License to Stay & Be a Tolerable Yank

I landed in Prague a year ago today. And it seems fitting that today I got the official green light to stay on for another year—the Czech Foreign Police renewed my long-term visa this afternoon.

Contrary to horror stories I've heard about dealing with the FP, my experience was painless, and I have my Deloitte & Touche immigration consultants to thank for that. I got door-to-door car service, and the entire affair lasted exactly an hour—I was picked up at noon by Gabriel, dark-haired and lanky, and delivered back to my apartment at 1pm by Miroslav, blondish and who has a kewpie-like face that reminds me of Stewie, the diabolical baby in Family Guy.

(Miroslav, Me and Gabriel who agreed that taking this photo was probably a "cheesy" idea. His word. I said "corny". Miroslav, on the other hand, wanted a copy.)

Other than the length of time it took to receive the first visa and my work permit last year, their team has done a fantastic job of insulating me from the bureaucratic headaches that come with being a non-Czech or non-EU person trying to establish herself legitimately here. How helpful are they? After picking up the visa—I watched it getting applied onto my passport, pretty interesting—I remarked that I had one less page, out of four remaining pages, to use for travel. No problem, they said. They could arrange for the passport to be taken to the American embassy for more visa pages. Wow, could they also arrange for airport service for my next trip? Okay, I'm sure that my company is paying through the nose for all of this courtesy, but still I was impressed.

From Gabriel, I learned that staffers of the FP are not inclined to learn or communicate in English because the majority of foreigners who go there are non English-speaking. No wonder our Anglo complaints keep falling on deaf ears.... Ukrainians are the most frequent clients of the FP–life is better here for them apparently even if they're often treated like crap by Czechs. Another group not well regarded here? Americans. I'm still taken aback by the deep well of animus against Yanks. Oddly, it's not America's skewered politics that often rub people the wrong way but the American mentality, which seems to manifest as three particular characteristics: Entitlement, Narrow-mindedness and Stupidity—like a box set of social ineptitude. What sort of American do I want to be today? I'll give “Stupid” a try....

The idea that Europeans see America as a country of morons is nothing new, of course. But what personally amuses me all the time is that whenever I'm told this in its many variations—“American women are shrill”, for example—it's always preceded or followed by a disclaimer that I am different. Yeah, I guess it'd be odd to make a negative sweeping statement about a culture/people and then turn around and say, “Like you!”

Gabriel, not surprisingly, remarked that he found me engaging after having revealed that he wasn't much impressed with the quality of many Americans he had come across—not very intelligent—and that he'd rather spend a year abroad in Canada. Those blasted Canucks, getting all the love! What do they have that we don't got?

How much of America-phobia is myth? How much real? I could have come back with a “Czechs are Grumps” stance, but that doesn't always appeal to me anymore. I've encountered many polite, sociable and helpful Czechs. And bad Czech behavior, I think, is universal bad behavior. The grumpy Czech cashier at Tesco is no different from the cashier at K-Mart who curses you out for getting on the express checkout lane with exactly 10 items as the sign states.... But 10 items or just one, the simple problem is that you exist and thus for her—it's usually a female—you're just one more headache to deal with it.

Americas are stupid; Czechs are grumps; Jews are greedy; Nigerians are con artists; Romany are petty thieves, etc. I think we are quick to trot out extreme notions like these whenever we have a sour experience, and in that moment they do seem to contain elements of truth. But even though each culture has distinct characteristics—Americans, I agree, can appear to be overly and almost superficially cheerful: “How are you? Great! And you? Great! Good!”—I'm not sure cultures can be reduced to pat one-liners. Or can they? Am I starting to contradict myself?

Anyways, I give up for now. I'm here for another year and Yanks are bound to keep coming and butting heads with Czechs so I'm sure more of this discourse will come up again here or elsewhere.

As I was about to take my leave of Gabriel and have Miroslav drop me home I thanked Gabriel by name. He lit up. He couldn't believe I remembered his name. And then when I did the same with Miroslav—but first, I asked for the initial because I wasn't 100% sure from the first time we met two weeks before—they were both impressed, telling me that they had dealt with so many clients who never seemed to bother with remembering who they were.

Forgive me for getting all new-agey, but....a small gesture can go a long way towards jump-starting a change in perspective. It happened to me and my initial opinion of Czechs, which I admit was influenced more by hearsay than actual experience. Each positive encounter chipped away at that wall. So who knows if for Gabriel and Miroslav today's exchange is doing the same for their view of Americans.