surprises about a country

[Cavesa]

Just came back from trip to Prague and was taken by surprise by the sheer number of Vietnamese restaurants there. Turns out there are over 80 000 Vietnamese in Czech Republic and they're third largest minority group after Slovaks and Ukrainians.

According to Wikipedia:
"Vietnamese immigrants began settling in the Czech Republic during the Communist period, when they were invited as guest workers by the Czechoslovak government. Migration was encouraged by the Vietnamese authorities, with the intention that the migrants would return with skills and training. Following the collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia, many Vietnamese decided to remain in the country rather than return home."

Totally was not expecting that. I did have some very nice Vietnamese meals in Prague and can recommend small Vietnamese restaurant in Old Town: Bánh mì ba. There's a Korean restaurant just across the corner there as well and they have many Korean dishes usually not seen in Korean restaurants in Europe, such as tteokbokki, but flavour of the dishes is slighty milder and sweeter than you'd get in Korea. But that Vietnamese place is so good! It's really tiny and crowded at lunchtime, but well worth checking out.

Well, Nguyen is the second or third most common surname in the Czech Republic. The vietnamese minority is the brightest example of integration here, in some ways perhaps even more successful than the ukrainian one. The slovaks are and aren't a minority. Since they have been a different nation for only 25 years, their position is different.

Despite the whole vietnamese success with integration (the real one, neither assimilation, nor segregation. with second and third generations being bilingual, knowing both cultures, and doing lots of other stuff than just working in a stereotypical vietnamese shop), our vietnamese have got enough confidence for their own restaurants only recently. During communism and quite long after that, they ran the chinese restaurants, other asian ones were rare. But don't expect real chinese restaurants, I've heard the original traditional food in China is very different and much more varied, based on the region. The tradition of the "czech chinese" restaurants started during the communism, because 1.many ingredients were not available 2.czechs couldn't travel, so how could they tell individual asians and their traditions apart. You can still find these restaurants and they are not necessarily bad. But going for real vietnamese food is a totally different experience.

You didn't discover the best vietnamese restaurant, I guess the one in Old Town may have been a bit too touristy. There is a greal one in Vinohrady. The same owner runs a classical restaurant and also a bistro, where you can even see your meal being prepared.

As to surprises about the Czech Republic and the citizens of asian roots: the leader of one of our most populist and racist political parties is half Japanese. Anything is possible in this country. The sad part is him being in the parlament, but that may hopefully change in a month from now. And his brother, also czech-japanese and much more likeable, is member of a traditional christian party, a devout catholic, also a candidate in these elections, and he works on representing totally different and more czech values.

Actually, this story of two brothers of mixed origin is very interesting to our media and to the general population too. Two men, who definitely don't look like typical czechs yet feel to be czechs and consider this country and culture theirs. Each represents a totally different view on what it means to be czech, european, patriot, protector of our tradition.
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What surprised me in Spain a few years ago: their chinese community! They seem to be just like our vietnamese! A typical spanish-chinese and czech-vietnamese shop is so similar, that I accidentally started talking in Czech in one of those in Spain!

[aabram]

The vietnamese minority is the brightest example of integration here, in some ways perhaps even more successful than the ukrainian one.

Actually I was wondering about the integration and whether this has any (favourable?) effect on Czechs' attitudes towards immigrants in general or at least towards people of Asian origin. Also, I wonder, what's the status of Vietnamese in Slovakia? English Wikipedia has no relevant information that I could find. Did all the Vietnamese move to Czech Republic or what?

You didn't discover the best vietnamese restaurant, I guess the one in Old Town may have been a bit too touristy. There is a greal one in Vinohrady.

Which one? I might need recommendations for next trip
But yeah, it was partly a business trip with my wife so we didn't get to explore the city as much as we'd liked. It did rekindle my interest in Czech language though so I may need to order some books now. Would've bought there and carried with me but we were doing transit flight back with just hand luggage and we just didn't want to add extra weight to our bags.

[Cavesa]

The vietnamese minority is the brightest example of integration here, in some ways perhaps even more successful than the ukrainian one.

Actually I was wondering about the integration and whether this has any (favourable?) effect on Czechs' attitudes towards immigrants in general or at least towards people of Asian origin. Also, I wonder, what's the status of Vietnamese in Slovakia? English Wikipedia has no relevant information that I could find. Did all the Vietnamese move to Czech Republic or what?

