クロアチアの古いことわざ Old Saying in Croatia

最近、ギリシャの財政危機から始まってユーロ危機、ひいてはユーロ圏解体かなんて叫ばれている今日この頃ですが、クロアチアを含む旧ユーゴスラビアにこんな古いことわざがあります。

Dužan kao Grčka (ドゥジャン　カオ　グルチュカ）. ギリシャ人のように借金にまみれる。

なんてタイムリーなことわざ、じゃなくて、昔からギリシャ人は借金をものすごくするという悪い評判が旧ユーゴスラビアにもあったんですね・・・。クロアチア人は（たぶん他の旧ユーゴスラビア諸国も似たような感じかも）目いっぱい借金できるところまで借金する国民性（?!）なんだとか（旦那談）。そんなクロアチアから見てもギリシャ人の借金癖はひどいということなんでしょうか・・・。

ギリシャでは脱税と高い年金が財政を圧迫したことが今の財政危機の発端とのことですが、クロアチアも結構ギリシャに負けず劣らず。1991年から95年の独立戦争のときに軍に従事した人はいろいろな手当＋高い年金がもらえるんですが、なんと手当＋退役軍人年金受給者は実際に戦争で戦った人以上にいるらしい・・・。そんなに軍人いたんだったら、クロアチアは簡単に独立戦争に勝っていたんじゃ？というくらい。2011年12月の選挙で政権交代したクロアチア。新政権は退役軍人が実際にどこに配置されていたのか確認作業をするらしい。というか確認作業なしに手当とか高い年金を支払っていたことが信じられない。やっぱり適当な国クロアチア。EU加盟も決まったし、新政権になったし、EU並の政治・法秩序が確立されることを願うばかり。

Croatia and other former Yugoslav countries have the old saying:  Dužan kao Grčka, meaning "indebted like Greek".

  This is not new saying created recently because of the Greek debt crisis, which led to a serious crisis of Euro currency. But, it seems like this old saying exists since long time ago. I laughed when I heard this saying, but this means that Greek has a bad reputation when it comes to debt even in Croatia.

  According to my husband, Croats tend to be in debt as deep as possible and don't stop spending. Many Japanese think that Croatia is in a serious economic crisis (I guess it is true though...) because of recession in EU. But, actually, the shopping malls outside of the centre of Zagreb are always full of people and don't feel like that the economy of Croatia is bad. So, this saying shows that Croats and people in other former Yugoslav countries consider the Greek habit of debt is even worse than them. Very interesting...

  In Japan, we feel very unsafe if we don't have savings. One reason is because we think that Japanese pension system will be sooner or later bankrupt. Well, the Japanese government itself is in a massive debt and when the big recession hits Japan, the government won't be able to help us. So, it is very important to have some savings to survive. Even young people in 20's have already started worrying their life after retirement and started saving money. Young people in 20's only know Japan in recession and spent most of their life in such economic situation. So, they tend to take more careful and serious attitudes to their way of spending and their life.