Czechmatediary

It is a Czech tradition to watch specific fairy tales on TV during Christmas and the New Year holidays. When I was a little girl, our country was rulled by communists so we were ‘prescribed’ to watch the Russian fairytale  “Mrazik” (see the YouTube video bellow). It was pretty much on all the time and all of the kids knew the movie monologues by heart. Do you keep this tradition even though you live abroad now?

CZ: Tak co, divate se o Vanocnich prazdninach na ceske pohadky nebo jste tuto tradici v zahranici uz vzdali? Doufam, ze ne! Volte a pak si pripomente pohadku Mrazika v nasledujicim YouTube videu:

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Karen’s blog Empty Nest Expat led me today to a very nice article commemorating today’s date - November 17th. On this date - exactly 20 years ago - Velvet Revolution broke us free of communism. I was there, on my dad’s shoulders, but besides the shouting crowds and people shaking their keys, I don’t remember much. Tomas Etzler on the other hand, the CNN producer now based in Benjing, remembers  this historical event very well and narrates it to his readers  in a very entertaining tone. Enjoy (click here for the article)!

CZ: Karenin blog zvany Empty Nest Expat me dnes privedl k velmi zajimavemu clanku o vyroci sametove revoulce (17. listopadu 1989). Ja jsem na Vaclavaku v ten den sice byla, ale  jeste jako docela maly prcek, bazlive sedici na tatovych ramenou. Nic moc si z demonstrace nepamatuji, jen ten zastup napumpovanych lidi a zvoneni klicu. Tomas Etzler, ktery v soucasne dobe pracuje pro CNN, si toho pamatuje mnohem vic. V jeho clanku ctenarum shrnuje historii teto doby a to ve velmi zabavne podobe (clanek si prectete zde).

What words should you stay away from when you go to the Czech Republic? In other words, what words could get you there into a big trouble? According to the results of Readers Digest these sentences are a BIG no-no:

1. If you say: “Things were better during communism” (the winner)
2. Young people hate being asked what time they get home
3. Men hate hearing negative comments about their driving (universal law I think..)
4. Women hate being told to calm down

CZ: Pred jakymi slovy byste si meli davat pozor, kdyz budete travit nejaky ten cas v Cechach? Podle Readers Digest toto jsou ti nebezpecni ‘vyherci’:

1. Veta typu “Za komunismu nam bylo lip”
2. Mladi lide nesnasi, kdyz se jich rodice zeptaji v kolik budou vecer doma
3. Muzum se nelibi, kdyz nekdo okomentovava jejich rizeni
4. Zeny nenavidi, kdyz jim nekdo rika, aby se uklidnily

Source: http://www.radio.cz/en/article/120846

This one will make you laugh. The attachment bellow is a short article taken from a Czech magazine for children, written in 1960 (during  deep communism). Here is the translation:

“When you, my little pioneer, are going to be 30 or 35 years old, you will wake up into the world which will be completely different from today. The communist comrades in the USSR and in our country will have available many automated factories, agricultural jobs will be done through various industrial ways and we will work 6 hours a day. At this time our discovery crew will be reaching the deepest parts of space. All these great things will have a great impact on our everyday life: 250 million tons of steel, the abundance of all appliances, free public transportation, free food at the school and factory cafeterias, living in huge appartments free of charge, free or very inexpensive vacation trips and so on. This in not a beginning of some science fiction story in our magazine, it is a realistic 20-year program of the Communist party, something which is talked, written and thought about all over the world. The capitalist fame is quickly fading. After all, in 10 years the USSR will exceed the United States 2 and half times and in 1980 we will be ahead of the US in 10-folds. It is so beautiful to live in such world! (more…)

Have any of you -frugal people - tried to return recyclables at the recycling center? You should, it’s an experience of a lifetime! First of, it is not this orderly deal like when we used to return glass bottles during communism (to get the feel about what was it like, watch Return Bottles by Zdenek Sverak). Your mom sent you out with a bag of empty Mattonis and usually very unhappy lady in a grocery store exchanged them for couple of crowns and then you went home. Let me fill you in a bit on why did I decide to be this frugal while living in America. Our landlord (let’s call him Mike) has been digging through our trash for quite some time, claiming that one can make a ‘pretty good money’. Mike digs through our trash on a regular basis, especially after he hears us emptying our recycling containers into the main recycling bin. Mike is also not ashamed of this - he does it in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night. He also does some other strange things but that’s another story.

