Free Beer and Chillin' with President Vaclav Klaus

One of the blogs I love to read is Czechmate Diary, by Tanja, a Czech immigrant to the United States. Tanja is in love with all things Czecho and is so proud to be Czech! Her wonderful subtitle to her blog is "Small Bohemian Steps to World Domination."

Someone in power must have recognized this because she was recently invited to a party in Washington D. C. to meet Czech President Vaclav Klaus. Tanja's enthusiasm on her blog for preparing for this party and getting to this party are a delight to read. Every woman will identify with her plaintive cry "what shall I wear???"

On her last post, she featured a link to her husband's take on the event. I enjoyed reading it so much I decided I had to link to here. Tanja's husband also got me to watch the nine minute interview Vaclav Klaus did with Glen Beck (sorry Mr. Beck can't pronounce 'Vaclav' properly, Mr. President) . It was the first interview I've seen in English with the Czech President. He made me think. And as a librarian, I couldn't help but agree with his contention that the marketplace of ideas needs all voices.

I'm also always struck by how good the President's English is each time I hear him (well actually, the only other time I've heard him was when he started the Prague Half Marathon race). The hardest thing for Czech learners of English is to understand native speakers using normal native speed when they talk. The President followed Glen Beck's English perfectly. Usually someone of his age in the Czech Republic has perfect Russian as a second language, not English. He has really invested the time in his English language. I want to give President Klaus his props for that.

Click on my title to read Tanja's husband's blog post about their visit to Washington D. C.

Buying Retail in the Czech Republic

The Palladium Mall
at Christmas time

Inspired by artist David Hlynsky's photos of communist shop windows, I decided to share my consumer's view of Czech retail. One of my students told me in class that Czechs don't really have a retail tradition. All of the grocery stores in the Czech Republic, like Tesco, are owned by foreigners. We had been discussing the Palladium Mall in particular, a gleaming, relentlessly upscale shopping mall two blocks from my place that had opened up in the last two years.

My student said the mall concept is a foreign idea to Czechs. I thought to myself, "you aren't missing much. You've seen one mall (even one as shiny bright and pretty as this one) and you've seen them all." My reaction to shopping in any mall is one giant big yawn.

The Palladium mall
could really be anywhere
in the world,
couldn't it?
B-o-r-i-n-g.

There was one Czech retailer that predated communism, a department store called Bila Labut (white swan) which was celebrating it's 70th anniversary. Bila Labut is only two blocks from the Palladium Mall at 23 Na Porici opposite the Legio Bank building . It hadn't yet responded to the salvo of sophistication sent off by the Palladium. It better hurry. When I went inside Bila Labut, I was rushed with long-forgotten memories of the downtown Younkers department store of my childhood, a retail store replaced forty years ago. This store is 'in transition'.

Bila Labut
storefront

Bila Labut shop windows
convey what I would call
'dated seediness'

A numbering order
that must be logical
to a different mind than mine

The view from the mezzanine

These merchandising adjacencies

were fascinating;
would you have put these

items together as likely

add-on sales to each other?

I need a pair of sunglasses

because the glare from my cuckoo clock

is too much!

Or maybe there's literary appreciation at work.
Display through alliteration:
tableclothes and tennis shoes!

Need to create an instant department?
Saran Wrap does the trick.

Here's a decorating idea
that hadn't yet occurred to me.
Put an umbrella at the base of my
Christmas tree.

To paraphrase Henry Ford:

You can have any color so long as it is
beige or pink.

My grandmother would have felt
very comfortable shopping here.

Which one of these furniture colors
would you like to have in your home?

If the furniture itself doesn't give you an
idea of the need for an update -
the style names themselves might.
This is the Thelma.
You can also select the Betty and the Linda.

Nothing wrong with the view
from the big factory windows
used in the store - it's beautiful!

The end of communism
was the greatest gift ever
to the Schindler Elevator Company-

imagine country after country

full of buildings

that hadn't updated their elevators
in forty years!

I was grateful that I would be
able to call for help.

I have new appreciation for that
law in America that requires elevators
to post the date of their last inspection.

