How to be a successful expat

Enjoying Czech beer in Letna Beer Garden, Prague © Ricky Yates

Just over four years ago, on 19th September 2008, Sybille and I arrived in Prague to begin a new chapter in our life together – a Brit and a German living as an expatriate married couple in the Czech Republic. This blog, which I started writing and publishing just over four months later, is as I state in, About me – including two photos, ‘….my attempt to reflect on ministering to English-speakers from a variety of backgrounds and countries, and living as an expat myself in this fascinating city and country’.

As this fourth anniversary of our expatriate existence recently approached, I started reflecting on what makes for living successfully in another country that is not your own. This post is the result of those reflections, written out of our own personal experience and also out of listening to and observing other English-speaking expats who have crossed my path here in Prague these past four years.

As I’ve been reflecting these recent weeks, the words of the well-known ‘Prayer of Serenity’ have come to mind as being an excellent summation of the correct attitude to adopt when seeking to make a success of expat living.

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Let me explain in greater detail what I mean.

When Czech people get talking to Sybille and I and discover that we are not tourists but actually live here, their next question is nearly always, “Do you like living in the Czech Republic?” Our reply is always very positive, with two exceptions – how far away we are from the sea and our difficulties with the Czech language. But these are two things that we knew about before we ever moved to Prague and are things that we cannot change – we must and do accept them.

It is no use moving to another country and expecting it to be exactly like your own country that you’ve just left. Whilst there is nothing wrong in being proud of where you originate from, you cannot expect your city or country of adoption to replicate everything that you previously enjoyed in your home city and country. Nor can you expect everything you were able to purchase in the shops back in your home country, to be freely available in the shops and supermarkets of your new country of residence.

Friends and family before coming to visit us in Prague, often ask whether there is anything they can bring from the UK that we cannot get here. The reality is that, having Tesco supermarkets and several branches of Marks & Spencer, means most items any Brit might want, can be obtained here without too much difficulty. And to be a successful expat should and does mean learning to live without certain things that you previously always regarded as essential, or finding and accepting something else as a suitable substitute.

Likewise, for better or worse, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King and Starbucks, all have numerous outlets here – there is hardly a lack of familiar globalised fast food and drink. Yet I do hear occasional complaints about the absence of a certain chain of ice cream parlours or the inability to buy ‘dunking chocolate donuts’ from a particular store. If life really is impossible without having ready access to such things, don’t even start considering leaving home in the first place. Learn to accept the things you cannot change.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I do write about all the things I enjoy by living in Prague and the wider Czech Republic. But I also do on occasions, complain about certain things that I don’t like. Seeking to be true to the third line of the Prayer of Serenity, ‘courage to change the things I can’, I do so because they are things that I believe can and should be changed.

One of my regular themes is the many impenetrable and absurd aspects of Czech bureaucracy that I often encounter. Most Czech people I talk with agree with me wholeheartedly about this matter! Associated with this issue, is the way Sybille and I are treated sometimes by the various Czech authorities, simply because we are foreigners.

The Czech Republic has benefited enormously, economically and in many other ways, since it became part of the EU in May 2004. But with the benefits come also responsibilities, one of which is to treat nationals of other EU member states in exactly the same way as their own citizens. So I will continue to highlight occasions when that doesn’t happen because it is something that both needs and has to change.

Of course, there are times when it isn’t worth making a fuss or it is easier to find a way of sidestepping the problem. That is when one really needs, ‘wisdom to know the difference’. And I don’t always get that right. But I am grateful for friends who have offered their wisdom in helping me deal with certain issues so that I hopefully have learned when to challenge and when to just accept that it is something I cannot change.

There are two other issues that are important to recognise and consider if you want to make the expat life a success. The first is the frequency with which you pay return visits to your country of origin. The second is what effort you make as an English-speaker, to learn to speak the language of your adopted country.

In the four years we have lived in the Czech Republic, I have been back to the UK just three times. As far as I am concerned, Prague is my home for the immediate future. When we have holidays, we normally take advantage of our location and further explore the Czech Republic or near neighbouring countries.

