At the end of my time in Prague, I feel like a woman in the last days of a bad marriage.
What I said to the Marriage Counsellor
The worst thing about it is that it’s an indication of something really pathetic about the Czechs. In first world countries, we’re pleasant to each other because we understand the game. We all have a job to do – yours is to sell me tram tickets, for instance, and mine is to hand over money – and we understand that we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The Czechs still don’t get it. All this stupid sullenness is about “I’ll show you who’s in charge here, Miss Uppity-Customer! I may have to serve you, but there’s nothing in the rules that says I have to make it pleasant for you!” They’re still living like they’re being downtrodden by the Communist regime. And it shows in every aspect of their lives. They don’t live. They survive.Life here, for a first world expat, instead of being a smorgasbord in a beautiful city, becomes a matter of picking out a narrow path, on either side of which is a wasteland of apathy and resentment: Shop at this vege shop because they sometimes have fennel (and sometimes it’s even crisp) and the cauliflower isn’t grey, eat at this restaurant because the staff smile and are pleasant, buy coffee from this café because they don’t make it with long life milk. Where in first world towns Asian and African food is cheap and plentiful and perfumes the main street with delicious aromas, here a Vietnamese meal is hard to find and an oasis when you find a good one.
What I Said to the Marriage Counsellor a Bit Later
Like any marriage, there were good times, especially at the beginning, and in time, those memories are what I will hang on to: the incredible warmth and generosity of my Czech friends, the hilarious Czech wit, their lovely gentleness, the beautiful city, the young Czechs doing their yoga and wearing dreds and learning to play the didgeridoo. I did think that maybe the young Czechs would be able to save this country, get it out from under the yoke of Communism, but I wonder. Has it always been like this? My father is Czech (he left for Australia when he was 17), and I hesitated to tell him what I really thought about his home country.‘My writing’s getting too gloomy,’ I said, because I would rather be truthful with him, ‘this country has drained me off.’
‘Oh I know, darlink!’ cried my father. ‘Why do you think Kafka wrote like that?’
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Nationality: Australian with a Czech father and a New Zealand mother
Profession: writer
Rachael Weiss came to Prague in 2005 and ended up writing a book about it, called Me, Myself and Prague. She loved Prague and came back in 2007 to live here permanently. Three years later, the Czechs deported her after wrangling for six months over exactly how she was to prove she was a writer. They deported her "so that the paperwork will be right". It was the last straw. Rachael has now picked up her bat and ball and is moving to England. Her grandmother was born in the UK in 1918 and lived there for six months - but that's apparently enough for the English, who have given her a visa.
Profession: writer
Rachael Weiss came to Prague in 2005 and ended up writing a book about it, called Me, Myself and Prague. She loved Prague and came back in 2007 to live here permanently. Three years later, the Czechs deported her after wrangling for six months over exactly how she was to prove she was a writer. They deported her "so that the paperwork will be right". It was the last straw. Rachael has now picked up her bat and ball and is moving to England. Her grandmother was born in the UK in 1918 and lived there for six months - but that's apparently enough for the English, who have given her a visa.
All my coping skills have disappeared. In the back of my mind, I’m aware that the Czechs can’t be as bad as I think they are, but just the thought that I’m shortly to escape has brought the stress of living with them screaming to the surface, and all my Pollyanna techniques have crumbled. The brick wall is dust. Now, the sullen ill-humour of the shop keepers, the waiters who never see you, the expensive and badly made consumer goods, the grey, wilting vegetables, the ludicrous self-importance of the communist bureaucracy with its demands for more and more and more bits of paper, the bland food, the stink of un-deodorised armpits and the stony white faces, I can no longer bear any of these things. When a newsagent was rude to visiting friends, I had a meltdown.
‘And here we have an example of truly delightful Czech grace and customer service,’ I cried, sweeping my arm to indicate the newsagent, much as I had when indicating the Astrological Clock. ‘Isn’t it charming? And don’t think this is something you can only see here in the Old Town. All of Prague is like this!’
Out loud, and not even disguising my anger. It was just too much. Is it too much to ask for a smile? Some simple courtesy?
