The other day I read an article on the American ignorance of the world geography. I completely agree, however, I think that the finger should be pointed on the educational system and the way they teach geography. Isn’t it part of the elective subjects in high school? Also, I am sorry but the Americans do live on a different continent so I would cut them some slack when they don’t know where Slovenia is.
All that said, I do have some pretty funny stories about this whole issue. Most of them come from the times when I was attending a college since that is where you get to talk to a lot of people and they find out you have an accent and then they ask you where were you from and than it goes all downhill from there..:)
Anyhow, my best story comes from one of the parties I went to. I started talking to this friendly all-American girl and as soon as she found out I was from Prague she got really excited, telling me that she had spent 3 weeks there! So we talked for a good 45 minutes about “Prague stuff”, places she had visited, clubs she went to, the food she ate….she then grabbed one of her friends that walked by and excitedly said: “Look I met a girl from Yugoslavia!” I looked at her, waiting for her to correct herself but nothing happened. When she saw my ‘look’ she became somewhat self conscious and said: “ Well, what, you are from Yugoslavia, right? Prague?”.
I tried to tell her as sensibly as I could that Prague was not in Yugoslavia but in the Czech Republic and as far as I can remember, she took it bravely. However, I just couldn’t believe she had actually physically crossed the borders of the Czech Republic, spent three weeks there and thought she was in Yugoslavia (former Yugoslavia)!!!!!
Other questions that people – mostly American students – would ask me were: 1. Do you guys have traffic lights? ( I would answer: “No, we just dance naked around the fire”) 2. Czechoslovakia is (I gave up correcting them on that one) next to Turkey, right? 3. You guys speak Russian? 4. Oh yeah, that’s by the sea, right? And the list goes on…
Instead of insulting them and making them feel stupid I chose to have a more of a “Jesus-like” attitude and I look at it as an educational opportunity and I patiently, non-judgmentally try to correct them. Although at times it may be a challenging task I feel like that is part of my purpose in life….
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Wow, that’s unbelievable! I got used to Americans being lame in geography, but this story moves my expectations much further! Thanks for the post, I was thinking there is nothing that can surprise me lately 😉
I know, and it’s a real story too, I didn’t pretty it up or anything….But then again, do I know all of the 50 American states and their capitals? No….and I live here! So I don’t want to get too prideful, you know…
HAHAHA. I am awful with geography even in my own country, so i have no room to laugh but that was still pretty funny.
Is Prague on the sea? Of course not, but at one time the Kingdom of Bohemia may have included a beach or two.
From Wikipedia:
The seacoast of Bohemia
Shakespeare’s fellow playwright Ben Jonson ridiculed the presence in the play of a seacoast and a desert in Bohemia, since the kingdom of Bohemia (which roughly corresponds to the modern-day Czech Republic) had neither a coast (being landlocked) nor a desert.[5] However, it has been noted that the Bohemian seacoast was present in Shakespeare’s source, the romance Pandosto by Robert Greene. Also, for a period around 1275 A.D., because the kingdom of Bohemia at one time stretched to the Adriatic, it was, in fact, possible to sail from a kingdom of Sicily to the seacoast of Bohemia.[6] A similar situation existed for a time in the later 1500s—a fact noted by some Oxfordian scholars [See: Shakespearean authorship], who find it significant that the Earl of Oxford was traveling in the Adriatic region during this brief span of time.
That is a very good point!
lol, that was a great story. I’m heading to Prague for the 1st time in a couple days for New Years….atleast I’m doing my research before I go! I had a coworker ask me the craziest questions about CR…what do they wear, what do they do, do they have houses, do they drive…I had to explain it isn’t a primitive place, there is intelligent life there, lol.
That’s so funny Marsha! I can’t believe that people STILL think of Prague as the “ape land”….I myself have been lately getting actually some “educated” remarks about Prague…I am not sure if that’s just pure accident but people actually knew where Prague was and stuff! Or were they just pretending they knew??!!
Regarding your trip: You will love Prague – I garantee it! And it is still kind of cheap to vacation there compared to other European hot spots like France or Italy…Let me/us know how it went when you come back! OK? OK.
I like your blog Tanja! Funny stuff.
I’ve been even asked once if we had television in our country. I suppose I just had a bad luck about who I met, or maybe I looked as if I was from the past. 🙂
At least they asked about something modern like TV! I guess it could still be worse – like someone asking you if we have running water…
I am glad you enjoy my blog!
Tanja,
if you ask an average person who is good at geography to name a few regions in Russia, it will be a problem for him/her too. As well as to name them in Czech Republic, though CZ is a very small country in comparison to mentioned ones. So it’s not a big deal not to know capitals of states inside the USA and don’t justify Americans for being not so intelligent. That’s should be normal to know at least a certain number of countries and their capitals.
I have a story to share. I’m a web designer and deal with computers a lot. But I’m not a geek or something like that. Anyway I had a chance to meet an American who told me the following: “I didn’t know you’re so smart”. It happened after I set up a localhost for a couple of PC’s.
p.s. he was a guy who worked in the computer industry.
Did he really say that? Are you sure it wasn’t just some kind of a language barrier? It sounds like he was trying to give you a compliment, saying that he couldn’t believe that you were such a prodigy…
Language barrier? Not at all. It sounded the way it sounded. It wasn’t a compliment, because it’s just ridiculous to give a compliment for a such a primitive action as setting up a localhost. It’s easy. It’s _normal_ for a computer guy to be able to set up a localhost.
Another guy was surprised after I told him I have a fast internet connection at home. He thought we didn’t have internet at all in CZ.
The 3rd guy tried to explain me how to use a cell phone. Weird, eh?
I have a lot of stories to share 🙂
I met a lot of Americans in my life. I was working for an American company over an year. Some of them were average, others had up to 2 university/college degrees. But all of them behave the way they were smarter than others, richer than others, more experienced than others and so on. You got the idea.
I may suppose their attitude to a foreigner can be different if you live in their country. You know better. But after they live in another country for some time, e.g. Czech Rep., they start thinking different (hey, Mac fans!), they change their opinions about a lot of things etc.
But we were discussing their knowledge about geography. It’s poor as well as about anything else. There’s no doubt there are a lot of well-educated and intelligent people in the States (including Americans, who were born there + people who came from Czech Rep., China, Japan, Russia, Israel etc.), but the overall number of stupid and narrow-minded people is pretty big.
I’m sure you watched a video from a CNNN guys (don’t confuse with CNN). Of course, they didn’t include episodes with correct answers and chose the funniest ones. But being an adult person I won’t tell you that “Stars Wars” is based on a true story, even if I were drunk flat.