I don't know where this stupid notion czech=xenophobe comes from, I suspect the foreign media. We have dumb politicians, which country doesn't. We have some racists, like every other country. But the general attitude is normal. You contribute to the society=you are ok. You don't=why should this country feed you. To further explain some of the reasoning, I would have to go into politics, so I am stopping right now.

We have lots of immigrants, it's just that the foreign media choose not to see it. The ukrainians or russians are different from us too and have their particular challenges, no idea why they seemingly don't count. We have immigrants from south-eastern europe. We have immigrants from latin america, even thogh those are much less numerous than those from the previous areas. We have middle eastern immigrants, who came legally, or longer time ago. In the last few decades, smaller comunities from other countries have been forming, including western ones. But those are mostly expats, not interested in being part of the country.

There surely are vietnamese in Slovakia, they are just not that numerous. When you choose to move half a world away, will you choose a richer or poorer country? That's only logical. And Slovakia seems to have stricter rules about accepting foreigners, that is another very clear reason. Otherwise, the differences shoudln't be too huge. Just short googling showed me an article about the slovak vietnamese wishing to be considered an official minority, despite the lower numbers (several thousand people). I hope it went well for them

I think a lot will change, now that Slovakia is economicaly getting the same or even better than the Czech Republic in some aspects.

You didn't discover the best vietnamese restaurant, I guess the one in Old Town may have been a bit too touristy. There is a greal one in Vinohrady.

Which one? I might need recommendations for next trip
But yeah, it was partly a business trip with my wife so we didn't get to explore the city as much as we'd liked. It did rekindle my interest in Czech language though so I may need to order some books now. Would've bought there and carried with me but we were doing transit flight back with just hand luggage and we just didn't want to add extra weight to our bags.

Let me know, when you are coming he next time, I'll find the address for you. I can't recognize it from the list I've just found on the internet, I'll make a note next time I go there in person.

[overscore]

As to surprises about the Czech Republic and the citizens of asian roots: the leader of one of our most populist and racist political parties is half Japanese. Anything is possible in this country.

Japan's policies would be literally considered short of genocide and Nazism if you'd translate to western politicians and the median voter.
Not that I want to give anyone the idea..


The most confusing thing about Germany is that elusive city of "Ausfahren".

You have to pay extra for water and toilet in Europe. Go figure, you roll the eyes when hearing Europeans blasting 'Muricca for "wanting to patent water."


Actually that's one thing that surprised me very much about Japan, the insane turnover of politicians.
The prime ministers: I think only popes had higher turnover, can someone explain?

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[Cavesa]

As to surprises about the Czech Republic and the citizens of asian roots: the leader of one of our most populist and racist political parties is half Japanese. Anything is possible in this country.

Japan's policies would be literally considered short of genocide and Nazism if you'd translate to western politicians and the median voter.
Not that I want to give anyone the idea..

I wasn't trying to comment on japanese politics at all! As we were talking about asians in the Czech Republic being a surprise to some people, I just added a hilarious fact. The same people who would want the country to be filled with czech looking people only vote repeatedly for a man who definitely doesn't look this way. And his brother, another non-czech looking man, is a devout catholic in a mostly atheist country, and much more of a traditionalist than most czechs. Including voters of his brother, who claim to protect our tradition and culture.

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Japan, an awesome topic.

What suprised me:

Cars on the left side of the road. This almost cost my dad his life while crossing one street, he simply looked in the "european direction". We all know this about the UK, but it is so easy to not realise it in Japan.

The tiny appartments. And a lot of tiny spaces in general. The best place in the world for finding our you have claustrophobia, trust me.

A huge surprise: it is true that Japan is technologically more advanced than the rest of the world in some areas. We were comparing normal electronics there to Europe back then (2002 or 2003?). Things rare and just beginning in Europe were already normal in Japan. The "v" kind of mobile phones, small laptops, and other stuff. They really do keep improvements on their market for a few years before sharing them with the rest of the world. It doesn't have to be viewed as anything negative. You could say they are a whole nation of beta testers

The feeling of analphabetism. We were copying kanji names of train stations into a small notebook, so that we'd know where to go. English is not everywhere (and I find that ok, in general). And it was fascinating to see people type sms

The japanese English. My father with his horrible "English" had sometimes easier time understanding and getting the message across than me. That is not that unusual, he is better at communicating with greek English speakers too.