I enjoy the language used in Czech retail. Businesses often put up signage that says: "our offer:" It has such a friendly sound to it. Then what follows is a list of what they are selling. The big car-oriented shopping centers that are starting to spring up don't say they're open 24 hours a day. Instead it almost sounds like one is at the casino. Those stores want you to know they are open "non-stop." The action never ends!
A wonderful movie captures Czech retail "in transition" from communism to capitalism. I thought I would hate the documentary because it involves a practical joke played against the Czech public. I hate practical jokes. In the end I loved the movie and want to recommend you see it. If you're in the States, you can rent "Czech Dream" through Netflix.

Dear President Obama, Don't Leave the Czech Politicans Out to Dry

Dear Mr. President,

It seems you have come to a decision about the Eastern European missile shield that will be greeted with relief and gratitude by the Czech population when it's announced Thursday. I haven't the expertise to know if it's the right decision. I just know Czech reaction to the issue.

I hope when this decision is announced, adequate cover is given to the Czech politicians who went to bat for America and said "yes, we will allow this missile shield to be built here."

These politicians agreed to help our government when it wasn't popular with their own people. How does America get cooperation the next time, if when we ask them to defend a locally-unpopular idea, we then change our minds and leave them out on the tree limb we've decided to saw off?

P.S. Have you taken a look at how Czech health care stats compare to America's? They are kicking our behinds! Fight harder for health care reform. We are counting on you.

The Czech government denied my visa

This week I got the bad news that the Czech government denied my visa. I shouldn't have been surprised. They've denied the visas of my fellow Americans in my TEFL class, not once but twice. I was devastated. It's taken me several days to write about it without crying.

The Dream

I fell in love with the Czech Republic back in 1989 watching the Velvet Revolution on TV. Ever since then, I've wanted to experience this culture that seemed to have brought down communism nonviolently with raised BIC lighters in Wenceslas Square, not cold war spending (the Czechs actually credit the cold war spending -- not the BIC lighters, but that's another post).

The more I found out about Czech people, the more I wanted to know. I wanted to know about people who have so beautifully kept a highly human and highly cultured "second culture" alive when the official totalitarian culture was anything but human. What intriguing people. I vowed to live among them someday.

A newspaper man in Minnesota, suggested that Americans back then should help Eastern Europeans adjust to capitalism. I happily signed up for two pen pals, specifically requesting they be from the Czech Republic. We wrote long letters back and forth, way before the Internet, and I cheered them on as they started up small businesses in their respective communities. We wrote back and forth for years. Finally, the daughter of one of my pen pals came to live with my family for a summer and eventually settled in America.

I also met a lovely Czech couple in my hometown of Ames, Iowa from the Czech Republic. Kate Sladka was doing graduate studies in plant pathology and Josef Kedlecek, her husband, was putting her through school while working at a locally-beloved Ames restaurant (now that I've read Bohumil Hrabal's "I Served the King of England" I appreciate his job choice even more).

Kate grew up in this
beautiful apartment building
right off Old Town Square

Kate and I spent hours talking and she told me about all of the beautiful architecture where she lived in Prague in a very special part of town called Old Town. When I found my apartment in Prague, I was less than 10 blocks from her home! Now that I've gone and tried to find her and knock on her family door less than 100 feet from Old Town Square on Celetna, I realize how much her eyes must have ached for that mediaeval, Gothic, and art noveau architecture! I was stunned by the actual beauty of where her family lived. It was even more exquisite than I could ever have imagined. Her view was out of a fairy tale.

I was stunned to learn
that my friend Kate
had this incredible view of the back side
of the House of Tyn

I finally got here Kate!
Seventeen years after we talked.

The Reality

I finally figured out how I could come to the Czech Republic and experience it by reading Rolf Potts book "Vagabonding." His premise is that Americans vastly overestimate how hard it is to see the world and support themselves as they do it. I saw that, I too, could do this. All I needed to do was get a TEFL degree and begin teaching English. Teaching English is the easiest and fastest way to get into a country because there is so much need. Czechs working and moving up in multinational corporations need English because it's the international language of commerce.

So I choose a language school that promised: a guaranteed job after attending the TEFL course, full VISA support, health care, and free Czech lessons so that I could quickly integrate into the culture. Not a single word of it came true. I don't know why my school didn't follow the law. Maybe it's more profitable to have places opened up for the next TEFL class coming in, I don't know. I had relied on them to know the paperwork of their own country. I made an error in taking them at face value and trusting. Frankly, I'm proud to have "some trust in me" because you know how closed down people can get when they feel betrayed.

