Queuing

I was waiting for a bus a fortnight ago in Cesky Krumlov. There was quite a crowd of people at the bus stop, but none of them were queuing. That includes me - a Brit! We all milled around chatting, I and a number of others sat on a bench. The bus appeared and still no queue materialised, instead everyone moved towards the bus door and formed a disordered huddle. It was a very polite huddle, but a huddle nonetheless. The only friction arose when some schoolchildren pushed in front of an elderly lady, but they soon were put in their place by a stern word.

Then a few days ago I waited for a bus in Cheltenham. Of course there was a queue. There would have been a queue, regardless of how many people were waiting. In fact the Brits will form a queue of one - I do. There's an empty bus stop, what do I do? I stand next to the sign looking in the direction of the bus. Arrivals at the bus stop then form a queue behind me. If anyone pushes into the queue they are subjected to stares and even the muttered comment "Some people have no manners, really!" But they are unlikely to be challenged.

Such queuing behaviour is relatively easy to read for non-Brits, what is more difficult is the virtual queue. What do I mean by that? Well, a good example is in a pub. In my youth I worked as a barmaid and so had an opportunity to observe it closely. You do not form a queue when you want to buy a beer, but there is a virtual queue. The barman serves people in the order in which they arrived at the bar. To register your presence with the barman you catch his eye, often with a jerk of the head backwards. He will nod to acknowledge you and then you wait your turn. This can be problematic in a very crowded bar, but as a barmaid I soon learned that the skill of remembering the order of the virtual queue is essential.

Once a snooty customer said to me ""When are you going to serve me, I'm an undergraduate of Oxford University?" There was a stunned silence in the bar, fellow students tried to hide and the locals clenched their teeth. Every rule of English behaviour had been broken.

In such a circumstance the barmaid is entitled to lose her British reserve. "And I'm a graduate," I replied, "And you'll bloody well wait your turn."  General cheers. 

I've heard the argument that the British queuing habit is due to rationing. But I think that is complete tosh. Rationing was over 50 years ago and still we are doing it. Plus I rather suspect that under the Nazis and then under the Communists the Czech too would have been used to queuing, indeed Czech bureaucracy still requires it. They just don't do it all the time.

Comparisons

Above is a notice advertising the museum in Jindrichuv Hradec. Come and see “the biggest mechanical creche in the world.”*

One of the things that has struck us as we wander around the Czech Republic is this obsession with comparisons. “Cesky Krumlov is the second largest castle complex in the Czech Republic”, “Jindrichuv Hradec Castle is the second largest castle in South Bohemia” (after Krumlov of course), Vyssi Brod Abbey has the “third largest library in the Czech Republic” and so on. Once you start looking, you'll see such comparisons all over the place. It's not something we see very much in England. Why is that?

A friend once said to me that it was probably to do with the Czechs needing to assert themselves and their legacy in the face of wider apathy, which may be true to some extent, whereas we have a confidence born of several centuries of being a major world player. But I suspect it is more to do with our English sensibilities. After all the Czechs are just promoting what they have to offer. The Hungarian emigre and humourist George Mikes wrote that “All advertisements... are utterly and hopelessly unEnglish. They are too outspoken, too definite, too boastful.” My wincing at Czech claims is therefore my problem, not theirs.

* BTW By creche they mean a carved nativity scene. Not only do you get the stable, but a huge automated tableau of life in the surrounding countryside and towns, which takes up three sides of a room. Some guy spent a lifetime making this - you can imagine what his wife had to say on the subject!

Czech Body Language

My husband has always been embarrassed by the way I watch strangers. I can't help myself, I love people watching. "Stop eavesdropping," he will say. "Stop staring!" Here in the Czech Republic I can't eavesdrop, other than to the tone of voice, but I can still watch. And one of the advantages of not speaking Czech is that I find myself watching body language more closely. And very revealing it is too.

I was doing just that recently on our local train to Cesky Krumlov from Volary. The train wends its way through the Sumava National Park on its way to our local station at Horice na Sumave. As it was the weekend and late afternoon, the train was full of people who were on their way back from a daytrip to the Sumava. The luggage racks were filled with skis and skipoles, thick jackets hung steaming from hooks and the passengers were dosing themselves on slivovice (home-brewed plum spirit) and vodka. In true Czech hospitality even I was offered the opportunity to partake of the clear but potent liquid, but I declined, wanting all my wits and balance to walk on the icy road home.

I soon came to the conclusion that our carriage was filled by one large party of skiers, such was the camaraderie in the carriage. In one corner a group was singing popular Czech songs. In the seats alongside mine an animated discussion was taking place, punctuated with bouts of silence as the bottle was passed round. Further down the carriage a man was holding forth to a woman and another man sat opposite him. I focussed on him, his face was hugely expressive - now solemn, now urgent, now breaking into a laugh. And, as if that was not enough, there were his hand gestures or should I say arm gestures as neither stayed still for a minute all through the journey.

