Chapter 1
A Land with No Name
“In the beginning there was the Word,” says the First Book of Moses, and
these words literally have universal validity. But not in the land populated by the
scrutinized nation. We’re not saying that this is the most atheistic nation in the world,
it’s just the fact that the land that has been inhabited by the Czechs for more than
thirteen centuries, still has no name. Really: even the smallest of the small centralAfrican mini states has a name (if by sheer coincidence the venerable reader of
Xenophobe happens to come from there, we mean naturally that such states may be
small by size, however Great their importance), and every South-American
dictatorship (should you have your roots here we mean: “exceedingly enlightened
system of government, concerned solely with the safety and security of its people”)
boasts its own name. Only the Czechs have nothing, no one-word term with which to
denote their homeland.
On the territory of the Czech basin – which is essentially a hilly country
surrounded by marginally higher mountains– an important feudal domain evolved. It
was called the Czech Kingdom. Today, a democratic system is to be found here. Its
name is the Czech Republic. Not long ago, Czechs lived in a joint state with the
Slovaks. Their state used to be known as Czechoslovakia. The Czechs, therefore,
can express their homeland using either an adjective – “czech”, or in compounds; the
noun is simply missing!
There is in existence the name “Cechy” (sometimes translated as Bohemia),
but that refers only to the western part of the territory, while the eastern area is called
Moravia. In the lower orders (meaning the entire industry) of Czech journalism (one
the authors of these lines is, of course, a journalist) is the tendency to use the
neologism Czechia (Cesko), but it is not only non-mellifluous, but from the lips of
foreigners it also sounds somewhat abusive. Barring nothing short of a linguistic
miracle, the Czechs will forever have to be content with merely an adjective. It must
simply be good enough for them to live in a Republic, which is Czech.
As is the case in some legends, we are entering – to follow in the footsteps of
mythical heroes – a land which has no name. Our task is not to find such a name, nor
to create it; what we really want to do is just have a look around at what the
inhabitants of these peculiar quarters are like. They are a People who do have a
name; the Czechs.
You’d better believe, this task isn’t much easier either.
Chapter 2
National Identity
How They See Themselves
The Czechs see themselves as a novel hero. Not, however, a psychologically
torn, post-modern hero from the novels of the Czech author Milan Kundera. Not even
the hero fighter from old Czech legends. But a figure, somewhat rotund, talkative,
even garrulous and indulgent in beer and pickled sausages (a local delicacy
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peculiarly called “utopence”, which translates as ´sinkers´or ´drowned people´). This
hero is the good old soldier Svejk.
Svejk, even though a soldier, was essentially antimilitarist. All the same, he
was drafted into the World War (nobody could foresee that soon an ordinal number
´First´ would have to be added) and there he proved to be so idiotic and incompetent,
as to become a totally useless cog in the war machine. Svejk is a good-hearted, easy
going creature, popular in collective, his tales are murderously hilarious. Although he
is “superanuated by arbitration for idiocy” – a politically correct term today would be
that he is absolved from military service on the basis of an evaluation of his IQ –
totally stupid he certainly is not. In Czech pubs and in literature lecture theatres alike,
there is, even eighty years after the first publication of the book, a lively discussion
about whether or not Svejk was a real idiot, or if he just successfully pretended rages
on. In any case, he proved himself to be more sensible than all the blood-thirsty
warmongers around.
Svejk is an inconspicuous Czech fellow. On his lips a smile and endless tales,
he slips with almost proverbial luck from any scrimmage. He is a life-long outsider,
but he still knows how to live life to the full. He can not be sad for very long. While
other national opuses elate the idea of love (truth, honour etc…) being stronger than
death, Svejk claims, that virtue also lies a in jolly mind, endless tall tales, a certain
degree of shallowness and limitless willingness not to get involved in any situation.
Svejk is not a participant of history, he is its saboteur. For his ability to sail through
life the term svejking has been coined.
Every Czech is a bit like Svejk. A Czech who reads Jaroslav Hasek’s The
tales of the Good Old Soldier Svejk in the First World War, is looking in the mirror.
And he looks with satisfaction, like a Donna trying on a new necklace before the ball.
Svejking carries with itself also one great frustration. Inability to be a driving
force of history and inseminator of ideas to redeem mankind becomes some kind of
general sociological retardation. In short the Czechs suffer from an exemplary
inferiority complex of a small nation.
Don’t get confused: there are 10 million Czechs and other similarly large (a
Czech will say small) nations would refer to themselves always as medium sized. If
Hungarians, Portuguese or Swedes were small, what would Luxembourgians be? Or
the inhabitants of San Marino?! You know what? Take a trip to Rome and try to ask
the Pope whether Vatican is a small state. We think we know what he’d say…
But the Czechs consider themselves to be small. They rate their own character
as dove-like; and that allegedly goes for all Slavs. (The behaviour of Serbs, Croats or
Russians in the recent or current wars should not be mentioned in this respect.) In
history the Czechs were always the innocently invaded ones – here from the west,
here from the east – while all they ever wanted to do was to invent, write poetry and
generally just create in the name of the wellbeing of the nation and mankind (in that
order). The invaders have stolen the drawings and plans, exploited them and from
then on passed them off as their own.
Thus, only very few inventions managed to get smuggled all the way to the
patent-office by the Czech chaps. For example the Veverka cousins undoubtedly
invented something called the “ruchadlo” - an obscure improvement to the common
plough! The world had to sit up with awe. This story is a part of the primary school
curriculum in the scrutinized land and every small child knows it by heart. It is a
wonder that the birthdates of the learned cousins have not yet been proclaimed a
national holiday in the calendar. (To be sure it’d be a very popular one, for in this
case it would have to be two days.) The Czechs are extremely proud about of their
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“ruchadlo”. The fact that nobody really knows what a “ruchadlo” exactly is, and what
it’s good for does not change anything one iota.
The Czechs would no doubt easily excel over the other nations, only if here
Vienna, there Berlin or Moscow and today Brussels would not hinder them. So they
stand pushed aside somewhat and they wonder why the CNN news service does not
offer a regular daily rubric Good News from Czechia. It is clearly an injustice and a
shameful omission, but the Czechs – the Svejks are taking it bravely…
Despite all this, the Czechs have among them the biggest personality in all
mankind. Jara Cimrman: the most colossally intelligent multi-inventor and megacreator ever. This fictional character of non existent genius was born a few years ago
in one of the Prague’s theatres. This literary persona however, recently stepped
down from stage and entered the real, almost political, world, when in a national TV
poll was Jara Cimrman voted with a landslide majority as the greatest Czech ever!
The organizers were reluctant to announce a non existent figure the overall winner of
a poll, which for example in Britain Winston Churchill took the lead. For this reason
they had the poor Cimrman disqualified and the winner was the medieval monarch,
King Chrles IV. (Vaclav Havel only took third place). The Czechs simply ´svejked´ the
poll; they wouldn’t have it any other way.
How Others See Them
There’s a really embarrassing misunderstanding: the word for ‘Slav’ blends in
some languages with the expression for a slave and the word Czech in one West
European language which we shan’t mention, equals Gypsy. Nothing could be more
removed from the truth – the Czechs love sedate life and they don´t yearn for
anything even remotedly suggesting Gypsy romanticism. And slaves? That is totally
out of question! If you want something from them, all one needs to do is to pay them;
failing that you can simply threaten them with the loss of current benefits. In full
awareness of the old Marx maxim, “freedom is accepted necessity”, Czechs will be
more than pleased to do anything. So, what you mean by “slaves”, hey?
Copernicus, who first calculated that not the Earth but the Sun is the centre of
what we call thanks to him a solar system, appears to have passed some way above
the heads of the Czechs. The Czechs may possibly still believe to this day that the
Earth is at the centre of universe. They don’t care about astronomy, but about
philosophy. Lets carry on with the thesis, so we get its real sense; so – the Earth is
the centre of Universe, Europe is the centre of Earth and Czechia is at the centre of
Europe (The Czech Republic indeed lies roughly at the centre of this continent; all it
takes is to look at the map – not forgetting that the eastern borders of Europe are not
formed by the suburbs of Munich but by the Urals.) It follows logically, then, that
Czechia indeed is the absolute centre of the Universe.
Hardly a year passes without some ´new´ villages claiming, on the basis of
computing with the aid of a school atlas, a ruler and a cheap calculator bought for
one Euro at the stationery shop, that they, and they alone, are in the exact
geometrical centre of Czechia. A small blemish on these claims is the sheer number
of these abutments, of which in vain Archimedes dreamt („Give me a lever long
enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.“). There are
roughly eighty and the number is growing.
Founding themselves in this sovereign position, the Czechs leave all the other
real and quazi-nations to themselves to fathom their exclusive role. From this
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speculation then stems some unbelievable political model theories. Like Czechia
being not only the link between the West and East, but also the proverbial cauldron in
which all that‘s good from both West and East melts: manifestly in to a Czech
national pride. But now to the question „Why specifically Czechia? Why not, say,
Madagascar?“ the Czech politicians are unable give a precize answer, but they are
working on it.
