Mary Matz

Random Thoughts
and Wild
Imaginings
A Peek Inside the Diary
of an American Ex-Pat
Living in the Czech Republic
Written and illustrated by Mary Matz

Bridge Magazine
2012
Random Thoughts and Wild
Imaginings

A Peek Inside the Diary of an

American Ex-Pat
Living in the Czech Republic

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Contents
Introduction ....................................................................5
Random Note #2: Speaking Czech ................................6
Random Note #2a: Speaking Czech Part 2 ..................8
Random Note #62: Czech Noses ..................................10
Random Note #4: Google Translate ............................11
Wild Imaginings #422: Social Art ...............................13
Wild Imaginings #7: Origins of Species.......................19
Random Note #44: Cows and Oxen ............................ 20
Random Note #45: Hamburgers................................. 21
Random Note #414: Calendars ................................... 23
Wild Imaginings #56: Heroes...................................... 25
Wild Imaginings #34: Czech Brains ........................... 28
Wild Imaginings #34a: Czech Brains Part 2 ............. 32
Random Note #6: Stars ............................................... 33
Wild Imaginings #350: Spot the Differences ............ 35
Random Note #98: Doors ............................................ 36
Random Note #98a: Doors Part 2 .............................. 38
Random Note #98b: Doors Part 3 .............................. 39
Random Note #18: Roofs ............................................. 40
Wild Imaginings #955: Czech Chairs......................... 43
Epilogue......................................................................... 52
Final Epilogue ............................................................... 54
Introduction:About the Author
Mary Matz has always been accused by her mother of having
a wild imagination. During a recent trip to the US (Mary has lived
in Prague since 1995), while Mary was out, her mother cleaned
out Mary’s suitcase and found this diary.
Did she... ? Of course she read it! Now Mrs Matz would like you
to take a look at it too and decide if she’s right – does Mary have
a wild imagination?
But read it quickly... before Mary gets back... and don’t say
anything... just keep smiling and pretend everything’s normal...

5
Random Note #2

Speaking Czech
The Czech language is really difficult to learn. And like all
speakers of a foreign language, I’m always a little unsure of myself
when I have to speak Czech to a Czech person. When I came here
in 1995, many people had never spoken to an American before.
Many had never traveled outside the Czech Republic. So they had
no idea how difficult Czech really is.
But gradually that started to change. These days, most Czechs
are very patient with native English speakers who murder their
language as they try to speak. Most Czechs have tried to learn at
least a little English themselves, and now they see how difficult
it can be.
So it’s interesting to see the reactions of Czech people when
I try to speak their language today, more than 15 years later.
Take the question of “ty” versus “vy” for example. In my early
Czech language classes we were told that we must never, ever use
“ty” when speaking to someone we don’t know as well as we know
our own family.
I’ve found out that it isn’t true. Most of the time I use “ty”
because the people I speak most with are my close friends and we
all use “ty”. When I suddenly realize that I’ve said “ty” to a shop
assistant, for example, I immediately apologize and repeat what
I’ve tried to say, this time using “vy”.

6
 But it doesn’t matter. Most people just wave their hands and
make a face that says, “Don’t worry, it’s OK; it’s not important.”
I like that, because it makes me feel the way my own language
makes me feel as an American – that everybody is equal. In
English, everybody is “ty”. Even though we call some people by
their first names, and others “Mr...” or “Mrs...” we still think of
them all as indistinguished1 “you”.
But sometimes the Czech person has a different reaction. They
get a tiny little smile on their face, their eyes soften and twinkle2,
and they listen to my Czech really, really carefully. They look very
pleased, even a little dreamy.
It’s not because my Czech is so good, I’ve found out.
It’s because my Czech sounds exactly the same as the Czech of
their own little children when they were first learning to speak,
and the people enjoy reliving3 this memory through my child-like
ability to speak this language.
(Sigh.)

1 indistinguished – not specified

2 to twinkle – to shine, to be bright
3 to relive – to clearly remember something that happened in the past

7
Random Note #2a

Speaking Czech Part 2

I think one reason foreigners don’t pronounce the Czech “ř”
very clearly is – well, we can do it perfectly well, we just don’t
want to. It’s because we’re afraid we’re going to spit4 all over
whomever we’re talking to.
I think that’s the same reason Czechs don’t pronounce
the English “th” very well, either.
We’re all just too polite to speak!

4 to spit – to force out the contents of the mouth (plivat)

8
 And it would be nice if Czechs were a little more generous with
their vowels. The first time I saw the word “čtvrtek”, I couldn’t
believe it. Five consonants in a row!
Where are we – Wales?
Which reminds me: Why do Czechs hide the letter “ch” after
the letter “h” in dictionaries? You could say it has a somewhat
similar sound to “hhh” – but then I could say that the first letter
there is clearly a “c”, which comes well before “h” in a dictionary.
And after all, we don’t pronounce a dictionary, we read it, so it
should be in alphabetical order.
I do think it’s cute5, though, when business names in vertical
signs have the “ch” going crosswise, like

O
B
CH
O
D

It looks like they’re trying to play Scrabble.