As I have been watching him day after day, digging through our trash, I decided I would give it a try myself. “Heck, who does not need some extra cash in these days?”, I thought to myself. (more…)

My Czech friend Pavla recently prompted me to write about the times when we had a yearly gas mask training at school. It was mandatory, so that we would know what to do in case some capitalist ‘pig’ decides to use the mushroom cloud on us. I don’t remember about it much since I was still kind of young (and my memory is terrible). I do have a vision in my head of putting those weird things on and then walking in the school hallways, feeling like a fool (especially if some cute boy walked right by). Since my story is not that interesting I called on to my Czech friends to help me write these memoirs . This is what they remember about those weird days:

CZ: Moje kamaradka Pavla mi nedavno poradila, abych napsala memoar o tom, jak jsme ve skole cvicili s plynovymi maskami (nebo-li tzv. branne cviceni). Nebyly to proste blaznive casy, kdyz si na to ted vzpomenete? Ja si toho z te doby moc nepamatuju (jenom to, ze jsme ten den tise chodily s dlouhymi choboty po chodbach nasi skoly), ale par mych kamaradek si toho vybavuje vic. Posudte sami - je to fakt zabava:

1. ‘Well, I don’t remember too much just that we had a gas-mask exercise once a year. The teachers handed us our masks which we had to wash with alcohol as a type of disinfection before we put them on. Of course, everyone had to have his own personal mask, which was fitted specifically for his skull. Before the correct mask was chosen for us, our face was measured with a specific measuring tool which kind of looked like pliers. (more…)

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Here is yet another great recommendation from one of the Czechmate Diary readers. Martina sent me a link of the ‘Project S.P.A.D.’ website, which is an on-line simulation of the most dreadful times in the history of formal Czechoslovakia, back when it was called the Czechoslovak Socialistic Republic (CSSR). One can find himself back in the 70’s, watching black-and-white video clips of Marta Kubisova, Karel Gott or Neckar. You can also listen to the communist radio! Check it out, it is well worth your time!

Project S.P.A.D. gallery

PS: English translation is coming soon!

CZ: Tohle proste musite omrknout! Jedna z vas, bezvadnych ctenaru a ctenarek Czechmate Diary (Martina), mi poslala vyborny link. Projekt S.P.A.D. je on-line simulace komunistickych casu, kdyz se nase chudak rodna zeme jeste nazyvala CSSR. Za casu, kdy si sousede zavideli nos mezi ocima a kdy vsichni ridili bud Skodovku 100 nebo zigulika; za casu, kdy se z radia linuly noty pisne “Kavu si osladim” a v televizi jsme se vecer divali na Televariete s Jirinou Bohdalovou a na Vanoce jsme pak meli ’svatecne’ Mrazika. No, vy ten pribeh dobre znate…Dobre se bavte!

Galerie projektu S.P.A.D.

Rizky (Wiener Schnitzel) may be a traditional Austrian dish but it definitely belongs to the Czech and Slovak cuisine as well. The original Austrian Schnitzel is made from veal but most Czechs make it from pork or chicken. It is usually served with mashed or boiled potatoes or one just makes a plain bread-n-schnitzel sandwich from it. Who does not remember a schnitzel sandwich from his school days? Whether  you went on a long school bus trip or for a tremendous mountain hike, guess what you had in your lunch bag? A schnitzel sandwich wrapped in a dump paper tissue, which meant that you spent about a half an hour peeling it off of the poor schnitzel before you actually took a bite :0).

CZ: Recept na rizky jsme sice ukradli od Nemcu, ale i pres to je neodlucitelnou soucasti ceske a slovenske kuchyne. Kdo by si nepamatoval Vanocni kureci (!!) rizek s bramborovym salatem?? Nebo veprovy rizek s chlebem a horcici? At to byl skolni vylet, nebo turisticky vyslap na Snezku nebo autobusovy zajezd do Jugoslavie, hadejte, co bylo k obedu? Rizek s chlebem zabaleny v papirovem ubrousku!!!…a pak jste samozrejme stravili pul hodiny odlupovanim onoho vlhkeho, ulepeneho ubrousku z nestastneho rizku…

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On May 30th passed away Waldemar Matuska, one of the most prominent Czech/Slovak singers of the 60’s and 70’s. He was born in Kosice (Slovakia) and later raised in Prague. Inheriting music genes from his mom, Waldemar played various instruments from an early childhood. Later he became an actor in a famous Prague theatre Semafor. As his popularity increased he began writing songs for movies as well as doing the acting part in them. Matuska was a singing partner to many other Czech stars like Helena Vondrackova, Marta Kubisova or Jitka Zelenkova and he won the Zlaty Slavik competition twice. In 1986 he and his family decided to emigrate to the USA (namely to the state of Florida). The communists punished him by banning all of his songs, completely destroyed couple of his recordings as well as deleted his opening song in the popular television series Chalupari. He continued to perform in the US, mostly for the Czechoslovak emigrants. Matuska died of pneumonia and heart faliure at the age of 76.

Attached is a YouTube video of one of his former hits, a song called “Tereza”: (more…)

I was thinking today that although communism is gone I still experience some remnants of it. The good things were hard to buy during communism; when bananas or oranges arrived in the store people were just about to unpack their tents in front of the store so they could get some; when there was a decent trip to Yugoslavia available, people really did sleep in the sleeping bags in front of the traveling agency to purchase a ticket (and I am talking from a personal experience here). If a kid brought some Western candy to school he would better watch out not to be torn into pieces. And the list goes on…you get the point: good things were scarce, most of it was just junk.

Now that I live in the beautiful United States of America I find it quite ironic that i miss this ‘junk’. What ‘junk’ am I talking about? Let’s say that one of my friends comes back from Czech and brings a box of Fidorka, or Bonpari, or - God forbid - Lazenske oplatky (!!). (more…)