A Weather First

The weather in Prague today was interesting because it was changed character all day long. First, there were big, fun snowflakes. Midday, the sun came out and shone brightly.

Around 4 p.m., I was in Prague's tallest building. Two days ago, I could see mountains that were 80 miles away. Today, I could only see white. A thick fog, that covered everything with a heavy blanket of opaqueness had rolled in.

Finally, on the walk home, it was snowing and sleeting with thunder overhead. I don't ever remember walking under snow and hearing thunder at the same time. That was cool.

"The Flip Side of Fear is Understanding"

European travel entrepreneur, Rick Steves gave a powerful interview to Salon.com asking his fellow Americans to get out and see the world so they can "get over themselves." I promise you there is something, probably many things, in this article that will make you think. It's worth your attention.

My favorite part of the whole article is when he talks about how Americans and Iranians are letting their fears trump their values.

He even might have taken a swipe at David Cerny's infamous Turkish toilets depicted in the sculpture Entropa. Here's a smidgen of what Rick had to say:

Interviewer: What's the most important thing people can learn from traveling?

Rick: A broader perspective. They can see themselves as part of a family of humankind. It's just quite an adjustment to find out that the people who sit on toilets on this planet are the odd ones. Most people squat. You're raised thinking this is the civilized way to go to the bathroom. But it's not. It's the Western way to go to the bathroom. But it's not more civilized than somebody who squats. A man in Afghanistan once told me that a third of this planet eats with spoons and forks, and a third of the planet eats with chopsticks, and a third eats with their fingers. And they're all just as civilized as one another.

Click on my title to read the full article.

A Day at the National Museum

An iconic symbol of the Czech Republic -
the National Museum on Wenceslas Square

St. Wenceslas stands guard out front
of the National Museum on his horse

Inside, the interiors are so beautiful
it instantly creates daydreaming.
I'm surprised Hollywood
hasn't discovered this building.
These stairs demand gala ball gowns!

Czech pride isn't usually displayed
with the same nationalistic fervor
as American pride -
but here we find an exception.
And why not, it's the National Museum!

My friend Sher shows off the mezzanine.
She had been here once before.

Her then fiance, now husband, Jirick,
had brought her here a classical concert.
Listeners are given red velvet cushions to sit
on the stairs to enjoy a chamber music quartet
set up on the mezzanine.

The very day we were there,
the Museum would be showcasing a
performance of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"
later in the evening.

Four famous Czech castles
are featured in beautiful murals.
The most famous of these castles is
Karlstejn.

Sher specifically wanted to see the exhibit
on pre-Czech tribal peoples.
I'm glad we had English-language audioguides,
otherwise I wouldn't have known what I was looking at.
It was interesting to know that multitudes of people
have been moving through these lands for centuries.

The permanent exhibits
at the Museum are all science
(without entertainment added
like more up-to-date museums).
They were created when science was
supposed to be enough!

The most sacred space in the Museum
for Czechs is called the Pantheon.
What a room of indescribable beauty!
Again, it demanded top hats and tails,
ball gowns and baubles.
I don't think it's used that way though.
It's where Czech heros and heads of state
lie in state.

Out the balcony
was Wenceslas Square -
where Czechs assembled
when they were overthrowing their government.

We giggled as we imagined ourselves flinging open
the windows and 'addressing the Czechs.'
Unfortunately, no words of wisdom
that would live on videotape
for generations came to mind.
I'm sure my new President will do better
when he comes to speak next month!

The Czech National symbol is the lion.

I love superb craftsmanship.
Look at the detail on these hand-carved doors.
Note that the bottom door says 1885.
It's partner door had a date a couple years later.

The marble floor of the Pantheon.
No pictures do this room justice.

An architectural model of the museum dome.
Can you believe it?
We spent six hours here that day.

We saw two temporary exhibits as well.
One was on the First Republic,
a short twenty-year period of democracy
that occurred here in the early 20th century.
The second exhibit was photos
of the Warsaw Pact Invasion and
Occupation during the Prague Spring.

"The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia" by Milan Simecka

People read George Orwell's "1984" to imagine the kind of inhuman state where individuals don't matter and the state's right to control all is paramount. Orwell's "1984" is fiction. Milan Simecka, a Czechoslovak dissident writing in the early 1980's explains for history what happened in Czechoslovakia following the people's attempt to "put a human face" on socialism.