Whilst visiting ‘home’ once or possibly twice a year, is not unreasonable, going there nearly every other weekend as I’ve known some Brits do from here in Prague, totally defeats any reason for living and working abroad in the first place. It gives very little opportunity to get to know and settle into the culture and way of life of where you are supposedly living and working. Those who do this, usually return to their home countries on a permanent basis, in a relatively short space of time.

Whilst Sybille and I believe we have made a success of our expat life, the one area where we know we have all but failed is with the Czech language. For to really settle in another country, you do need to be able to speak the language of the people. Whilst we can read a Czech menu, place our order in a bar-restaurant, and see simple signs and understand what they mean, there is no way we can yet have a meaningful conversation in Czech.

There are numerous reasons for our failure in this area. My job is to minister to English-speakers living here. Sybille works on the internet either in English or her native German. Between us, we have the two languages that many Czech people can speak. Older educated Czechs often speak German and when visiting parts of the country nearer the German or Austrian border, German is widely spoken. Most younger educated Czechs speak English and welcome the opportunity to improve it with a native speaker. And Czech is horribly difficult – what other language has four genders and seven cases?

As always, I welcome feedback, especially from other expats or former expats. And please also forgive some of my more vague generalisations in this post – as I originally compiled it over a month ago, there were some specific examples. But I took the wise advice of my best critic & edited them out 🙂

The end of prohibition in the Czech Republic

Prohibice/Prohibition has ended © Ricky Yates

Before I get back to blogging about truly ‘spiritual matters’, (please forgive the obvious pun 🙂 ), I thought I’d better explain the current situation regarding the ban on the sale of alcoholic drinks exceeding 20% proof which has been the subject of my two most recent posts. As can be seen in this photograph, the ban was partially lifted on Thursday 27th September, much to the pleasure our nearby whisky bar.

Since Thursday 27th September, the Czech Ministry of Health has allowed the sale of any liquor that can be shown to have been produced before 31st December 2011. As far as liquor produced this year is concerned, retailers must get a certificate of the alcohol’s origin within 60 days. Otherwise these bottles must be destroyed.

The death toll from the current outbreak of methanol poisoning now stands at twenty-seven with more than seventy others being hospitalised. However, there is quite a consensus amongst health professionals, that some earlier deaths may also have been due or partly due to methanol poisoning, prior to the problem being identified at the beginning of September. This is the reason that 31st December 2011 has been chosen as the cut-off point rather than a date sometime into 2012.

Whilst the police have arrested several people, confiscated thousands of litres of contaminated liquor and found supplies of fake labels, they still haven’t located the exact source of the methanol poisoning. In particular, they haven’t identified and arrested those who masterminded this deadly crime. They just seem to have caught a few of the ‘indians’ but none of the ‘chiefs’.

The Czech government is promising that in future, there will be regular checks by Health Inspectors of bottles of liquor on sale in both bars and shops, together with a crackdown on illegal production and illicit sales. Whether these words will be turned into positive actions we wait to see 😉

A week after the ban on the sale of alcoholic drinks exceeding 20% proof in the Czech Republic

The empty shelves in our local Kaufland supermarket © Ricky Yates

Whilst I have a couple of new posts in mind, one of which is already written but needs to be edited to take into account the advice of my best critic, aka Sybille, I thought that in the meantime, I would offer an update on my most recent post from one week ago – the current prohibition in the Czech Republic, of the sale of all alcoholic drinks exceeding 20% proof.

The photograph on the left is of some of the empty shelves in our local Kaufland supermarket following the implementation of the ban. In the middle of the shelves, is a notice on a yellow piece of paper, giving details of the banning order issued by the Czech Ministry of Health.

Whilst the reasoning behind this draconian measure is understandable, not least because the death toll from drinking spirits contaminated with methanol here in the Czech Republic, has risen to twenty three with nearly fifty others hospitalised, it is inevitably having major economic effects too. One particular casualty, as mentioned in response to a comment on my previous post, is our nearby whisky bar.