How They See Others
„…they advised us not to talk German in Prague. For years racial animosity
between the German minority and the Czech majority has raged throughout
Bohemia, and to be mistaken for a German in certain streets of Prague is
inconvenient to a man whose staying powers in a race are not what once they were,“
wrote already in the 19th century in his famous book ´Three men on the Brummel´
Jerome Klapka Jerome, „However, we did talk German in certain streets in Prague,“
adds, „it was a case of talking German or nothing.The Praguer is an exceedingly
acute person; some subtle falsity of accent, some slight grammatical inaccuracy, may
have crept into our German, revealing to him the fact that, in spite of all appearances
to the contrary, we were no true-born Germans.“
If the reader has a command of German, he too can, like the English writer,
use it sometimes. For the Czechs, had the three million strong German population
removed after the Second World War from the Czech Lands, or rather from Czechia,
actually the then Czechoslovakia…you see the confusion caused by a missing
noun!... the Czechs in short forcibly chased out their Germans and still to this day
have the delusion of the victors in this age-old neighbourly dispute. The look
therefore at German tourists with a mixture of condescension and envy. They are
fully aware of the economic potential of their western neigbour. A potential, which
they hope to find a small part of in the visitors‘ wallets.
To be a German is not a crime in the scrutinized country anymore. However
a citizen of that nation must count with being viewed, regradless of his true character,
as exceedingly unsympathetic, coarse and bigheaded creature, devoid of even the
most elementary sense of humor.
All traditional German virtues: a sense of comradeship, orderliness,
dutifullness, obedience and so forth – are to Czechs almost a complete list of human
depravities. Nothing would please a Czech more than to have the opportunity to
ridicule these German qualities. A joke was going round towards the end of the
Second World War:
„Do you know what true camaraderie is? When a German soldier is
returning from leave back to the Eastern front and the entire army is marching 300
miles to meet him.“
It is quite remarkable that Germans are not the victims of Czech jokes really
all that often, it‘s not because of some cunningly hidden affections, but more likely
that the Germans are not worth their while. (When Czechs are poking jokes at
someone, it´s usually the members of super-powers such as the Americans,
Russians or the Martians. Only these are worthy to be compared with.)
The Czech term for Germans originated from the adjective „dumb“. The
ancient Czechs simply could not understand the ancient Germans and thus with
prefectly sound logic, but factual nonsensicality, concluded that Germans can´t talk.
To be dumb is a time-honoured and well-proven formula for the safe survival of a
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German in Czechia. For the Czechs are much more, in fact really very much more,
tolerant towards the dumb.
To the south of the Czech border lies Austria, which has the undisputably
bad luck of its inhabitants being German speaking too. They are pardoned though,
mainly thanks to the fact of being less numerous than Germans and therefore
attracting less reservations. The Austrians and Germans somehow blend together to
the Czech eye. Not because of the poor geographical knowledge of the scrutinized
nation, but more likely because of the well tried methods of Viennese diplomacy,
which managed to convince the whole world that Hitler was a German, while Mozart
an Austrian – even though it was exactly the other way round. Also Austrians did not
endear themselves to many Czechs when, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, they put
up in their shops insulting notices: „Czechs, don´t steal!“ One half of the nation felt
insulted by this wild suspicion, while the other half mused over how could the
Austrians have found out.
On the other hand, the most amicably accepted nation are the Slovaks.
Czechs have even pardoned them for dissafiliating themselves from the Czechs
towards the end of the last century after decades of coexistence. With the patronizing
attitude of older brothers, the Czechs tell the Slovaks – whose economy is much
more progressive than that of Czechia – how to run their housekeeping and can‘t
understand why their fatherly advice is rejected. The Slovaks are also not „dumb“,
their language is so similar that membrs of both nations easily understand each
other. To the Czechs, who by and large don´t master any foreign language, it gives
the elated feeling of true worldliness.
A Czech also partly understands the Pole who, however, has got the handicap
of being lazy, pig-headed and tasteless. In the eighties, when the Poles under the
flag of the opposition union movement Solidarity were fighting the communists, the
Czechs were saying that the real cause was just laziness. Today, when the Polish
currency, the Zloty climbs upwards again, they claim for a change, all Poles to be
black-market racketeers. This devastating criticism however, does not prevent the
cheap street markets of Polish border towns from being chock-a-block every
weekend with eager Czech shoppers.
The Czech Lands were for centuries a territory of mixed nations: besides the
Czech majority lived both Germans and Jews. First the Germans dealt with the Jews
(concentration camps) and then the Czechs with the Germans (expulsion). The
Czech Republic today is therefore a nationally compact white island in the sea of the
global bustle of races. Or at least this is how the followers of the extreme right would
like to see it. The reality is, however, somewhat different: there is an unknown
number of Romanies living in the country, which nobody is allowed to count under the
rules of political correctness. Just as it’s unacceptable to call a Roma a Gypsy – the
only exemption is the popular traditional type of sausage called The Gypsy. The
Czechs agree on one thing: rather than a Roma, they will accept a German for a
neigbour. For Romanies are lazy (even more than Poles), noisy (even more than
Germans) and they steal (even more than Czechs). That really is a murderous
combination.
All these Ukrainians, Byelorussians and Moldavians, which work in his country,
blend to a Czech in to one post-Soviet stew; he is quite sure only about one thing,
that their slave work for next to nothing on building sites is only a sham. In reality they
are all maffia. Just think: would a real Doctor work as a navvy somewhere on the
scaffolding?!
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On the other hand the Vietnamese, who lived in the country since the
communist regime as a part of a brotherly socialistic barter trade (to Vietnam were
flowing Czech arms and machinery, back to Europe as a reward travelled
Vietnamese students; how this could have really been profitable nobody understands
still today), have established themselves here and proved to be exellent
businessmen and traders. They peddle, by and large, total rubbish, which really
should have been banned by the authorities. The Czechs know what they are talking
about: a Vietnamese digital watch or a colourful set of plastic plates is to be found in
every Czech household.
Why not own up? The Czechs are racist. Not in the cruel colonial sense
though, but a kind of racism with a human face. If the reader of Xenophobe has got
black skin, it could easily happen to him that some hillbilly from the sticks would touch
him just to see if the colour smears. He is not trying to provoke you, he is just curious,
so he has something to talk about tomorrow in the cowhouse. It is quite possible that
he may be the first cowhand in the village who ever encountered such a natural
anomaly – meaning you.
Chapter 3
Character
Perpetual Grumpiness
This streak is the first thing that a foreigner will immediately notice after
landing at the airport, train or coach station. The surly Customs officer frowns at you
and you are afraid that he probably knows about your contraband of chewing-gum in
your suitcase. The receptionist in the hotel is all sulky and you are getting the
impression, that she had her own plans about what to do with your booked room in
the evening, obviously a totally different purpose than accommodating your virtuous
family. The sales assistant in the shop looks so glum that you want to ask her if her
favourite cat has died. It did not. She just looks like that. While members of other
ethnicities need to have a serious reason to be gloomy, the Czechs need a reason
not to be like that. And that reason needs to be frequently renewed.
If you really do not want to upset the Czechs, don´t try to cheer them up. If you
happen to travel on public transport, and there is no escape until the next stop, you
better hide your smiling face and sparkling look behid a scarf or a hat. In the summer
you better stare at the ground, or try to imagine that you are not on your way to a
concert followed by a splendid supper, but to your dentist for an operation which you
have been putting off for half a year.
As the popular Czech writer Karel Polacek noticed more than a half century
ago: “The passengers in trams are all imprisoned by some kind of common
sullenness. People are hiding behind the newspapers to avoid looking at the faces of
fellow travellers. Who does not read the paper, spells adverising posters, and he who
doesn’t do even that, is getting ready to remonstrate their neighbour for an imaginary
wrong and start an argument, which usually starts with a question: “So you think you
are clever?”
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The perpetual Czech grumpiness is shown besides by their faces, also by
everlasting grunting. The Czech is known for endless complaining. Czechs lived
before the arrival of communism in one of the richest countries in the world and they
are slowly returning to that position again. But they are still unhappy – it’s just not
happening fast enough for them. In comparison with the rest of EU, the Czech
Republic has the least number of people threatened by poverty. Despite this, the
local inhabitants are fed up; it’s not enough that nobody is really poor, they
themselves are not rich enough. The Czech Republic has lovely scenery and historic
towns, a culture with age-old traditions - and there prevails such freedom as never
before history. Already long rendered irrelevant is this joke from the communist era:
An American and a Czech have an argument over where there is greater
freedom of speech. “I can stand in front of the White House and shout: “The US
President is a fraudster and a liar,” and nothing will happen to me. Such is our
freedom!” proclaims the American. The Czech answers: “And what do you think will
happen to me if I stand in front of Prague Castle and shout that the US president is a
fraudster and a liar?Also nothing!”
Despite the fact that these old communist times are irrevocably gone, the
Czechs are still fed up.
Don’t be afraid though, for they are quite harmless. It is just a typical look on
their face, which is not usually accompanied by aggressive behaviour. The Czechs
enjoy being teed-off. It is, by the way, their most affordable hobby.
Sense of Humour
The Czechs like bets. Not for large sums, but just for the fun of it. And so the
authors of these lines can bet the reader that if he asks five Czechs what is the most
important national character streak, he will get at least four answers that it is a sense
of humour.