5 cute – pleasant, attractive

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Random Note # 62

Czech Noses
I hadn’t been in the Czech
Republic very long when
I noticed an amazing thing: Many
Czech people have the most
fantastic noses!
These noses are like big
isosceles triangles6, flesh
mainsails7 on the human ships
of the land-locked8 Czech Navy,
proud ice cutters slicing through
an invisible sea.
And I think I know how Czechs
get this beautiful nose.
It’s from reading Czech
children’s books.
One of the first books I got in
the Czech Republic was the vowel‑impaired9 Václav Čtvrtek’s
The Story of the Bird (named) Klabizňák. The little bird in
the pictures also had this amazing Czech nose! And then I noticed

6 isosceles triangle – a triangle with two sides of equal length

7 mainsail – a large sail (a piece of cloth that catches the wind and helps a ship to move)
8 land-locked – having no sea coast
9 vowel-impaired – lacking vowels (in his surname)

10
that some other Czech illustrators draw birds in a similar way. So
young Czech children who read these books start to grow these
noses as they grow up!
To prove my theory about Czech illustrators, I have drawn
a Czech bird in a tuxedo10, with a beautiful Czech nose.

Random Note #4

Google Translate
I guess there will always be a need for human translators. This
is clear thanks to computer translation devices, such as Google
Translate, among others. The poor little things try very hard, but
sometimes their answers are just silly.
For example, one translator completely ignores the “ne-” prefix
on all negative Czech verbs. I guess it just wants everything to be
positive.
It often translates “she” as “he” or “it”.
And if there happens to be a person’s name in the translation,
look out11! A computer translator can give you really funny
answers. For example, the Czech mezzo-soprano named Michaela
Kapustová is translated as Michael Cabbage.

10 tuxedo – a man’s jacket worn at formal social events

11 look out – be careful

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 Once I was explaining to someone that round jars12 take up too
much space on a shelf, and square jars are better. The computer
showed that:

a square jar is translated as Náměstí Jar

I was trying to speak about a musician offering violin lessons for

English-speakers, and the computer helpfully suggested that:

English-speakers is translated as angličtinu-reproduktory

The computer also is quite patriotic, saying that:

stavte se na dobré is translated as the state is good coffee

kafe

And finally, the computer translator takes a humble13 attitude14:

Jen tak, abyste is translated as Just so you know

věděli, že něco something that I do not
ještě dělám

12 jar – a glass container

13 humble – not proud, not believing that you are important (skromný)
14 attitude – an opinion about sth, or a way of behaving that is caused by this (postoj)

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 Wild Imaginings #422

Social Art
Lately I’ve noticed something very interesting on the metro:
people are starting to do things to the advertising stickers
placed on the inside of the metro doors. And I think that those
advertisements and the changes people make to them are going to
be the next graffiti.
Graffiti became very popular in the 1960s, and when I was
living in New York City in the 1970s, sometimes I saw graffiti on
a subway car15. Back then, to write graffiti nobody used spray
paint. Instead, you had to scratch into the surface of the metal
with something very sharp, like a key or a knife.
Some of the graffiti said “Book you.” Actually, this started
out as a very rude graffiti, and then a passenger who thought it
was too rude carefully used a key to scratch16 some extra lines
into the letters. They changed the first letter of the first word,
“f”, into a “b”, and the “u” into the first “o”, and the original “c”
into the second “o”, to change the original word into “book”, so it
wouldn’t be so offensive.
Today in Prague, it seems there’s a lot less spray-painted
graffiti in the metros, and instead there are lots more advertising
stickers. Some of them are quite ugly and old, plastered at

15 subway car – part of an underground train

16 to scratch – to cut with sth sharp

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crooked angles17 or partly torn off. They usually advertise an
event (typically a rock concert or a party in a club) that happened
many months ago.

17 plastered at crooked angles – stuck (to the door) not straight

14
 Some doors have so many stickers, one on top of the next,
that it looks like the newest form of that old information source,
the newspaper.
Reading them is a way to see what’s going on at certain places:
rock clubs, summer music festivals. And also to see what people
are worried about: losing weight, finding work, etc.
Right now, probably some sociologist is studying these
stickers to see what they can show us about society in the early
21st century.
In places where there are many stickers on top of each other,
parts of some have been ripped off18. But you can still read some
of the letters from a sticker underneath19. Archeologists have
a name for something similar to this, a palimpsest. Palimpsests
were created mainly from ancient times through the Middle
Ages, when important documents were written on wax
tablets20 or animal hides21. When the information was old and
something more important needed to be recorded, the writer
melted22 the wax or scraped off23 part of the hide and wrote on
the new surface. But often you could still read the letters from
the original document, too.

18 ripped off – torn off

19 underneath – under
20 wax tablet – a thin piece of wood covered with a layer of wax (the substance candles are
made of )
21 hide – animal skin
22 to melt – to turn into liquid state
23 to scrape off – to remove

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On the left: A palimpsest. The old letters are from the 6th century; the newer
ones, from the 10th or 11th century.
On the right: A 21st century palimpsest on a metro door.

There’s another reason I like to study these stickers. In my

family, we grew up playing word games. We loved crossword
puzzles, and we often spent Sunday afternoons playing Scrabble
or Hangman24 or trying to make new words from one long one.