The attitude towards various nations. The dislike towards americans is still pretty clear despite love for many parts of the american culture and style. In Hiroshima, we were asked whether we were americans by an old man. An affirmative answer would have obviously lead to an unpleasant reaction. But czechs were ok! Sure, the japanese haven't noticed the end of Czechoslovakia yet (but neither have most french or germans), so it takes a bit of explanation. In the end, we were always czechoslovaks. Ok, at least I was still born in the federation . But the relationship of normal japanese people to the "czechoslovak" culture was surprisingly positive and warm! They know our classical music, Prague, some architects! The only building that survived the attack on Hiroshima was actually made by a czech.

The food. Very fresh. So fresh it was still alive on the market, which seemed sad at times.

edit:a horrible mistake. but there are probably more of those, just more hidden than the one I've just corrected.

[aabram]

You have to pay extra for water and toilet in Europe. Go figure, you roll the eyes when hearing Europeans blasting 'Muricca for "wanting to patent water."

What?

[Tillumadoguenirurm]

You have to pay extra for water and toilet in Europe. Go figure, you roll the eyes when hearing Europeans blasting 'Muricca for "wanting to patent water."

What?

It's likely the plumbing they pay for, not the water in and on itself.

[aabram]

You have to pay extra for water and toilet in Europe. Go figure, you roll the eyes when hearing Europeans blasting 'Muricca for "wanting to patent water."

What?

It's likely the plumbing they pay for, not the water in and on itself.

By "toilet" he then meant waste handling service or something of a sort? And the water is free in US?
Although, now that I recall, when I briefly ived in Canada we had sky high rent for crappy 20 sqm apartment but everything was included in the price which I found odd. So we fully took advantage of it and basically heated the apartment with gas kitchen oven in the winter because there was no other way to get the apartment to hold tolerable temperature.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Old windmills in only one place that isn't enough, but it's better than none of course

Your comment about no windmills in the Netherlands surprised me as I had seen two just the day before and I had been there less than a week and I wasn't particularly looking for them. So, I went to Wikipedia and found there are actually 1200 old style windmills remaining, spread across 11 provinces.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... etherlands

I bumped into a couple more in the next few days, too.

The modern windmills aren't as charming as the old ones but they are more attractive than a coal power station.

Thanks for the nice windmills link It's true, Holland has some old windmills, which is great!!! I didn't see them so I didn't realise that.

What has surprised you about a country?

I was surprised that there are some parrots in London. I don't mean in the zoo, or birds' park, but in the wild. They are in the trees, and they fly in groups.

Many European cities have them now and the populations are growing fast. They are all over The Netherlands too, I see them quite often around The Hague. I heard the biggest populations are in some big Spanish cities.

They're sweet, but I hope that they don't make the life difficult for the little birds who are native, for exmaple the robins, blue tits, etc. That the populations are growing fast is maybe a problem then for the others who already lived there.

[overscore]

Yes, very good post. I'm not going to quote the whole thing since it's long.
Please don't read to seriously in the first comments about politics, I was probably just miffed at a Reddit thread or something.

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Japan is indeed very technologically advanced, but it was also their downfall (this is all IMO) in the last decades.. Basically none of the big corporations over there have been willing to make risky moves, they have stayed very conservative and as a result their market share throughout the world have plummeted over the years as China learned to copy better and fix their quality issues to a somewhat okay level.
When you think electronics nowadays, you'll buy Korean, Chinese, or American (Microsoft Xbox, Apple, Tesla anyone?).
Entrepreneurship remains insanely discouraged. I'm not sure what my point is; rambling.

By "toilet" he then meant waste handling service or something of a sort? And the water is free in US?
Although, now that I recall, when I briefly ived in Canada we had sky high rent for crappy 20 sqm apartment but everything was included in the price which I found odd. So we fully took advantage of it and basically heated the apartment with gas kitchen oven in the winter because there was no other way to get the apartment to hold tolerable temperature.

Yeah I had to have quarters on me all the time for public facilities in the European cities. In the restaurants the napkins and water would get tacked on my bill, which just seemed very greedy.
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At least in Quebec it's written in the law that buildings have to be heated up to a minimum of 21 C. If the landlord is being a bean counter and won't listen, contact the Régie and they will handle the matter.
Buildings are usually super well insulated as a result, since the landlord will be paying either way.

It surprised me in Japan just how cold the buildings were in winter, 0 insulation in those paper walls -- having to use a コタツ seemed like human rights abuse to me, lol.