Or ask anybody who said about Czechs the famous sentence, that they are a
„nation of laughing bests“! Even a small child knows it was Hitler´s favorite and a nazi
ace Reinhard Heydrich, who was supposed to instill in the occupied Czech lands a
stiff (thus German) discipline. The fact that the Czechs were identified by their
archenemy as beasts, the contemporary Czech ignores with a smile. It is the atribute
of laughter that fills him even after more than sixty years with great pride.
It does not mean, however, that just anybody can joke about the Czechs. Be
very cautious in this direction, please. When a Czech is confronted in an anectode
with members of different nations, he always likes to come across as the more clever
– meaning more cunning.
A Czech can say about other Czechs (or about Czechs in general), that they
are envious, dependent and extremely cunning. The real meaning of this specifically
Czech variety of cunning will be dealt with further on in this book. In some cases it is
possible to say with impunity about someone else that he is fat, lazy and stinking. It is
even possible to insult him with obscenities. Never, but really never ever is it possible
to question his sense of humour. To say about the other, that he is a killjoy, will whip
him up into an immediate, verbal, sometimes even physical rage. (If he kicks out
three of your teeth, the jury will free him, for this will be judged reasonable defence.)
To say on the other hand about his mother that she is a notorious hooker, will end at
most with a pint of beer poured over your head. (The jury might even start digging up
the real truth behind the accusation of lowly morals).
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Don´t however have any illusions about the quality of Czech humor. One
popular local comic (Jan Werich), who is taken for being witty and wise at the same
time, said “humour is not about laughing, but about knowing”, real life however limps
on all fours behind this maxim. A delicate smile, the lip’s corners slightly upturned –
that is no humour for a Czech. On the contrary, real humour is distinguished by mad
screams, breast and thigh slapping and uncontrollable braying. The objects of
laughter are then politcs, sex, minorities, policemen and blondes; if the joke is
obscene, even better. At the table you can squelch and swipe the gravy with your
fingers, but you can´t stay impassive when the others are madly laughing at
something (or more often at somebody absent). The excuse that you are a foreigner
and do not understand will not wash with the Czechs. A good joke knows no borders.
Franz Kafka, a man with czech surname, who lived in Prague but was german
speaking, loved a special kind of jokes. His friend Max Brod testified: „These jokes
had to be childishly simple and must not be indecent. Indecent jokes were rejected by
Kafka so resolutely, that nobody would dare to tell them in his presence. It was
simply impossible. He would just say with a polite smile: „Disgusting!“ That was the
sharpest criticism I ever heard from him. An example of a joke, at which Kafka would
be laughing: „ A millionare, to whom a street beggar complains that he hasn´t eaten
already for three days, answers kindly: „One must try and force himself!“
Czech society also looks down on anybody who can´t tell jokes too well
(evidently like Kafka couldn´t). Some uncommunicative individuals are therefore
arming themselves not only with tear-spray against possible attackers when
wandering about in solitude, but have prudently memorised also a few jokes, in case
they encounter a dubious character jumping out of a dark corner, grabbing the said
party by lapels saying: „Life is misery, don´t you know at least one good joke?“
While in Japanese factories the foreman physicaly exersises with his
subordinates their stiff bodies during the break, in Czech offices and workshops it is
quite normal that the boss comes among his subjects with something funny to tell.
Similarly like one answers the English phrase „How do you do“ with the same saying,
it´s not enough just to laugh at the governor´s joke, but is necessary to throw in one
or two of one´s own. The breaks then are never the same, but evolve on their own in
accordance with the mood of the collective team.
Czechs consider humorists as their best authors. A successful movie could
easily be without sex, but without a hillarious catchphrase which the happy audience
will endlessly repeat among their friends, certainly not. Some of the most popular TV
prgrammes are shows with candid cameras, where the victim is firstly deceived, then
debased and finally ostracized. (In short, turned in to a moron.) If someone on the
screen falls down, it´s a good reason for wild cheer and often the head of the family
taunts his wife, recalling a similar accident happening the her: „A pitty I did not have a
video camera when you fell flat on your face with all the heavy shoping bags
scaterring around you!“ And they both laugh heartily. (Unless of course the wife has
still her leg in plaster.)
The border line of Czech humour lies somewhere in ancient times. The
children’s author Eduard Stroch describes a story from Bronze Age: „Kotoeaters were
drying snow by the fire. They wanted to dry all their hoarded snow, and later in the
summer time to mix it with salt and with other stones and barter it for nice furs. They
were puzzled however by the snow being continually wet.“ You can bet your sweet
life that Kotoeaters talked Czech.
The borders of Czech humour are also endless, for they are able to absorb
even envy, dependency or slyness.
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One theory says, that the Czechs are so incredibly witty that they laugh even
at their own jaundice. But closer to the truth may be claim that their envy is so deep,
that it infiltrates even their humour.
.
Envy
There isn’t an older wheeze in the scrutinized country than this: God and Saint
Peter were walking the Earth. It was a cold evening and they were looking for a place
to put their heads down. Everywhere in the village they were refused, until they
reached a dilapidated cottage with a thatched roof, where they were received with
kindness and even with a share of simple food. God revealed himself and offered to
their hosts anything they could possibly wish for. “You know, my Lord, we have
nothing but a pair of old hens, while our neigbour has a nice, young goat. Every day it
gives them two litres of milk…” “You would like to have the same?” interrupts God.
“No way, “replies the villager. “I wish their goat to die!”
Czech society is egalitarian, however to reach average levels is achieved not
by the weaker individuals trying harder, but, on the contrary by the stronger ones
getting desirably weaker. The average then, is quite close to zero, but it does not
matter: the main thing is that nobody stands out. The fact that despite this tendency
the Czech economy stays productive and the local culture addressing, could be best
explained as a miracle and proof of God´s existence. Any natural explanation is
missing.
To be successful in Czechia is unforgivable – the true tycoons therefore wear
tacky clothes and travel to their small ex-council flats by tram. The Czechs are able to
envy even your misfortune, as long as it´s a big one. School children envy each
other’s lice: the reason is understandable - the loused-up ones don’t need to go to
school the next day and on top of that could trade this vermin in their hair to their still
unaffected mates for exorbitant sums. One old Czech saying is about a man, who
envies his fellow man’s “nose between his eyes.” You will be well advised not to
laugh at this and rather feel your face. Have you got it still?
Dependence
The Czech film director Milos Forman (Hair, Amadeus, One Flew Over the
Cockoo´s Nest) has compared life under Communism to existence in a Zoo – there is
usually plenty of food, medical care is provided, only with freedom it’s there at a
deadlock. Conversely, life in freedom Forman likened to a jungle, where everybody
must take care of himself. Czechs are taking care of themselves reluctantly and
believe that they have set up for the purpose institutions, which will do the job better
than they could themselves. To achieve a satisfactory level of education therefore is
not a primary interest of the individual student, or his parents, but of the education
system. To get a job is not up to the worker, but more like up to the unions,
employers or the government. Preventative health care is not a job for the Czech
patient but for his doctor. This behaviour could suggest a deep seated political
leftism; but it´s more about the Czech helplessness.
A Czech is not an individualist, but he´s also not a confessor of collectivism.
He has an essential need to belong (allotment or cremation associations, or christian
democrats), within the framework of his domiciliary group he behaves however with a
9
large degree of peculiarity (does not attend meetings, moans about the regulations
and his member fees he pays after the second reminder, and that only at the very
last moment). Some biologists are saying that the species Homo Sapiential is
evolving gradually in to Homo Sociable. A Czech however stays a Homo Nonsociable. That, what he disturbs every community around him with is not his
excessive individualism, but rather his chaotic state and unwillingness to accept
discipline. The opposite to these characteristics could be taken for a German trait and
hopefully you will agree, something like that you can not possibly expect from any
Czech at all. After all, as the saying popular in the land under scrutiny goes: „Order
befits only the idiot. A true Intelligent manages even chaos.“
Cunningness
As mentioned earlier, this is a specifically Czech character feature. It is
masked under a variety of terms, most of them untranslatable. Basically it involves an
artful, tricky craftiness, however, with a degree of cute charm. A little example Czech town municipalities receive money from the state coffers according to their
population figures. Small town small money, big town big money. One smallish town
during a recent population census realised that to reach the desired mark of fifty
thousand inhabitants they were short of some 200 souls. It announced, therefore,
that every new resident (which involved merely formal, paper residency, everybody
remained where they actually lived) would receive a as a reward a nice little sum of
money. People were “moving” in droves, the town paid them all together a few
hundred thousand but got a few million from the treasury. The town hall behaved as
a typical Czech would do: cunningly. It was a sham, but nobody concrete was
actually hurt. While you may feel a bit of nausea, to the Czechs this seems irresistibly
cute. And make no mistake; they will take the first opportunity to try something similar
also on you.
Chapter 11
Food and Drink
Beer
“Hunger is just a masked thirst,” is a popular bon mot among the regulars in
Czech pubs and therefore even small reference to edibles can’t start from anything
other than the “wet” end. The most popular drink in the land under scrutiny is beer.
