The Czechs Need One More Freedom

I went to see the new Bond movie with Gulnara and Nhan, two new friends in Prague. When we went to the movie theater we were surprised to learn that we had been assigned specific seats to watch the movie!

The seats were close to the screen too. Much closer than we would have sat on our own. I didn't need to sit in the car with Bond to enjoy the opening scene. People of the Czech Republic unite! You deserve one more freedom. The freedom to sit wherever the heck you want in the movie theater.

Meet My Flatmate

Canadian Ian MacMillan on the Black Sea

My flatemate, Ian MacMillan, and I are sharing a flat for the one month we live in student housing while we take our TEFL course. Saturday, November 29th was his birthday so I decided to interview Ian to celebrate his 27 years of wisdom.

Where did you grow up?

Penticton, British Columbia, a city of 30,000 people. My dad was an immigrant from Scotland who originally moved to Australia where he met my Canadian mom. She was on vacation there. They settled in Penticton.

What’s your city known for?

An American movie from the 1960’s called “My American Cousin” was filmed in Penticton. They used our peach-shaped concession stand in the movie. We’re known as the peach city because peaches grow nearby.

Penticton is between two lakes. One lake is known as Okanogan Lake. The Loch Ness monster’s cousin, the Ogopogo, lives in Okanogan Lake. We even had a Japanese research team investigating it. They have a $1,000,000 reward for anyone who comes forward with evidence of the Ogopogo’s existence.

What connects the two lakes is “the channel.” People from outside always call it the “canal.” It’s not the ‘canal’ it’s the “channel” and you can float from one lake to the other.

We also have Ironman Canada, which is held in Penticton.

Why did you decide to go to Budapest, Hungary for graduate school?

I read an article in the Economist Magazine that said lots of new, private universities were opening in Eastern Europe that were innovative and different. That got me thinking about Europe.

A professor told my undergrad class in Canada if we were interested in history and thinking about graduate school we should go to Europe and see where the history took place.

Central European University had the best website of the universities I looked at.

Tell me about Central European University. How did it start? What is the mission of the university?

George Soros, a Jewish billionaire born in Hungary, started it in the early 1990s. He donated $700 million to get it off the ground. It’s the second largest endowment in Europe.

There were three campuses. One was in Prague, one was in Warsaw, and one was in Budapest. His mission was to create a university based on liberal democratic capitalist principles and to promote those principles in post-Communist countries. There is now just one campus in Budapest.

The higher reaches of the administration hire professors who innately believe in those principles and promote them to the students to create change in their home countries. They view each student as an agent of micro-change throughout the region. I’m not sure a university should have such an activist attitude.

What was your thesis about?

My thesis was on Scottish history and how the idea of liberty changed in the 18th century. Because of this change, Scottish nationalism did not develop. Scottish liberty had always been based on martial ability. People’s liberty was protected by the nobility.

In the 18th century, Scots went bankrupt. The Scots were starving and the British House of Commons ensured their liberty and gave them access to trade. Scotland went from being a feudal society to a modern society through commercial trade.

The Scots don’t have a “nation state” per se, is there Scottish nationalism today?

My opinion is Scots don’t need a nation state to know their Scottish.

The Opera House
in Odessa, Ukraine

Where do you live now and what is it like?

I normally live in Odessa, Ukraine, a city of 1,000,000. It’s a resort town on the Black Sea. It has a very beautiful opera house. The Odessans always say "we have the second most beautiful opera house. Everyone knows. The architect was the same one who did the Vienna Opera House and it's the most beautiful. We are second."

Odessans are known for their sense of humor. One of the biggest holidays there is April Fool’s Day. They have a big parade on that day. Their sense of humor isn’t for me. It’s too simplistic.

Ian and Sasha on the Danube

How did you end up in Odessa?

I met my wife in Budapest. We studied in the same program. She ignored me for a month. We started talking at a party. We didn’t talk the whole next week. We went to another party and started talking again. Then we went to a Halloween party together. She was dressed as a princess and I didn’t have a costume. I had my KGB shirt on which was good enough and very funny for everyone. We really started dating when I showed her pics of the Halloween party.

Sasha and I decided I should move to Odessa, her hometown. She is working on her Ph.D. in history there. People from Odessa love Odessa.

What is your job there?

I’m an English teacher in a private language school. My students are teenagers and adults. I usually teach adults one-on-one.

How have your studies about nationalism and language impacted your understanding of Ukrainians and Russians?

It made me understand both sides of the argument of “what is Ukraine.” Some Russians don’t think Ukraine is a country and doesn’t really have it’s own history.

Ukranians, like Slovaks, are known as a “non-historic” people because they didn’t have a kingdom of their own before becoming a nation state.