24 Hangman – a game in which one player thinks about a word and the other player tries to
guess the word by suggesting letters (šibenice)

16
 And now I’ve started playing word games with the advertising
stickers on the metro. I guess I’m just getting tired of seeing how
messy they look, plus sometimes I’m bored during my journey.
So instead of diving for a seat25, I stand in the doorway and wait
for the doors to close. Then I examine the stickers carefully, and
by the time the train starts moving, I have chosen one and started
picking at it with my fingernail. Slowly and carefully I try to peel
off26 some letters and leave other parts of the sticker untouched,
to make new words. It’s not so easy, because most of the words are
in Czech and I try to make the new words in English. Like this:

Example 1: A sticker has a large, empty, oval ring at the top with
the message NOVÝ AUTODROM right below it. I carefully peel
away V, Ý, D, R, O and M so the empty ring is still there, and below
it the new message reads
NO AUTO

Example 2: An ugly new sticker says EROTIC MASSAGE.

I carefully peel away the letters E, R, A, G, and E so the remaining
part spells
OTIC MASS
(otic is a word that means the ear; mass is a large, dense
amount of something; so otic mass = ear wax, the yellowish
substance inside people’s ears)

25 diving for a seat – running (through crowds) to take a seat

26 to peel off – to remove

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 “Treat yourself to a new horizon of pleasure,” this sticker says.
But probably customers being massaged with someone’s ear wax is
not exactly what the owner of this massage parlor27 has in mind!

My best idea so far is for the sticker that says MÁTE LEPŠÍ
NÁPAD NA REKLAMU? It would take a lot of work to finish this
one, though. I would have to cheat a little bit, using a knife or key
just like the graffiti artists did 40 years ago, to turn the second
P into B. And my message would use the letter K instead of
the correct letter, C. But I would tear away the M, the whole word
“lepší”, the N, the P, A, D, the whole word “na”, and the R, E, U, and
final ? – so the message would then read

ATE A BAD KLAM

It makes me giggle28 to think of someone announcing they ate

a bad piece of clam29.

Maybe some people would think I’m crazy for doing

this. But I have a good reason. It’s on the sticker that says
WWW.KONECCELULITIDY.CZ. After I’m finished with it, it explains:

I TIDY.CZ
(I’m tidying the Czech Republic)

27 parlor – a shop which provides a certain type of service (e.g. massage)

28 to giggle – to laugh quietly
29 clam – a kind of a sea creature (mušle)

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 WILD IMAGININGS #7

Origins of Species: Border Control

I know the perfect way to tell if people are American or Czech.
(This could be handy at border crossings30!)
Just show them this picture:

If white chickens come from white eggs, what kind of chickens come from
Czech Easter eggs?

If they say: Ha-ha-ha, that’s cute! it means they’re Americans.

But if they say:
How can this be right? It is nonsense. I’ve never seen a white
chick. Yellow ones come from white eggs. Or from brown eggs.

30 border crossing – a place on the border between two states where people can cross from
one state to the other

19
They don’t have designs. Although the chicks can turn white
later. But they can also turn brown, or red, or a combination of
colors. For example, many chickens in Africa have feathers of
many different colors. And in Asia, too. I’m not sure about South
America. And anyway, Easter eggs do not contain chicks at all;
either they are hollow, or they contain the material we can eat,
which will not grow into a chick, so how can...
it means they’re Czechs.
(See Wild Imaginings #34 and #34a, Czech Brains)

Random Note #44

Cows and Oxen

I think many native speakers are surprised that Czechs think
calling someone an ox31 or a cow is so rude. It’s nothing special in
English – after all, both are just animals. In English we can call
someone a dog (a bad person), a pussy-cat (someone soft-hearted),
a cold fish (unemotional), a rat (a very dishonest person), a pig
(a selfish person or one who eats too much), and many others
– including a dumb ox (a very stupid person) or a cow (a crude –
rough and impolite – woman).
It seems in both cultures, Czech and American, calling someone
these animal names isn’t as popular as it used to be. I used to hear

31 ox – a male cow which cannot have young ones

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young guys calling each other that name all
the time. But I think it’s being replaced by
rude, new words which aren’t as innocent
(to a native English‑speaker).
Unfortunately, in both cultures,
the language we use to express our anger is
becoming stronger and more rude.

Random Note #45

Hamburgers
And speaking of the ox, it’s interesting
to watch the changing reaction of many
Czechs to that great American institution,
the hamburger.
Supposedly, the simple little ground
beef32 sandwich was actually invented in
Germany (in Hamburg?). It took someone
of Czech ancestry, Ray Kroc, to turn it into
the international standard for fast food.
And it seems that the British love to
promote the stereotype of Americans as fat people who eat all

32 ground beef – meat from cows which has been cut up into very small pieces

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their food – hamburgers – with both hands, for all three meals
a day.
So it’s not surprising that many Czechs were a little skeptical
about embracing33 McDonald’s when that international food
company first came to the Czech Republic.
But now things may have gotten a little out of hand34 when it
comes to eating certain foods with your hands.
The latest reports show that 1/3 of Czech teenage boys (ages
13–18) and 1/4 of Czech teenage girls of the same age are classified

33 to embrace – to accept
34 out of hand – out of control

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as obese – seriously fat. Not only is this unhealthy now; doctors also
say if you’re obese as a teenager, you’ll probably also have weight
and health problems as an adult – that is, for the rest of your life.
So it appears that many Czechs have gotten over their first
hesitation and now have welcomed the hamburger into the family.
In defense of my national food and drink, though, I would
like to point out that you can’t simply blame McDonald’s for
a nation’s obesity.
I suspect that sweets and chips from Britain, chocolate from
Italy and Switzerland, cheese and pastry from France, and too
much rich Czech beer and fried cheese with French fries may also
have a hand in the problem.