Prohibice/Prohibition © Ricky Yates

Whilst I don’t drink anything stronger than wine, Sybille is quite partial to an occasional single malt. So over the past year or so, a few months after the whisky bar opened, we have paid it a visit from time-to-time. Whilst Sybille has enjoyed her ‘wee dram’, I have quaffed a glass of their white wine. This past week, we have paid it a couple of visits to have a glass or two of wine, as a small way of showing our support for their business, as the ban is currently reducing turnover by 90%!

Last night when we visited, there were several Czechs there drinking either wine or cider, we suspect with similar motives to ours. But there was also a man sitting on his own at a table, who clearly wasn’t Czech, enjoying his glass of red wine and holding onto to the 75cl bottle he had purchased, in order to regularly refill his glass. “Where are you from?” we asked in English. The most surprising reply was, “Saudi Arabia” – he was a junior diplomat at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Prague on his first overseas assignment!

The corrupting influence of the West or sheer hypocrisy? I’ll leave you to decide!

But it is quite clear what the owners of the Whisky Bar think of the current situation. The photo is of their shop front window.

The consequences of contaminated bootleg liquor in the Czech Republic

The shelves of our local Kaufland supermarket being cleared of all bottles of spirits more than 20% proof © Sybille & Ricky Yates

Earlier this evening, I saw something I never ever expected to see – the shelves of our local Kaufland supermarket being completely cleared of every bottle of alcoholic drink that is more than 20% proof. The reason for this drastic action is to try and prevent further deaths and injuries from rum and vodka, contaminated by poisonous methanol, which have already claimed the lives of nineteen people in the Czech Republic and two more in Poland. It has also put up to thirty others into hospital, several of whom have lost their sight.

Whilst the contaminated liquor that is responsible for these deaths and injuries is bootlegged/illegal in origin, some of it has been sold in bottles bearing a legitimate manufacturer’s name. Initially, the Czech government just banned sales by street vendors and market stalls. But with the increasing number of deaths and with no definite identification of the source of the contaminated spirits, the Czech government today has taken the somewhat drastic step of banning all sales of of liquor with more than 20 percent alcohol.

As someone who never ever drinks anything stronger than port wine, I’m not in anyway going to be affected by this understandable but somewhat drastic decision of the Czech government. But this ban does affect two of the Czech Republic’s most famous products –Becherovka and Slivovice. Keeping the balance between protecting public health and not damaging the country’s economy, is going to be a considerable problem in the coming days and weeks.

A visit to the UK

The Wortley Arms in South Yorkshire with the Church directly across the road © Ricky Yates

At the end of August, I spent a busy but most enjoyable four days in the UK – only my third visit back to my home country in nearly four years since moving to Prague.

The trip started early, in fact very early, on the morning of Monday 27th August. My flight with the Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air from Prague to Luton Airport, (officially ‘London Luton Airport’, but as far as I am concerned, ‘Luton Airport’ as it is located adjacent to Luton and not London :mrgreen: ), was scheduled to depart at 06.00 CEST that morning. Whilst I am a great believer in using public transport and two night buses would have got me to the airport, I eventually chose the easier option and booked a taxi which was waiting for me outside our apartment block at 04.30. The flight was uneventful and we landed at Luton on time, just before 07.00 BST.

Just over an hour later, having collected my bag, got through passport control remembering to say “Good morning” rather than “Dobrý den”, found the free bus service to take me to Slip End and collected my pre-booked hire car, I was heading up the relatively quiet M1 motorway, bound for Derby. The motorway was quiet, partly due to the relatively early hour, but also because it was the August Bank Holiday Monday (public holiday for all non-Brits reading this) meaning very few trucks were on the move.