Beer, nevertheles, is not by a long chalk just a thirst quencher (after all you can´t
really talk about parched throat after the eighth or ninth pint, can you?): what is
concerned is a national pride, the fluid, fundamental essence of being a Czech.
In the consumption of beer the Czechs hold a long-established first place in
the world. They successfully defend this sovereign position year by year even though
the score is being spoiled a little by the Moravians (Czechs living in the eastern half
of the state, who somewhat perversely prefer wine), suckling babies and also by
some pregnant women. The Czech language knows a saying about someone who
drinks excessively: “He drinks like a Dane”. (This refers to a historically unfounded
legend about a 14th century incident involving a group of Danish envoys in Prague on
10
a mission to purchase and take back a few stone statues to decorate some bridge in
Copenhagen. Instead of doing their duty, they soon became infamous for their wild
parties, womanising and general debauchery. And the phrase was born. The story
has a sad sequel: the money ran out after a year and they had to return back home
dishonoured and without statues. What became of them is not entirely clear, but the
coined phrase is still in use to this day.) This saying does not purport that the Danes
could measure-up to the Czechs in drinking. Anyway - to say about someone that he
drinks like a fish (or as the locals say: “as the rainbow”) is not a reproach, but a
compliment.
If you wish to discredit yourself for ever in the society, just put forward a little
story – for example – that you have been recently abroad, say France, and have
sampled there a really excellent, well chilled lager. This will instantly unmask you as
an immature, childish personality without even the most elementary knowledge of
what’s what in life. In some cases it may even be taken as a downright insult. And
please don’t try to rectify it by saying that quite good beer is also to be found for
example in Canada etc. For every Czech orthodox beer drinker knows, that
everywhere else in the world they produce and consume only undrinkable swill and
even such famous makes like Heineken don’t measure-up against even the smallest
regional Czech brewery. You can save yourself only by leaving the scene quietly,
quickly and discreetly and count your luck that you have saved your skin. You are in
a country where even the ex prime-minister (M.Zeman) on an official visit to a
neighbouring state publicly proclaimed with impunity their beer being good “only for
the cleansing of dentures”
Czech beer can withstand in the hearts of its consumers only one comparison:
that with the Irish beer. But you have to add that Irish beers have a totally different
character, sugar content and who knows what else, and therefore in all fairness with
the Czech “capped” – as they call locally with affection the drafted lager for its foam
head – it simply can not be compared at all.
You can buy beer in Czechia almost everywhere: with the small exeption of
some banks, post offices and toy shops. The practice of the Scandinavian and a few
other countries, where one can get alcohol only in specially licensed stores and that
only at restricted times, is for a Czech as logical as it is to meet a pack of penguins in
the middle of the Sahara. Alcohol is here for one purpose only - to be drunk and that
requires unrestricted availability and access!
You will encounter, therefore, a pub in every foxhole; you shouldn’t be
surprised that you may run in to an open beer kiosk even while walking in the
deepest forest. Ok, there are some villages, out in the sticks, where they simply have
no pub, but the councillors are taking this as a local peculiarity and are pointing this
rarity out in tourist guides. Tourists are pouring in and investigate how this anomaly
could happen in the first place…
Czech beers are not by and large very strong – the beer lovers are
compensating for this by the sheer number of demolished pints. A stranger therefore
should not be mistaken by the local traditional denomination of lagers as “the Ten” or
“the Twelve” – it does not mean the actual alcohol strength, but the original sugar
content in the initial brewing process. “The Ten” is of course weaker in alcohol than
“The Twelve”, but both have a good 4% alcohol for sure.
Czech pubs are generally divided in to four, so called, price groups. Group
“one” you will encounter usually in good hotels, group “four” in proletarian town
quarters and in the country. Czech pubs are by and large safe places, so the more
adventurous and less hygiene conscious characters among you can wade without
11
any fear or worry even to the Fourth group. They will encounter here one unexpected
phenomenon: at the same table there are talking and drinking in jolly union a lawyer,
college student, storeman and dustman. The Czech pub is an utterly democratic
institution, and it’s therefore quite possible that a chair may be available at the
regulars’ table also for you. Independently, however, you should not encroach on this
designated space (which usually involves a large table near the taps), even if it is
momentarily unoccupied. The regulars would, the same like the dwarfs in Snow
White, know at once that someone has sat on their chair and would take it with
similar discountenance.
Care should be taken also when ordering: “a large beer” indeed means in
most pubs a pint of beer, but there are places, where it means a double jug which
contains a full litre of this golden, foamy potion. To order “a small beer” means not
only you get a tiny small half-pint glass, but also scorn from your fellow table mates
for your unmanliness. After all: even a dame would rather order a large beer, if she
does not want to attract any unnecessary attention. Czech beers are very foamy, but
despite that an accomplished barman would draw a pint glass even in three seconds,
which is about the same time needed for some champions to drink it. It is a good
example of a natural circle of reasons and consequences.
If it’s summer and the Czech beer drinker is really thirsty, he orders two large
beers right away (large beer is referred to simply as a ´beer´ in a Czech pub, it is only
when a guest wishes such peculiarity as for instance a ´small beer´, is to the
substantive added also the adjective). The first pint is downed in one go and the
waiter usually waits the tiny moment at the table, so he can take the empty glass
straight away. To down a pint in eight or nine seconds is not a particularly big deal for
the average Czech beer drinker, not even when he has already a few good pints of
this blessed beverage in his belly. If you don’t want to be embarrassed, never ever
compete in this direction: even the seemingly wee tiny thumbling could slosh a pint
faster than you (a human with a lousy praxis in this field) could blow the foam off.
Czech scholars and intellectuals do from time to time step into the ring to strike
against alcoholism. Last time that happened during the so called “national
awakening” in the mid19th century. When the then national leader, Josef Jungmann,
(his German surname was no hindrance to his patriotism) informed the public about
the start of a prohibition campaign, he added immediately and expressly that his
arguments obviously do not refer to beer drinking. After all, even a hundred years
later during the communist domination the small talk in local pubs was that such a
government would fall, which will raise the price of beer. Government obviously
listened to the vox populi and kept the price of beer so low, that with an average
salary could one buy roughly thousand honest-to-goodness pints. Even today the
beer in Czechia is comparatively cheap and is immediately after Prague Castle and
Charles Bridge the third greatest tourist attraction.
One of the best ice hockey full-backs in the history of the world, Jan Suchy,
did not have some sort of isotonic drink in his bottle during the training sessions as
the others did, but a good old Czech beer. Before matches he also would kick back a
regular shot or two, so he did not have to strain with warm-up excersises. He put his
whole heart in to the game though and he was declared as the best full-back in four
ice hockey world championships. When, towards the end of his career, he played in
Bavaria (a part of Germany bordering on Czechia, where a lot of beer is consumed
too, due to the cross-border influence), he would bet the locals who would “make”
more pints. Germans, despite being the world´s second in the average beer
consumption per capita, soon (that is after about the fifteenth beer) dropped-off,
12
whereby the slender Czech sportsman would stop at the twenty second or twenty
third pint. He stopped only because he had the victory in his pocket anyway.
Such accomplishments are nothing unique and it’s not an exception to run in
to an individual who repeats them daily as a matter of course. These types don’t
make it though to the Guinness Book of Records due to their modesty. Weaker
personalities are trying to excel in the traditionally run beer competitions in the
associated beer disciplines: one chap would throw for example a beer-bottle cap at a
distance of almost 40 metres, whilst a beer mat flung by another champion landed at
the distance of just over 56 metres. Beat that!
The culture of beer drinking – to which belong smoky pubs, unpolished pumps
and the typical, specific thick glass beer mugs with a handle – have been praised by
many Czech writers. Jaroslav Hasek (author of aforementioned Soldier Svejk) and
Bohumil Hrabal (author of book on which the (1965) Oscar winning film Closely
Watched Trains was based) actually created their masterpieces directly in those
pubs. In many folk songs is the exalted virtue of beer drinking merged with the
ancient national struggle: “When the Czechs have a drink of beer – they’ll fight like
lions without fear” goes one ditty about a one-time fight against Germans. It suggests
that the Germans did not drink (or did, but much less) and were therefore defeated.
One of the worst words, over which a Czech would shudder with repulsion, is
“prohibition”. It doesn’t have a place in the Czech history, but does in Czech
literature. It is, however, a typically Czech prohibition: “Our prohibition should not be
a ban on beer and liquor, but a ban on drinks harmful and unfitting of a citizen who
cares about his honour and manliness, such as sodas, lemonades, grenadines,
oranginas and similar filth and noxious narcotics,” to quote from the humoristic novel
and gangster parody “From the secrets of Prague´s underworld”, reminiscent of
London’s cockney tales.
By the way: do you know at what the Czechs are better, in their own opinion,
than all other nations? In a seriously conducted sociological questionare a full quarter
of respondents answered - in beer drinking. Small wonder: we are talking about a
country where Pilsner Urquell, Budvar and Staropramen all have their home and
where ex-president Havel took his counterpart Clinton not to visit the gothic relics of
Prague, but to a beer pub!
And The Rest Of It...