My fellow TEFLers and I loved Prague so much, that we were willing to give our school a second chance. "We applied for your visas incorrectly the first time, but this time will be different." It took me a month and a half to find work in America when I came back with only two days notice. I only looked for temporary work at a reduced pay level so that I would be fair to a potential American employer. After all, I was going to race back to the Czech Republic at the end of the summer!

I had invested over $5,000 to sell everything in America and move to the Czech Republic the first time. I happily shelled out the money for another Czech visa because this time it looked like my school had educated itself about how to follow the law and we would not be penalized for their past actions. Indeed, the administrators told us that many times. "Come back! You will not be denied."

My unfinished Czech Business:

I am completely and totally head over heels in love with the Czech Republic and it's culture. I feel like I was just starting to scratch the surface! I loved to share my excitement in my blog over each wonderful discovery. I only went out of town twice in six months because I wasn't focused on seeing all the tourist sites at first, I was focused on setting up my life. I intended to live there for years.

There are so many fabulous things in the Czech Republic I never got to see. I never saw the beautiful square of Telc, I never saw and experienced drinking spa water at Karlovy Vary, or the romance of Cesky Krumlov, I wanted to see Jan Kaplicky's stingray building in Cesky Budovice when it was finished, and modernist and cubist buildings in Brno. The Sumuva! Mushroom hunting! Czech skiing! I wanted to eat pickles in Znomo and marvel at the aqueducts and pretend I'm a partisan in the Znomo underground. What does Moravia look like anyway? I wanted to go to a Moravian wine festival and call up my friend Sher a little tipsy and tell her how much fun I'm having! Insert scream of dismay here! I wanted to see it all.

The people I care about there that I will miss. I dread having to explain to my pen pal in Western Bohemia that I traveled half way around the world to spend time in her country because of how she and others described it but hadn't yet come to her city to see her. I was waiting until I spoke Czech better so we could have real conversations face-to-face. I wanted to knock on her door and surprise her by greeting her in good Czech.

I did get to see my other pen pal in Plzen, (a future post), but since I visited her she has since become very sick, close to losing her life. I would love to go back and see her and cheer her on to a full health recovery. I never did find Kate Sladka despite knocking on her family door at 10 Celetna over and over again. I have no idea where she is.

What was so wrong with us being there?

I know governments have to look at things from a macro level, and one should never take things personally. It's not personal. That hurts too! The impersonality of it all. But how could excited and enthusiastic English teachers bring harm to the Czech Republic? Teaching English felt like our gift to the Czech people. We felt like we were doing out part to bring you into the global community as fast as possible after forty years of repression. We sure weren't doing it for the money. The work was damn meaningful to us.

I can't imagine Czech tourism advertising budgets are very big. At a time when tourism is down 20% (Prague Post, 6/3/2009) and Prague hotel room occupancy is down 8.5%, and now half of the hotels in Prague are expected to go bankrupt (Prague Post, 8/25/09) wouldn't the enthusiastic blogging of expats talking to the folks back home about how amazing the Czech Republic is be a welcome development to the Czech government? My friends would have resulted in seven week long room rentals at the small family hotel near my apartment over the course of 2009, but I know that expat bloggers are great for business beyond the immediate impact of their own families and friends.

I never heard of Cesky Krumlov from Czech Tourism advertising. I heard of Cesky Krumlov through an amazing English-language blog written by a Brit skilled in community development who constantly celebrates the specialness of that place. That one woman is probably responsible for more foreign visitors to Cesky Krumlov than Czechs know.

I don't know what my next move is. I'm honestly in mourning and it's going to take some time to deal with the disappointment. I would have loved to come back to Prague with the free ticket I have but the Czech consulate in Chicago could give me no solid advice. "It's all up to the foreign police, you may get in as a tourist, you may not. They might turn you back at the airport." Without solid guidance that my money in the Czech Republic wouldn't be wasted this time, I'm staying home. See, I can learn. Stay home. Sadly, there is no welcome mat out in the Czech Republic.

The beginning of this sorry saga:

What Just Hit Me?