The main purpose of my trip was to spend time with each of my two adult children, my son Phillip and my daughter Christa. Phillip has recently moved to a flat right in the centre of Derby, very convenient for the shops but with no free parking facilities nearby. Thus he suggested that I park at a location about ten minutes walk from where he lives, where he met me and helped carry my bag back to the flat he now shares with his friend Sam.

Monday 27th August was a typical British bank/public holiday – it was cold and it rained most of the afternoon and evening 🙁 But I enjoyed seeing Phillip play for his indoor five-a-side football team where they posted a convincing 4 – 1 victory. Afterwards, we enjoyed a fish and chips supper from a nearby takeaway.

Phillip in his 1986 retro Oxford United shirt at Elland Road Football Stadium, Leeds © Ricky Yates

Phillip had been able to take the next day off as part of his annual leave and in contrast to the previous day, Tuesday 28th August dawned fine and sunny. We spent a good part the day on a leisurely drive north up through the Derbyshire and South Yorkshire countryside, stopping off for lunch at this typical English village pub in Wortley, located directly opposite the village Church 🙂

We were headed for Leeds where that evening, Oxford United FC were playing Leeds United FC in the second round of the League Cup competition.

Back in 1986, Oxford United famously won the League Cup so, as you can see, Phillip wore his replica retro Oxford shirt dating from that occasion. Unfortunately, it didn’t bring any good fortune this time as the match ended in a 3 – 0 victory for Leeds United.

Despite the result, it was still an enjoyable day out together and allowed Phillip to add Elland Road to the list of football grounds he has been to. We also had a relatively quick return journey to Derby after the match, back down the M1 and the A38.

The next day, after a leisurely breakfast, I set off and drove south, initially to the outskirts of Coventry where I visited two large Tesco supermarkets in search of a small number of things Sybille had asked me to try and purchase whilst in the UK. With one exception, I was successful! I had intended to then spend a few hours exploring the centre of the city where I spent the first eighteen years of my life, but unfortunately it was once more pouring down with rain. So instead, I drove along a relatively newly-constructed road, (which follows the route of what I remember as being a railway line 🙂 ), out of Coventry and on to the village of Braunston, situated on the Warwickshire-Northamptonshire border, where I had booked to stay the night at ‘The Old Workshop‘, a canal-side Bed and Breakfast establishment.

Cast iron bridge over the entrance to Braunston Marina © Ricky Yates

Within an hour of my arrival, the weather decided to improve markedly. I was therefore able to enjoy a walk up the canal towpath alongside the Braunston flight of locks, first crossing this splendid cast iron bridge over the entrance to the adjacent marina.

Emmylou on her island © Ricky Yates

 

 

 

 

 

 

That evening, I met up with my daughter Christa and my new son-in-law Ian, at the Boat House Pub and Restaurant in Braunston where we enjoyed a meal together. Then the next day, I visited them in their new home in nearby Daventry and met Emmylou and Harriet, Ian’s two children by his previous marriage.

The weather was kind enough to allow us all to spend the afternoon on a walk through Daventry Country Park which is based around one of the two reservoirs that feed the summit level of the Grand Union Canal. Emmylou rode her bicycle and found her own island at the edge of the reservoir.

 

 

 

 

 

Ian, Harriet and Christa in Daventry Country Park © Ricky Yates

Harriet is quadriplegic and so travelled in her specially adapted outdoor wheelchair. Here she is, along with Christa and Ian.

Christa, Harriet and me at Daventry Country Park © Ian Margieson

And here she is with Christa and me.

All too soon it was time to leave and head back down the M1 to Luton, return the hire car, get the bus to the airport and catch my Wizz Air flight back to Prague. In typical low-cost airline fashion, my flight departure was delayed but, on this occasion, only by thirty minutes. I had wondered whether I was wise to fly with Wizz Air again following my experience just over two years previously when the equivalent flight was delayed by five and a half hours 🙁

The delay, together with gaining an hour by flying eastwards, meant it was after midnight before we touched down in Prague. However, another taxi ride eventually got me safely back to the Chaplaincy Flat by 01.00 on Friday 31st August.