RIP Havel

I never was a big history buff and was too young during the time of the Soviet Bloc to remember anything. While living Prague, I quickly learned all about the fall of communism and one of the Czech Republic's most beloved figures, Vaclav Havel. My students loved telling me all about the events of 1989 as well as their own personal stories from this era. It opened me eyes to the incredible history these people lived through. It became clear to me very quickly that Havel was a special man. Czech people were so proud of him and the things he accomplished during his life time. He will be greatly missed.

With the recent events in Prague, it has made me miss that amazing city as much as ever. I wish I could have been there for this.

4 Hamburgers a Day?

Since I have been here in the Czech Republic, I have met several people who want to tell me about what the United States is like. They are an expert, know all about the culture, the habits, people, etc. How do they know all of this? From TV of course. No, no, they've never been there, but maybe know a guy who was there one time 10 years ago.

Experts.

Today, one of my students informed me that for lunch in America, everyone eats 4 hamburgers and drinks a couple liters of soda. Everyday. (Mind you, while he was telling me this I was drinking water and he was drinking out of a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi.)

I asked him where he possibly go this information from.

"Have you seen the show 'Man XXL'?"

He says it's some documentary about a really fat American man who eats McDonalds all the time and even feeds his one-year-old baby hamburgers.

Wait... that's where you get your information from?? You are stereotyping and making judgments about all of America based on one horrible reality TV show about a disgusting, obese man? Please. That's insulting.

I also believe that when I first met this same student and told him I was American, he looked at me up and down and said, "But you're slim!?" as if he really didn't know it was possible to be American and not be overweight.

Did I mention he always drinks out of 2 liter bottles of Pepsi?

Also today, in trying to prove to me how much he knows about how awful America is, he told me about a visit by one of his colleagues to somewhere in the United States. I don't know when or where his colleague went, but apparently he didn't enjoy his visit so much. Supposedly his colleague is a really 'healthy' guy and goes to the gym regularly, likes to eat well, blah, blah, blah. His colleague told him that eating well in America was very difficult and he wasn't able to find a salad anywhere.

Have I told you about Czech food before? It goes like this: pork, sausage, potatoes, bread, dumplings (basically the same thing as bread) and cheese. Mmm... healthy. The few times I have been to a Czech restaurant I have a really hard time finding something that I can order (as I don't eat beef or pork and try to eat minimal dairy). I usually end up with something deep fried and smothered in cheese. Horrible.

Under the vegetarian sections of Czech menus (if they have one) all I am able to find is fried cheese, broccoli with cheese, or cheese with ham. Yes, ham, in the veg menu. If there is a salad on the menu, it is an overpriced ice burg lettuce salad with a couple of little tomatoes thrown in and covered with something worse than Ranch dressing.

So it is really hard for me to imagine how someone could go to the States and think that it is difficult to eat healthy there. You can find good salads at practically any restaurant you visit. Hell even McDonalds has decent salads if you're desperate!

Someone we met in Austria told me that she heard a rumor that it was impossible to buy fresh vegetables in America. Wrong! I think America has more and better quality than Austria and Czech combined.

Ok, I know I'm ranting a little bit. I really just don't understand how people can possibly pretend to know so much about my country when they have never even set foot in it. I have been in the Czech Republic for 8 months now and I don't pretend to have any idea about their culture. Yes, I'm learning about it and I know a whole lot more than I did before I arrived, but I still could never make all of these gross assumptions about the Czech way of life. I can tell you about my experiences with my students, Czech friends, and dealing with people in the streets and shops, and about some of their traditions and customs, but I refuse to act like I know what it's all about. I don't. (okay, maybe that comment about vegetables sounds like it contradicts what I am saying, but that is just based off of my experiences and what I find available in the grocery stores...)

So how can someone who has just watched a couple of American TV shows and maybe reads the news every once in a while possibly think they know enough to teach me about my own country?

Sorry, I'm done now. :)

Christmastime in Prague

Mmmm.... you can smell it in the air... Christmas is here! Although it may be unusually warm for December and we haven't seen a flake of snow since one day in early October, Christmas is definitely in the air. Even though the Czech Republic is highly un-religious (which I mentioned in a previous post), Christmas is still a wildly popular holiday. The holiday topic has been popping up in my classes since I first started teaching in October. And now, with the arrival of the Christmas markets, it's pretty much unavoidable. I have heard that the Markets in some of the neighboring countries (or even in small Czech towns) are better than those in Prague, but the ones here in the city are still perfectly enjoyable.

