A Czech Expat in America

Expats don't go only one way you know. There's a very proud Czech expatriate living in America who has a wonderful blog called Czechmate Diary: Small Bohemian Steps to World Domination. Tanja is tireless in finding Czech happenings, websites, andpeople from around the world and sharing them. I find stuff on her site that I haven't seen elsewhere. For example, the pungent story of the Bouncing Czech. I would only have read it because of Tanja!

I understand Czech culture better because she is always filtering American culture through her Czech lens and Czech culture through her new American lens. She has Czech recipes to try, a wonderful series of posts about what is better in America vs. the Czech Republic and vice versa and also guest posts from Czech-Americans with interesting stories. There's one called "Growing Up Cesky" by guest poster Jana that ran recently that was incredibly thought-provoking. I'm adding Czechmate Diary to my Czech Expat blogroll today. Link to her site through the title or through my links on the right. Enjoy!

Ladies Who Lunch

My virtual friend
and now
new 'real' friend Sherry

When I was contemplating moving to Prague, I was especially interested in the first-hand experiences of non-Czech people who were already here. That is what makes websites like Expat Blog Directory and Expat Women so helpful. If you want to read how expats in a particular country view their experience, you can find all sorts of blogs organized by country and quite often, organized down to the city level.

One of the blogs I found was Czech Off the Beaten Path written by Sher, an expatriate who had fallen in love with a Czech and moved here in 2006 to begin married life. Sher had two children in high school when she and Jiři met. Like me, she went through the whole transition of graduating them to college and downsizing her possessions for the big move to the Czech Republic. When I started following her blog, we discovered during those six months how similar our experiences were and became "virtual" friends.

Now here I am in Prague and we were finally getting to meet!

Sher took me to her favorite penzion for lunch. Named Penzion JaS, it was a genteel non-smoking spot near Dejvické, the last stop on the green line. She made me feel so welcome! Not only did she take me to lunch, she even presented me with a bottle of Bechkerovka, the "official" herbal spirit of the Czech Republic, attributed with all sorts of healing properties. I laughed because there could be no gift more "Czech!"

We gabbed non-stop and afterwards went for a short walk in the neighborhood there and enjoyed looking at Czech houses and yards. It's great to have a new American friend so far from home!

I admire how the Czechs
can get flowers to bloom
through mid-November.
How do they do that?

Mom, this picture is for you.
I knew you would be interested
in all decoration - indoor and out

Ladies who lunch, or is it:
Bloggers who brunch!

My First Czech Adventure Was Actually Vietnamese

One of the first things I wanted to do when I came to Prague was meet the two Prague bloggers who encouraged me as I planned my move across the globe. I think I started reading Michael Caroe Andersen's blog either from finding it on Al Tischler's blog (Al is a Minnesotan who worked at Radio Free Europe for a couple years - he wrote a terrific blog about Prague before moving back to America) or when Michael's blog was chosen "Expat Blog of the Month" by Expat Blog Directory in October 2007. I have links to some of my favorite Czech expat blogs on the right margin of my blog. Reading those blogs was really helpful and motivating as I planned my move.

Michael in front of a mysterious
statue meant to ward off evil spirits

Michael, who originally hails from Denmark, has a gift for inclusion and connecting people. He invited me to join a group of his friends who were off to see SAPA, the Vietnamese community that immigrant Vietnamese have created south of Prague. SAPA is famous for it's stalls of wholesale knock-off clothing merchandise for the various Vietnamese retailers around Prague, Asian food stalls, terrific inexpensive Vietnamese restaurants, even their own Vietnamese kindergarten.

Beautiful Bok Choy

Look at those long beans!
I want to experiment with cooking them.
The white blocks are fresh tofu.

Vietnamese delicacies

The best part?

Did you know that inside a chicken is a little egg production line with eggs in the making? These egg yolks taken from the inside of a chicken, before they form into full-formed eggs with shells are considered a real delicacy in countries like Vietnam and Russia because of their incredible richness. Who knew this was the best part? Not me.

There were also hundreds of fertilized duck eggs for sale in the stalls. In Vietnam, people enjoy these eggs so much people develop an opinion on when in the gestation they like to eat the egg because the fetus has developed to a certain stage by a certain day that is especially tasty. Some people like it after the tenth day, some the fifteenth, some longer. It’s all up to you.

Carp doesn't get any fresher

Frying fresh tofu

The fish in the bag were
still flopping -
Check out the knife he laid on the cardboard
for chopping off the tails and fins

Dragon fruit

Vietnamese Rice Bread

What do you see? Snakes? Bats? Octopi? Stingrays?

Our meal started with bravery. Dominic, the British organizer of our excursion, shared shots of “snakebite vodka.” I didn’t see the snake but I swear I saw a little hand in that bottle that could only have belonged to a bat! Being new to the country, I abstained. Who would want to chicken out at the last minute and spew bat juice all over one’s newest friends?

Nazdravi!