Random Note #414

Calendars
Czech wall calendars drive me crazy.
Usually, they show a big, beautiful picture for each month – well,
that’s fine. But then the tiny numbers for each day of the month,
1 through 30 or 31, are in a stream35 across the bottom, and there’s
no way to know what day of the week each one is.
US calendars all start with Sunday as the first day of the week.
Some of my Czech friends say, “But on the seventh day He rested!”

35 stream – continuous line

23
meaning that God took Sunday off, so the first day of the work
week is Monday.
But I’ve heard some Americans say, “But you should start your
week with God!”
That’s why the pretty Czech calendars are so awful for
Americans: The stream of numbers doesn’t show the days of
the week; only every seventh day is in color. How do I know if that
means it’s a Sunday? Or a Monday? Or a holiday?
Usually, American calendars show the days of the month in
boxes, neatly36 arranged in rows and columns, so you can always
see at a glance the dates of all the Tuesdays, for example, just
by looking down a column. Or you can see immediately that
the 25th is on a Friday, just by looking in the row. And there’s
plenty of space in each box to write down important meetings or
birthdays.
Czech calendars are beautiful. But if I want to survive daily
life in the Czech Republic, I need a calendar that works. I have
a Czech calendar for the pictures. But because I like to show up
for meetings on the correct day, I also ask my mom to send me an
American calendar every year for Christmas.
Sometimes she buys me a Calvin and Hobbes or Garfield one.
The advantage of these calendars, of course, is that they have
a big cartoon on the page above the boxes.
Sometimes she sends me a calendar from her pharmacy or
insurance office, so I can read about the latest headache pills

36 neatly – in a tidy way

24
or why I need to buy life insurance. The advantage of these
calendars, of course, is that they are free.

WILD IMAGININGS #56

Heroes
Every country has its heroes and the Czech Republic is no
exception. That’s why almost every native English speaker
coming to the Czech Republic who wants to know about Czech
heroes ends up buying two books they never read.
The books are The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, and
anything written by Václav Havel.
We buy these books because somehow we’ve all been told that
these two – I mean Švejk and Havel – are symbols of typical Czech
heroes, and if we want to understand the Czech Republic, we have
to read these books.
Most of us do truly want to understand the Czech Republic. If
only it could be done by simply reading two books! But that’s kind
of a silly idea. Nonetheless, we slog37 our way through page after
page of The Good Soldier Švejk, waiting for something really funny
to happen (we’re told by Czechs that it’s hilarious38), or at least to
be able to understand what’s really happening in the plot.

37 to slog – to move (read) with difficulty

38 hilarious – very funny

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 And then we trudge39 along with Mr Havel, trying desperately
to keep up with his complicated thoughts and follow at least one of
his long, complicated sentences.
Then we quietly close both books and take them to the used
book store, hoping they’ll buy our copies and put them on their
shelves along with the 17 other copies from the disgruntled40
ex‑pats41 who re-sold their books before us.
Now, it’s clear that Mr Havel is probably going to become
a historical figure, a national hero honored possibly right
alongside T. G. Masaryk. And that’s great.
It’s not so clear, though, why Švejk – a lazy, slow, fat, seemingly
stupid soldier we’re told was some kind of anti-hero long ago –
should be up there with them.
It’s not an image that people outside the Czech Republic
truly understand; it’s not a flattering42 picture, even as a joke,
for anyone, especially the hard-working, clever, golden-handed
Czechs. Every few weeks you can read in the international news
about how Czechs are doing their best, about a promising new
discovery that a Czech scientist has made. Or about how this
small country is famous all over the world for its glass or beer
or athletes. Even its other hero, Krtek, made the news when he
became an astronaut.

39 to trudge – to move (read) slowly

40 disgruntled – annoyed, unhappy, disappointed
41 ex-pat (expatriate) – sb who does not live in their own country
42 flattering – making sth look good

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 So I would like to suggest that Good Soldier Švejk finally
goes back home, stretches out43, and spends the rest of his days
fast and forever asleep under a tree in his garden. Thank you;
now please leave.
In his place I suggest that the Czech Republic officially elect
a new national symbol: Jára Cimrman. He’s inventive, clever,
quick, golden-handed, and most of all, very, very funny – in a way
that everyone can understand and enjoy. (And he was unofficially
voted “the greatest Czech” in a poll a few years ago.)
It would be a charming role model for a nation with a sly44,
funny, creative sense of humor.

43 to stretch out – to lie with your legs and arms spread out in a relaxed way
44 sly – cunning (potutelný, prohnaný)

27
 Wild Imaginings #34

Czech Brains
I would like to look inside a Czech brain sometime. I’m sure it
must be “wired” differently 45 from an American one.
Czechs and Americans look at reality a little differently. I think
inside the American brain there are only random letters of
the alphabet; inside the Czech brain, only random numbers.
That explains why Americans speak in metaphors or “loosely”,
and Czechs are so literal, obsessed with facts.
For example, once I was telling a Czech person about some
trees. I made the fatal mistake of calling a spruce46 a pine47.
The Czech person was completely flustered and interrupted my
story*. “But it wasn’t a pine!” he exclaimed, “It must have been
a – a – I can’t think of the word in English. But it wasn’t a pine!”
I continued with my story, and the Czech person said, “What is
that word for the tree? It wasn’t a pine. It had to be a... uh...”
I tried to finish the story, but the Czech person was still
searching through his mental catalogue of conifers48.