Czech's Shadow Still Large in Slovakia

In America, we have a phrase "keeping up with the Joneses." It describes the phenomenon of all of a sudden needing a new car if the Jones' next door just bought one. This New York Times story amused me because it seems the whole concept can be applied to countries too.

Click on my title to read about Slovak ambivalence toward the Czechs and their excitement at adopting the Euro before the Czechs did. For once, the Slovaks are the Joneses! Take that, Czech Republic!

Five Environmental Ideas I Admire from the Czech Republic

Sometimes when you go abroad, it's the little things that bring delight. Here are five environmental ideas that probably exist in other countries but I saw them first in the Czech Republic. I find them admirable, how about you?

#1 In America, retail establishments sell aluminum foil, plastic trash bags, and cling wrap on a roll. Then that roll is put inside a long rectangular box as additional packaging.

Once you have the initial box, why is it necessary to keep buying it? Why not just put the next purchased roll in the first box so it doesn't have to be manufactured and paid for again? I saw these foil rolls sold "boxless" in the Czech Republic and thought this was a great idea.

#2This toilet paper roll is from my neighborhood kavarna, or coffee shop. The user pulls out individual sheets of toilet paper much the way one pulls out an individual tissue from a Klennex box. When you pull an individual tissue out of a tissue box, do you say to yourself, "why am I being rationed?" No, you get just what you need. Same idea here. It has the additional benefit of not creating a bunch of torn scraps of paper all over the floor.

#3 This picture is from a restaurant on Wenceslas Square. All over the Czech Republic there are bright and shiny new bathrooms because there has been so much remodeling after 50 years of communism.

As you can see, the user has a choice to use more water or less depending on the need of the moment. I haven't seen a single toilet like this in America. Maybe I don't get out enough, you tell me.


#4 The most wonderful transportation system I have personally experienced is in Prague. It's an absolute marvel. For $22 a month, I could travel all over the city on trams, buses, and the metro. It's completely stress-free. In a city of 1.3 million, I could go home for lunch frequently. I rarely had to wait more than five minutes for a ride (maybe 10 minutes on a Sunday morning) I love it so much I want to devote much more blog space to it than what I am doing here.

Not only does a great public transport system save gas because people share a vehicle rather than drive individual ones, it also saves the air. Four-story buildings line a typical Prague street. Mobile pollution devices (otherwise known as cars) choke the air with exhaust that doesn't move on.

#5 This vehicle is called a "trike" and is manufactured in China. It's a perfect size for urban living. It seems safer than a motor scooter because there's more frame surrounding the driver. I don't know how much gas it saves, but I'm sure it's substantial.

What do you think are some of the best environmental ideas in Europe that America should copy? What have you seen design-wise that inspires you?

Vaclav Havel laments "consumer palaces" throughout Czech Republic

It's an interesting question that Vaclav Havel's latest interview brings up. He says post-communist Czech society is 'worse' than he expected. Czech people, if you had an idea of what a post-communist society would be like, what was it? Is this it? Do you agree with Vaclav Havel that the lack of moral underpinning in an atheistic society is a real problem?

I don't understand why there aren't more politicians in the Czech Republic like Vaclav Havel. Today's Czech politicians can seem really silly. He seems like such an anomaly.

Just as an aside, the article states that Czechs tripled their gross domestic product from 1995 to 2008. Czech people, you rock.

Missouri family's Christmas photo turns up in Prague

Your local Czech family, right? Wrong. Click below to read about how a Missouri family's Christmas photo ended up as advertising for a Czech company.

Missouri family's Christmas photo turns up in Prague

Czechs Cool to Presence of Workers From Asia

If I were Czech, one thing I would be deeply proud of is having created a free market economy in less than 20 years that attracts immigrants. Unlike some former Communist outposts, who can't employ their own people, let alone someone else's, it didn't take long for the Czechlands to adapt.

I don't know though, how it would feel to be part of a homogeneous culture like the Czech Republic, and have people from a culture so different start to populate my country. If you define your country by your ethnicity, how do you keep that going in such a globalized world? Is that even a possible goal anymore in the jet age?

In America, we welcome all those immigrants cause, at a minimum, it usually results in great restaurants. At a maximum, when we're lucky, we get Vietnamese immigrants (who create more businesses in America per capita than any other immigrant group) or Indians (dot not feather), who seem to be this generation's overachieving doctors and IT business creators. But then, the more diversity the better, IS our American culture.