Someone could think I hate Americans. Nah! I have good friends of mine in the States (white, black and asian), and they are smarter than some people around me LOL
Don’t be fooled – they know more than you think! I went to a (very first one) football game recently to get the full American experience. During the game I was asked by one of the raging fans where I was from. When I said I was from the Czech Republic, his eyes lid up in excitement saying: “Really? Wow! Where in the Czech Republic?” I said:”From around Prague.” He jumped up and screamed: “No way! That’s awesome! I’ve been to Dubrovnik!” I sat down quietly and for the rest of the game I was trying to figure out what was I missing…. I am still in the dark …
That’s pretty crazy!!! Maybe those people really are smarter than we think and the things that they say are just way too “over our heads”!! Who knows, maybe there is another Dubrovnik in the outskirts of Prague and we just don’t know about it :))
I am a 45 year old american,yet Im studying czech culture( self teaching)and etc.I found that my genology is chech from both sides,and until then, I never knew much about it.Part of the problem over here is our morality is declineing,and we live a double standard if you will.I cant say this for all,but a good majority.We are to hell bent on two car garages and big careers,fame,and even in the streets over here its (all about me).Whats this got to do with geography? The point is, the average american could care less,unless its going to be theyre vacation spot.But in a place with almost every culture mixed up makeing a whole,its going to be confuseing,and keeps getting worse to my opinion.Im not very well educated,but Id almost rather go back where m people come from there,(lol)than live here,You have to be greedy,compulsive and selfish just to make it here to be respected,big house on the hill,expensive car,etc.We claim to be under God, but thats only if `you have as much or more than me`so to speak.and Im wondering,are the true checs like that???My people here worked hard,but we are very basic,and practical.Is that true chech,so to speak?? Keep in mind, the world is big,and this is only one opinion in it….
Hi Tanja,
Canada is just as bad. Though it saddens me greatly that the vast majority of my friends, with a GPA range between 3.5 and 4.0 (A’s and B’s), are inexcusably ignorant when it comes to the geography of small (but awesome) European countries. To many such people, we are, like you said, people who have yet to invent electricity and separate ourselves from the sitll-existent USSR.
Canada too?? I didn’t know that. Do you think that it’s the fault of the educational system as well?
Oh well, I guess we got a lot of educating to do, right?!
O.K., I agree that Czech Republic is a small country and my knowledge of geography is not good either but…..:
I had a few interesting moments too. One time (about ten years ago) when visiting CANADA. I had a friend of a friend ask me if we have cheese back home! :-))
Then about four years ago visiting the same canadian friends who now live in Indiana. They had some people come over and one of them was trying to convince me that Prague is the capital of Croatia. Not kidding. Finally when I had three other people agree with me she believed us. I told her that if it did not change since three weeks ago when I arrived in the US it should still be Czech Republic.
AMAZING!
What’s up with people thinking that Prague is a capital of former Yugoslavia??
Remember, whenever this happens, just take a deep breath, count to 3 and start explaining..
Proc si vsichni mysli, ze se Praha nachazi v byvale Jugoslavii??
Hello from Edinburgh, U.K! Love your website.
I am a Czech native living here and I have few stories about this topic. I will try to write you the best one:)
We were with my friends in a bar and one Scottish guy asked us where we are from? All friends in a bar were Czech; talking passionately about our lives in Scotland.:) I replied that we all are from the Czech Republic. Guy paused for a while and asked ‘Is Czech Republic an island of Czechoslovakia?…. I could not speak..I was in a shock! My brain got message don’t fight with stupid and I replied of course it is! We love our seaside..:)He was so happy bless him that he thought he knew. Afterwards he went to his friends and proudly told them. We were laughing so much with my friends afterwards:)- the thought that Czech Republic is an island of Czechoslovakia – like somewhere in Caribbean!:) Not a bad thought though….:)
That is the best one so far, I think: Czech Republic an island of Czechoslovakia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That made me laugh out loud!! Thank you for sharing that with us!
See, everyone says that Americans are stupid as far as geography goes but that “geograpy disease” goes far beyond the US :))
PS: I am so glad you like my website!
Ahoj Veroniko! Tak to je teda bomba!! Zatim ta nejlepsi, co jsem slysela. To tady zase budu lidem vypravet :))
Jsem moc rada, ze se ti blog libi a nestyd se vic komentovat!!!
PS: jo a vsechno nejlepsi do noveho roku! Jestli chces tak se vzycky muzes na Czechmate Diary zaregistrovat a dostanes nejake ty “goodies” 🙂
Dekuju i tobe! Vse nejlepsi do noveho roku 2009! Hlavne zdravi a pak vsechno prijde:)My si obcas ten pribeh vypravime, a vzdycky nas to rozesmeje..:) Ted jsem si jeste vzpomela na jeden ale ten je z Fiji – moje sestra tam byla na dovolene. Vsichni domorodci nosi svetry pokud je teplota 25 stupnu a niz. Moje sestra si vesele povidala s jednou pani odkud je a jake mame pocasi. Kdyz moje sestra rekla, ze v zime muze byt i -10, tak se velmi divila a odpovedela – a to chodite do prace?:)
Stastny novy rok!
Why are you all bashing Amerincans ?? It is a big country so amount of uneducated people is more easily to be found here than in Czech/Slovak Republic….
The perception of people depends of what environment you live.
I have been lucky enough to meet sufficient amount of intelligent people to be able to talk to and satisfy my need to share my wisdom with . The rest of people does not bother me, I know, they are needed to work and make our live more comfortable.
There is only one small group of people which bother me…. my neighbors…. they never saw me in the local church, I suspect they think I am an AntiXrist 😉 and they know more about my family than I myself :)) You see, people are stupid and smart in all countries and the globalization certainly helps..
I’ll tell you a secret: Being surrounded not so smart people, it is much more easier to appear to be smart 😉
I have errors in my post above…I guess, I am not so smart after all 🙂
I am definitely not trying to bash on them – I totally understand their ‘dumbness’. It is a huge country and I am sorry but to know about such a little country like the Czech Republic is a little too much to ask. Plus, as I said in my article, it really is a fault of the educational system (not that I remember my ‘zemepis’….)
Your posts are fascinating especially for me. I was born with the geographical sense of a gourd and have not made much progress since. Having said that, I do try to read up on places I plan to visit. I’ve found where ever I am, simply saying, “I’m from America. What would you want me to know about your city?” It opens a dialogue and I learn the most fascinating things. Some people act like you are a dunce and that’s ok. They walk away muttering and feeling superior. I’ve made their day.
You are right about our abysmal knowledge of international geography…even our own geography is sometimes confusing. I think I understand some of the reasons why we know so little about other countries’ geography. I’d like to offer those, hoping I will not sound like I’m defending it.
One of the things that confuses Americans so about Europe and Africa is the changing of boundaries and names of countries. In many cases, as in the Czech Republic’s, the changes are linked to long ago historical events. In the U.S., the names of our states have been the names of our states for more than a hundred years. The few changes in boundaries were completed before the current living generations were born.
Even so, the “average” person (remembering that average is only a mathematical construct to explain the extremes of a range) doesn’t know capitals of all the states. They memorized them in elementary school and never had to use them since. They don’t have the opportunity to travel and many do not even have the opportunity to meet people from other countries.
Even with the wonderful opportunities I have had for a good education, I still feel somewhat inept when discussing world geography.