45 “wired” differently – working differently (as if the “wires” inside were connected in
a different way)
46 spruce – an evergreen tree with needles (smrk)
47 pine – an evergreen tree with needles (borovice)
48 conifers – trees with needles

28
 “Oh, for Pete’s sake!”** I exclaimed. “It was a Christmas tree!
A Christmas tree! Now can I please finish my story??”
Or, take the word “go” as an example. In English we can say
“I go to the theatre...” because theatre (not school, grocery store,
or cemetery) is the important point. In the Czech language,
though, if you run on Czech brain juice*** you must classify how
you get there – on foot [jít] or by some sort of moving vehicle [jet].
Oddly enough49, it doesn’t matter, though, whether the vehicle has
hooves50, wings, or wheels.
Recently I was discussing a Maturita practice test item with one
of the Bridge editors. We had worked very hard for days, and some
weekends, and it was getting late. We still had another exercise to
create. Finally I had finished it, using a text about a place where
the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Great Southern

49 oddly enough – strangely; it is surprising that

50 hoof (plural: hooves) – the hard part on the bottom of the feet of animals such as horses

29
Ocean meet. The original text (by a very famous author) said “It
looks as if three oceans were colliding with each other.”
And what did the Bridge editor say? “How can you say three
oceans collide, when only two are oceans and the third is a bay?”
This nearly drove me right out of my letter-lovin’**** mind51.
Who cares? The point is not at all about the scientific definition of
bodies of water, but rather, about the beauty of nature. And we
were almost past our deadline to get the test finished.
About a day later I was talking to another Bridge editor, who
was trying to remember the English word for an insect that feeds
on blood. She explained that the insect she was thinking of wasn’t
a tick52, it was another one. “This one is black, too, but – oh, by
the way, ticks are not actually black, they’re dark green,” she said
as if it mattered. I thought that that was really interesting, but
I doubt I’ll need to remember that the next time I have to quickly
remove one of the little monsters***** from my skin.
Maybe some day we’ll be able to transfuse brain juice as easily as
we transfuse blood, and Czech and English speakers can help each
other out by trading half a number brain for half a letter brain.
Then we’ll all be geniuses!

* Remember to tell Czech readers that the word “story” isn’t only
something made up. The word in English is also used when

51 nearly drove me out of my... mind – nearly drove me crazy

52 tick – a small creature which attaches itself to another animal and sucks its bloody (klíště)

30
 telling about someone’s life, an event, an opinion, a reason; and
it can be a newspaper article, novel, film, etc.
** No, I wasn’t talking to someone named Pete. “Oh, for Pete’s
sake!” is an idiom used to express frustration. Sometimes it’s
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” but many religious people find this
offensive.
*** Remember to tell Czech readers that “brain juice” is an
example of an English-speaking person using language
“loosely,” using a metaphor.
**** Remember to tell Czech readers that you know a mind can’t
“love letters”, but that this is a pun on the American phrase,
“are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind?” to say “are you crazy?!”
***** Remember to tell Czech readers that you know that ticks
technically are not monsters.

31
 Wild Imaginings #34a

Czech Brains part 2

And another brain-and-language
difference that drives most native
English-speakers crazy: Diopters
and fevers.
“Uggghhh, I have to start wearing
glasses,” you say.
Immediately the Czech person
skips right over53 the strongly-felt
emotion you’ve just expressed,
ignoring your obvious plea54 for
sympathy, and gets right to the most
important point: “Oooh, how many
diopters have you got?”
“Di-what-ers?” you ask.
“I’ve got +2!” they immediately announce, proudly.
Only Czechs care about the number of diopters as if they are
gold coins. English speakers don’t even know what they are. To us,
the point is: Glasses? Or no glasses?

53 skips right over – ignores

54 plea – an urgent and emotional request

32
 The same thing happens with fevers. “I had to go to
the hospital last week because I had a fever,” a Czech person will
say proudly. “42!!”
An American has no idea what this means. To Americans, “42”
(degrees Fahrenheit) is nearly the temperature at which water
freezes. So how can this be a fever?
And why be proud of it?
We don’t usually tell people (outside our own family) the precise
number that was on our thermometer. We just say, “I had to go to
the hospital because I had a very high fever.”
So if a Czech person reports their fever with a number, we
shake our heads sadly and say, “Oh. Dear.”
We still don’t know exactly what it means, though.

