We fumbled about in Czech language class everyday for vowels that didn't exist. We wandered about with tour guides, looking up with slack jaws at the cathedrals, clock towers, and "regular" buildings that met the skyline with varying degrees of splendor and gilding. Many students at NYU in Prague celebrate the slightest encounters in which they are not explicitly recognized as American.
"I ordered a hot dog today, and the guy asked me in Czech if I wanted ketchup!," one boy said of an exchange in which it's entirely possible the celebrated question was simply "kecup?"
During those first few days, though, it was permissible to be blatantly Americhanka. We were alternately led and wandered through the cobblestone streets, being too loud, too publicly happy, pointing and then quickly bringing our hands back down to our bags to guard from the pickpockets we knew our curious and loud babbling invited.
The days were packed, but they were far from frantic. Transitioning from activity to activity on public transportation that was ridden in silence (until we got on) kept the orientation week experience from being a jarring one. The silent tram rides made me realize this--people are curious. Moreover, they need to keep busy. In the US, the easiest and laziest way to keep your brain distracted is to talk, and thus you hear "aimless" conversations. Gab is everywhere, people talking about nothing and promting equally unnecessary replies ("It's cold out." "Yes. Yes, it is.").
In Prague, you're supposed to be silent. Tram and metro riders shut off the gab part of their brain, so how do they distract themselves? Thus far, I've seen only one crossword puzzle on the tram. Notebooks and novels aren't uncommon, but they remain the exception. Instead, people express their curiosity by staring. Loud Americahnkas certainly beg attention, but Czechs also stare at each other. Tram and metro riders will stare at you as long as they please, and then also have their glance claim whatever space you averted your eyes to. The eye contact has never seemed hostile to me, but sometimes feels so permeating I have strongly considered sheepishly explaining why I was wearing Wednesday underwear on a Monday.
And so, I spent a good portion of the week feeling a bit unbalanced. For a culture so quietly reserved and private, I felt alternately isolated and crowded. I may understand why--I am not just a student at NYU in Prague, I am an NYU student studying in Prague. I move from class to class within the hustled flow of the streets of Manhattan. Other than halting completely and leering at the sky directly above me, I never really see the skyline. Furthermore, even on 2-way streets as "open" as Broadway, I can always feel the height of the buildings in my periphery. I came to this realization outside of the American Embassy in Prague. This girthy stone building feels massively heavy to stand next to. The thick wooden doors are the kind that would demand am impressive tree trunk and many soldiers in full armor to blast through, and yet attached to the rest of the building they appear light.
We came upon this building such that we turned a corner and suddenly it was on our left. Immediately we could see this ornate mountain would continue to be everything on our left, including the horizon and skyline, for the distance of about 2 city blocks. Yet straight ahead the only potnetial intrusion upon my personal space was a spindly tree, 100 meters away. To the right was a cobblestone parking lot, arranged in seamlessly alternating geometric patterns and shades of grey. The cobblestone ended quickly, and dropped off into an abrupt hill. To our left the stone giant hid us from the sun and crowded our shoulders, and to the right the evenly gray horizon met the dappled gray of the cobbles. In Prague, it is not unusual to walk through an arched passageway so low that an uprooted cobblestone will cause you to bump your head, and then suddenly step out into a massive square open to the sky.
My realization was this--in New York, the invasion of personal space is constant and the perpetrators are both the buildings and the people that bump into you on the street, grab you inappropriately in a club, and cut you off for a cab. In Prague, the height and composition of buildings and width of streets is remarkably inconsistent. Additionally, Prague simply is not as crowded as New York. Thus, in addition to the more reserved cultural elements carried on from the communist period here, an invasion of physical personal space is all the more less acceptable. But what if this is why it is alright to invade personal space by staring? In New York, if you catch someone staring you can let them know by making eye contact, and they usually look away. If they don't, it can be interpreted as an act of agression or even a sexual advance. It may be typically American of me to quote a movie, but I am reminded of the narration in Crash:
"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. [Here], nobody touches you... I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."
All this staring is a little bit less dramatic than crashing into people, but it's a theory that makes a learned act of agression less uncomfortable. It's nice to think that people like to stay connected to eachother regardless of lattitude and longitude.
Well, that's my catch-up for orientation week. I bought a soccer ball at Tesco yesterday and got some looks dribbling it on the way home. I wonder whether it was more of an oddity to see someone running along the street, or a girl with a soccerball.
Also, a section I hope to contribute to regularly:
Czech and American Innovations: who should adopt what?
-Streetlights: before changing from red to green in the CZ, a warning is giving as the light is simultaneously red and yellow.
-Fireescapes: If you ever walk around SoHo in NY, you'll notice tourists taking an endless number of pictures of the ugliest sootiest buildings around. This is because there is not a single fireescape to be seen in Europe. Be kind to these tourists, and they may do the same as you take pictures of the ornate house markings that are equally insignificant to them.