In addition, as a former teacher and former trainer of teachers, the answer can be seen in our curriculum and the way curricula are developed. Since I started school in 1946, the number of school days and number of hours in the school days has not changed. What has changed is the amount of information the children are expected to be “exposed to”. (Aside: I always think of vaccinations when I hear that term used.) In addition, so many “politically correct” expectations have stolen precious teaching time for assemblies and field trips which are frequently poorly planned academically and contribute nothing toward an education. (Aside: I got a little carried away.(;-0)
Lastly, what we remember is what we use most frequently. Ask me about cognitive psychology or research techniques and I am at home with the topic. I’m also comfortable discussing organic gardening or cooking or fishing or any number of other topics because I’m involved with them everyday. Tanja, I appreciate your broadmindedness because I have encountered other attitudes.
(The last aside, I promise: My husband and I have talked about going back to Praque for a month someday. We didn’t begin to see all we wanted to see. Next time, we want to choose a corner of the city and just walk its streets all day, talking to people.)
Hi MaryLena,
Wow, how great that you like to travel like that! Good for you!
You raise some good points, America is SO vast that it is hard to remember even the capitals of each state! I don’t know if I could do that! And you are also right that most of the people here will not get to travel to Europe so why would they want to retain such information?
And don’t get me even started about the ‘political correctness’ stuff….That term just recently arrived to Czech and it is doing some weird things to the country 😉 I am sorry but half of the stuff is just such a waist of money and time! Can’t we talk about something important instead???
Upps, my whole post got deleted MaryLena, so I will write you back when I am calmer :((
Dear Tanya,
I understand your frustrations.
We “parented” 11 children of six different nationalities and we learned a lot about cultural differences. We also learned to look at ourselves and our “inbuilt” expectations in a very different light. Tomorrow we leave for Japan to visit one of those
“children” all grown up with a child getting married in just a week. Each time we travel abroad, we learn more about how history and culture influence today’s behavior, including our own.
I hope you will continue to encourage people of varying cultures to learn about each other. We hope to get back to Prague for a longer visit.
I would put it this way: If somebody does not know when Prague is, it is no disaster…On the other hand, maybe, he/she knows how to cook an excellent meal and knows how to repair my car 🙂 It happened often that even higly educated people holding diplomas from prestigeous universities felt pitty about me and asked me, if I am worried about Chechnia…they really felt my pain and understood that my relatives were in a great danger….
But they are experts in their fields and I can “use” them to my advantage :))
In other words, ‘do not judge, or you will be judged’!! None of us are perfect…
I hate to tell you people this, but Czechs are quite stupid about geography themselves. The only reason you think Americans are worse at it is that in the US it’s a national hobby to administer tests for the purpose of showing how poor our own citizens’ knowledge is. Then we publish the results and enjoy being outraged. Czechs haven’t taken up this hobby, so they only get glimpses of how primitive they generally are when they watch shows like “Nikdo není dokonalý” or when TV Nova’s ratings come out and the most idiotic shows get the highest ratings.
I used to give Czech high school students tests that assumed basic geographic knowledge, but I gave up, because they didn’t know anything. If you had them place cities on a map, you quickly found that they thought Miami was in Brazil, that Los Angeles was where New York is (or in Florida), and all kinds of sad surprises. I tried using cities that were close by, but the results were just as bad: “Munich is on the northern coast of Germany, across the Danube from Hamburg.”
One time I gave Czech seniors in high school an assignment to do a research paper, and from those papers I learned amazing facts, such as that “the United States consists of 19 independent countries and several colonies of England, France, Holland and Portugal.”
And the adults aren’t any smarter. Once a banker told me he had been trying to get a visa to move to the US because he didn’t like his career choices in the Czech Republic. He was angry because he hadn’t been issued one. When he had vented his frustrations with “America”, he asked me what I thought the possibilities were of getting a visa for “South America”. He didn’t have any particular country in mind, and further discussion revealed that he thought “America”, North and South, were culturally and economically one great big thing, more or less the same everywhere.
Czechs can also be pretty stupid about foreign cultures and how things work in the rest of the world. Many of them used to think (and probably still do) that Americans working in the Czech Republic also get a salary in the US even though they don’t work there. Sometimes a Czech will tell you his ideas of what Americans do, eat, etc., and they are quite strange. Only after questioning him more do you find out he got these conceptions years earlier from the novels of Karl May, that German writer who had never been to the US but wrote cowboy novels anyway.
And face it: People of many nationalities don’t know much about your country because it’s not very important in the overall scheme of things. Plus, up until 1989 you lived technologically in the 1950s, and you were only starting to climb out of that in the mid-1990s. People can be forgiven for not knowing the pace of development there.
The Czechs have very little to brag about in terms of their worldly sophistication, but they brag anyway.
A Mexican friend of mine has the theory that “people don’t care about what goes on in inferior countries”. He notes that Americans don’t know much about what is going on in Mexico. However, he points out that while Mexicans know everything that’s going on in the US, they know zero about Guatemala, on their southern border. The Guatemalans, however, know what goes on in Mexico.
Dear Tanja.
Japan was gorgeous and we arrived in time for the Cherry Blossum Festival. We saw friends from prior trips.
Then, we went to Okinawa for the wedding (on the coast of the China Sea), saw a centuries old castle from when Okinawa was an independent nation, the Peace Memorial for the Battle of Okinawa. The bride’s family are wonderful Okinawans who quickly but lovingly told us they were Okinawan, not Japanese…lovely, hospital people. While the bride was beautiful, our grandson was gorgeous!!! Just like his papa and with that same sunny disposition.
Glad to be home for a while. The rest of this year we will travel only in USA (unless some rare opportunity assails us). Next year, we hope to go to London to meet friends from the continent, perhaps jog over to Spain or Italy. In the meantime, we love to meet people from so many different places. We are, at the last, just people.
To Jamie:
I think that you’re being a little harsh. I’ve heard the weirdest stuff from people about my country but I would not call them stupid but I definitely felt frustrated. I have had to repeat in one conversation six times that Czech Republic is no longer Czechoslovakia and Slovakia is not the same as Slovenia. Talking with Swiss immigrant (real estate agent) who’s lived in the US for 30 years and her (IT) American partner. They seemed like they were somewhat educated but I don’t think that always everything. I mean, are you people not listening? Stop talking so much and just listen. If you are not sure how exactly things are, we have internet now. Research it. Keep to your self that you don’t know stuff because certain areas can be quite touchy for some people.
Jamie: thank you for your article about the Czech stupidness. I left CSSR in 1982, so I don’t know whether I should agree with you or disagree. Unless something really bad has happened to Czechs, I think you made your “facts” up ….
8-9 years ago, I had to have a surgery of my nose (so what, Michael Jackson also had one :)) and the doctor asked me: “Where are you from?” ….
I answered: “from former Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic”….
He responded: “Oh, I am so sorry, you must be really worried about your relatives in Chechnya”..
I replied: “Happily for them, they don’t live there”….
He said: “What a relieve it must be for you”…..
Jana, I didn’t use the term “stupid” to mean that they are congenitally defective. I simply used a strong word because I have heard so many assertions over so many years from Europeans, and especially arrogant Czechs, that Americans are stupid.