The biggest market is held in the Old Town Square (Staromestske Namesti), with a few other markets in some smaller squares around town. There are small wooden booths set up around the square, selling gifts, food and drink. They are decorated with pines and lights with a HUGE Christmas tree in the middle of it all.

Saturday night Jason and I headed out to the Old Town to see the festive atmosphere and drink some delicious hot wine (tastes like apple cider... with wine) and eat some tasty cinnamon rings. (okay, so I don't know what they're really called. But it's dough rolled in cinnamon and sugar and wrapped around a metal rod and cooked over a fire. They slide them off the rod and look like a big cinnamon bangle bracelet or something. So bad yet SO good!)

And another reason we chose to go to the market on Saturday night was to witness the Czech Advent tradition of St. Nicholas. Every year on November 5th, St. Nicholas comes to ask the children if they've been good or bad and give them sweets or rotten potatoes accordingly. An angel and a devil accompany St. Nick. The devil rattles his chains and tries to intimidate the children, asking them what they have done wrong and making them sing songs. The angel obviously is the nice one in this team, praising the children for what they have done well and offering them candy.

Apparently people here really enjoy the tradition as the streets were filled with people dressed up in elaborate costumes. Nicholas wears a full Cardinal's outfit with a large staff and all. The devils were painted completely black with glowing horns and dragging chains, and angels in white gowns with large wings. Trios of St. Nick, the angel and the devil strolled the streets looking for innocent children to harass. It was pretty funny to watch, and some people seemed really into it. Especially teenagers who were most likely bothered by the devil not so many years ago, out to get their revenge on the young children today.

Obviously we have some similar traditions in the States, but nothing quite to this affect. Another Czech Christmas difference I've learned from some of my students about is about who brings the gifts. In the US, all children know that Santa Claus flies around in his sled on Christmas Eve, delivering gifts to all the good girls and boys around the world. Here, there is no Santa. Baby Jesus is the one who delivers presents on Christmas Eve (to be opened that night).

One of my students, explaining that her children no longer believe in the myths of Christmas told me, "My children are older now so they don't believe in Baby Jesus anymore."

Different.

Living in the Czech Republic I find myself comparing my experiences here to those I had in Korea. Clearly there are more cultural differences than I could possibly mention. But most of what I'm noticing is how my interactions with the cultures differ.

In Korea, I obviously did not look Korean. No one ever tried to speak Korean to me and they were never surprised when I didn't understand them. We would get many stares- especially from older people or little kids. Many kids would even stop, point and say to their patents "mi guk!" (foreigner). I got used to life as a minority and not being able to blend with the culture. No matter what I did, even if I learned to speak Korean fluently, I would still stand out as being different and being a foreigner.

In Prague it is completely opposite. I am just another white, European person and look like any other Czech girl walking down the street. My style is similar to Czech fashion, my hair color is spot on, etc. I get stopped at least once a day where someone tries to speak Czech to me. Ask directions, try to sell me something, older people when i give up my seat to them on the tram, whatever. And at the deli when I am buying some lunch meat and the sales person tries to ask me a question and just looks at me like I'm stupid for not understanding something so simple, until they realize that I'm not Czech. In any of these situations there's always the awkward moment when I try to make it clear that I don't understand. "No Czech, English." and this usually doesn't happen until they've rattled off half of what they were tring to say. I hate dealing with these situations and it almost make me miss Korea where no one would talk to me, never even hand me promo fliers in the metro, never have the confused look on their face when I didn't know what they were saying.

I had told myself that I wasn't going to make the same mistakes I made in Korea as far as not learning the language. But now, I'm not so sure if it's going to happen. I had hoped to sign up for a free Czech class through one of my language schools but unfortunately it doesn't fit with my schedule. So I bought a Czech phrase book and decided I would try to learn some on my own. But the pronunciation is so different from English that I don't even know where to start. How do you pronounce "zd" together? And what's the difference between č and c? Û, ú and u?
And it's not only that. While they only have simple verb tenses (no continuous or perfect tenses), they congigate nouns and change endings for masculine and feminine. For example, "Prague" in Czech can be Praha, Praze, Prasky and probably a lot of other versions that I don't even know.
So we'll see how far I get on my own. Many of my students really want me to try learning it and ask about my progress every week. And then just smile and laugh when I try to say anything in Czech.