I look at my Vietnamese-American friend Nahn, studying full-time in Prague to become a medical doctor while he works part time as a mechanical engineer to support his family and think "Hey Czech Republic, you don't know what you've got!" Nahn is an example of classic American immigrant ambition and the kind of person who makes my country great.

The article I've linked to in the title talks about Czech struggles with their Asian immigrants from the East. It fascinates me that all the business startups by Vietnamese immigrants in Prague seem to be created by North Vietnamese, not South Vietnamese. Isn't it ironic to see Hanoi citizens having fought for socialism and the end of imperialism then leave to practice capitalism? Click on the title to read more.

Addicted to twitter

Yikes, I've been on the thing like...a week. I'm already addicted. It's awesome. Mr. Tweet is awesome too. I'm really enjoying Jane Fonda, Jack and Suzy Welch, Ruth Reichel, Mark Bittman and a bunch of other foodies. Vaclav Havel is on there but he never updates. Who else should I follow in the Czech Republic and the EU besides my regular pals(who are already digerati w-a-y before me)?

Egg Toss

People get the government they deserve. And if "the people" are tossing eggs at their politicians, what new politician that they would respect will come forward and serve them? None that I know of!

The behavior of Czech young people tossing eggs at Jiri Paroubek at campaign appearances because he chose to bring down the National government at the moment the world's eyes were focused on the Czech Republic is misused anger.

Work in a positive way to get someone else then. Get the government you deserve through hopeful change, not nasty namecalling and violence. Now who is making the Czech Republic look bad? Readers, what do you think?

Will Breast Augmentation solve a Czech Nursing Shortage?

A Czech nurse administering care

Here's an article in the New York Times describing "innovative" ways to keep nurses in the Czech Republic. I know, I know, the simple answer that occurs to most people is "why not just pay them more?" Apparently, that thought hasn't occurred to the powers that be. Instead, the local health care providers are offering them free breast augmentation. I guess administrators can get the plastic surgery department to work for a discount.

The coolest thing about reading the article was my Prague neighbor Jirina Siklova was quoted! Jirina is a living legend in the Czech Republic and this is just one more example of how she is way ahead of mainstream culture. She's been like that her entire life.

What I don't understand about the retention strategy however, is after the ladies have had their breasts done, how is the Czech health care system going to keep them then? Won't they just leave at that time for health centers paying them more?

Track Trip to Karlstejn

So after our cozy little group had our wonderful brunch at Jana and David's, it was time to catch a train for our afternoon field trip. Off to Karlstejn! Karlstejn is one of the easiest day trips from Prague; it's a vista so sacred to Czechs it's enshrined in a mural in the National Museum along with three of their other fabulous castles. My Czech friend Jana said when she was in America, the three views of the Czech Republic she had in her head when she thought of home were the Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, and Karlstejn. It's easy to see why.

Taking a train rather than a car
allowed us to pay attention
to children, our friends, and the view
rather than the road.
Food for thought.

The train hugged the Berounka River
all the way to the castle.
A gorgeous trip.

We're here!

One last look at the river
before we head up through the village
to the castle.

It's all uphill from here,
but you wouldn't know it
from how much fun we were having.

David said this wooden structure overhanging
the side of the castle
served as a handy WC.

The last push to the top!

Gulnara

A family portrait of our hosts:
David, their daughter, and Jana

Looking from the castle downwards:
this was part of the village road
we just climbed up

The well at the top of Karlstejn.
It was impressive not only for how deep
they chose to dig
but also how steep a roof they chose
to shingle.
The drop down for the roofer
to the mountain below
would probably cause death.

Karlstejn, in all it's glory.

Click on my title if you want to read about the gory and disgusting "biological warfare" that took place here. It's very easy to imagine a movie featuring this story - and even easier to imagine the Monty Python actors giving it their special treatment.

You might also enjoy:

My First Taste of Czech Village Life

A Day at the National Museum

My First Taste of Czech Village Life

The waffles are cooking!