Vlastimil, I didn’t make up any of the things I wrote in that post. They all really happened; it’s simply that Czechs are so conditioned to believe they are intellectually superior to other nations (especially Americans) that when examples of Czechs’ ignorance are presented to them, they get angry and refuse to believe it. Look at all the national indignation it caused when TV Nova showed garbage and wound up with top ratings. Look at how upset many Czechs got when the show “Nikdo není dokonalý” displayed Czechs spouting ignorance that they don’t like to admit exists in their nation. You have to face the fact that the Czech Republic has the same percentage of ignorant people that every other country does.
Jamie, I have not lived in Czech Republic since 1982, so I really don’t know how stupid the Czechs are…
And you are right, stupid people can be found all over places, but really smart people in Czech Republic :))
Hello Jamie,
I have found your comment insulting. I can only say that geography lessons are getting worst particularly for young people in the Czech Republic. (As I still got friends back in Czech)
I have left my country in 1999 and I remember whenever I was in school I needed to know every single capital of each country all over the world and I mean even every single country in Africa – we had to know what is the capital of each country.
I don’t think you like Czechs very much, and that’s a pity.
I have many friends from different countries and I learned one thing not to judge by nation but by individual.
Of course they are stupid people in Czech as well as in US. That’s a fact. What we should learn to respect each other and learn from each other – to enrich ourselves.
Have a nice day!
Veronika
Veronika, I could easily decide from the posts that Czechs have made to this thread that they dislike Americans, but I chose not to. Czechs certainly love to complain about Americans being stupid or not knowing things, so am I to assume that they dislike us?
It’s pretty clear, though, that Czechs love to congratulate themselves on the imaginary intellectual superiority of their nation, and they get very upset when they see or hear true examples to the contrary. Having taught in Czech schools, I know that the people are not THAT much smarter than people elsewhere.
You may have had to memorize all the capitals of all the countries (why “even Africa”? Doesn’t Africa matter?), but the ability to regurgitate a matched set of country names and capital names doesn’t necessarily mean a person knows what any of it means.
In fact, I had a number of situations occur in my class in which a student had written a long memorized text on an exam, and when I asked him or her to translate it into Czech, the student had no idea what any of it meant.
Whatever you may have had to learn in school, a lot of it has been flushed from the student’s brain by the end of high school, and the result is incidents like the ones I mentioned above.
I am starting to think that Jamie does not really like the Czechs…that’s too bad…I still think that secretly you LOVE us, Jamie :))
Oh, don’t anybody take any solace over the fact that more people have heard of Prague now. Many of those people think that the whole Czech Republic is Prague, and they don’t know that anything else is there. If you tell them you live in the Czech Republic, they’ll tell people you live in Prague. If you say, no, you live in Olomouc or Domažlice or Mariánské Lázně, three hours away from Prague, whatever, they’ll think that’s very interesting, but a minute later they’ll be telling someone you live in Prague.
And what about those Germans and Swedes who speak fluent English but call the Czech Republic “Tschechoslowakei” when they’re speaking ENGLISH? You can tell them as many times as you want that the place is called the Czech Republic, but it never penetrates their skull, and they continue calling it “Tschechoslowakei”.
It’s like Czechs who won’t stop calling the American city “Chick Kagg Go”. You can tell them a million times that it’s pronounced “Šikágou”, but they’ll go right back to saying “Chick Kagg Go”. At least one Czech, after I corrected her, said, “But in American English it’s called ‘Chick Kagg Go’.” She knew I was American, and she still said that.
To Jamie:
So now we’re down to this pole who met more ignorant people where? I see.
Also, I am sure that if I was Swedish and you were lecturing me I would keep repeating “Tschechoslowakei” on purpose just to get you mad. 😉
To everybody else:
The best to do now seems to be just not to respond to Jamie anymore since he’s just repeating the same thing over.
Jana, I think if I were you I’d go through the posts above and see who’s really saying the same thing over and over. I think everybody else is, but they are targeting a different nationality.
Jana, it is not fair. Even if I don’t agree with Jamie many times, it shows Jamie is interested in Czech culture and history. Discussion forums are here to be used for discussions. If we all had the same opinion, there would be no discussion and Tanja can close down her store 😉 Anyway, if I will get pissed by somebody, be sure I will piss back right away 🙂
My next trip to Prague, I want to go to the Museum and the other opera house. I also want to go into the countryside. Where else shall I go?
Try to see, if you will gain access to the underground Prague…It is a big part of city, which is hidden under ground, there are streets, but I don’t know whether you will be allowed to go there… One of the entrances to the underground is from within Old Town Town Hall….
If they won’t let you into underground Prague, you can surely take an interesting tour of underground Pilsen. The entrance and ticket office are right off the town square, if I remember correctly. It’s also interesting. Then you can tour the brewery.
I forgot, there is also museum of torture in Prague…
The real question is not who’s the smartest or the dumbest, it’s who has hotter chicks? Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia?
In my opinion, since you’re discussing two countries that don’t exist anymore, “Czechoslovakia” has the “hotter chicks”, because the ones from “Yugoslavia” tend to be a bit on the tough side. The “Czechoslovakian” girls can be whiners, but they’re generally nicer. Just one man’s perception.
Jamie,
i am sure I can’t change your mind about Czechs, but there is one example of my cousin. He could have been one of your students:) He has recently applied for scholarship at university in U.S. He is a great ice-hockey player – playing for junior league back home(only 18years old); and let me tell you he sees U.S and its people as a cool place to go and have such a fantastic opportunity to live there. He definitely does not consider Americans stupid.
I just want to put light why some people think that Americans are stupid – for example your former president Mr Bush, representing American people, wasn’t really a smart cookie was he? So here you go…
On the other hand Mr Obama is really clued on and a fantastic leader. People really love him in the Czech Republic. There is a big change of perception about your country by other nationalities – and I am not talking just about us – Czech people.
When Obama started to be Mr President people really changed their views about U.S. In the middle of a deep recession something amazing happened; somebody approachable, human, highly-intelligent and with great sense of humour started to be in charge of U.S.A.
Maybe you should go back now to my country and talk to people what they think…..and if you are still living in Czech – with such a attitude you should not be living there – that hattress it’s not good for your health!:)
Veronika: are you saying Czechs changed their views about Americans because of Obama? Does it mean, that if we have Obama at power with all his “czars” , that Americans are good people and if we get Bush (none of 44 US presidents was really good) then Americans turn to idiots for next 4 years?… Sorry, to hear that. It means you are portraiting Czech people as being superficial , which I hope, is not a case. It is wonderful that people in Czech Republic love Obama so much, but they will not suffer consequencies of his presidency and reign of his czars… BTW, popularity polls in USA are showing a constant decline of approval of him as a president of USA…
Sorry for my English, but I am still in a learning stage 😉 Enough of that…..
Coz takhle dat si spenat??:))
Dear Veronika.
