Today, I’ve been surfing the internet trying to find a way to find Czech people in Fort Collins, CO. One of the things within our XTRACK International Training we will engage in is a language learning week and also a Cultural Engagement Experience (formally known as Cultural Engagement Project, but experience sounds more post-modern!) that are contingent on finding someone from the country we are going to. This is tough when you are going to a country of a little under 11 million people, but WE are trying. (Please pray that God would provide someone!) In the midst of all my surfing I came across an article in Denver Post entitled Blank Czechs? and it offered some great insights into the Czech persona. Click here for the whole article, but below are some sections I found intriguing.
Upon arriving in Prague last September, I was initially taken aback to find the Czechs such a glum lot. On the trams or trains they would rarely speak, and they all seemed to find their shoes fascinating. Sometimes under the great silent pressure not to stand out, I often pretended to find their shoes fascinating, too.
Even our twentysomething son, fixated on any number of things besides other’s shoes, noticed the gloom. After visiting us here, he e-mailed a few weeks later asking how things were “in the land of no smiles and dreamy beer.”
So when I now look around at the glum faces on the trams and the trains now, I see things a bit differently. True, the Czechs can be a crusty bunch, but there is much worth discovering under the crust. Behind those blank, shoe-studying eyes is a patient but potent resolve as well as a stoic appraisal of life’s joys and hardships. This seemingly sullen reticence is something beyond mere temperament; perhaps it is the coy mask of false acquiescence they learned to wear in the face of decades of often brutal oppression.
I find the author’s, Mark Moe, insights pretty accurate and I learned some interesting things from the article. Czech the whole article out if these sections got you thinking and as always be a revolution today!
This was an interesting article. Having read it, it’s not hard to be able to empathize with the predominant attitudes and outlooks of some of the people you’ve described, considering the conditions faced. We’re really blessed. Bringing the hope of the Gospel back to Czech brings to mind what Isaiah 9:2 says: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” Good stuff.
Amen Mike! Thanks for the response!