Czechmatediary

I am starting to have a suspicion that many Czechs emigrated to the US because of their last name. These are just a few examples of Czech names that I have seen around town, here in the US, and they made me giggle:

- James Zadek (Zadek = Behind)

- Andrew Siska (Siska= pine cone but also piece of poop)

- Rudolf Ptak (Ptak = bird but it is also a slang for ‘penis’)

-  Sue Kruty ( Kruty = ruethless, evil)

It must be hard to live in the Czech Republic with such names especially since Czechs are such merciless jokers at times; if I had a last name like that I would surely leave the country! Because when abroad, all those names sound rather exotic without anyone knowing what they really mean. (more…)

If you don’t like to go mushroom picking you are simply not Czech. As most of us have  experienced, summer in the Czech Republic (or Slovakia) can be very rainy; sometimes it rains for weeks! It is unfortunate for  tourists but for mushroom pickers it is a time for celebration. As the forest soil sucks in the moisture, various mushroom types  emerge but you have to have a trained vision to see them as they are really good in camouflaging themselves. When I was about 5 years old I went mushroom picking with my neighbor’s family. Since I was the youngest one in the pack I was sent on the most obvious and boring trails. Discouraged, with my basket being completely empty compared to the others, I slowly lingered on my assigned trail. All of a sudden I see this suspiciously big pile of leaves. (more…)

Way back when, when I was about 16 years old I had my appendix removed. The operation was successful although my appendix was wrapped around my stomach so instead of a quick one hour operation it was a 5-hour ordeal, but I am alive, which is all that matters.

After the operation was over and I gained consciousness I was given a choice to recover either in the pediatric department or to stay with the adults. I chose to stay with the ‘kids’ since I was almost postitive that some other sickly 16- or 15- year-old will share my misery there.Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case. The oldest kid after me was 5 years old. The dining room had a little kid tables with colorful matching kid chairs; most beds had rails on them and the bed time was at 6pm. And I had 2 ‘wonderful’ weeks to spend in this environment! Most of the days I wasted my time reading my favorite book called “Mladi v hajzlu” (My life in the dumps) which lessen my misery by at least a bit.

I do not want to talk about how miserable I felt though. I want to talk about the other kids. Get ready for this. What am I about to tell you is so crazy that even my own father, a doctor at that particular hospital, did not believe me. (more…)

I may be officially an Americanized woman now! Why? A couple of days ago I found myself ‘guilty’ while buying a pair of jeans that had a manufactured hole in them! How could I do such thing?? What would my poor grandmother say to that?? I can just see her astonished look: “What? You actually paid money for a pair of pants that look like you fished them out of a trash can?”

Yes, I admit it, I got brainwashed by the worldly fashion trends. The thing is that the ‘trashcan’ look is in style nowadays. Just list through any of the People magazines and you will find out the dirtier and more unkept someone looks the cooler marks he/she gets from the press! Say your good byes to anything that looks half-new because if you don’t, you will look like a dork. Wait a minute. Couldn’t we be more useful to the world and buy these filthy looking things off of some Third World county instead of having them made artificially in some factory in China? (more…)

Here is my Easter story. What am I about to say here may be really interesting for those who didn’t grow up in Czech or Slovakia (and a “nice” reminder for those who did). The “My Czech Republic” website gives you the cheery and playful version of this tradition but my recollection is not so cheery. Of course, we do the fun stuff like coloring the eggs, baking cakes in a shape of a lamb and sing merry songs. However, as I mentioned in my other posts, Czechs really like their alcohol (they have been no.1 beer-drinking consumers for ages now) and if you mix that with Easter - or any other celebration - things can get pretty crazy.