I and several million other Americans will be happy to know how beloved President Obama is in the Czech Republic!! Perhaps you’ll keep him next time he visits! (:-))
Actually, the reality of our system of government is such that NO leader is supposed to be without checks and balances of their power and authority….and thus their popularity. That tension between views should be maintained at all times for a republic to work. Remember, we are not a democracy. We are a republic. A democracy is mob rule where the majority runs roughshod over minority views. A republic has that conflicting tension between opposing views. We purists get very uncomfortable when a leader (at any level) begins to be held in cultist popularity. It’s a sign that people are not looking at all sides of a question and thus that imperative tension between opposing views is beginning to go slack.
Back to my original view, when would you like another visit by our fearless leader? (:-))
Veronika, it’s understandable that the Czechs would be enthusiastic about Obama, because their media (at least their newspapers) have very uninformed, ideologically slanted coverage of events in the US. In fact, there is even more of a leftist bias in the reporting on the US in Mladá fronta and Lidovky than in the papers that Americans consider to be the most biased. I used to wonder who was paying to give them that coverage. The reporters were lazy, if nothing else.
Bush was actually an intelligent president, competent in most things he undertook. There was some difficulty at the beginning of the Iraq war, but he changed the secretary of defense and got that turned around. Notice that Obama is largely continuing his policies in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but nobody is complaining about it.
I can also see why the Czechs would like Obama so much, because he is doing and advocating a lot of things that the KSCS did in the late 1940s. During his campaign, and for some time after, he advocated forcing students to do brigáda every year, and he has also advocated forming a force similar to the Lidová policie. So far he hasn’t acted on either of those two things, and I hope he doesn’t. But he is taking over corporations that he doesn’t understand how to run, much as the KSCS did in the 1940s and 1950s.
A couple weeks ago, when the president of Honduras attempted to take the country over and make himself a dictator on the Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez model, Obama came out in favor of the wannabe dictator instead of on the side of the Honduran supreme court and legislature who were trying to prevent their democracy from being overthrown. This is not new for him, because he generally behaves more favorably toward dictators than toward our own allies.
At various international summits, the European leaders don’t tend to take him very seriously or cooperate with him. They want a photo op with him because he’s popular, but they generally treat him like a lightweight. Notice that he didn’t succeed in convincing any of our allies to take any of the prisoners from Guantánamo prison, even though they claimed they thought we should close it.
There are plenty of other things to tell about Obama, seeing as that he’s generally for government control of almost anything it can seize without too much public outrage. And his policies so far have made the recession worse instead of better.
Obama may be popular among Czechs, and he’s also popular with Americans, except that they don’t like what he’s doing. Polls now show that, while the majority of Americans like him personally, the majority don’t approve of his policies. He’s going to lead us to some even more serious economic and military problems, much as Jimmy Carter did, and he will probably take away quite a bit of our freedoms, which Jimmy Carter didn’t.
As one famous economist/sociologist said during the presidential campaign, “Obama is the youngest candidate with the oldest ideas. His foreign policy ideas are from the 1930s, and his social ideas are from the 1960s.” Even McCain has more modern ideas than he does. The black commentators who have a political radio show in my city call him the best marionette ever for the whites who run the Democratic party.
So telling me that Obama is popular in the Czech Republic doesn’t indicate anything to me other than that Czechs still love our TV stars.
Veronika- Bush actually finished at a higher grade level in college than both Gore and Kerry. He was not dumb at all, he was just not a great public speaker.
So why is Obama such a fantastic leader? What has he done? Both before and during his presidency? Nothing. He’s just “cooool duuude”.
This blog has a subtitle :”Small Bohemian Steps to World Domination….”…..I would like to remind y’all that our president has Czech blood in his veins as well…Yes, I read it somewhere…;)
Hey, Keith, I’m ever so cooool but that does not mean I would be a good president. That works well when you are campaigning but the job of the prez is to lead, not to govern and not to campaign once he or she is elected. I want a leader, not a dictator and not a photo hound. I don’t care if a leader is charming, good looking or well dressed. Can he or she think well enought to understand what he or she does not know? Can he or she think well enough to surround him or herself with people who will tell them what they need to know, not just what they want to hear? Can he or she communicate well enough to get ideas across? Can he or she “stand the heat in the kitchen” when things don’t go their way? Most of all, can that leader understand when they are being patted on the head diplomatically? I could go on but you get the gist.
????????????????????
“Bush actually finished at a higher grade level in college than both Gore and Kerry. He was not dumb at all, he was just not a great public speaker.”
Haha, that is very funny! College degree does not prove intelligence everybody know that. You cannot be serious, Keith.
The worst public speaker cannot send out so much nonsense if he is as intelligent as you think he is. Now, maybe what’s intelligent to one does not seem to be necessarily intelligent to another.
Marylena- Maybe you misunderstood my comment about Obama’s coolness. I think it is a joke and means nothing. It’s the (non-thinking)masses that are swept up by his so called ‘coolness’.
Jana B- People went on and on about Bush’s lack of intelligence but they never had anything to back up his supposed ‘stupidity’ as I would guess is also the case with you. Intelligence can be objectively measured to some degree and although college is OBVIOUSLY not the final say, it was always an amusing fact in light of the ridiculous judgments on Bush’s smartabilityness; especially when Kerry was made to look like the ‘intellectual’. Sorry Kerry, you boorish Frankenmunster clod, but Bush had higher test scores than you!!! HAHAHA!
PS Read Jaimie’s last comment -you might learn something.
Ever since Gerald Ford had a problem with tripping due to bad knees from football, the American left has always used the strategy of trying to make the Republican look stupid. The US media, and people all over “intellectually superior” Europe made the same claims about President Reagan. There was nonstop noise about what an imbecile he was, but you don’t hear that anymore about him.
One of the techniques they use is to take raw, unedited quotes from the Republican, leaving in all the “uh” and “um” and backtracking that everyone does when speaking. This looks very stupid in print, and they use this as proof of the politician’s imbecility, but in fact everyone does it when he speaks.
Obama’s handlers are obviously quite aware of this, because they almost never have him talking off the cuff without a teleprompter or a sympathetic video editor. It’s said that he uses a teleprompter even when he’s going to talk for only five minutes. When he doesn’t have a teleprompter, it becomes very clear that he doesn’t talk much better than Bush.
You can see how he normally talks in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omHUsRTYFAU
And in this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_Ju6kWfXEk
And in this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyW9e5QdWxk
Keith, I did not read Jamie’s last comment to be honest. I usually read the follow up but I skipped this time for couple of reasons. I was just responding to you.
Yet even higher scores in anything are no argument.
My own instinct backs me up, using my “zdravy selsky rozum” / brain (?)- if a person (does not matter who) is not capable of expressing what they want to say to the masses clearly there is either no point of them speaking to the people or they are just not in the right place. Therefore should not be a diplomat. That is the first criteria. But then I don’t mean that just knowing how to do that is enough.
Person who is not able to even pronounce words the way they are supposed to be should not be doing the job of a president. Maybe I am not feeling it quite right in English but that definitely applies for Czech. They teach you all that at school and if you are smart you get it.
President should not be someone who is “the smart guy” next door but someone who can pull it all together. “Ma vsech 5 P”. 🙂
Just listening to him (Bush) was painful nonsense. Sometimes I felt embarrassed for him. But obviously he did not mind, so good for him. And thankfully that era is over!