In the UK I am very aware that I use hand gestures more than most other Brits, so much so that it was commented on when I did media training for my work. But here I would be considered undemonstrative. The Czechs are so much more expressive than the Brits. They are more emotional too. They wear their emotions on the faces and in their gestures. It makes for great people watching. But it can be deceiving - when we got to Cesky Krumlov the "great friends" all went their separate ways, some getting off, some staying on the train. I daresay that if I had partaken of the slivovice I too would have been a "great friend."

Tourist watching

I have been meaning to blog about the tourists in Cesky Krumlov for months, but somehow never got round to it, until now. Cesky Krumlov is great place to partake in the sport of tourist watching, even though we are now at the very end of the season. Like most UNESCO world heritage sites Krumlov is a honeypot for visitors from all five continents. And when not being annoyed by them, as they dawdle and block my way or take up all the seats in the restaurants, I sometimes amuse myself trying to work out the nationalities before I hear the language. It may sound strange but the nationality that regularly floors me is my own – the British, but before I get on to that, let us take a seat on a bench on the Town Square and watch the comings and goings for a while.

First into the square are the Japanese – they are usually the first. They normally appear in groups following some woman holding an umbrella above her head, she may even have a microphone around her neck. The Japs are dressed conformly in leasurewear – slacks and light raincoat, trainers for walking, sun visor or cap. some may even wear a surgical mask over their mouths. I am not clear whether this is because they have a cold and wish in their famous politeness not to pass it on, or whether they fear those nasty Czech germs. They will eat together in their group too, one minute you will be alone in a restaurant wondering why the waiter put you in the worst seat in the house, when suddenly they arrive and take up all the tables. The food will be the same for each of them (no doubt some deal has taken place between the restaurateur and their guide) – a set meal which does not require them to order from the menu.

An Asian couple arrive – Japanese or Korean I wonder – they are not part of the group. He sits down and waits as his wife disappears. From time to time she will reappear with something in a bag, which she will deposit with him. This goes on for over an hour, before they gather together the shopping and leave. During this time the square has seen a loud guided tour of Italians, the guide for which needs her microphone as they are chatting to each other as she talks. Next came three young hispanics, from their tshirts we see that they are Brazilians, who walked across the centre of the square several times before they too disappear. Suddenly my interest is taken by a middle-aged couple who march in briskly holding those sprung hikers sticks, as if climbing the north face of Cesky Krumlov Town Square. Germans or Austrians I think.


Opposite me on another bench a lone young woman is reading in the warm Autumn sunshine. An American backpacker on a solo trip around Europe, taking in the culture – next stop Vienna perhaps. There are plenty of backpackers in Cesky Krumlov, and you will even find a few in the Winter, mostly they come from the US or the Antipodes. They cluster in hostel cafes and bars and exchange horror stories of their experiences – of being ripped off by London taxi-drivers, of expensive (for them) crappy hotels, of getting lost in foreign cities, of bugs that bite in the night. This jaunt is part of their modern initiation ceremony into adulthood, before they settle down to university or a job.


A couple walk past, they are tall and expensively dressed in leather jackets. There is something about them that says new Russian elite to me. And finally another party enters the Square. They are not dressed in any sort of uniform, nor are they clearly of one physical type. They listen to the guide whilst looking around the Square. They could be Dutch or a mixed party who have come on a daytrip from Prague. On the other hand they could quite possibly be Brits.

Follow up on Centre of Europe 1 (and Effortless Superiority)

Following on from my post on the Czech's pride at being at the centre of Europe, I got an email from a Czech friend: “I am so chuffed to read this. You are right, we DO desperately care. Perhaps we have a chip on our shoulder, missing the British 'effortless superiority'. Well, I suppose we always had to defend our place against (or whilst) being absorbed into imperial blocks. But I am glad you brought it to attention. As a Brit would say, you are a brick, old girl.” Such a comment merits a number of responses, well at least two.

Let us start with British effortless superiority. This is not the first time my friend has talked about this British attribute. I have to say I have never been entirely sure about it, but clearly it has some validity. Of course there is all that stuff about the Empire, and the effortless superiority that the imperialists had beaten into them at boarding school. But I don't think that is what my friend is talking about; she talks about it as if it is current, and as if it is broader than the privileged few. I certainly don't think I feel superior to anyone, unless this attribute is so inbuilt I am unaware of it.

However there was at least one occasion when my Czech friend saw it in me and commented on it. About fifteen years ago my friend was tasked by a Czech magazine to write an article on the proposed transfer of Hong Kong to China. She complained to me that she was having problems getting enough information and comment for the piece. “Why don't you ring the Foreign Office?” I suggested. Oh she couldn't possibly do that! “Why not?” I said, “I can't possibly.” “Oh, all right I'll do it, tell me what you want to know.” And so I found myself interviewing a civil servant about Hong Kong. He very rapidly started to annoy me, trying to avoid my questions, whilst talking down to me. I, in response, firmly made it clear that he was going to answer my questions. By the end of the phone call I had got the information I wanted and he was offering to send me more.

I put the phone down and looked up at my friend. Her look was one of shock - “How could you do that?” “What?” “Talk to a civil servant like that?” “He was coming it, I just put him in his place. Anyway, who does he think he is?” “But a civil servant...” “Exactly a public servant, I pay his wages, he's there to serve us. Besides he probably went to the same university as me, I learned all the same tricks as him.” It was at this point that I first heard my friend refer to effortless superiority.

