Christmas gift I remember -- Bonnie Braids, the baby doll with two short yellow braids sticking straight out at either side of the top of her head. I was about six, and Saint Nicholas, the good bishop, brought her to me during the night of his feast day (according to the Julian calendar). On the morning of December 19,1951, I awoke and moved my head from side to side, hoping to hear the rustle of paper. St. Nicholas (Sviatyi Mykolai) always leaves your gift under or near your pillow. Well, if it was a bicycle or something else really big, it would be near your bed.
My doll did not come in the original box, but in a cradle basket, lying on and covered with pink and blue satin brocade, one colour per side. There was a ruffled pillow, a thin quilt for a sheet, and then a puffy duvet-like cover. She was wearing a hand-embroidered flowered nightgown, and had pink ribbons in her braids. The baby doll was beautiful, and I carried her everywhere, even to school and church.
Although I was not aware of it at the time, Bonnie Braids was the daughter of comics heroes Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart. In the early 1950s, this was as complicated as spins-off got. At the time, I did not read the comics and would not have understood them anyway. Even though I could read at the age of four, it was Ukrainian, not English, that I knew. My parents were Ukrainians who had been forced labourers in Germany during World War II. That is where they met, and where I was born after the war. An older sister I never knew, Lesia, was born to them during the war, but died of pneumonia at 14 months, and is buried somewhere in southern Germany. After the war, we lived in the displaced persons (DP) camp in Berchtesgaden, waiting for some country to take us. Because my parents had been involved in the Ukrainian underground in both Ukraine and Germany, and were fiercely anti-Russian-Communist, there was no way they would return home to the now Soviet Ukraine under Stalin. After four years in the camp, we arrived as refugees in New York in September 1949, and settled in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Even though my parents knew a number of European languages, English was not one of them. For young adults, it took quite a while for them to figure out this strange language with no declensions nor articles. I, on the other hand, was speaking English within two weeks. Playing with other kids will do that, and soon I was helping my parents when they shopped. Our lives were the same as those of the rest of the refugees – no matter what professions or education the people had back home, in America they worked at the most basic jobs until they could pick up the language. My father worked in a mattress factory, a bus factory, and a place that made brass horse clocks. I was fascinated with the one he brought home – a lovely horse on a stand, with a big round clock in his middle. He would come home with his hands full of cuts from the coils and metal. My mother cleaned offices across the Hudson River in Manhattan. He worked during the day, she at night – that was daycare back in the early 1950s. They greeted each other on the doorstep. They were also the janitors for the apartment building in which we lived. Later, Mama worked as a seamstress in sewing factories and bridal shops. Despite all their hard work, we still had time for church and Ukrainian school and cultural organizations.
Growing up, I was unaware that we were not exactly wealthy. We had arrived with a trunk filled mostly with books, a down-filled peryna (duvet) from Ukraine, and my grandmother’s big, precious coral necklace. There was love, warmth, culture, songs, and stories surrounding me. For those first few years, I do not think anything we had was newly-bought. I was probably about 10 or so before we acquired a brand-new major piece of furniture. Now that I think back, that original old furniture would fetch a good price on the Antiques Road Show.
One of the first things my parents bought in America was a sewing machine, second-hand. Mama had learned to sew at home, but involuntarily perfected her sewing during the war, sewing German army uniforms. Afterwards, in the DP camp, she remade clothing for us from donations received through UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association). I had some interesting dresses out of men’s suiting, and a beautiful ruffled dyed-pink dress of parachute silk. As I was growing up, rarely if ever did I have a store-bought outfit. Mine were all one-of-a-kind, designed and custom-made by Mama. So it was no wonder that the outfit that Bonnie Braids originally came in the box was just not good enough.
It would be nice to hold Bonnie Braids again. She is available on eBay, but I do not need her. I have the memory of her, and the enveloping memory of loving, devoted, very hard-working parents who sacrificed everything so that we could have a new life in a free land.
___
orig. published in http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/2006/020617.shtml
Monday, December 31, 2012
Orysia's McNally Robinson Classes
Two more classes to go -- one on traditional foods (in two parts)
and a repeat -- "by popular demand" -- of the folk medicine one -- the new date is March 18, 7-9 P.M.
Register early.
http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/browse.php?txtCatID=1846
and a repeat -- "by popular demand" -- of the folk medicine one -- the new date is March 18, 7-9 P.M.
Register early.
http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/browse.php?txtCatID=1846
GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM...
DO
YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM?
Have you ever wondered about your baba’s and dido’s
family back in Ukraine? Is there anyone
left after a century or more? Where did
they live? What did their village look
like? Is Ukraine different now?
The answer to the last question is “yes” and “no.” Your ancestral homeland is very modern, and
yet quite traditional. You will see
both. If you have no relatives there
anymore, or are not Ukrainian, and just want to see and experience a beautiful
part of the world, come along with me!
Join me on a specialized tour of Ukraine like no
other. We see people and places that
will remain in your memories for a long time.
The scenery, the history, the culture, the people, the food, the drink,
the art and architecture, the serendipity – all blend into a memorable journey.
If you’re interested in having family, extended family
and friends go on “your” tour, we can customize it. Not only will you see the highlights of
Ukraine, but you will visit your ancestral villages and towns, meet relatives
or people who remember them, and celebrate your ancestry. If you want to join me on a regular tour,
where we can visit your villages, that can be arranged. And if you’re not Ukrainian, that’s fine, too
– join us and become part of the family!
Have added some photos -- urban and rural. What a beautiful place! More to follow.
The number in the tour is limited, so folks need to sign up with Martha Banias as soon as they can.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
UKRAINIAN CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS - РІЗДВО
With the first day of Christmas yesterday, two more to come (in Ukrainian tradition, it's three days of Christmas), I'm sharing some of my articles on Ukrainian Christmas traditions. These I have written over many years, for The Ukrainian Weekly, an award-winning international English-language Ukrainian newspaper from New Jersey, edited by Roma Hadzevych.
Also, here is a YouTube (in four parts, so click on all of them) of my presentation about Christmas traditions at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) a few years ago.
This coming year I hope to do what I've been planning for a long time -- and have been encouraged by my dear faithful readers to do: I will be compiling my Christmas articles into a book. Later, will do the same with articles on other topics. It's mindboggling to think of how many of my articles are actually out there!
For starters, here are a few on some esoteric aspects of Ukrainian Christmas traditions.
http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/1997/519720.shtml
http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/1993/029318.shtml
http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/2006/530616.shtml
I do look forward to hearing from you!
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