Those nice people at the Romanian National Statistics Institute (INS) are currently carrying out a census. As in most developed countries, Romania holds a census every ten years.
Unless you believe in David Icke-style ‘lizards rule the world’ nonsense, it is difficult to understand how anyone could object to answering the questions on the census form.
A census is carried out to help governments plan for the future: how many people live in the country, how many young people, how many old people, how many schools do we need, how many hospitals, how many new homes etc.
(That most governments take the data, crunch the numbers for a while and then file them all underwater is besides the point).
Many people in Romania, alas, including those who we would expect to know better, have objected to answering the questions on the census form, especially the one which requires you tell them your CNP (personal numeric code). Unfathomable.
Anyway, we had the census man around this morning.
Surprisingly, he wasn’t a lizard.
He was surprised however when we invited him in, offered him coffee and generally made him feel as though he wasn’t a lizard after our deepest, darkest secrets.
All he wanted was some very basic information. So we gave it to him (except our CNP: foreigners don’t have them). He did look a bit puzzled when we gave him four different answers to the religion question, as though we were taking the piss, but honestly, we are multi-cultural family. (Mrs. Bucharest Life was christened a Catholic, Number One Son was christened Orthodox, Number Two Daughter was christened Anglican, and Bucharest Life himself is deeply Agnostic).
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Watch this:
http://www.realitatea.net/marea-britanie-hotii-de-guma-de-mestecat-dau-restul-in-romania_882600.html
=))
A small correction … foreigners do have CNP’s if they register their residence here. Probably EU citizens who do not require any procedures to live here do not require a CNP but any person with a romanian id document (local id or residence permit) mus have a CNP.
Cheers
Yes I should have phrased that better: I don’t have one, other foreigners might well do. Lord knows it would make life easier sometimes to have one!
Mine came over first last week, and didn’t speak a word of english. She returned when I was out of the country and my girlfriend did it for me
@anon
Do you think it’s possible to obtain a cross between ivy and fir?
I was thinking about a solution to please ecologists, see my comment
http://www.bucharestlife.net/2011/10/27/is-the-wwf-putting-romanias-forests-before-people/#comments
Sounds like the data will be rubbish anyway. By doing it in person over 10 days, and apparently only turning up during working hours, they will miss not only households where everyone goes to work or school but also those on holiday or abroad/away for whatever reason. Also those who prefer not to answer their doors to people they don’t know. And presumably it’s quite labour intensive (keeps some of those state employees busy I guess).
I hear tell of apartment blocks where several apartments may be occupied but the census couldn’t find anyone at home. We have not been censused yet and now I doubt we will since from tomorrow we’ll be away.
Do other countries not do this by post and then chase up households who have not answered within a specified time?
Last time I did it in the UK the form was delivered in person by a census officer, and then picked up by the same person a week later. But that was almost 20 years ago. Not sure if they did the last one the same way.
No, they didn’t. Form came in by post, I think you could even fill it out online. It’s the 21st century, you know…
Certainly they are appealing to peoples’ fair play and common sense…
Do that in Romania and 75% of the population would simply wipe their asses with the form or throw it away together with the brochures for pork and beef distributed by supermarkets.
I just assure you that in Romania the agnostics (among whom I proudly count myself) are looked at as lizards! You just miss-assigned the roles
I was given a CNP when I registered for residence
Same here, but he wasn’t interested, said he is only collecting CNPs of Romanian citizens.
The CNP was invented by my father
Really it was: he was part of a small team of people that elaborated the algorithm through which the CNP is generated. This was happening back in the 70s.
I met most of the people from his team, in their 60s now and currently part of the senior management of some important Romanian companies.
Wonderful people, a perfect example for the work ethics that existed back then, people who can get a job done properly, unlike the younger generations.
I was lucky, the census man for my street was actually a census girl and she was quite sexy and – because I live alone and have studied the forms in advance so as to find out the easiest path to the end – we finished the whole thing fast on the staircase of my block and after that I invited her in but she said that we should get to know each other better so here we are – going out tomorrow evening
At the religion question I declared myself as Pagan although Voodoo-ist was also an alternative.
But I did send a mail to the Patriarch of the the Romanian Orthodox Church, informing him that he was an asshole and a piece of sh*t making the games of Basescu for not being present in the Parliament when King Mihai I made his speech, although he was invinted.
As for the CNP – if the state wants to get it, they can get it from the police anyway so I declared my CNP so that the girl can do her job.
For me the general idea when answering these forms is to choose as many times as possible the option which says “other” or “not listed” or “none of the above” etc…
I had my census done yesterday afternoon up in Moldova. My command of the Romanian limba este rahat dar I did my best. There was a lot of questions. She (census lady) asked me everything from my name, age, and my mothers shoe size!
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