Okay, so let us analyse the actors in this little scene. First there is my Czech friend, who despite living most of her adult life in the UK and being highly intelligent and articulate was still sufficiently Czech that she had problems with dealing with authority. My observation as a community development professional is that power dynamics are set in childhood and my friend grew up at a time when “Father” Stalin stared down from every Czech schoolroom wall. Then there is our civil servant friend, whose attempt at effortless superiority failed so dismally, indeed only provoked me. Presumably it normally worked for him. And finally there is yours sincerely. Was it, as I suggested, my three years at Oxford? Not entirely. Certainly it gave me some of the tools for the job, allowed me to counter his blocking tactics, but looking back what I most remember is being annoyed. "Who did he think was? " I suspect that was the more British reaction. Maybe it only becomes effortless superiority when combined with a certain type of British education.

Centre of Europe 2

One of the things that strikes me here in South Bohemia is how differently one feels about going abroad. Here it is about 30 minutes' drive to Austria and Germany. Local people go shopping in Linz and the Austrians return the favour. This must make all sorts of differences to how one feels about one's own and other countries. Here we sit in the middle of Europe as I said, joined on every side to larger and often more powerful countries. It makes the perfect base to explore Europe from, but in order to do that one has to go through someone else's country, and that country will be another European country.

How very different to being British. It is not surprising that the Brits cannot see why the Czechs are so obsessed with being central Europeans and so commit the gaff I referred to in my previous post. We Brits are definitely not at the centre of Europe and are proudly geographically and mentally independent of the continent. Indeed our attitude towards Europe is extremely ambiguous at best. How different is our attitude to our border – in the UK if we want to go abroad we must cross the sea. When I stand on a British beach looking out, I am always aware that the world's doorstep lies lapping at my feet. Our boundary extends to every continent in the world; we need no permission to cross our neighbour's land first. The Czechs are obsessed with the embrace of the mysterious forest, a place of tales, fears and treasures, the Brits by the the expansive sea, dangerous, full of beauty and endless opportunity.

Ex-pat blog

My parents aren't internet savvie and would never read this blog if it required them to go online. This is a shame because it looks as though their age and heath will prevent them from ever visiting my Czech home and seeing through their own eyes this lovely country. And so at Christmas I printed out the blog, bound it and gave it to them as a present. Every month they get an update with the latest posts. They have really enjoyed these vicarious journeys to the Czech Republic. And the readership does not stop there, the blog has been lent to various friends.

The feedback so far has been universally positive, not that my parents' friends would criticise I'm sure. One comment that has been made several times – is how much the love I have for this place and the Czechs comes through the blog. I'm glad, that was to some extent my intention. Not that love is blind, I certainly can see the flaws in my second homeland but I hope that even in this I do not judge too harshly.

I really have problems with those travel books and blogs, which treat the locals as something to laugh at or which find fault. I see it sometimes in fellow British ex-pats or visitors, complaining that you can't get marmite in the shops or criticising Czech customer service, making generalisations about things of which they have only limited experience or understanding. We are guests here in another people's country and should behave as such. It betrays a superiority based on ignorance and insularity, which I fear the British are very good at. But I do not doubt that I too am guilty of this on occasion, as I fumble my way towards an understanding of the Czechs (and perhaps of my own nation). I therefore ask those Czechs who read this blog to forgive me when I get it wrong. I rely on your ability to laugh at yourselves, a characteristic which our two nations share.

The Remnants of Autumn

A few days ago we had a severe frost. The night had been clear following a series of dull cloudy days and in the morning the sky was completely blue. We have already had the first snow of Winter – in October – finishing off the mushroom harvest. But the larches and silver birches have retained their autumnal colour - a gold which in the sunshine almost glisters against the dark green of the firs. The frost did some damage and with each slight breath of wind more leaves fell. I love this time of year – well I love all the seasons here. But it was on a similar November day that we first moved into the house or rather the former owners moved out and so this time of year has a special place in my heart.

Aware that there will not be many days like this left before Winter truly sets in and the snow comes and covers all, I took my coat and walked up into the woods above the house. I was alone, everything was silent apart from the occasional falling leaf and the crack of twigs under my feet. On this late Autumn day you could see the wood's framework more clearly, the trees were not obscured by leaves, the rocks were clear of undergrowth. There were still a few mushrooms to be seen – the fly agaric of the fairytales, false chanterelles and even some soggy boletes.

I walked my usual mushroom collecting route, bringing me to the top of the hill and a point overlooking a pool surrounded by cliffs. It is an old quarry working but now is overgrown with birch and other trees, the rocks dropped away at my feet into the slate-grey waters. I think each time I come here, that I should throw an offering into the pool, something from my basket of mushrooms. I would hurl it as far as it would go and watch it bounce over the rocks and into the depths. An offering to the gods and spirits of the waters. As the Czechs will never tire of telling you, we (the Brits and the Czechs) are both nations that are descended from the Celts, and a sacrifice to the water – that dark entrance to the Celtic underworld - would seem appropriate.