Some time ago, in neighbouring Poland, all cigarette packets carried the
seductive slogan: “With a cigarette you are never alone!” This slogan could easily be
amended to apply to Czech beer pubs: it’s quite common that even a total stranger
will be invited to a friendly chat. After an hour you could easily know more about your
new acquaintance, than you do about your own offspring. The aforementioned writer
Hrabal coined in this connection the term “confession booth of atheism.” To enter a
Czech pub alone is quite usual; visitors will seek their company at random in it’s
bowels. Even he, who wants to be left alone, swill down his beer and just watch the
pub-world to go by, won’t look conspicuous. If you don’t want to be drawn to
conversation, it’s enough to put in front of you an open newspaper.
With a Czech beer goes hand in hand a cigarette. In the cheapest pubs it’s not
a faux pas, if at your table is a full ashtray overflowing with cigarette ends left by
earlier guests. Smoking is universal, only during lunch time are there designated
areas in pubs, where the guests can try to savour the aroma of their food without the
13
scent of tobacco. To scrounge a cigarette from a fellow guest is sociably fully
acceptable (he would feel insulted if you would try to pay for it though), to ask – even
repeatedly - to borrow a lighter or box of matches is a standard part of social
convention. As opposed to the beer, it is quite acceptable - in the area of the tobacco
industry - to extol even some foreign brands!
As far as liquor is concerned, a typical Czech swig is rum. In one of the
traditional Czech fairy tales, the King gave a tall order to a poor village girl: to visit his
castle and arrive not by foot but also not in a carriage, and to be dressed and
undressed at the same time. The girl arrived on a push scooter and was dressed in
fishing net – through her smartness she won the kings heart and he married her. It is
similar with the Czech rum: it is a sort of rum – nonrum. You must not imagine
anything even remotely similar to what you know for example as Havana Rum.
Czech rum is made from grain alcohol, rum flavour, sugar and caramel. Malicious
Brussels and grudging European bureaucrats have recently even forbidden the word
“rum” to be used on this traditional and specific Czech product. It used to be called
Inland Rum, so now it’s only “Inland”. You are welcome to try it, but unless you’re
from Leeds or Detroit (a real man’s world), the Czech rum – nonrum will not exactly
thrill you.
Many Czechs think that hard liquor greedy foreigners flock to their country
because of “Becherovka” – a rather cultivated herb liquor from Carls Bad. What
they’re really after is something rather different: it has dazzling green colour, sharp
smell and taste and Guillaume Apollinaire has written a whole poem about it. Yes: in
Czech pubs you can get totally legally absinth. This hallucinogenic drink was
employed not only by the French Damned Poets, but many a foreigner is doing it still
today. (The Czechs strangely enough drink it only very seldom.) So, when you see a
man first inhaling the aroma from the glass through a small rolled paper tube and
then kicks back the whole shot, you are not in some illicit opium den at the periphery,
but may be quite easily in any respectable Czech restaurant, even at lunch time.
Nobody quite understands how it’s possible, that a drink banned virtually everywhere
else (with the exception of Great Britain), is freely available in Czechia. They must
have, obviously, forgotten or overlooked something in Brussels. Unless, of course,
there is more behind this story than meets the eye…
In any case: whatever you drink, do not under any circumstances order coffee
to round off your visit to a restaurant or a pub, especially not the so-called Turkish
coffee. If you expect a piping hot, aromatic drink prepared in a special copper pot,
you won’t be just disappointed, you will be horrified. The Czech version of this
delicious traditional Turkish drink has absolutely nothing to do with the original and
it’s a great wonder why Ankara has not yet taken Prague to the International Tribunal
in Strasbourg because of it. The Czech recipe for the preparation of Turkish coffee
goes as follows: take a reasonably clean cup and a clean(ish) tea spoon, spoon out
the cheapest possible coarsely ground coffee and put it in the cup. Boil water in a
kettle and pour it over. That’s it! Now you probably think that we have left out
something, maybe a sieve, strainer, or even a machine to make this delicious drink.
No, nothing was forgotten. If you still are determined to drink Turkish coffee in the
scrutinized country, don’t say we didn’t warn you…
14
The Dishes
As far as food is concerned, listen first to the good news: cats, dogs and the
majority of rodents are not eaten here. And now the bad news: Czech cuisine is
based on an unbelievable amount of (if possible mainly animal) fat; the more of it the
more the dish is ethnically Czech, and therefore that much better. A good soup must
have specks of fat floating on it and the meat of the main dish must swim in
rendered-down fat. The Czech dishes are good, delicious, heavy and atrociously
unhealthy. To eat well in true Czech fashion means to stuff one´s belly so much that
it can´t také any more – and then to have a nap immediately afterwards.
Dumplings are the most popular side dish with the majority of typical Czech
dishes. Czech dumplings are flat, round slices made of leavened dough boiled in
water. Together with a rich sauce, fatty meat and boiled, greasy cabbage - they
represent not only the most favourite ethnic dish, but also a true calorie/cholesterol
bombshell.
To order a vegeterian meal was until recently, in most local restaurants,
impossible. The only exeption was the ever so popular „fry-up“ – a deep fried
breadcrumbed slice of Edam cheese, french fries and a dollop of sauce-tartare on
top. The situation has, however, recently improved a great deal. Lo and behold –
there are even truly excellent vegetarian restaurants and pizzerias all over the place
these days. Times they are changing…
Although a Mr W.Shakespeare placed the Czech Kingdom somewhere by the
sea in one of his plays, the Czech republic always was, still is and probably for the
foreseeable future will be an inland state. And therefore fish eating places are only
few and far between. This is being compensated by a massive consumption of
mushrooms. Wild mushrooms, freshly picked in the forests are prepared in dozens of
delicious ways not only as a side dish, but as a main meal too. Mushroom picking is
one of the most popular pastimes of the absolute majority of the population. What
can´t be cooked, fried or baked immediately – will be pickled and stored for later
consumption in the winter time by most Czech families.
Chapter 8
Leisure and Fun
Holiday = Croatia
Approximately a thousand kilometres – or about 600 miles if you prefer – to
the south lies the Adriatic Sea. By this sea lies Croatia. And inside Croatia every
summer more than a million of Czechs are to be found. Just as “Hoover” is a
synonym for vacuum cleaning, Croatia is for, most Czechs, synonymous with a
summer holiday: after all every tenth Czech comes here every summer, year by year.
What attracts them here is the breathtaking coastline and the fact, that the local
language, being a Slavic tongue, is fairly easy for them to understand. Not like the
uncomprehensible mambo-jambo spoken around other seaside nations… Less
attractive for them however are the sea urchins and the local prices.
For every Czech is basically a penny pincher. His forefathers, already some
one hundred and fifty years ago were saving in small local cooperatives, and their
15
descendants still carry on today. A good few times in history their savings were lost,
either by war or by fraud – but today’s Czech goes on. This saving streak culminates
especially in the summer time. A lot of Croatian hotel and restaurant keepers could
tell you a tale or two about it. A typical Czech holidaymaker carries with him in a
suitcase from his home, where the prices are a lot cheaper, piles of tinned food, loafs
of salami, packets of soups etc. To go to a restaurant to eat or to drink while abroad
is for an average Czech as much a sin as it would be to leave his car on a paid
parking space, when just a few miles inland there is enough free space for his
vehicle.
Our little Czech will not, however, invest his saved money in entrance fees of
museums, nor will he spend it in casinos or donate it to “Save the Doplphins”
charities. Neither will he buy himself some valuable souvenir. No sir! He will bring
home something much more wholesome, much more practical – like curtains, for
example. Often, however, after comparing the prices with prices at home, he quickly
puts his wallet back in his pocket. And he will do with his money the best possible
thing there is to do – he will save it! Small wonder, then, that a Croatian shopkeeper
would rather see a Russian step into his shop than a Czech.
Prize Competitions
To make a Big Money by honest toil is impossible – our Czech tried that last
Tuesday and – nothing! To steal Big Money is somewhat immoral, but mainly it´s
very dangerous. To inherit the fortune does not bring the right thrill, not to mention
the taxman and other relatives. The only adequate way to make a healthy bundle is
therefore to win it. To go to a casino is not the right option; he is not quite sure what
to do there and anyway nurses a little suspicion that it´s not all that transparent and
above board. So, if you discount the medieval treasure hunting, the only option left is
the lottery. The risk is manageable, prizes adequate and the danger of loosing all
winnings with a call girl at the bar is minimal in this case. There are many lotteries,
weekly draws and pools and they are all very popular. However, the prospect of
winning a really huge fortune has a slightly schizofrenic impact on the Czech
gambler, he is actually affraid of it. The Czechs being a truly egaletarian nation are
perfectly aware that one of the cardinal sins, which can never be forgiven, not even
by one’s closest friends, is successs and riches. So, he plays only modestly. And the
unspent money he puts away and – saves it!
Sex..? Shush!
The Czechs are actually a nation of prudes. They are not, however, fully
aware of this fact. The typical male speaks about sex only with his closest friends.
Among them he likes to boast and to sound worldly. Many, however, still don´t quite
understand that sex is not a 100 metre sprint and the winner is not the one who
crosses the finish line first. Apart from this, sex issues are not usually mentioned
much. That includes even parents and their offsprings; the parental reasoning being
that they are still far too young for it… This strategy frequently lasts until the moment
when their fifteen year old daughter comes home pregnant. The sex issue is like the
proverbial iceberg, with most of it hidden deep under the water.
