Ahoj! Is smiling in public a good thing, or a bad thing in CZ.? Your opinions matter to me. Dekuji, Na shledanou ! 8) 8)
lol..I smiled all the time there, just watch out for the homeless because when you smile at them, they think you want to be their "best" friend.
There are not many people who smile alot in Czech Republic, like there is in Canada. If you smile alot, people will know you are foreign.
I agree . I have noticed in a few other posts people talk about this. Do Czechs walk around frowning or just with a straight nuetral expression? Americans are expected to walk around smiling like clueless morons.
Our "neutral expression" may seem like frowning , but at least it is honest. Just kiding. What´s better , smiling morons or frowning morons ? It´s just matter of perspective.
Smiling never hurt anyone. It doesn't matter what part of the world you are in, a smile is always better than a frown. I have found Czech people may not smile first, but when you give them one of your smiles, they usually respond back warmly. It breaks the "ice" in any communication. And in the rare case that they don't, it is their loss, not yours. Don't forget that many Czechs had to put up with years of foreign invaders telling them what they could and could not do. Maybe they feel that they didnt have much to smile about? My husband has just reminded me that it is common for central europeans not to smile much (he is Czech). But, on the other hand his mother smiles all the time :?[/quote]
I must say that it is true that Czechs do not smile as much as people from English-speaking countries do. But this only applies in the public domain: when meeting strangers, when talking to staff in shops, when walking down the street, and so on. We tend to approach strangers with a reserved attitude. We're quite nice when you get to know us better, though ;-)
[/quote] Hi Yes you are absolutely right. If you smile at someone first, that breaks the ice. Czechs do not smile because of they are still thoughtful. We thought about our problems, our family, our garden and insect invaders and etc. If you have good temper let's do smile around and most of people will share smiles to you back ! And finally tip for "how to make Czechs smiling?" - let's add some unusual ringing tone into your mobile phone and phone in public transport I am sure that if you will carefully look around you, you will see "hidden" smiles everywhere
Well, those hidden smiles are not expression of special happiness but rather amusement over what a tasteless melody the others can choose (well... that is the reason why I may be found smiling a little bit :twisted: )
When I was in Czech, I've seen a lot Czech smiles around me. , Maybe the cause was I looked as a clown, so I 'd had got some wonderful smiles from the Czech girls, who were born to smile... I don't think Czech people don't smile a lot, at least in my opinion. And in the bars, they don't smile at all, they laugh too loud :lol: :lol:
I am Czech and my husband is American and he from his numerous observation while walking around Prague/CZ asked me one day;"Why do the Czechs always look so grumpy??" And I do have to agree, they do look grumpy...most of them...Especially the 50year old and up. I as a fellow Czech "gave in" and not smile while in public while living there, because I didn't want any unwellcomed attention (I guess it's different if you are a girl). BUT I did follow more of a "neutral look" than the grumpy look...so I guess that's an improvement??? Tanja www.czechmatediary.com
When I asked my husband about this, he said it stems from communism (of course, everything stems from communism :? ). He said, during communism, people didn't have a lot and didn't have a lot to be happy about. If you walked around smiling, then you were happy. If you were happy, you either had a reason to be happy; i.e. you were a communist or you had something to be happy about. If you had something to be happy about, you better hide it because it will soon be missing (people will find out and steal it). This philosophy leaks into our everyday life today. If I ask my husband if he likes something I bought him or want to buy him, the reply is "that's fine" even if it's something he really wants. To Americans, "that's fine" means "just ok, it will do, nothing to get excited about, no big deal" My husband says its just the way of Czechoslovakia; you just don't show too much emotion or you are revealing too much and to reveal too much about your self or what you have can never be a good thing.