In early Spring, my friends Jana and David invited our TEFL class out to see their home in a village outside of Prague. Little did we know our class was soon to scatter to the winds due to our visa problems! We're now in the States of Oregon and Wisconsin in the USA, Croatia, and Istanbul, Turkey. What a wonderful day we had though. It was the first time I had ever visited a Czech village, heard about buying a home in the Czech Republic, learned about how Czech taxes work (it's so interesting!!!), and just generally hung out to a non-city Czech vibe.

Jana and David had bought their home and remodeled it to take advantage of a fantastic pastoral view of the valley outside their kitchen. The original walls of their home are so thick! I admired how strategic they were to purchase right on the railway line. Gas prices may be cheaper today but it won't always be so. Jana and David have their own well water, pay a minimal price for garbage pickup (like 500 crowns or $25 a year), and also have minimal property taxes.

The idea of minimal property taxes was a new one for me. Here's what I love about it. The Czech government instead has a consumption tax of 20%. I know, if you're in America and you hear 20% sales tax, your hair stands on end. But the delightful thing is, I never notice paying it! It's included in the price of everything and since everything is cheap it's not a big deal. And isn't that futuristic and capitalistic to tax people on what they consume? Not their creativity in what they earn?

Home Sweet Home
with a
beautiful and typical Czech tile roof

Here's three HUGE advantages of the Czech way of doing things as far as I can see: when property taxes aren't so high, people don't feel compelled to sell their home immediately just because the kids grew up and moved away. Indeed, these village homes are often lived in for life and passed on to the next generation. Now how carefully do you think people are going to take care of a home if it's going to last their whole life and part of their children's? Czech tile roofs are expensive but they frequently last for 80 years.

Wouldn't minimal property taxes attract tons of foreign investment to the Czech Republic? Tell me if I'm not understanding something here. If you knew you could buy property in the Czech Republic and wouldn't have to pay $4000-5000 or more in yearly property taxes for a detached home, but you would have to do so in America, where would you buy a home if location wasn't the issue? An apartment building? An office building?

The third advantage of consumption taxes that I can see is that the money goes in one big pot and is distributed EVENLY for education. The quality of your schools doesn't depend on whether or not you're parents can afford to live in a great school district. I find that admirable. Isn't that a children-centric way of doing things? What do you think, gentle readers?

Enjoy our beautiful brunch and then we're off to catch a train for our afternoon road trip -- wait, it's not a road trip, -- it's a TRACK trip!

Is it just me,
or does Czech glass rock?
I loved this chandelier!

The original wall to the house
before David and Jana
added on - it's so thick

The view from the new kitchen window

Jana and David

Three gal pals:
Gulnara, me, and Anna

Jana

Justin knows how to entertain little girls.

Two ladies who don't need tiaras
to claim princess status

Jana shares her art work with us

Racing to catch the train that comes every half hour.
Yes, America, you read that right.
EVERY HALF HOUR.
And no, the Czechs have no idea what outstanding service that is.
They take it completely for granted.

If you're Czech and reading this, I used to live in an
American city of 150,000 who would have loved train service
to Chicago (around 3 million people) - no train yet.

There are probably less than 1,000 people in this village
and the residents can walk to the train station
which comes right through their town.
Czech train infrastructure is INCREDIBLE.
Cost to Prague and back -
less than $2
for a half-hour ride each way.

You might also enjoy the rest of the adventure:

Track trip to Karlstejn

July 7, 2012
A postscript to this post:

The producers of the TV show House Hunters International were looking for an expat family to be featured in their show about Prague housing. As I had lived in a mere apartment, I thought "who do I know in Prague that has TV charisma. They should get this opportunity. David and Jana! The two of them are sooo funny and say the kind of things that have you silently giggling -  they are complete and total hams. I thought they'd be perfect." I asked David and Jana if I could forward this post to the producers and they said yes. Voila! It's now a TV show with over 9,000 hits on YouTube. Who knows how many people watched it on TV. 

House Hunters International, Country Houses Outside of Prague - Part 1

House Hunters International, Country Houses Outside of Prague - Part 2

The third episode is blocked. Jana and David probably would not recommend going through this process to another couple. They felt it was contrived as the show needs to set up he wants/she wants scenarios for dramatic tension. It also is contrived because in David and Jana's house, they themselves did the remodeling. It's a good reminder not to believe everything you see on TV.