I can speak with a dose of authority since I have experienced the “wonders” of Czech Easter many, many times. As I mentioned before, when I was a kid my family spent the weekends/holidays at our cottage, located in a little quaint village near Prague. And villages are the places where things get REALLY crazy when holidays - especially Easter - come around. (more…)

As many of you know my daughter has a Czech mom (that would be me) and an American dad. Although we live in the US, fully submerged into the American culture, her Czechness cannot be hidden for long and that is for various reasons:

1/ She does not have very many toys. I like to buy her the $1.00 toys at Target or I get her toys at a local second hand store. They are as good as new and cost half the price. I also let her play with trash - yes, trash! An empty water bottle or an empty cardboard box can get you long ways! The other day, I stocked up a bunch of empty plastic bottles into Hahna’s portable tub and 45 minutes later she was still happily jumping in and out of it, having a blast. Or try to recycle an empty  cardboard box the Czech way and make a little house out of it (see picture)…the possibilities are endless. For more tips on  trash toys read  the post about my grandma. (more…)

Hi Everyone,

Besides the fact that my Czech vocabulary has decreased quite a bit (read my article on “Let’s talk Czenglish “), I also keep realizing that the longer I live in the States the more often I find myself struggling with the Czech grammar. I always thought: “That would never happen to me!”, and here I am, thinking if  the word “vikend” (weekend) is written with “y” or “i”. Or do I say “tvuj sesit” or “svuj sesit” (both expression mean “your notebook”)? I find myself repeating these expressions over and over in my head to see if one or the other will “click” as (hopefully) the correct version. How about you, what do you struggle with? Share your experience in the following poll: (more…)

When I was growing up in the former Czechoslovakia people did not drink real coffee. They either drank the instant kind  or they drank it Turkish-style. For those who are not familiar with Turkish coffee, you basically put ground up coffee grounds on the bottom of the cup and pour hot water over it. Then you wait until the majority of it settles down (notice, I say “majority” because about 1/4th of the grounds ends up in your teeth - creates a lovely look). Anyway, my parents drank it, I drank it throughout my high school years and did not think much of it, just hoped it would keep me awake during my study nights. But THEN I  came to the US and was introduced to Starbucks….and from then on it went downhill with me. I just loved their coffee! My unhealthy relationship with Starbucks  went  so far that I ended up working there for a couple of years and yes, I did have to get up at 3:15 am for my morning shifts and yes, I did become the feared  Tripple-tall-half-decaf-extra-hot-one-pump-sugar-free-vanilla-soy-no-foam-late beast. (more…)

It’s  time to talk about the embarrassing stuff. How many of you, the non-native English speakers, have NOT had an embarrassing experience while you were in the process of learning English? I bet every one of you has a story. I personally can remember (and it would be impossible to forget) at least 2 moments when I faced the eternal embarrassment of all times : the first time I was talking to my boss, explaining to her that I had had a terrible stomach flu, where I had eaten too much popcorn and it had blown up in my testicles (instead of the word “intestines“) and that is why I had been throwing up the whole weekend. The other time, not long after this particular speech accident I was at a party where the host decided to introduce me to this magical thing called a Theracane (great stuff by the way!). It’s basically a simple plastic massaging stick but the way it is bent one can massage his own back with no problems. Anyway, as I was testing this instrument in front of her, I whispered with a satisfying tone in my voice: “It really gets my nuts” instead of “It really gets my knots“. Oblivious to what I just said, I did not catch the weird looks everyone had on their faces. Fortunately my good husband saved me and gently corrected my pronunciation. And then we all had a good laugh; and I also felt embarrassed for about 6 months after that. Actually I still get red when I think about it -  like right now. (more…)

I thought I would give you an update on how is my bilingual experiment with my daughter going (for part I click here). Since it is an experiment with no way of knowing how is it going to end, I thought I would put it into a scientific format this time - to make it more interesting :o) :

CZ: Tak jsem si rikala, ze je na case, abych vas aktualizovala na nynejsi maminkovskou situaci a to zejmena co se tyce uceni me dcerky cestiny (pro cast 1. kliknete zde). Jelikoz je to vsechno jeden velky experiment (tedy nemam vubec poneti, jak toto moje snazeni vubec zkonci), napsala jsem to tentokrat v podobe “opravdoveho”  vedeckeho dokumentu :0):

Introduction:
Hahna is 17-month old toddler and she stays home with her mommy (me). Once a week grandma comes over to play with her for couple of hours while mommy and daddy go get a big cup of Starbucks and stare into the white wall to decompress. Mommy talks to her in Czech pretty much all day until daddy comes home and then everyone talks English. Mommy also switches to English when her American friends are around. (more…)

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