Random Note #6

Stars
One night I went to the metro to go home, after seeing
the premiere performance of the State Opera Ballet’s Don Quixote.
And walking to a platform, I saw a big man struggling to carry
an armload55 of roses and tulips, and a large plastic shopping
bag stuffed with more flowers. They had all been given to him,
to roaring applause, in the State Opera House just a few minutes

55 armload – so much of something that your arms are fully occupied with it

33
earlier. The man was Josef Jelínek, who designed the gorgeous56
sets and costumes for this show.
I like the fact that you can see an international-award-winning
star like Mr Jelínek in the metro. (He won the Czech Lion, and
has designed the costumes for more than 800 shows.) In the past
I’ve also enjoyed seeing famous Czech choreographer Pavel Šmok
waiting for tram 17, and actress Eva Holubová on tram 16 (she
was chatting with a little girl on her knee).
Ordinary people, going about their business, using ordinary
energy to do every-day things, and saving their extraordinary
energy for when they go to work.
It seems in the US, stars and their entourages57, producers,
designers, and artists all must travel by limousine. They expect to
see a noisy crowd of screaming fans gathered around them. And
there should always be the pop of paparazzis’ cameras, too.
I deeply hope that all Czech artists, of every type (not just
the top pop stars), will someday have enough income to afford
a limo. And never the egos to want to use one.

56 gorgeous – very beautiful

57 entourage – the group of people who work for and travel with an important or famous
person

34
 Wild Imaginings #350

Spot the Differences

North American Robin Central European Robin

(Turdus migratorius) (Erithacus rubecula)

35
Random Note #98

Doors
There are cultural differences even in doors. At least, in
the way we think about doors.
In the US, most doorknobs58 are round, and they all turn. Some
ex-pats even refer to America as “the land of round doorknobs”.
We miss them. The doorknobs, I mean; not the ex-pats, they’re
already here.
Anyway, who would ever believe you could miss doorknobs
when you live in a foreign country? But we do.
I don’t mind the long, flat door handles on many doors in
the Czech Republic. The only bad thing is that I often catch my
sleeve on them. But the doorknobs here that are round are really
treacherous59. They look like American doorknobs. But they
don’t turn.
That means that you’re locked out of every door with a round
doorknob in the Czech Republic. And it’s so easy to lock yourself
out of your own door! How many of us ex-pats have closed a door,
then turned back to it and tried to turn the doorknob, only to find
that it doesn’t move and we can’t get back in again?

58 doorknob – a round doorhandle

59 treacherous – dangerous

36
 And worse, how many of us have pulled the round doorknob to
close the door, unconsciously60 expecting that if our fingers get
too close to the edge of the door, we can turn the doorknob away
from it? But it doesn’t turn, and our fingers get caught between
the doorknob and the frame of the door. Ouch!!!
Another cultural difference is what people do with doors. Here in
Prague, many people very politely pull a door closed behind them.
Unfortunately, they don’t look first to see if anyone else is also
trying to get in.
Many times as a Czech person is entering a shop and pulling
the door closed behind them, I try to pull the door open again so
I can get in too. The Czech person ahead of me can feel that the door
isn’t closing. In fact, it’s resisting. But the Czech person never turns
around to see if anyone is behind them and that’s the reason
the door won’t close! They just pull the door even harder!
Finally, they turn around. They’re always very surprised.
“Oh!” they say.
As if it’s more surprising that another person might want to
get in, rather than the fact that a door which just seconds before
opened smoothly could now mysteriously refuse to close.

60 unconsciously – automatically

37
Random Note #98a

Doors Part 2
And another thing about doors. In the US, you have two choices
on what you can do with a door: push or pull.
As if the Czech language wasn’t confusing enough already,
there are too many choices for what you can do with a Czech door.
“Tlačit” makes sense, but it’s rarely seen on a door. More common
is “Sem,” which makes no sense at all, when you think about it.
(Neither does “Tam”.)
There’s another choice, “Táhnout”, which my funny friend
Google Translate [see Random Note #4] says means “Drag”.
Really? That’s generally what a door does, isn’t it? What we want
to know is which way.
The variation “K sobě” is confusingly too close to what it says
over the stage at the National Theatre, also something about
“sobě”.
I don’ t think that it’s an exit, though.

38
Random Note #98b

Doors Part 3
As funny as Czechs are about closing doors, they’re even
funnier about opening them. Especially bathroom doors. I mean
the doors inside a public bathroom, right in front of the toilet.
Even when I was a very young girl, my mother taught me to
always knock on the bathroom door. In our house, the bathroom
door was always left open when the little room was not in use. And
when we were using the little room, we not only closed the door,
we always locked it, too. So the fact that the door was closed was
a pretty good clue by itself that someone was in there. Even so, we
were taught that we needed the triple protection of a knock, too.
Not so in the Czech Republic. I can’t speak for men, having no
experience with men’s bathrooms, but the women here are fierce61
when it comes to breaking through a closed bathroom door. First
of all, they assume that behind every closed door in a public
bathroom there’s an available toilet just waiting for them. It’s only
a matter of picking which of the many available ones to use. And
then they yank the door wide open with a flourish62.
The Czech ladies never, ever knock first. So if they feel some
resistance when they try to open the door, they never suspect
that there’s a good reason for it (like that I’m in there, pulling it

61 fierce – violent
62 yank... with a flourish – pull with one strong movement

39
shut with both hands, since Czech bathrooms rarely have locks).
They only pull even harder on their side of the door.
Once I was in this situation, and the Czech lady pulled on the door
so hard, you could see through the crack63 between the door and
the door frame. That didn’t stop her. She kept on pulling.
Finally I shouted “Knock, please!”
I heard a surprised mumble64 as she walked to the next door
and started tugging65 again.

