Czechmatediary

Do you keep coming across these Czech and Slovak organizations but have no clue what they do or what are they like? Well, I am officially creating a new series of interviews where we are going to meet their true faces. My first catch is the Czech and Slovak Association in Boston. The founders are these 3 very nice ladies – Estera Mlch, Renata Dutton, and Maria Grantham (see the picture above) –  who have always been so nice to me so they get to be historically the first ones to be interviewed:

1/ Hi Renata, can you introduce your organization a bit? How did it come around and whose idea was it?

This year we celebrated the 5th anniversary of our organization and we are so very proud of it. For me the whole idea probably started  when I was home with my one-year-old daughter and I needed some intellectual fulfillment in my life besides the regular mom stuff.  I also missed other Czechs and Slovaks and that’s why my Slovak girlfriends Marika and Ester and I put our brains together and realized the unfortunate fact: Boston lacked information on Czech and Slovak happenings in America. We do have the Masaryk Club but this organization concentrates on other things. That is why we created our website and registered our organization. At first we started advertising events made by other organizations and later held our own events. I have to say, we have gotten quite far – getting the recognition from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Czech Embassy and other organizations. [continue reading…]

The big news is that Barack Obama is coming to the Czech Republic soon! He and his wife are going to spend couple of days in Prague starting April 4th where they pay a visit not only to the current president Vaclav Klaus but they are also planning on having a lunch with the former president of CR, Vaclav Havel. But what is the main purpose of Obama’s visit? Find out here.

CZ: Velka novina je takova, ze se sam Obama chysta do Cech! Do Prahy prijede 4. dubna, kde navstivi nejen Vaclava Klause, ale take pry s manzelkou poobedva s celebritou Vaclavem Havlem. Co je ale hlavnim cilem jeho cesty? To se dovite zde.

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. [continue reading…]

March is a happy month as it marks the beginning of Spring. Along with your spring cleaning you can also learn how to make Czech/Slovak Easter eggs and how to cook dumplings! And of course, then there are bunch of classical concerts, art exhibitions and interesting lectures on Czech and Slovak topics….

CZ: Je tu brezen a – misto toho abychom zalezli za kamna – tak se bud muzeme naucit jak delat opravdove knedliky nebo jak malovat kraslice. A samozrejme je tu obrovsky vyber klasickych konzertu, vystav a zajimavych prednasek…

1. North Miami, FL (American Czech-Slovak Cultural Club)

• What: Lecture on Leading Personalities in the Creation of Czechoslovakia
• When: March 15

2. New York, NY (Czech Center)

• What: Ivan Passer’s (famous Czech director) movies
• When: March 6 – 13

• What: Jan Sikl’s Private Century (historical exhibition)
• When: March 9 – 15

• What: DG307 (Czech band) and Zive Kvety (Slovak band) concert
• When: March 13 [continue reading…]

Hi Everyone,

Couple of days ago I have received a very encouraging e-mail from one of you guys. Michelle (Misa) addresses the hot topic of how I teach my daughter Czech and since many of you share a similar story I thought this message would be encouraging to you as well:

CZ: Ahoj, pred nedavnem jsem od jednoho z vas obdrzela velmi povzbuzujici email a to ohledne zhave diskuze uceni me dcery cesky. Michelle (Misa) me nadsene vyzyvala k tomu, abych pokracovala s tim, co delam, a ze me na konci teto dlouhe a nekdy velmi klikate cesty ceka velka odmena:

Subject: regarding your experiment with bilingual upbringing

Please don’t stop! I would like to share my experiences as a child of Czech parents in the US. We emigrated when I was only three years old. At first my father insisted that we all use only English until we were all fluent. This was quite difficult for the adults (mother, father, and grandmother) but they managed it. Once everyone was sufficiently conversant in English however the only language the adults spoke at home was Czech. [continue reading…]

I don’t know if you have felt the presence of Masopust (meaning “Goodbye to meet”) but it is officially over. Maspust is a Czech-style Carnival, which is surprisingly celebrated differently by almost every single country in the world. A lot of the countries like Italy or Brazil  have a huge colorful dress-up party during this season (Brazilian carnival in Rio De Janeiro is the biggest one, Americans celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans…), whereas some states keep to the Roman-Catholic tradition, meaning that one has the last opportunity to celebrate and eat rich foods such as meat, diary, fat and sugar before the start of the 40-day Lent period. The Czech Masopust takes place from Epiphany (The Three Kings day; January 6th) until Ash Wednesday. [continue reading…]

Vera Hordova is 88 years-of-age and her husband Vaclav is 92. This is not just some kind of a regular Czech couple though; besides their impressive age, the couple has been married for 70 years!!!! They rightfully celebrated their marriage victory at the Cesky Krumlov town hall last week. What is their story? Hordovi got married in a stressful year of 1939 – at the beginning of World War II. They both claim that it was a love at a first sight; they got married 2 years later, however, since Vera was not 18 years old yet, she had to get a written approval from her parents. “The wedding itself was very simple; we went to the church at 7 am, got married and  went to work after the ceremony  since we had owned a little grocery store back then. Our parents roasted us a goose the following weekend as a celebration of our marriage….Since the times were hard back then there were no wedding gifts either – everyone had to save up their money as hard as they could”, says Vera. [continue reading…]

Hi Everyone/Ahoj vsichni,

here is a 2nd part of Ivana Stavarova’s research essay, which describes a current situation of the Czech-American minority in the US. As she said in the first part of this article there is virtually no statistical information on this topic so it is great that she picked something like that for her thesis! Although her sample group is quite small (159 people) you can still get an idea of what we, the Czech-Americans (and partially also Slovak-Americans), are like in these days. Don’t get freaked out by those evil-looking pie charts, they just make it easier for us to see the results. I thought the results to question no. 5 were very surprising and answer no. 7 made me feel a bit like an outsider since I do not belong to any of the official Czech organizations….but wait, I belong to Czechmate diary!!! So I am safe…..

CZ: Nize je uvedena druha cast diplomove prace super ceske studentky Ivany Stavarove. Esej se zabyva soucasnou situaci  Cecho-Americanu (a zcasti take Slovako-Americanu) zijicich z USA. Jak jiz Ivana zduraznila v casti prvni, o tomto tematu neexistuji skoro zadne informace, a proto se na nej take vrhla. I kdyz celkovy pocet vyplnenych dotazniku nebyl az tak obrovsky (159 lidi), stale vam to da dobry obecny prehled, jak to s nami vubec vypada. Odpoved k otazce c. 5 me dosti zaskocila a diky odpovedi na c. 7 jsem se citila chvilku trosku menecenne, protoze k zadne oficialni organizaci nepatrim; ale pak jsem si vzpomela na Czechmate Diary a oddychla jsem si :0)) Jo, a nebojte se tech grafu, ty vam zivot jenom ulehci – uvidite!

[continue reading…]

The Czech president Vaclav Klaus strongly criticized the EU during his speech an the European Parliament last Thursday. His fearless speech was greeted by an applause of many but also by disapproving boos by other members of the EP (see the 1st YouTube video bellow) . Believe it or not, but some of these oposers even demonstratively left the room! Why did people have such a passionate response? The main points of his speech are given bellow:

• “The EU is a revolutionary experiment which tries to improve the decision making in Europe by having its significant part transferred from individual states to European institutions”.

• “The current economic system of the EU suppresses competitive market and constantly strengthens the centralized economy”

• “The EU creates a great distance (and not just geographical distance) between the people and the political representatives of the EU; this distance is much greater than the one existing in the EU countries themselves” [continue reading…]