During lunch, we had one tasty Vietnamese dish after another, which we shared family style. Nickolai and his Japanese girlfriend taught me how to hold my chopsticks properly. Hold the bottom chopstick firmly. It doesn’t move. The top one is the one that does all the moving and if one grips it like a pen, it’s easy to pick things up with it.

Vietnamese and Chinese chopsticks are longer than Japanese chopsticks because it’s acceptable to reach across and pluck a choice morsel from the serving dish as you eat. No worries about Seinfeld “double dipping!” In Japan, that’s not acceptable to do. Therefore, Japanese chopsticks are shorter. By the end of the meal, my chopstick skills had evolved enough that I could pick up a solitary peanut with grace.

The people that "go"

Michael said, “You know how there are people who stay at home and people who go? These are the people that go.” Around the table we had the following nationalities represented: Danish, British, Czech, American, Dutch, Japanese, El Salvadorian, Albanian, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Many had been expatriates in multiple places.

We ended our meal with Vietnamese coffee

brewed tableside by the individual cup.

I was touched that in a Vietnamese restaurant,

in a Czech city,
there was a bit of American inspiration
in the lobby.

Thank you, Michael and friends,
for my first Czech/Vietnamese adventure!

Civilized Life in Prague Can Now Begin For Me

Mobil phone. Check.

Three-prong electrical adapter that Amazon was going to charge me $44 to ship that a friend told me exactly where to find today for $9. It will allow me to have unlimited wireless time so I can talk to my family on Skype and also blog properly. Check!

Coffee pot! With my own coffee in the morning for the first time tomorrow a.m. Check. Or is that Czech! Har har.

Global Brands Make the First Impression

I felt the global nature of Prague first, before I felt the Czech nature of Prague. There is so much that is familiar here, especially the brands. My TV set is Daewood. The Kleenex is Kleenex. The laundry soap I'm using is Tide.

Even the “international brands” are familiar. It’s as if the “international aisle” in an American grocery store had just been expanded to many more aisles.

It really struck me when I got over here and saw all of these familiar names what an accomplishment it is to have your product for sale all over the world and to dominate one's global niche so completely. Even in the grocery store, the song the store is playing is about a guy’s girl named Delilah. The exact same song is playing back in America.

One of the upsides of familiar brands is that one is supposed to know what to expect at each encounter no matter where it happens. Right? No surprises. Take McDonald’s, for instance. I know there will be Big Macs for sale in America, coast-to-coast, every time I go into a local store. I also know there will probably be a Playland and a bathroom I’m welcome to use.

Not so in the Czech Republic! McDonald’s charges Czechs to go to the bathroom! So some poor Czech mom, juggling two rowdy children, has to dig out the coins to give her kids a bathroom break.

McDonald’s, say it ain’t so! When I ask Czechs what represents American culture to them, they always cite McDonald’s. So, McDonald’s global headquarters in Oakbrook, Illinois, you’re representing our entire nation! Please quit charging the Czechs and let them go to the bathroom for free.

Besides, I want my own experience of your brand to be the same globally as it coast-to-coast. Free the bathrooms! I respectfully ask -- is this the sense of hospitality that got you where you are today?

One Week of TEFL Classes

Teaching is one of those things that when someone describes or models the techniques involved, it sounds and looks simple enough. When one actually gets up there to do it - it's harder than it looks to remember not only content but teaching techniques, especially when I'm with a class of students who have a different mother tongue.

As TEFL instructors, we are urged to get all of our instructions down to the smallest blocks of language possible. Stand up. Discuss. Sit down. Otherwise it sounds like so much blather to the students. It's hard for them to find the instructions in the verbiage.

We taught twice in our first week and observed an experienced teacher's class as well. The Czech people taking the courses are wonderful because they encourage us as much as we encourage them.

I can tell working as a TEFL teacher is a great way to know a culture fast because everything is a potential topic. In a discussion about Czech food, the Czech students told me I need to try this really, really smelly cheese from the town of Olmouc and two kinds of dumplings known as "dumplings with hair" and "naked children." The "dumplings with hair" are laced with sauerkraut. And the other dumpling - I have no idea!

We ended our week with our first Czech lesson. The hour flew by. It was so much fun! Our teacher, who is also one of our regular instructors, put so much energy into it and I understood what she was teaching throughout the hour. TEFL lessons that we teach are supposed to involve no mother tongue whatsoever. Watching her teach us helped me understand how it feels from the beginner's seat.

Thinking back to great learning experiences I have had, I decided my goal as a TEFL teacher will be to give students the feeling I have received from ski instructors. I remember it this way: starting at zero and standing up. Each day I get a bit better. My spirit soars with that wonderful feeling of "I can do this!" and each passing day brings "I can do more!"

Done well, teaching is fostering within people increased confidence and joy as they master a skill.

One week in Prague

Two weeks ago on this site I shared a very funny Youtube video detailing all of the unpleasant things I would experience in Prague as an expatriate.

I've been here one week!

I can report I have seen no spiders.

I have not been overpowered by anyone with B.O.
Indeed, if there are smelly Praguers out there, I haven't met them yet.

Nor have I stepped in any dog poop.

All of the smelly people with spiders and dogs in their houses must live somewhere else.