Random Note #18

Roofs
I like to draw, even though I’m not very good at it. That doesn’t
matter; drawing is a totally natural, human activity which
everybody has a right to do (like making music). That’s why caves
don’t have windows – there’s more room for walls so you can draw.
When I first came to the Czech Republic I was entranced66,
like everyone else, with the beautiful architecture. And I wanted
to draw it.

63 crack – narrow space

64 mumble – quiet speaking
65 to tug – to pull
66 entranced – amazed

40
 But I just could not understand how to draw the charming roof
tiles67, especially the old, curved68 ones on Baroque buildings.
I tried and tried, and I just couldn’t get the tiles right.
I think it’s because I’ve never really seen them up close; I’ve
only seen them from far below, down on the street.
In America, mostly our roofs are made of flat strips of thick
gray roofing “paper” covered with asphalt, like icing on a cake.
These can also be topped with asphalt shingles – small flat pieces,
kind of like the folding parts at the top of a cardboard box.
Then I got an idea. I tried to rub the side of a pencil on various
surfaces, to try to make a pattern like the Czech roof tiles. I tried
fabric, carpet, bits of wood, the side of
a radiator – nothing made the pattern that
would show me how to draw roof tiles.
Finally one day I found the perfect thing:
a cheese grater69! The pattern looked like
this:
And somehow that helped me understand
how to draw Czech roof tiles.
Lessons sometimes come from strange
places. But they are everywhere, if you just
are patient enough to look for them.

67 roof tiles – thin pieces of baked clay used for covering roofs (tašky)
68 curved – wavy
69 cheese grater – a metal device with holes surrounded by sharp edges used to cut cheese
into small pieces

41
 Drawing of a Czech roof,
inspired by a cheese grater

42
 Wild Imaginings #955

Czech Chairs
One day I was walking down the street in the Prague Dejvická
neighborhood and I saw something so shocking, I stopped right in
mid-step. I stared and stared.
There in the gutter70 was a chair.
Not just any chair. This one had a wood seat and back, curved
to fit a body. The wood was the color of butterscotch ice-cream
topping71, almost yellow.
Connecting the wooden parts were gray metal tubes forming
four legs.
Why was I so shocked? Because I just couldn’t understand
how the exact chair I sat on in my sixth-grade class in Racine,
Wisconsin, in 1962 could still be in existence.
And what on earth was it doing here, in the Czech Republic?
These burning questions sent me directly to the library to find
out the answers.
I couldn’t find any.
I could only find that these chairs were manufactured in
Czechoslovakia as a kind of standard, basic chair. I have no
idea how they (or maybe their similar cousins) emigrated to

70 gutter – the edge of a road where rain flows away

71 butterscotch ice-cream topping – a light-brown sweet food made by boiling butter and
sugar together, which can be poured over ice-cream

43
my classroom in the USA
50 years ago.
Or maybe two chair
designers, on opposite sides of
an ocean, dreamed up the same
chair design at exactly
the same time?
Anyway, after that I started
seeing these chairs everywhere
in Prague.
Mostly they were sitting
in the gutter between parked
cars. Sometimes they looked
like they were waiting for The Basic Czech Chair
the bus. Sometimes they looked (Sittus migratorius)
abandoned72 and sad, like they
were waiting and waiting for their owners to finally return and let
them come back home.
But always when I saw one, it was somewhere outside in
a public space, like on a sidewalk or on the parking (the little strip
of grass between the street and sidewalk). Always there was only
one; no one was sitting on it; there weren’t any others with it; and
always it was the same style:
Curved yellow wooden seat and back; curved gray metal legs.

72 abandoned – deserted, no longer cared for

44
 I began to wonder if there
actually was only one of these
chairs in the whole city of Prague,
and I was seeing the same one again
and again. Or –
• Maybe somebody moved it
around the city each night as
part of some strange Czech
tradition – for good luck or
something.
• Maybe it was some kind of game,
like a strange Czech version of
Musical Chairs, the game where you change places and run for
the last empty chair.
• Maybe it’s the Czech way to get rid of something unwanted,
like dumping73 kittens, but the chair was always trying to find
the way back to its home.
So I decided I should start taking notes on the phenomenon.
Every time I saw this chair, I grubbed around74 in my backpack
for a pencil and a scrap75 of paper. (I didn’t own a camera then,
so I had to make little drawings, using whatever I had close at
hand.) Even if I was in a hurry, I tried to stop and make a sketch
of my discoveries.

73 to dump – to throw away

74 to grub around – to dig in and search for sth
75 scrap – a small irregular piece

45
 For example, here it
is, resting in the gutter
near Hybernská Street
in the center of Prague
on a warm, sunny day.
Obviously it had become
overheated while
waiting for its owner to
come and take it back
home, because the chair
had taken off its old
nylon ski jacket and was
holding it on its lap.
Then it seemed that
for a long time I didn’t
see the chair any more,
and I kind of forgot
about it. I went about my
daily routine, teaching
English, writing for
Bridge, and trying very,
very hard to learn to speak Czech.
And suddenly one day – whoaaa! – on Charles University’s
Albertov campus near the Botanical Garden, almost surrounded
by tall grass and wild bushes, what a shock! Two of the chairs,
in the wild!

