Week Three: Cultural Differences

Through my first three weeks in Olomouc I have noticed that there are a lot of cultural differences between people here and people in Nebraska.  The first thing that I noticed is that people here don’t tend to smile as much as people back home.  In Nebraska, when two people walk past each other, they often smile as a way of saying hello.  I was talking to a girl who goes to school here and she said that it is a joke that they can tell who the Americans are because we are the only ones who smile at people for no reason.  On the same lines, in The States it is a common greeting to ask someone “how’s it going?”  Most people reply by simply saying they are doing fine.  If you asked someone in Czech Republic the same question, they would tell you a literal answer, and I am told it often is a negative remark.

The students are a lot different here than back home.  I have barely met anyone who can only speak one language.  In The States it is very uncommon for someone to be fluent in two languages, but a lot of European countries teach foreign language from a young age, so by the time they are in college they are fluent in two or more languages.  Another thing that is a lot different here from home is that students go to the bars on weeknights and leave the country to travel on the weekends.  I was so surprised to see the bars full of college students who had to be up in the morning every night of the week.  The first weekend we stayed in Olomouc and the bars were almost empty.  That is completely opposite from The States, where most students go out one night during the week and then go out on the weekend.

A typical Wednesday night at Belmondo night club

Olomouc and all of the other towns in Czech Republic that I have been to are full of huge beautiful churches, but I am told most services are almost empty.  Since the country just escaped from communist rule in the last few decades, they still aren’t very religious.  All of the churches were built before the communist rule, but are just sitting empty now.  I went to a church service in Prague and it seemed like almost everybody who was attending was a tourist, and hardly any local people.

Just one of the many beautiful churches sitting almost empty in Olomouc

There are cross-walks in most intersections in Czech Republic, but only a few have signals that tell you when you can or can’t walk.  For the ones that don’t have any signal, you just walk out into the street and the cars slam on their brakes to stop for you.  I felt so weird just walking out into the street at first, but now it is just so normal for me, I think it will be hard getting used to waiting for a walk signal when I get back to The States.

One of the other things that I noticed when I came to Czech Republic was how dogs are treated here compared with back home.  Here, people walk their dogs without them on a leash all the time.  Dogs are welcome in trains, stores, and restaurants.  I have even noticed that the people who work at restaurants are more willing to fill up a dish with water for the dog to drink than they are to give customers free water.  Someone who has never seen a dog in a restaurant might think it would be unsanitary, but I don’t think so at all.  All of the dogs here are so well behaved.  It is not uncommon for a dog sit next to its owner the whole meal without walking around.