Setting foot in the pub - Tuesday, 16. August 1994
Tuesday, 16. August 1994--
I have already been here (in Prague)
five days and I haven't written a darned thing. It has been a strange yet
exciting week. This is my first visit to a former communist country. I guess
I've been so busy making adjustments and sightseeing that at night when I
should be writing, I am simply too tired. Radka, my Czech penfriend, has also
been kind enough to take me all over Prague to see the glorious sights. I feel
oddly at home here. It's not an enthusiastic liking that I have for this place,
but it's just cozy and comfortable. People are educated and cultured. I like
that.
The Czech Republic is a country in the
process of change. Like an adolescent, it is growing, maturing. There are new
reforms taking place everyday. Buildings are being built or rebuilt. New
businesses are springing up everywhere. Tourism is increasing at a dizzying
rate, and the awkward, kitschy backwardness, which occurs when the old clashes
with the new, is apparent everywhere.
Yesterday I got to talk with Lukaš, the
owner of the flat I'm staying in which is located directly across the street from Anděl
metro station. He lives in the flat with his wife, but I haven't seen either of
them since the night of my arrival (August 11). He offered me a beer and we talked
warmly. Nothing ecstatic happened until yesterday when my penfriend took me to
see the Jewish Quarter of Prague, Franz Kafka's house, and the synagogue. I
also tried telephoning Stan, my school director, in Příbram, where I'll be
teaching, to tell him I'd arrived safely. However, the number I tried had been
disconnected. Oh well! I'll send a fax instead. I need to get in touch with him
so we can begin the process of obtaining my work visa.
As I walk through the neighborhoods of
Prague, reminders of the forty-plus years of communism are everywhere. The
stark Soviet-style metro system, the grey drab of apartment blocks, the buzz of
the dysfunctional phone service, the Soviet-made streetcars, and the slow,
mediocre, unenthusiastic service in the shops and restaurants. However,
post-communist consumerism is taking root everywhere. You can see it in the
youthful entrepreneurialism of small, upstart businesses; the privatization of
what were once state-owned entities. Then there are the small self-conscious fashion
boutiques, and the encroaching greed of two restaurants just three doors apart,
jockeying for a few extra customers by offering the same cocktails at slightly
differing prices. Everything is springing up in true Western fashion, and dare
I say, in greed as well. I can only hope this Czech nation doesn't go the same
selfish, materialistic route that the Western capitalist nations have. Sadly,
something tells me that it will take the same path to ruin that some of the
Western nations have. Yet, on the bright side, there are people eager to move
forward, and that makes them likable to me. There appear to be relatively few
grudges on the part of the Czech people towards their former Nazi enemies or
their Soviet occupiers.