46
 I crept up76 silently to get a closer look. I was afraid they were
asleep or dead (you see, their legs are straight up in the air)
because they didn’t move. But that was lucky for me, because I had
more time to sketch them on a scrap of paper I found in my bag.
So now I was sure that there was more than one of these chairs
in the Czech Republic. Maybe that pair I found in the bushes were
the parents of all the chairs, and this couple was just asleep in
the double bed of the desk.

76 to creep up – to get closer without being seen

47
 It gave me great hope
that I would find more
chairs as I continued my
hikes, walks, and travels
around the city. And
I was right.
One day at the end of
the school year I was
walking in Chodov,
a suburb on the south
side of Prague, and
I saw this marvelous
sight in the garbage
dumpster77, right in
front of the Donovalská
Elementary School.
(Unfortunately, I had only
this purple crayon and a ratty78 piece of paper.)
So now I knew that the Czech chair had parents; and in fact
there wasn’t just one chair, there was at least a whole classroom
(if not a whole grade) of chairs. Sadly, these had all been
abandoned in this big dumpster.
But these answers then only created more questions about
the Czech chairs.

77 garbage dumpster – a large bin (container) where people put waste

78 ratty – torn, tattered

48
 For example:
• Exactly why were all these chairs in the bin?
• Had they jumped in there voluntarily79?
Were they being punished? Or were they
dead?
• Had they just graduated (it was, after all,
the end of the school year) and were they
just waiting for the truck to pull them to
their new secondary school?
• Would they wait until after dark to jump out
of the bin and scatter around the city, each
one finding a good gutter or parking to wait on?
• And why was I the only one noticing these things? (Or is
the topic of the mysterious chairs not a proper one to
speak about? Are the Czechs keeping some big secret about
the chairs?? After all, they invented the golem and the robot!)
I was beginning to suspect that only one Czech person could
logically explain all this:
Jára Cimrman.
While I was waiting for Mr Cimrman to answer my repeated
emails on the topic, I came across one final piece of evidence
regarding the life cycle of the Czech chair. My final sketch
contains violence and may be upsetting to younger viewers:

79 voluntarily – willingly, without being forced to

49
50
 Yes, sadly, I found the twisted, broken mortal remains80 of an
elderly chair partially hidden under a small tree in Chodov.
(May it rest in peace.)
But this just brings up81 even more questions about
the Czech chairs!
• Did this one voluntarily crawl off82 to the nearest tree, to
return to its “roots” and die of natural causes?
• Or was it beaten and left there to die?
• Or was it cruelly murdered somewhere else and just dumped
there?
• Was it homeless and unloved? Did it wait forever? Did no one ever
come to look for it and take it back home where it belonged?
Until Mr Cimrman gets back to me and answers my questions,
I guess we’ll never know.

The End

80 mortal remains – remaining pieces of a dead body

81 brings up – makes you think of
82 to crawl off – to move slowly away (usually on one’s hands and knees)

51
Epilogue
The other day I was walking in a tall-grass field near
the Botanical Garden again, and I saw the most wonderful sight!
Well, it was a strange and wonderful sight: Two elderly83 people
were sitting in the sun with handkerchiefs84 on their heads, and
they were sitting on – the chairs!
Actually, the man was sitting on an old padded85 office chair,
right there in the middle of the grass. But the woman next to
him was sitting on one of the chairs. It had a broken back and
a partly‑broken leg. But clearly, both chairs had been put there
to stay all the time – they weren’t waiting for the bus or for
someone to come and take them away. They were there just so
this tired, retired, quiet couple could often come and sit with
them in the sun on a nice day.
I have to admit until I came to the Czech Republic I had never
ever seen a grown adult put a flat, opened handkerchief on their
head and sit in the sun. The first time I did see it, I thought it
meant they were having a stroke86. And it still seems kind of silly
to me to think that a single layer of thin cotton fabric87 can be good
protection against the burning UV rays of a 5,500 degree sun,
especially since, if it’s too hot, you can just simply move!

83 elderly – old
84 handkerchief – a square piece of cloth usually used for cleaning the nose
85 padded – covered by a layer of soft material
86 stroke – a sudden change in the blood supply to a part of the brain, which can cause a loss
of the ability to move (mozková mrtvice)
87 fabric – cloth

52
53
 But never mind. The people looked nice, and happy, and they
seemed to love sitting on those chairs. And the chairs didn’t seem
to mind it a bit.
It just shows that everything ends well in the Czech Republic.

Final Epilogue
What do you think? Mary’s mother would like to know if
you agree with some of Mary’s ideas and observations about
the cultural differences between Czechs and Americans. Are some
of her ideas accurate88? Inaccurate? Or just plain crazy? Should
she be worried?

(And what’s the real story about those chairs?)

88 accurate – correct

54
American Mary Matz taught English
at Charles University and has been
a contributing writer to Bridge
Magazine nearly from its beginning.
You may recognize her voice on
Maturita practice exam recordings
(“Which train will the boy take?”). She
is also the owner / editor of Opus Osm,
the free, online magazine in authentic
English, about Czech classical music,
opera, and ballet. (www.opusosm.com).

Previous Bridge books by Mary Matz:

The Adventures of Mark Twain
(2011, online only)
Discovering America
(2003, paper only)
Growing Up American
(2002, paper only)

For Fraus publishers:

Life and Culture in the USA
(2008, hard cover only)