So, back to my Korea vs. Czech ideas... While it is of course nice to be able to blend and not stand out all the time, when you feel like a stranger in a strange land it is kind of nice to not be confused as something different. And as a white American, I think it was a very good experience for me to spend a year as a minority. But that's a whole other story.

I don't think I'm really going anywhere with this, just observing the differences. So that's where I'm at. I will try to learn some more Czech to make life easier. Maybe I can at least learn "I don't speak Czech."

A History Lesson....

One of the best things about living in foreign countries is learning things that I would never have either the opportunity or desire to learn much about back home. And here in the Czech Republic, teaching well educated adults, I've been given a lot of opportunities to learn about Czech history, mostly from first hand accounts.

As the Czech Republic gets ready to commemorate the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism twenty years ago next Tuesday, I thought I would take the time to share some insight that my students have shared with me.

One of my students, Pavel, has shared a lot of his experiences growing up in a communistic society with me. He says his father had some trouble with the police because he was involved in some protests in the 60's. Because of this, Pavel wasn't allowed to go to high school. Even though he had some of the best marks of his class and successfully passed his entrance exams, he was told that there was no more room at the school. He was sent to a vocational high school where he learned some trade work and was eventually allowed to attend a regular high school. But this meant leaving his hometown and moving to Prague by himself at the age of 15.

He also told the story of his brother who left their hometown to study in another part of the country. He has to change his last name so no one would know he was related to the family, and Pavel was never allowed to talk about his brother in public.

Students tell me stories of "voting" during the communistic rule. It was reported that 99.99% of the people voted and they all voted for the communism leader. Well, this was obviously because they were given no other options. You had to go to the polling place on the day of the election and fill in the ballot, even though there was only one option. And if you chose to go into a private booth to fill in your answers (such as is common practice now) it would be noted and you would probably be questioned and black listed later.

I have another student, Josef, who told me his memories of the Velvet Revolution. He was actually involved in the revolution and participated by spreading the word throughout the towns and villages around the Czech Republic. He said he would make posters and traveled around the country posting the information to those who were out of touch with the happenings in the big city.

He also remembers the days before the revolution when he was a university student. He says he liked metal bands, such as Metallica, but he was only able to buy their music on black markets and had to be careful about it. Music that was ok'd by the regime? ABBA and Michael Jackson. He also said that some foreign products, like Coca Cola, were available in Czechoslovakia. But they were only in specialty stores which used some certain type of bank notes that only foreigns were able to obtain in exchange for their foreign money.

Now, about 15% of the Czech population still supports the communistic party. Who makes up this 15%?, I ask. Older, poor people is the answer. The small part of the population that actually benefited from communism.

Even though the Czech Republic is traditionally a Catholic country with beautiful cathedrals littering the countryside, there are very few people practicing religion today. Only about 25%. And in Prague, I hear it is even lower, more like 10%. I think this has to be one of the most - if not THE most- unreligious cities in the world. When I talk to some of my students in their 20's about religion, they say that they don't know a single person who attends church and believes in God. One student says she "goes to church" occasionally. When I ask her more about it, she says that she goes to see the cathedral, not to attend mass. Maybe she will attend mass on Christmas, she says. But she describes that mass as not being religious, more just well wishing for everyone. Surely much of this is due to the cummunistic rule that was in place for decades and did not allow religion. But, there are other countries that have been under communism for just as long. So what makes the Czech Republic different? I'm still not sure...

In one of my classes the word "confiscated" came up one day. When I tried to check my students' understanding of the word, I got a little bit of laughter along with this response: "If you've ever lived in a communistic country, you know the meaning of the word confiscated."

While most people I speak with seem to feel very strongly about communism and there are clearly still fresh wounds there, I have one student who doesn't seem to care too much. She says she thinks very few people's lives were changed by the fall of communism. Most people's everyday lives are the same as before, she says. But, I think she might be in the minority on this. While it's probably true that most people's lives didn't immediately change, I think everyone will cite plenty of differences between their past lives and today.

Life in the CZ

Okay, I know I've been a little behind about writing about life in Prague. We haven't had properly functioning internet at home until now, so it's been hard to update. But I really do want to keep u with my blog a little better, so it's my goal to write more on here. Starting..... NOW!

Life is Prague has definitely been a little crazy. Getting settled here has been much much more of a challenge than the other countries we have moved to (Peru and Korea). In Korea, we had everything settled before we even left the US: jobs, work visas, apartments, etc. In Prague, we came with NOTHING. All we had was a hotel to stay in for the first four nights and some names of schools to start sending our resumes to. So when we got here, we hit the ground running.