I’d have more to say to this but I am now finding that I wish the conversation was in Czech just because of my limited language capabilities. And also I have other things to do like spent some time with my lovely American husband.
One last thing. Can somebody explain to me what “boorish Frankenmunster clod” means?
Jana, if I remember correctly, Václav Havel had a speech defect. I seem to remember that he pronounced his ř back in his throat somewhere. He was your president.
It’s understandable that a Czech would imagine perfect standard language would be a requirement for the presidency, because Czechs speak an artificially reconstructed language with only one standard, and are maniacs about preserving its purity, or at least the schoolteachers are.
English does not operate the same way. We are a world language with multiple standards, and a greater tolerance of local dialects.
At least in the last 50 years, only about half the US presidents have spoken standard English: Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Daddy Bush.
Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and G.W. Bush did not. Kennedy’s accent was especially weird.
I don’t think there’s a good Czech translation for “boorish”. It means something like hrubiánský, but you can be a high-class boor, as John Kerry was, and not be a hrubián. “Frankenmunster” is a combination of “Frankenstein” and the name of a TV character named “Herman Munster”, who looked like Frankenstein’s monster. Many people think that John Kerry looks like Herman Munster. “Clod” means something like “tupec”. Kerry was high-class, but not very intelligent. He speaks standard English, but some of the things he says are monumentally stupid, something like the things Joe Biden says all the time.
Here I would like to defend the Czech language. Czechs are obsessed with their language and it is OK. For centuries Czech language was on brink of distinction.
Once a great language, it became a small language island and only since 1918 it could become a “real” language again. That’s why there is one standard, no deviations allowed. It is not acceptable to use local dialects on radio and TV… On the other side, English is a big language used in many countries, that’s why the standards are somewhat relaxed and sometimes it can be confusing… There are no “restrooms” in Canada, for example…
When Czechs will dominate the world I am sure multiple
standards will be allowed …
Can somebody explain, why Obama is using “y’all” so very often? How do I translate it to Czech?
I was never taught this in my language classes (one possible reason for my imperfectness was the fact that my teacher was a Czech nice lady and I happened to pay attention to here look more than to her speech :))
Wonder what kind of teacher our president had?
Vlastimil, I think you meant that the Czech language was on the verge of “extinction”.
Anyway, as I said, Czech is an artificially reconstructed language, and at the time of its reconstruction, the standard Czech that resulted was no one’s native language at all, and some of the obrozenci who reconstructed the language could never speak it very well.
Other reasons Czechs tolerate no local dialects in public use of the language — and don’t even tolerate the standard way that the majority of Czechs speak — is that it is one small country with one large capital, and because it has a language academy. In that sense they are like the French. French is a world language, but there is only one large francophone city, whose dialect is considered the standard for everybody. Plus they have that French academy.
This affects the way both the French and the Czechs view language standards, and they mistakenly impose their perception on other languages that have multiple acceptable standards. Usually what a Czech does when learning a multi-standard language like English, Spanish, Portuguese, etc., is to choose one country or a city that they perceive to be the seat of the “original” language, and then they conclude that any variation in accent, vocabulary and syntax that is not used in that place is “wrong”, or as some Czechs put it in English, “ruined language”.
The funny part is that with some languages, such as English, the original form of the language has been extinct for many centuries (in the case of English, almost 1,000 years), and it’s completely irrelevant which country the language originated in.
Yes Jamie, that’s what I meant…without a teleporter it is not easy :)))
“Y’all” is a common southern US equivalent of plural “vy”. In some places they say “y’uns” instead, and some people in the northeast say “yous”. Blacks throughout the United States who speak nonstandard “black” dialect use “y’all”, as do many southern whites. It’s considered nespisovné.
Obama was raised by his white mother and white grandparents, who surely did not use “y’all”. (His grandmother was a bank executive.) His Kenyan father, who walked out early in his life, most probably didn’t use the word. It’s almost certain that Obama’s native dialect is bland standard General American, which you can hear him speak in interviews from several years ago.
My assumption is that he acquired the habit of saying “y’all” along with some of the rhythms he uses when giving speeches, in recent years in order to appear “black”. He probably wanted to look real to the brothas.
An interesting fact is that “written Czech” and “spoken Czech” are many times quite different languages.
We have to remember that the Czech language is spoken by
roughly 10 millions people and the “real correct” Czech is spoken by only 1-2 millions fanatics…
The Czech language is a small language and people feel it needs to be protected …
BTW I read some books written in spoken Czech and local dialects and it really felt weird
That’s what I thought about his “y’all”.
I have read an interesting article about black dialects and they are very closed to Southern white dialects. One
possible reason is that slaves adopted southern dialects
because their masters spoke it….
It really appears like the “y’all” is one of his “smart” moves …. I
The southern dialects come largely from the lower-class English and Scots-Irish dialects that were spoken by settlers to the south. These dialects were what the slaves heard from their foremen, since many of them had rather little direct contact with their masters. The black dialect also has a few elements left over from pidgin and creole English that generally are not found in the speech of southern whites (but never say never).
Jamie, one small correction “y’all” and “y’uns” are holdovers from Elizabethan English (still spoken in the Piedmont and Appalachian areas of America) as is “hoped” or “hopen” for the past tense of help. I do not know where the “youse” of the northeastern US has its roots. BTW, Southerners do not look kindly on anyone who “puts on” (another Elizabethan holdover) Southern speech. Hillary and Bill Clinton tried it and it went over like a lead balloon. Bill had it in his background (Arkansas is one of those areas which still cling to Old English modalities) but he had so long ago dropped it that it sounded affected coming from him also. “Putting on airs” is a Southernism for pretending to be more than you really are and it’s social suicide. Also, Southerners normally write more standard English than they speak casually. I’m wondering if the Czech language has similar oddities.
MaryLena, please note that Appalachian English is not the same as Elizabethan English. It has a few elements in common, but they are not the same or even nearly the same variety.
What Czechs have in their language is not exactly the same. In that case, speaking perfect standard Czech at home, on the street or anywhere but in school, on TV or in the theater makes a person stick out. People think anyone who does that is phony and projecting arrogance. As I said above, standard Czech is a reconstructed language that was never actually anyone’s native tongue.
You need to understand, too, that Southerners enjoy language. It’s our way of coping with snobbery. So, just for fun, consider this:
A few refinements:
First, “hissie fit” is not a Southern expression. It is a lovely Victorian expression derived from the word hysterical. It’s a shortening of “hysterical fit”. You pitch a hissy fit. You have a conniption fit. The difference is a hissy fit allows you to throw or break things because you’ve lost control. A conniption fit you have because it is a controlled and contrived rage intended to get your way about something.
Second, there is a difference between sweet tea and sweetened tea. Sweet tea has sugar added during the brewing. Sweetened tea has sugar added after the tea is brewed and cooled.
Third, it is Hotlanta, not Addlanta.
Fourth, directly means “when I get around to it.” That infers you have other priorities. “By and by” means “when I jolly well am in the mood” and has nothing to do with priorities. It has to do with preferences.