In Canada and America, our citizenship is self-defined. If we say we are a Canadian or an American and we have citizenship, we are. But a Russian or a Ukranian will always think of himself as defined by ethnicity not nationality. There is no difference for them between ethnicity and nationality.

A Russian passport for a Moscow native of Georgian parents would be stamped “nationality: Georgian.” A Slav who came to one of our countries would always be thought of by Russians as a Czech, or Russian, or Ukranian, not as an American or a Canadian.

We don't consider this ethnicity. Canadians think that a person who is of German descent who is born in Canada would never be thought of as German. He's Canadian. And a person who's lineage is East Indian born in Canada would never be thought of as East Indian; he’d be thought of as Canadian. Russians don’t think I’m from a ‘real’ country because I’m from a nation of immigrants. They would view me as Scottish, not Canadian, because that’s my heritage.

There isn’t necessarily pan-Slavism though, the way there is pan-Arabism or pan-Africanism.

Russians love Russia passionately, but they try to leave whenever possible.

What other cultures are known for their strong nationalism?

Serbs. Western Ukranians, they are militant about Ukrainian independence. Americans.

Why don’t Canadians inspire dislike around the world?

We stay out of the way. We’re culturally aware.
Americans are culturally tone-deaf.

What’s your favorite thing about Prague?

The Czech sense of humor. It’s very dark.

Different landscape views of the castle and other sites that I saw with Sasha.

Where else have you lived or taught English?

South Korea. My experience there was not very good. In a different time of my life, it would have been better. It’s for young people. Teachers work 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. and then they party. And you have to teach kids. I don’t like kids. South Korean kids are not allowed to be kids because of the highly-competitive over-scheduled lives they have. In every class of older kids I taught, everyone knew someone who had committed suicide.

Why did you go to South Korea by yourself if you were already married?

I went there to make money. I received free airfare, a free apartment, and $2,700 a month plus overtime. I only had to pay for food. I worked there for four months and came home with $9,000 in savings.

Where else would you and your wife Sasha like to live?

We’d both like Scotland, Italy, France.

I would like to live in India. Maybe Dubai, if the money was good.

Sasha would like to live in Prague. She loved it here.

Thank you, Ian, for sharing your Canadian perspective.
I wish you and Sasha the best in your future travels.

I Don't Even Have to Explain this, do I?

I don't even have to explain this because you intuitively understand it, don't you? Would people from all over the world know which floor was the basement level in this elevator?

If this elevator existed in America, would someone using it need to speak English so they know that:
B stands for Basement,
LL stands for Lower Level,
L stands for Lobby,
and M stands for Mezzanine?

Have you ever seen a young person struggle to understand the concept of negative numbers? Wouldn't they have an easier time of it if this was their first interaction with -1?

Doesn't it make more sense that the ground floor is zero and then you add one each time you go up?

America, let's adopt this system. It's better.

My First Class of Students

Pre-intermediate students and teachers

Yea! This is me with my first class of students. They came in for two weeks to let new TEFL trainees practice on them! They were wonderful. May they all go out and use the past continuous tense with aplomb. That was my best lesson!

We can only do one thing at this moment: listen

Here is an example of the high level of culture I see in the Czech Republic. Every time staff arrive to open the little cafe near me I can hear them taking down the chairs and preparing for the shift with their favorite music playing loudly in the background.

What do they listen to? The same thing: the coloratura soprano aria from Mozart's Magic Flute opera. Occasionally I hear someone's passionate singing in accompaniment with some of the easier lines leading up to the soprano voice soaring. Sometimes the accompanying singing dies off though because the music is just so beautiful it demands our complete attention.

Thanksgiving With New Friends

A beautiful Thanksgiving table
at Sher and Jiři's place

Sher and Jiři

Sher and me

I don't think anyone could have felt more welcomed to the Czech Republic when they arrived than I did. My blogging buddies immediately made me feel at home. Sher from Czech Off the Beaten Path invited me to join her and her husband for a magical thanksgiving at their place.

Sher cooked her turkey in a combination convection oven/microwave, something I have never seen before. I don't know what a convection oven is but I enjoyed our conversation so much I forgot to look at it and see how it works. Dinner was fabulous and so was the company. I was sent home with leftovers, a book of Czech fairytales, another of Prague legends, and yet another of Prague history.

I Miss My President!

Černý Kennedy means "Black Kennedy" in Czech

The Obamas go to the White House

My new President was so inspiring on a daily basis during the campaign that I've gone through Obama withdrawal since moving to the Czech Republic. I miss hearing his constant 'commitment to excellence' on TV. Luckily, the campaign continues to email weekly videos and recent news updates so I can hear his views direct from him.

This week the campaign sent an 11-minute video of Obama announcing his new Council of Economic Advisers. The way President-Elect Obama is using email to directly interact with his millions of supporters is unprecedented. Being overseas, I appreciate it now even more than when I was home.