Luckily, we found an apartment after about 3 days. We met a nice British guy who worked at the hotel we were staying at (he has since become a good friend here) and asked him for any tips on getting settled here. He just so happened to have a friend who was moving out and needed to sublet his apartment for a while. Perfect! The apartment was in a really nice area of Prague, but a little far from the center. It was also pretty old and not the nicest place ever. But it was fine. But after a couple months of living there, we decided we needed something new. And the guy we were subletting from was planning on moving back in in January. So we had to find a new place eventually. We found a really nice apartment closer to the center and closer to a metro station and just moved in three days ago. The only trade off was that we couldn't afford to live in a central location by ourselves. So we are sharing a place with two other American girls, both teachers as well. The apartment is big, recently redone so everything is nice and new, and we have a nice big bedroom on the 5th floor with a little view! Life is good.

We started going on job interviews our second day in the city and landed our first offers after about a week. Like everywhere else in the world, the Czech Republic has been affected by the financial crisis (although not as much as many of it's neighboring countries). Because of this, we realized we were most likely not going to be able to find full time jobs. We both ended up getting two part time jobs, which leads to plenty of work. Jason and I both work at a small language agency and then we each have separate jobs at two bigger schools.

I use the term "school" loosely here, as very little of the actual teaching is done in the school. The majority of classes in the Czech Republic are taught 'in company', meaning a language teacher is sent out to various companies around the city and teachers individuals or groups in their own company. So, I spend my days running around all different parts of the city. I go everywhere from the very heart of Prague to places that I don't think are even technically considered to be part of Prague. This definitely was a little crazy at first, figuring out everywhere to go and how to get there, but after a few weeks it became pretty easy to get it down. All of my classes are once a week, so my schedule is different everyday. On some days (like Wednesday, my easy day) I just have one class in the morning and one in the evening. Lots of free time during the day to plan for classes, come home and relax, etc. However on other days (like Thursday, my busy day) I go non-stop from 8am to 6pm - 5 classes that day.

I have almost all individual classes and most of my students are at a pretty high level. So I have a lot of conversation classes where we spend our time just talking about various topics. I have a lot of students that are very interesting people and make my classes really enjoyable. I learn a lot about Czech culture, food, history, etc. from them. A lot of my students have very interesting jobs, and it's a good experience for me to get to talk to all these successful and different people. I teach everyone from a high school aged model, to the owner of a media production company.

And as for the visa process...... still working on it. Jason is further along on his than I am on mine, and we're getting different types of visas. Coming here, there was so much mixed information, it was really hard to figure out what our best options were and how we should go about doing different things. One of the big questions we had was about the visa. You can choose to get either a regular employment visa or a business license (Zivno). The advantages of the business license is that you don't have taxes taken out (you're supposed to be able to keep more of your money with the Zivno) and you have the freedom to work how ever many jobs you want. I got convinced to do the Zivno, so I'm in the process of doing that. I have to go to Germany on Friday to apply for the visa at the embassy, so we'll see how that goes...

Only problem with the Zivno that we're just learning about, is that I may not be able to leave the country for quite some time. It has a long processing time - several months- and until it's finished being processed, I'll kinda be here illegally as far as I understand. So if I were to try to leave the Czech Republic and come back in, my tourist visa would be expired and I might not be able to do it. This is going to be a problem for Christmas when we have two weeks off and were hoping to travel to some warmer countries... Border patrol is pretty lax in these parts, so we may just be able to go somewhere by bus or train where we won't be stopped and have our passports checked. We'll see!

So that's life here in Prague. Who's coming to visit!?!

But What Does It All Mean!?

In Korean:

Ne = Yes

Anio = No

In Czech:

Ano = Yes

Ne = No

You see my confusion? After a year in Korea I got the words so ingrained into my mind that I'm having a lot of trouble changing it. I usually find myself in shops saying no (Ne) but nodding my head yes. I know I'm confused and I can't imagine how the poor shop keepers feel.

Also, to indicate the number one, I am used to holding up my index finger as we do in the States. However, here, that means two. One is indicated by your thumb.

So, here I am in a shop trying to buy.... let's say, a croissant. I say "one," hold up my index finger, nod my head "yes" and say "Ne". The shop keeper just stares in udder confusion.

Who knew a simple task could be so confusing?