But it's not just the similing. Czechs (in general) are SOO critical!! (I guess I would blame it on the communism too??) I have grown up in that environment so believe me, I know. If you do something nice, no one talsk about it but if you mess up then you KNOW you will be hearing about it (especially from your parents or teachers). Although I live in America now I can see that same attitude through my czech blog. 99% of the czech comments that I get are negative/critical and the 1% of positive comments come from Americans, or Czech-Americans. I mean, it would be nice to hear something like "Good job! Nice website!" or something like that from a fellow Czech person..... :wink: Tanja
Amen Nonsense... the people were normal just like today. It was no era of sorrow or not for normal people. Normal people do not care so much about all this freedom-stuff. Woohoo... I do not want to insult your husband but that is a regular conspiracy theory)) If you smile, you are communist... "Die, you grinning swine!!!")) And the part with hiding something you are happy about while being affraid of it being stolen... that perseveres until today, no change... perhaps it is even more grave because then the people stole from the state (the "common property"), today, they steal rather from the private property. Well, I am to young to have experienced it, but my parents did, and they were not communists. Or to be precise - my father was in his youth expelled from "Pionýr" the organisation of young because of something (not related to politics at all...) and never entered the communist party. My mother did enter the Party. In 1987, when I was born, because otherwise it would be more difficult for her in her position to retain her job. All she had to do was once per month or two to subscribe that she had attended to a meeting of local Party department (where she actually never was as the president of the department was reasonable - what an unexpected quality in a communist, don'tyou think... - and understood the she had to bring me up instead of attending to some senseless meetings). And she lived as she had done before (except the fact that she had me). It is true that we are more reserved... but I think it comes rather from the times of the Austrian empire. It is the dislike of expressing emotions. The communism did not have anything against emotions. But in times of the Austrian empire, there was a tendency, that showing an excessive emotion is impolite, especially if the emotion is negative. It was something similar to the Victiorian Brittain, where any sign of sexuality was considered immoral and it somehow perseveres until today. Not in such power of course but somehow it does. But in those times in Germany, and in the Austrian empire, which copied the German model, there wes a tendency to strong rationalism. Everything had to be ordained all the rules had to be followed. The bureaucracy flourished. The emotions were irrational and had to be leashed and tamed. And even now, it is considered a little bit impolite to show excessive emotions. ------------------------------------------------------- Just a little remark to your perceptive observations in the beginning of your post: Yes, everything stems in communism. The economical situation of the country, the moral rottenness of the people, the second world war, the Spanish inquisition, the plague in 14th century... in short, everything evil. Or at least many people think so (well with a little exaggeration, of course). But it is due to the epoch we live in. In the times of communism, the root of all evil was capitalism and concerning the then recent events - fascism in Germany. Today, we know that durind the nazi era in Germany, not everything was bad (though it does not defend this era... great many things were still bad to the point of absolute unacceptability). In fascist Italy, it is even stronger (Mussillini did destroy Mafia in Sicily... and it surely was positive... his reforms of the Italian economy did cause some growth; still there were many evils). In the times of Rennaissance, the term "Middle-ages" came to existence. It was a derogatory word refering to the dark epoch between the glorious Greek and Roman civilisations and their later revival. Many myths concerning the Middle-Ages were born those days (and many of them persevered until today). Now, we know that those were only myths coming from the enthusiasm of a new era (whose beginning even was one of the most shameful point in the western history). Why do I say this? Because this enthusiasm came of course after the so called Velvet Revolution. Anything that was invented during the previous era, or even considered good and useful, was abolished in the name of freedom, democracy and free trade. But among those things, there were many with no connection to the political system or ideology of the previous era... they were abolished simply out of the need to delimiting of the new era which wanted to be free of anything that had been there before (because the communism is evil, evil, evil, evil, and anyone who thinks otherwise is evil, evil, evil, evil... today, the word "communist" is used as a derogatory term used mainly to defame anyone with opposing opinion no matter what it is... simply "you do not agree? of course, then f**k off you communist!"), no matter the cost. And the comic outcome is, that many necessary and well functioning things were abolished as well... but today a great effort (often impossible) is invested to revive these things because they *are* necessary. We are not able to evaluate the era of communism today, and we will not be in a few next years because the communism became a scarecrow used (and abused) by some people in politics to attract the voters to themselves even if they have no other thought or idea and their policy is unclear and definitely not elaborate.