Fifth, “right near” is almost within sight. “Just down the road” is close enough to walk to if you take a bottle of water with you. “A far right piece” means you will need to drive there.
Sixth, “fixin” as a verb is the act of preparation. As a noun, it means a condiment or unnecessary side dish.
There are other phrases that are just characteristic of the social constructs of the South. For ex, “Darlin’, you really don’t want to do that” means “If you do, you die.” The tone of voice should cause an immediate and uncurable, uncontrollable case of diabetes.
Starting a reproof with “precious lamb” means “I’m about to take you to the woodshed unless you shape up.”
Hope you enjoyed the laughs. We Southerners do. And, most of us don’t really care that people make fun of us and our speech. We know the value of our contribution to this country. For ex, we have more volunteers in the military than any other region, we have respect for our elders, we love politics and exchanges of thought.
To Jamie:
I was not talking about speech impediment or dialect but wrong pronunciation.
Like Bushes famous “nucular” – nuclear.
Jana, I don’t know if Mr. Bush has one, but there is a learning disability that would explain that mispronunciation if there is a pattern of similar errors.
If you go by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “nucular” is not a mispronunciation, but the acceptable alternative pronunciation. Take a look.
Here is the link. Look particularly at the usage note below the definitions.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuclear
So Jaimie, if Czech is an ‘artificially reconstructed language’, does that mean…it’s ‘Bionic’?
And perhaps the ‘Hot Czech Chicks’ themselves are in fact ‘artificially reconstructed’?
Maybe that’s why my Czech wife seems to need a’reboot’ every so often. Usually about once a month.
Keith, I find your last post offensive. I hope you tell your wife about it.
Jana- I did and she laughed out loud. Her programming is awesome. Those commies knew what they were doing. Worked with those Eastern German swimmer chicks and it worked with my wife. I didn’t pay 6 million crowns fer nuthin’.
Keith: That’s a steal! 😉
Being a Czech myself, I know and every Czech should know that the current version of Czech language is artificial . Many recreators of Czech language could not speak it themselves and and in many cases structure of Czech sentences is closer to German than for example to Russian.
Many Czech words were missing and in spoken Czech German words were used. That’s why many Czech replacement words have Russian origin , because many Czech language “constructor” were also obsessed by Russian language. So, the Czech language is a “mischling” of Czech and German grammar and Czech, Russian and other Slavic words (most if not all German words were thrown out). In spoken Czech are German words still in use, for example flaska, ruksak, furt, sranky, hergot, etc…
Many words were simply created….without even looking into how peasants would say it.
Many Czech patriotic books in 19th century were written in German, so other “educated” Czechs would understand it.
One of the most aggravating things about learning Czech is that the textbooks teach only this “literary” Czech and usually don’t give any indication that the German-derived words exist. When the learner arrives in the Czech Republic, he quickly finds that many of the words he has learned are not used in ordinary speech, and that he has never been taught the words that really are used.
Many of the German words in Czech were simply translated part by part into Czech, such as Abfall > odpad, Ausflug > výlet.
Here in US I was working with a weirdo who was using some mix of Oxford-Cambridge English, and people were telling hem :” speak English !”…
The same in Czechlands.. People will don’t mind listening to the “correct” Czech on radio and TV but will get easily irritated when you will use it in everyday verbal exchange
Hey, Jamie, here’s a great new career path for you!! When my Japanese son arrived in the US, he learned that the English he had studied was “book” English. When he and his wife went to Japan to live, she started giving classes in “conversational English”. That little cottage industry grew so well that he quit his engineering job to help run the language school. They now have three locations and offer conversational English, French and Spanish in addition to math tutorials.
Do they teach also a “trucker” English? 😉
Vlastimil, I’m afraid not. (:-))
For: Jamie, Vlastimil and Keith
If you are so clever you can translate it for yourselves:
Jamie, Vlastimile a Keith je mi z vas smutno…
Ja si myslim Jamie, ze jsi mel ceskou pritelkyni a ta ti dala kosem a ted si trosku nakysly – mozna vykvaseny:)
Jano diky – jsi jedna z mala kdo ma zdravy selsky rozum.
Spenat bych si dala, ten mam moc rada!:)
Mejte se hezky a nezapomente,ze diskuze byla o Praze – trosku to nabralo politickych rozmeru tak by to chtelo pribrzdit:) Hezky vikend!
Veronika
Ps: Keith pozdravuj manzelku, preju ji hodne stesti, ona to urcite potrebuje.
Veroniko, mylis se, diskuze byla o americanech, kteri neznaji zemepis… Pak nekdo objevil, ze Cesi taky mozna neco neznaji , tak jsem do toho pridal naseho sefa vsech caru, abych vas vystrasil, ale diskuze vesele pokracovala a nabyla mezinarodnich pomeru….. 😉
A nebud ze me smutna, pred nami je pekny vikend
Tak to jsi me Vlastimile potesil:)
Preju hezky vikend i tobe!
Je mi líto, Veroniko, ale žádnou českou přítelyni jsem nikdy neměl — Čiňanku ano, Arabku ano, pár Američanek, ale nenašel jsem Češku, která by podle mě za to stála, i když jsem dost možností měl. Tak, musíš najít jinou a méně blbou teorii.
Skoda Jamie. Mozna, ze bys Cesku mel vyzkouset – as my U.S. husband says: “once you go Czech, you never go back” :DDD
Anyway, I just stumble on this blog and I am really happy that something like this exists. I love the heated discussions! I am Libra at heart and on paper, so I can see both sides of the coin. There are some ridiculously “stupid” people living everywhere. I would just not call it stupidity but ignorance, or better yet absent-mindedness. Why should anybody care about something that is not important to them? If geography is not important to Americans (or Czechs) why should they be forced to learn? I’ve been living in the U.S. for about 10 years and I know squat about American football. I just don’t care at all about it! And if some enthusiast starts explaining it to me, I listen, I am interested in that particular moment, but an hour later I forget. Should I be called stupid because I don’t know and don’t care? Many might say yes. It is the same thing with geography. So when somebody says something “ignorant” about the best country on Earth :-), just as Tanja suggests, take a deep breath, think of the other things that that person might be good at and start explaining (if it is worth the effort to you).
“Jesus-like” attitude – really? I don’t think Jesus was making fun of people for their ignorance before he tried to enlighten them.
You’re a complete idiot. Don’t hurt yourself trying to pat yourself on the back while you are acting ” “Jesus-like” and educating people.
Hey “Jesus”, you should pull your head out of your ass and actually read the post. She was defending the ‘ignorant Americans’ at the beginning of the post. Obviously you are the idiot.
Kamila, ja jsem taky libra a moje manzelka taky neda dopustit na Cechy…Rekla mi, ze jestli se nekdy se mnou rozvede, vezme si zase jenom Cecha 😉
Vlastiku, tak to jsem rada, ze nase polovicky sdileji stejne vasne 🙂
“Jesus”, idiot? Really? Is that what you do? Go around and insult people when they are actually defending YOU? Obviously, you see only what you want to see. If you got offended by the world “jesus-like,” just substitute it for “tolerant” or “patient”. Calling names is the lowest form of argument, that one (you) uses only when he can’t think of anything else. Maybe you should go back to school and take some critical thinking classes (in addition to geography).