How was the totalitarian country able to reinstitute a Stalinist-style state without violence after the Prague Spring in 1968? How did the government eliminate dissent in less than two years? In chilling detail, Simecka shows how the State used it's power over people's income, jobs, friendships, even their children's future to control each citizen's every move.

Approximately 10-20% of the Czech population still votes for the Communist Party. My Czech friends tell me that the people still voting for the Communist party look back with nostalgia at getting a job from the state, getting a flat from the state, and cheap bread. With everything "provided" life had "no worries."

Today's young people, especially, may not know the horrors of that time, because the Czechs are so sick of that period there hasn't yet been a national curriculum developed to teach young people what happened. Czechs want to let it go and move on (hence, they think we Americans are obsessed with it all!)

I recommend this book for every reader of any country who wants to understand the communist totalitarian period. It would be a great book for any Czech/Slovak or political book club. I also think it would be especially useful for every Czech and Slovak high school student to understand the choices their parents and grandparents had to make to survive.

Like "The Diary of Ann Frank," which most American kids read sometime during their education, this book makes the choices presented by the times very personal and imaginable.


You may be interested in another book about governmental abuse of power:

Understanding Iran: The Power of One Graphic Novel called 'Persepolis'

"You Americans Are Obsessed With Communism"

"You Americans are obsessed with Communism!" one of my students said in exasperation. I giggled. I can't even remember what we were talking about that brought out her observation but I giggled because I knew it was true.

"We can't help it!" I said. "Our parent's generation and our generation's tax dollars went to fighting it. For years we heard how awful it was. When Mikhail Gorbachev ended the Cold War, it was like we could breathe a giant sigh of relief and could then spend all that money on something else."

"So then you went to Iraq!" she said with a laugh.

"Touche." I couldn't stop giggling cause I knew that was true too.

But she made me think about why we're obsessed with learning about Communism when we come here. An awful lot of my generation "fought communism" in Vietnam and I knew what it cost them.

I realized another reason we're obsessed: we want to see if everything our government told us about how awful communism was as a system was really true.

I'm happy to report my government didn't lie to me. It's much worse than they said. Here's what I didn't realize about communism until I got here - under communism, it's not just the government being mean to people, but the government forcing people to be mean to each other. You should hear the stories. They're awful.

Jeden Svet: One World '09

This is the 200th post on my blog! Since what I like to blog about is cross-cultural issues between America and the Czech Republic, it seems appropriate to devote my 200th post to celebrating the Jeden Svet '09 Film Festival now occurring here in Prague and outlying cities.

You know how there are some things you only do when you're out of town and aren't so harried? I realized there was a perfectly exciting film festival near my home in America and I never got around to going. By all reports, the fledging Beloit International Film Festival in Beloit, Wisconsin was fantastic. It was only 17 miles from my house. Here I am, out-of-town, so to speak, and I finally got off my butt and went to see some movies!

This is the 11th year of this film festival devoted to human rights. There are 120 documentaries from over 40 countries. In 2009, the festival has a wonderful subtheme celebrating 20 years of Eastern and Central European democracy in film. Indeed, the festival trailer (which you can link through by clicking on the title of my post) shows former Czech President Vaclav Havel helping in the maternity ward as a new generation of Czechs, born in freedom, arrive in the world. The Velvet Generation comes of age. What will they do with their freedom?

And as I looked around at each venue, it was the young people who had shown up for the films. The first movie I attended, directed by a Canadian, was called "Letters to a President." It showcased the cheap populism of Iranian President Ahmadinejad. People in Iran write him over 10 million letters a year asking him to solve their problems. Every letter is answered, which on the face of it, sounds like responsive government. It came across though as him setting himself up as a Messiah-like figure and the people, many of whom are lacking a decent education, being grateful for any little crumb. Not educating the populace is quite often in the interests of world leaders.

I also went to see "The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia" and "Paper Heads." "Paper Heads" is an especially useful movie for expatriates and young people to see because it shares what life was like under communism in the Czech Republic. Watching the movie, you can see how if you were a Czech back then, when the West had sold you out at Munich, and the Soviets were the ones that liberated you from the Nazis if you lived in Prague, communism just didn't seem like the threat we saw it as in the West. The Soviets probably saved your life.

Once communism was in place though, it was completely inhuman to those who objected. It's hard to look back and think of all the angry, nasty history that occurred here. It just doesn't square with the beauty I see around me every single day.

The festival continues until March 19th.

Everyday Wonders

Are you noticing all of the beauty around you?
Sometimes the brown eggs here
even have pretty freckles.