16
This contrasts sharply with the multitudes of prostitutes queuing for attention
close to every border crossing from Germany and Austria. Czech girls have a
universal reputation for being the most beautiful in the world. In the bushes behind
the border check-point you won´t see any of them, however. These “dames” are
actually all Russian, Ukrainian, Albanian or Romanies. True – some of them may
have got as far as the semi-final some thirty five years ago in the beauty contest of
the Sebastopol region, but that was really a long time ago…
Sport! Especially a Passive One…
The Czechs are the best ice-hockey players in the world (example: Jaromir
Jagr) and only a born and bred Canadian with a Vancouver Canucks season ticket in
his pocket could possibly disagree. The Czechs are also the best soccer players (ref:
Pavel Nedved) and again, only a Brazilian, who grew on the beaches of Copa
Cabana could lay any doubt on this fact. Cezchs are also the best athletes (Roman
Dvorak), phenomenal tennis players (Martina Navratilova), and so on. So, every
Czech knows that he is a member of a nation of champions; and therefore, he
himself is also a champion, in a way…
Whenever there is any kind of championship in progress, the Czech fan will
join thousands of other similarly afflicted fans in front of a giant TV screen, usually on
a main square of the historical centre of Prague, and will jeer, scream and get drunk.
Also, along with all the others, he will rytmically hop up and down on the spot and
shout „Whoever’s not jumping isn‘t a Czech!“ and will probably try to make the
passing group of bewildered Japanese tourists do the same.
But God forbid if the Czech team looses! The jumping will still go on, only the
previously happy drunks turn ugly. Should this happen, the best advice for any
tourists in the victinity, is to quietly dissapear…
In order to pre-empt this and avoid instances of the home teams losing, the
Czechs have cunningly invented a number of specific sport disciplines, which are
played only by them and nowhere else in the world. They are, therefore, the
unchallenged world champions of these specific games; games like cycle-ball, legball (which is like volleyball but played with one’s legs), Czech hand-ball (with a
different size playing field and different rules), the list goes on...
There are so many disciplines in which the Czechs are dominant, that the
average individual only has time to be a spectator, he himself does not do any sport
whatsoever. He therefore does have enough time to sit long in to the night in front of
the TV watching the sport channel, equipped with an adequate supply of beer cans
and bags of crisps; he even opens the window now and then to let the fresh air in.
Chapter 17
Business
First the good news
17
Having divided the chapter about business into two parts, the first one will be
markedly shorter than the second. If we leave out Ivana Trump as an example, it
could then be so short as to contain just one single name. That name is Tom Bata.
Mr.Bata was a cobbler, who expanded from a poor Moravian village to the whole
world in the thirties despite the world-wide recession. And his firm still exists to this
day. True, some steps taken during this phenomenal period of expansion probably
belong in the next chapter, but why lose all illusions, especially when they are so few
and far between…
Then the bad
If the esteemed reader is unfortunate enough to have to conduct business with
this land, or if, for whatever reason he spends more than 24 hours here, he will
probably have by now heard the phrase “golden Czech hands”. This saying tries to
suggest that the Czechs are skillful and neat-handed. It will be uttered by a plumber
after he floods your bathroom, will eventually be used by a car mechanic who has
forgotten to adjust the brakes of your car and you, with only the steering wheel in
your hands, are trying to complain about his work; he won´t accept your claim: don´t
you know that the Czechs have hands made of gold?
God knows when this totally misleading locution came into being, and it was
undoubtedly strenghtened during the communist era, when all services were
nationalized and therefore ceased to function properly. Some individulas even
mastered a number of skills, and were able to repair a telly as well as the washing
mashine all by themselves.
Today it is no longer a problem to get a handyman, as long as you don´t mind
them turning up two days late, with no apology. Instead of laying down new lino, as
you ordered, they will fit a new windowframe; the agreed price will be doubled and
they will leave behind them an unbelievable mess. If you refuse to learn your lesson
and you carry on insisting on the lino – try this trick: order a lorryfull of coal. If you´re
lucky, the lino may arrive instead…
A verbal business agreement, where both parties agree the price, the quality
and so on – is usually, in civilized countries, crowned by a little shot of something
rather strong and a handshake. Almost the same happens here, certainly the first
half. The handshake, however, is not compulsory. If the unfortunate foreigner will
later on refer to this unwritten agreement, he will be laughed at: No written contract?
Of course not, he took it for granted that one’s word is a bond and is valid. In this
land, however, it does not work like that. The Czechs have a saying: Talk and water
flow easily, thus pointing to the unstability of both. Some have even tried to pioneer a
new theory: a good and kind promise won´t cause sorrow.
The productivity of labour in most Czech firms is not exactly dazzlingly high.
To tell the truth, very often it´s near the factor zero. Almost as if the Czechs are trying
to fulfill the words of the anonymous classic: I love work and labor – “I can easily
watch them for hours!”
In the specific Czech circumstances, where almost every family has at least one
weekend challet or cottage, usually somewhere in the countryside (mostly by
inheritance from grandparents) – one must understand that the workforce needs to
relax properly during the week, and gather enough energy for the weekend… A
female in a typical firm can actually rise quite high, even as high as the MD´s
secretary, if she has a short skirt and long enough legs.
18
In his homeland, the western tourist will be used to encountering neatly and
formally dressed employees in public offices and at company meetings. This habit is
also slowly being introduced here, at long last! For instance, long trousers instead of
shorts in the summer. Rumour has it that some Ministries even insist on a clean shirt
– and there is an as yet unconfirmed romour that there are a growing number of
workplaces where the employees are required to turn up sober every day.
It´s not all that important if an employee really masters the requirements of his
job or how much experience he has or even how good his references are. What is
really important, however, is whether or not he has an academic title! The Czechs are
obsessed with titles and insist on writing them after or before their names. And – in
true historic Russian fashion – there is an unbelievably huge number of titles. If
someone points out to you that he is an Engeneer, he is not trying to invite you to
attend a lecture about the problems of reinforced concrete tensions in water dam
constructions, but he is trying to tell you that you should address him as such! “My
name is Doctor Novak”, “My name is Engineer Novotny” etc – nobody finds anything
logically wrong with these formulations in this country. A title becomes a part of the
family name.
The earnings in some companies are even below the average and yet there is
still a fair amount of public demand to work there. The secret is that besides the
actual pay, there is a bonus on top: a chance to steal! The employer pays his people
a bit less, but he turns blind eye if they steal something from the production line now
and then. Everybody knows that everybody is involved and therefore nobody can spill
the beans. The workforce thus improves their renumeration and enjoys a warm
feeling knowing that they have outfoxed the boss. The boss, ofcourse, knows all
about it and he uses this to keep his employees in line. Should they ever demand a
rise, he will threaten them with a tighter regime and restricted chance to pilfer. This
specific phenomenon of industrial peace based on a symbiosis of economy and
criminality is something that lives on from the old communist times. In those days
there was a popular saying among the people: whoever does not steal, steals from
his own family! It´s a wonder that nobody has yet made a proper study of this and did
not get a Nobel Prize for it, maybe not the Economy prize but perhaps the Peace
one, for eternal social harmony…
If you really are actually doing business with Czechs, and if the nurse in the
asylum will let you read this booklet, let us introduce you to a few important true
translations of some Czech terms: The Invoice is payable in 14 days = you can start
with gentle reminders in about three months time. We shall look in to this problem =
yes, we may look at it, but that´s about all! We are working hard on your enquiry =
the last two weeks we´ve spent looking everywhere for the bloody papers! We shall
certainly reach a deal quite soon = we are busy dealing with your competitor behind
your back. The MD is abroad = he´s been arrested…
As you can see, there is only a tiny little step from dealings with Czechs to
international diplomacy.
Chapter 18
Conversations and Gestures
Insults
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The English language is supposedly the tongue with the most grandiose
vocabulary in the world. This is quite possibly true. However, the Czech language will
easily beat English hands down in one specific field: the insults.
There are languages, in which people insult each other by flowery complex
sentences, where it takes time, will and word-power to insult someone. The Czechs
have it much simpler: their langugae offers hundreds of one or two-word insults. In
one American movie about adolescents there was one particular term that was
frequently used: shit! In the Czech dubbing of this movie, this severe term was
translated into a total of twenty seven different equivalents. The Czechs swear
differently in the morning and differently in the evening. They have different insults in
store for their acquaintance and different for a total stranger. There are in existence
insults which sound affectionate and tender, and there are some absolutely
denunciating. You can insult anyone very simply by likening him to an animal. Any
animal. The only exemption established so far is a butcherbird and a pteropus. These
two feathery creatures have not, as of yet, featured in any Czech swearword or insult.
There are even some Czech towns (Prcice, Humpolec etc) where, when you verbally
“send” someone, you have just greatly insulted them. Unlike sending someone to
Coventry, by the way, this has nothing to do with trade unions. Interestingly enough,
the indigenous inhabitants of these places are, in spite of all this, quite happy and
contented with their abode and their lot in life.