Yes, this is even another anachronism from the times of the Austrian empire. Everything has to be perfect and flawless. The less we appreciate any quality, the more we criticise any flaw. We are taught to perceive the good result as the standard, anything lower is unacceptable and should be punished. Especially at schools this way is strong. It slowly changes with time, but the progress will take at least a generation to overcome this approach (and even longer will it take to overcome the initial enthusiasm of a change and to find a compromise between the two approaches admitting that even the old one has some things positive from which we can benefit). F.X. Šalda, a famous Czech poet and philologist, once said something like: "Problémem této země je, že se tu neustále začíná znovu" And those words were truly prophetic. We do not build upon the bases the previous generations left us, we destroy those bases with everything good they contained just to build anew... and as we build and destroy again and again we cannot build higher than the basements...
Don't take this personally Eleshar, but may be you shouldn't talk like that about things you have no first hand experience with. Sure, you might have spoken with your parents/grandparents (though there's apparent bias seeing at least one of your family members was a communist) about the era, watched documentaries, read books etc. but it still doesn't come close to actually living through those times. Also don't forget that people usually tend to remember only pleasant things, not to mention "everything was better when I was young" rule. There's no doubt that living in totalitarian state for almost 50 years had a huge impact on behaviour of our people. [I'm not that old myself so all I can speak about are 1980's] The mood in society was certainly different than it is today and while it wasn't as grim as during (last) years of Nazi occupation or in 1950's, many people DID suffer or at least were quite unhappy about the situation. Just omnipresent dullness of everyday life was enough to make people feel down. Even some trifles like spending several hours a week standing in long lines in shops hoping the goods are not sold out before it's your turn or having to frequently attend incredibly boring and absolutely useless meetings of all kinds can be very frustrating. Sure, you may think that freedom is some abstract concept people don't really care about as long as their basic needs are satisfied, but fortunately not all people are like that. On the other hand, those "fake" American smiles or patting one's back because of even tiniest achievement is an alien concept to me and many if not most other Czechs. Maybe it has something to do with the "you're special" american mentality * shrugs *
Yes. For about two years in the latest stages... I know that many people were prosecuted but still those many people who ended in labour camps were a minority. I simply do not believe that the times were so harsh for the common people so that they would not even smile publicly because of them. Today it is very very "in" to swear at communists and attribute them all evil and this is precisely this kind of rhetorics. "The Czech people do not smile because of communists"... this is ridiculous!
I'd rather not comment on people who joined communistic party for their own convenience, particularly in the late 1980's, it's still very sensitive issue and I'm well aware that as with many other things, it wasn't always black and white situation. On the other hand, communism was here, it seriously affected our lives and it is to blame for MANY bad things. While people who were killed, sent to jail / labor camp / mental health institute were in minority, there still were quite a lot of them and things like that seriously affect whole families. It's still not something to be taken lightly. Then there was also a "currency reform" which robbed many people of their money, nationalizing of private property etc. As fair as I know, technically both communism and nazism are considered to be the same evil, but it's just one of the many laws which unfortunately aren't enforced here. With all that said, it's of course silly to say "Czech people don't smile only because of communism" or "living in communistic regime for decades didn't affect people behaviour". With that said - Czech people DO smile, maybe not often as other nations but we still do. But I think we smile only when there's a reason to, we don't wear smile on our face all day long. I myself usually smile only when my mood is better than usually - for example something pleasant happens, I avoid something unpleasant, I'm with nice people etc. I wonder how it is with smiling e.g. in our neighboring countries - Germany, Austria, Slovakia or Poland - do people smile much more there? EDIT: What about e.g. Scandinavian countries, some say people there in north are quite cold and unfriendly from our viewpoint (at least until you get acquainted with them).
