The Flower of Romania

By Craig Perrin Last month a colleague and I tested three new training programs in Romania. He facilitated while I observed, and then vice versa. This was my first visit to Eastern Europe in (shudder) 31 years. What did I expect? I’m not sure, but what I found gave me a surge of hope. The Romania I saw is fresh, full of life. And young. Is no one in that country over thirty? A group of mid-level managers in a multinational bank felt like a graduate seminar. A swarm of reporters at our early-morning press conference gave me the odd feeling I was back teaching college journalism. It’s not just the youth. It’s also – and I hesitate just slightly to use a Maureen Dowd-like five-euro word – it’s also the perspicacity. These young people are aware, eager to learn, intellectually fearless. And that press conference. As my partner and I droned on, I could feel it. Jacked up on pitch-black espresso these young people wanted rough-and-tumble, hard facts, numbers, vivid images. “What’s the differences between Romanian leaders and other leaders?” “Romanian leaders are a lot funnier.” “There’s my headline!” blurted the young man whose hair that morning had apparently undergone electroshock therapy. None of these reporters and few of the managers remember the week-long riots and executions of 1989. These fresh minds and this youthful energy – in my mind at least – have flowed forth to fill the resulting cultural vacuum, symbolized today by Nicolae Ceausescu's stupendous, ghastly, and now largely vacant palace in Bucharest. If this is what youth can do unfettered by repressive policies and narrow thinking, then bring on the children.