The Czechs like to swear and they do it fairly well. The use of expletives
seldom leads to physical retribution. To question anyone’s intelligency is fairly safe
and possible by callinig him an idiot, cretin, imbecile, moron, prick…
If, however, you say in a quiet and collected voice something like: “It seems to
me, that you are really silly!” you can almost count on recieveing a smack and a kick
in your behind. No Czech will passively stand such an insult.
Compliments
Domineering “he-men” like to argue that when a woman says no, she actually
means yes. The Czechs harbour in their behaviour a smilar contradiction – mutual
affection can be expressed by juicy insults. It starts already in the creche. A little boy
expresses his affection for a particular little girl by breaking-off the arm of her
favourite doll. She equally affectionately responds by whacking him with a spade. “Oh
look how well they get on with each other…”comment the childminders with dew in
their eyes. The Czechs are not usually so infantile in adulthood, but some of their
mating methods look similar. They applly them and then wonder: “where did I go
wrong?”, when it doesn´t work as expected.
If you are a dame and if you don´t want to be picked-up, refuse all invitations
indoors to see the butterfly or stamp collection. It is euphemism for depraved sex
orgies – and even after the eventual satisfactory completion of these acts, you would
be demanding to see these collections in vain. The individual concerned never had
any. It does not have to be just collections, it could be almost anything: a country
walk or a visit to a local horse abattoir. In short, the Czechs are unable to express
their interest in someone directly. It is for this reason that they invent all sorts of
complicated and tedious euphemisms.
To proclaim about someone else that you respect and revere him or even that
you actually like him – is socially totally unacceptable. You will discredit not only him,
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but yourself too. The Czechs, in general, express their positive feelings only very
seldom. With the negative ones, however, they have no problem at all. This could
easily lead to the mistaken conclusion that Czechs do not have any feelings at all.
They have. They only express them differently.
You can talk with a Czech about anything, but always do so carefuly. With
political or sporting subjects it is prudent to establish first, by diplomatically innocent
questions, the inclination of your counterpart, and pretend that you share them.
Sometimes even such an innocent subject as weather could be a very controversial
issue. A typical Czech is always prepared to argue, utterly without restraint, loudly
and over just about anything. The less he actually understands the matter, the better.
In discussions then, the winner is not the one who used the best arguments, but the
one that talked and shouted the longest.
Gestures and Greetings
The Czechs, by and large - do not gesticulate. When meeting a lady, he
sometimes may try to peck her on cheek. More freequently than kissing, Czechs like
to shake hands. If someone grabs your hand and squeezes it painfully, don´t worry,
you are not just about to be mugged. No, it just means that your counterpart is
pleased to see you. The harder the squeeze and the longer the shake, the more
affectionate it is.
While a hand shake is the only visible and, by social conventions, the only
acceptable form of greeting, it still is very cool. It signals a certain formality. The best
and closest friends never shake hands. It is far too academic and stuffy. The best
friends would usually only mumble some sort of greeting and if they still feel that
physical contact is desirable, it would usually be a hard but friendly smack on the
shoulder or a kick to the ankle. They are so close that they can afford to greet
eachother in such a manner, is the signal they emitting to the world. A rather
endearing custom, eh?
The degree of inter-personal proximity is also expressed by using either the
formal surname style of addressing someone, or the matier, colloquial first name
manner. The latter is strictly reserved only for close pals. You have to be acquinted
for some considerable time and then still have to be invited to change from the formal
method. The formal greeting is “Dobry den” (meaning “Good day”). The informal
greeting is “Ahoy!” If you think, that most Czechs are seamen, you are wrong.
Czechs live in a hopelessely landlocked country. This nautical expression was
universally adopted in Czechia as an informal greeting as long ago as the end of the
First World War, and nobody knows how or why. One theory is that Czechs are thus
rather romantically compensating for the absence of the sea.
And finally, a word of warning: never, under any circumstances, embrace each
other, especially not if you are of the same gender, in public. The Czechs are not
prepared for it and it may signal to them confusing sexual signals. Embraces are
strictly reserved for instances like funerals and the gravest life or death situations.
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Chapter 19
The language and ideas
Almost as complicated as Chinese or “It´s all Czech to me!”
The Czech language is a very old and very intensely, scientifically honed
tongue. Its alphabet has forty two letters, and foreigners, with tongue firmly in cheek,
often compare it to Chinese. Since most of the time in its historic past the Czech
lands were under German rule, the langugae only just barely survived among the
peasants in remote villages in the countryside. It was only towards the end of the 19 th
century that some enlightened patriots started to resurrect it and tried to give it an
order, style, vocabulary and system. Many words had to be artificially created, the
gramma invented and pronunciation established.
The end product, a result of decades of hard work by a small army of patriotic
scientists, proffessors, poets and literates – is the langugage as it´s spoken in the
Czech lands today. As one would expect from these classic intellectuals, the
language thus created is so complicated and involved, that it takes a lifetime to learn
it properly even for many born and bred Czechs. Among many other traps, it has for
example seven grammatical cases (compare: English has one, German and Greek
both have four). The classic reference to Greek lingo is obviously not adequate
enough. It should have been changed to “It´s all Czech to me!” a long time ago.
To be fair, there are few more complicated lingos in Europe: take the
Hungarians or the Finns for example! Still flabbergasted about the seven cases?
Listen to this: the Finnish have fourteen! And that is beyond any comprehension even
for the Czechs!
One word
The above mentioned Greek, plus Latin and especially the English language
have given mankind a lot of cosmopolitan terms (from Abstinency to Web). This, to
the average Czech, is rather extravagant; nations should jealously guard its words
and keep them, as much as posible, to themselves.
This is not making excuses, oh no! If the Czechs really wanted to, they could
for sure just as easily join the rank and file and flood the international language babel
with their own contributions. Just to prove the point, they have done it just once: they
gave the world the word “ROBOT”. An artificial word, created some eighty years ago
by the Czech dramatist Karel Capek, who wanted to describe a humanoid machine.
Yes, only if the Czechs really wanted… But lucky for the universe, they do not.
One letter
The 14th century Holy Roman Emperor and Bohemian King Charles the fourth,
had an impressive collection of royal insignia jewels made, including the crown. The
crown was dedicated strictly and only for the heads of the lawful rulers of the
Bohemian lands. An old legend says, that he who should abuse the crown, will die a
horrible death. The last time in history that this happened, it was Adolf Hitler who did
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it; and look what happened to him eventually… Since then they have been guarded
as THE national jewels in Carlstein castle near Prague and the nation is adequately
proud of it.
However, the real “jewel” which makes the average Czech inflate with pride is
not an item made of gold and precious stones, this treasure lies more in the linquistic
area. The Czech language gave the world a vowel described as an “r” with a hooklet
or a wedge above itself – ř (Ř). The point, the jist, of it is, that we are talking about a
vowel that is to all intents and purposes practically unpronouncable. Even many born
and bred Czechs have difficulties with that, even some famous ones – like the ex
president and writer Vaclav Havel.
Its onomatopoeic sound lies somewhere between ‘r’, ‘sh’ and ‘z’ whereas the
closest to it is the sound of a circular saw being just switched off. Unfortunately, this
vowel occurs very frequently in the language, to the great sorrow of many Czech
school kids and many of those foreigners who have foolishly decided to learn this
tongue.
To sum it all up: the Czechs gave the World one invention (the so-called
ruchadlo where nobody knows what it is for); one writer (Franz Kafka, who wasn´t a
Czech); one national hero (The Good Old Soldier Svejk who never existed), one
artificial word (robot) and one unpronouncable letter („Ř“).
The Czechs therefore are the number ONE in the world. Cheers and bottoms
up!
Chapter 4
Attitudes and values
Don’t spit into the wind
“Freedom or Death!!” has for decades been the cry of the bearded Cuban
revolutionaries. The Czechs, however, don’t really share these sentiments. They
don’t need freedom to lead an easy life. The human race didn’t get to where it is
today through the invention of the wheel or by painting on the walls of their caves.
No, the key to the success of the human race has been its ability to adapt to the
climate and circumstances, basically putting up with it. This ability to adjust and adapt
has been elevated to an art form by the Czechs.
During the course of the Middle Ages, the Czechs started off as obedient
Catholics, then they were fiery Protestants and finally they ended up devoutly
Catholic again; all this depended solely on who was in charge at any given moment.
They started the 20th century as noble democrats, followed by a spell of being
dedicated Communists only to wind up being democrats again. These
metamorphoses didn’t take generations of social evolution; many Czechs have lived
through all these changes in a single lifetime. But before you go wagging your finger
at this apparent lack of any true convictions or principles, consider the butterfly: from
catterpillar, through chrysalis to a beautiful winged creature, all in one lifetime;
similarly the Czechs glide quitely and contentedly through life. Some Czechs have
yet another thing in common with butterflies, no backbone.
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Atheism
The leaders of Communist Albania claimed that their nation was the world’s first truly
Atheist state, having overthrown all the myths and illusions of religion. However,
after the demise of Communism this was shown to be false; hordes of Greek
Orthodox Catholics and Muslims popped their bearded heads out of the woodwork.