“Ignorance is Bliss” ..again.. “Knowledge is Power” …. but only if Adam had not eaten the apple ???… “Guys learn to build not destroy, because when you build good things it will automatically destroy the bad things”
Ahoj Tano,
I’ve been reading your blog stories coming in my e-mail inbox for a while but only today got to spending a bit more time browsing your site. You are doing such a wonderful job! I love the mix of your stories and articles. I’m London based for some nine years now, having previously lived in Australia for a short while.
I had to laugh so hard having just read the above story…sooo true. It reminded me how the Australians always used to say “Czechoslovakia” – those who actually knew the name anyway…let alone the location. One wonderful question I got from a hairdresser in Sydney when saying where I was from, was: “Are the beaches nice there?” Bless… The British are somewhat better but they still don’t have a very clear idea what exactly is further east of Germany.
I think the Czechoslovakia thing is funny. I tell people that I spent a couple of years in the Czech Republic, and half of them then try to correct me. “You mean Czechoslovakia?” They ask. Now, if they’re just wanting to establish the relationship between the Czech Republic and the Czechoslovakia that they learned about it school, fine. But when I say, “It used to be Czechoslovakia, but they separated twenty years ago,” and they STILL try to correct me, that’s when I get annoyed.
I also taught in Poland, where they teased me because Americans don’t know geography. I tried to defend my countrymen. After all, it isn’t quite fair for people to say, “Americans don’t know as much about my country as I know about theirs.” For better or for worse, America is a world-wide presence, in politics, news, pop culture, etc, so most of the world knows something about America. The same can’t be said about all other countries, again for better or for worse. So no, I don’t think Americans are completely stupid for not knowing the capital of Cameroon off the top of their heads, or for sometimes confusing the Rhine and the Danube, or not being able to immediately name all the countries that border Thailand.
However, when I got home, I decided to conduct a survey in an Arizona mall, to prove that Americans know something about Poland. When I stopped people, my first question was, “Can you tell me what continent Poland is on?” That’s where my defense of my countrymen fell apart. The number one answer? A blank stare. Followed by a tentative, “England?” and a few–thank goodness–answers of “Europe.” When presented with an unlabeled map of Europe, several pointed to nearby countries: Germany, the Czech Republic, Ukraine. Only two got it right away. Most just shrugged helplessly. So, I guess maybe the rest of the world is right about us. Sorry.
Haha Melinda 🙂 No need to apologize.
It really is not their fault. After 12 years of living here in the US I come to realize that my geography is not as good as it used to be. What bothers me that even when I want to be active and read the news to find out what’s going on in the world, it’s still hard to do. Most of the internet sites/newspaper list the domestic issues first (naturally), then cooking, then celebrity news, then health….and God knows what else before you get to find out something about the other world! So I think if it was more in their faces they would do better on your Poland test. But good job for being proactive!
Melinda, I used easy geography on an ESL test for Czech high school kids’ ability to describe the locations of places. I wrote a list of what I thought were really easy cities on the board, and the kids — who had allegedly been taught geography — immediately complained that they didn’t know where the places were. Finally I gave up and told them to draw a map, and if their description matched the map, I’d give them the points. However, they were still trying to do their best. Hardly any of them could put US cities in the right place, most of them thinking LA was where New York is, and many of them put Miami in Brazil. I also got gems like, “Munich is on the northern coast of Germany across the Danube from Hamburg.”
Among the seniors, I got essays on the United States saying that we consist of 13 independent countries and several colonies of France, Great Britain and Holland.
I rubbed these results in the faces of my Czech colleagues who were so smug about how much better educated their kids are than Americans’.
I also met an employee in a Czech bank who couldn’t distinguish between North and South America, thinking it was all more or less the United States.
I don’t think Czechs are smarter than we are.
As for Americans knowing less about other countries, ask the Poles and Czechs about the latest events in Macedonia or Albania. If they’re like the Germans, they won’t know what to say. A Mexican engineer I know has a theory about this. He says, “People don’t follow the news in inferior countries.” As an example, he says Mexicans know everything that goes on in the US and fault Americans for not knowing about Mexico, however Mexicans generally know nothing about what’s going on in Guatemala, right on their southern border!
It is true that if someone asked me in high school where Miami was, I would probably flake 🙁 I think I would do ok on Los Angeles though!
By the way, Jamie, perhaps you would be interested in a linguistic debate (of which Staci is also part of)? You can find it at the end of all of the comments of this post:
http://czechmatediary.com/2011/11/03/the-most-difficult-question-to-answer-is-how-are-you/
There are people in both countries that know and don’t know the geography. However, I think that because the U.S. is such a huge country, people don’t have to know anything about other countries to be considered smart or successful. That is not the case about the Czech Republic – in order to “survive” over there an average Czech needs to know much more about their surroundings than average American. A perfect example of this is when a Czech presidential candidate didn’t know where the castle Kuks is and why it is special, he was ridiculed in the Czech media and called incompetent for a president. After that “debate” his candidacy was pretty much done. Do we really need a president that will know what’s at Kuks castle but will publicly claim that there is nothing wrong with the term “deviant” when talking about gays (but that’s a different issue)?
I like and agree with Jamie’s comment about the inferior countries. People in Czech don’t know what’s going on in Macedonia or Albania for that exact reason. They consider those countries as unimportant and unintersting. Similarly, the Americans consider other countries the same way. I went to Canada one summer to visit some Canadian friends and relatives. I brought my very successful and very smart American (almost-ex) husband. When they asked him who the Prime Minister of Canada is, he simply responded: “and who the f*%$ cares??” Although he was the first one to actually voice that, i think that it is an attitude of many towards many “inferior” countries.
Whether Americans know geography and what’s going on around the world also hugely depends on where in the United States they live. I used to live in California (Nothern, which is considered “smarter”) and I used to have to correct almost everybody about Czech Republic vs. Czechoslovakia. Now I live on the East Coast and I have to say that it RARELY happens that people don’t know the difference… Some of them even know who Vaclav Klaus is…
So Americans are ignorant of eastern European geography? Bit of a generalization. How about you? Can you identify the 50 US states on a map? BTW: I love Prague, not matter what country it is in.
I never got the question about the traffic lights, but I can’t tell you how many times Americans ask me how Czechs celebrate Thanksgiving. For a while I went through the whole bit about how that were no Indians or pilgrims in the Czech Republic but now I just tell them (to their amazement!) that Thanksgiving is, indeed, just celebrated in Canada and the US.
I had several Czechs express a belief that Americans don’t drink beer, but whiskey instead. They thought this because of western novels by Karl May, who had never visited the US when he wrote them.
By the way, speaking of Thanksgiving, it’s almost impossible to get a Czech “teacher of English” to stop calling the Pilgrims “the Pilgrim Fathers”.
Lenko, you are right! Thanksgiving is another one. I usually tell them the same stuff as you but to fill in the embarrassing silence – after they realize how dumb their question was – I always say that the Czechs should have this holiday since there is always something to be thankful for ;).