Who stole the title of “the world’s most atheist state”? Who else but the Czechs;
undoubtedly the world’s least religious nation. Not that there aren’t any believers
amongst them, but they are few and far between. The majority of the population view
the faithful with a hint of suspicion and wonder if it wouldn’t be better to lock them up
in an asylum; indeed they wonder why medical science has thus far been unable to
come up with a pill to cure this affliction.
This is not to say, however, that you cannot engage a Czech in a conversation
about religion, merely that he will, in a softly patronising tone of voice, try to explain
that religion in the 21st century is an absolute anachronism; his grandfather would
probably have said the same in the 19th century too. The Czech will discredit the
Christian God by pointing to the witch hunts of the Middle Ages; the Muslim Allah, by
pointing to the activities of Islamic extremists; and the Jewish Jaweh will similarly be
dispatched by pointing out the well documented fact that Jews require, for their
dubious rituals, the blood of Christian virgins. To question how he could possibly
make such claims when there are virtually no Jews around him is pointless; the
fervant nonbeliever will, with an unblinking eye, tell you that the Jews all left the
country of their own free will due to a lack of Christians, not to mention virgins.
Chapter 5
Behaviour
How the Czechs behave towards their children
Much like the rest of Europe, the Czech Republic has a negative birthrate. The
average Czech woman will give birth to 1.3 children in her lifetime. This, naturally, is
not even enough to maintain the current population. The few Czech children that are
born, are forever mummy’s little darlings. Indeed, in the eyes of his or her parents, a
Czech remains a child regardless of how old he or she really is. A Czech child will be
supported financially by his parents until well into his fifties. In return, the parents
have complete control over his life. This lack of indepenence is being utilised by the
school system, which essentially requires the child to absorb huge amounts of largely
irrelevant information, without requiring the child to have any real understanding of it.
After several gruelling years of schooling the child comes full circle: he still knows
absolutely nothing. What this system of education will have achieved however, is to
replace simple childish ignorance, with a fully qualified sense of confusion about the
world. The child is thus totally inequipped to deal with the world, which fulfills the aim
of rearing genration after generation of fully dependant offspring.
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How the Czechs behave towards their parents
All Czech children (young and old) regard their parents as their greatest enemies, the
enemies of the entire universe even. They wonder to themselves: “How could
someone so intelligent and witty as myself be born to such complete imbeciles?” The
conclusion they invariably reach is that there must have been some terrible mistake
at the hospital and they were swapped at birth. The children growing up in the Czech
Republic today will, in the future, be regarded not so much as the ‘lost generation’ but
as the ‘swapped generation’. In spite of this, Czechs continue to borrow money from
their (clearly not biological) parents, which as a matter of principle is never repaid,
and on top of this they expect to inherit their non-parents’ house as soon as they
pack their bags and shuffle off to the country cottage for good.
The reader will now have sufficient understanding of inter-generational
relationships in the Czech Republic to be able to answer the following question:
“Where do elderly people in the Czech Republic spend their twilight years?”
a) In the family home surrounded by loving children and adoring grandchildren.
b) In the old people’s home in a shared room.
or c) Alone in a small, damp and cold room waiting for the phone to ring.
Answer: This is a trick question, Czech parents aren’t stupid enough to bother waiting
by the phone; they know it won’t ever ring.
How Czechs behave towards animals (and the elderly)
If it was possible to do so, the average Czech would rather offer his seat on the tram
to his dog, cat or parrot than to an elderly person. Pets, unlike the elderly, are
regarded as full members of the family. This contrasts with the Czech attitude to
farm animals: once they’ve ceased to be useful, they almost all end up served with
dumplings in gulaš.
How the Czechs behave towards minorities
It is an unfortunate fact that Czechs generally treat ethnic minorities worse than they
do farm animals, ask a Czech person to explain this and he’ll say that horses are
better at pulling carts and cows taste better.
Czechs behind the steering wheel
The Czech Republic is, as we know a small country; if you put your mind to it, you
can drive from north to south across the country in two hours and from east to west in
four. A journey of 50km is regarded therefore as a long haul drive which warrants a
great deal of preparation. The Czechs do not therefore have any real concept of a
real long distance drive (apart perhaps from au pairs, who regularly take the coach
from Prague to London). Czech drivers refuse to take breaks from driving and they
combat fatigue by long mobile phone conversations with their mates at the
destination. The phone is, incidentally, held in the left hand, a cigarette in the right,
which means steering is done by the forearms and one’s knees are used to change
gears.
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Chapter 7
National Obsessions
Cottages
Andre Breton dreamed that one day Surrealism would become part of every day
reality. Had he ever visited those regions of the Czech countryside littered with small
cottages, he would have seen his dream realised: the surreal made real.
Almost every Czech person has their own weekend cottage. The use of the
term “cottage” here should not conjour up images off quaint Alpine chalets in
Switzerland, every Czech cottage is a unique creation, an absolute original, which
describes and is moulded by the personality of its inhabitants (and sometimes vice
versa). Imagine Tolkien’s Hobbiton and you’re about halfway there. Upon entering a
typical Czech cottage, your first impression is likely to be that it is just about to fall
down, you’d be mistaken. What you will have failed to take into account is the steel
wire tied to the nearest tree, holding the roof on.
To truly understand Czech popular architecture, do not only look for it in the
historic Medieval town centres, but follow the swarms of skodas out of the cities on
Friday afternoon and go to the little hamlets of weekend cottages in the forest. Every
weekend, millions of Czechs flock to the countryside to potter about in their cottages,
mow the lawns and perhaps build a small corrugated iron outhouse or nail a few
more sets of antlers to the wall. After a weekend of such fevered activity they return
to the cities to relax, sit back and take it easy at their workplace, until next Friday.
The phenomenon of the Czech country cottage marries together two great
national obsessions: on the one hand the romantic yearning for the countryside, for
the mountains and the forests, on the other, the basic instinct for Czech males to nail
things together – the Czech obsession with DIY.
Gardening
Not even one’s garden is safe from the attentions of a Czech’s hands. For a Czech,
to get one’s hands dirty and to till the soil, or indeed the extermination of a mole,
brings a sense of delight to the soul, comparable only to the first orgasm or the first
successful tax-dodge of the financial year.
The Czechs have made some great discoveries and contributions to the world
of horticulture. Old car tyres, painted and used as makeshift plant pots are an
essential in any Czech garden. Ladders have been found to be unneccessary by
Czech gardeners; if a tree obstructs your view, simply chop off the tree as high as
you can reach. Furthermore, no garden can be complete without some fruit or veg
growing in it, a row of carrots are a particularly decorative choice. It has been
discovered by generations of Czech gardeners that rather than eating any produce
whilst fresh, it is vastly preferable to boil, cook down, pickle or otherwise preserve it;
this can usefully be offloaded on any visitors or distant relatives.
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Collecting
Whatever can’t be placed in or around one’s cottage, planted in the garden, pickled
or distilled, can only have one other use to a Czech: to be collected. Collecting
things, anything, is another great Czech obsession. Virtually anything can be
collected and swapped, for example a second division hockey puck is currently worth
seventeen stamps with a picture of a koala bear on it. Just beware the gentleman
who claims to collect passports, and under no circumstances swap yours for
anything.
Tramping
This guide for Xenophobes naturally makes great use of hyperbole; it is unfortunate
therefore that the following section will be rejected by many readers as a total
fabrication. It is not, this really goes on in the Czech Republic every weekend.
The origins of this unusual passtime lies in the depression of the 1920s; young
people, disillusioned with reality, took to wearing cowboy hats with fox’s tails on them
and acting out a romantic vision of the Wild West in the forests outside the cities.
Like minded Czechs soon found eachother: one comrade took a guitar, a second one
a banjo and the third his sister and in no time the first tramp camp or osada (with
such names as “The Lost Hope” and “Arizona”) was formed. To this day, every
Friday after work, hundreds of Czech people don their cowboy hats and boots
(regardless of the weather) and head to the nearest forest. There they sit around
campfires, cooking kabanos sausages on the flames, singing hopelessly sentimental
songs all weekend.
The typical tramp of today is about 65 years old, weighs roughly 18 stone, can
still only play three chords on his guitar and has never been further west than Pilsen.
Don’t whatever you do, tell him that today there are skyscrapers, motorways and a
space centre in Texas, it would destroy his fantasy, and he wouldn’t believe you
anyway.
Hiking
Czechs with similar inclinations as the tramps, but without the means to buy their own
little cabins in the woods, turn their attentions to hiking around the Czech countryside
instead. Take the above portrait of your typical tramp and just substitute a cowboy
hat with a raincoat, the guitar with a compass and take away six stone and there you
have your typical Czech hiker.
Politics
If levels of obsession were measured in blood pressure, then politics would definitely
rank as the Czech’s number one national obsession. Everyone in the Czech
Republic knows enough about politics as to be absolutely certain that they would
make a better president or prime minister than the current ones. In some countries
people get their thrills from jumping off a bridge with a rubber band tied to their feet.
In the Czech Republic people get the same effects from heated political arguments.
The most beautiful thing about it is, that without any consideration of the political
alleigence, everyone agrees about one thing: that it’s all totally wrong. And when
else can a Czech be more content than when he is totally pissed off ( wound up)?!
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