Czech customs

I must be a good writer – my blog has been plagiarised!

An example of Prague architecture to brighten a dark winter day © Ricky Yates

By far the most popular post on my blog, is one I wrote in February 2013 entitled, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps‘. As I explained in a follow up post last month, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps – revisited‘, the original post almost immediately went viral resulting in the blog getting 2,040 visits, the day after it was published. And as explained in that follow-up post, there was another major surge of interest in the first half of December 2013.

But all of this pales into insignificance in the light of what has happened in the last few days. The reason – an online Czech tabloid ‘newspaper’ Prásk!, has published in Czech, a completely plagiarised version of ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps’. To see it, follow this link .

It is one the worst examples of tabloid journalism I have seen in a very long time. The headline reads in translation, ‘Shocking instructions from an American website: Ten Steps on how to become Czech’. I presume that, purely because my blog has a dot com domain, the ‘journalist’ has immediately assumed that the author is American and the website is based in the United States. Wrong – the author is British and has lived in Prague for over five years. Incidentally, I do have great difficulty calling the creator of this article a ‘journalist’ – his activities are a complete denigration of an important profession.

What follows is a completely plagiarised version of my blog post. In places, what I wrote has been abbreviated. In other places, in particular under point seven, there are additions which are not part of my original text. Nowhere is there any acknowledgement of the source of the original article.

The article is illustrated with five photographs. Three of them are from microstock sites to whom I assume, the publishers have paid for the rights to use them. However, the other two photographs have been pulled directly from my blog post. One of them, the photograph of the lady in skin tight black jeans and knee-high white boots with serious heels, is from a free image site. It was found by Sybille for me to use, hence it appears in my blog without acknowledgement. But the other, of various pairs of shoes outside a door, is my own photograph and appears on my blog as © Ricky Yates. Yet, in total breach of the law of copyright, the publishers of Prásk! have decided they can use it without permission or acknowledgement.

Prásk! is published by the same media company who own TV Nova, a major commercial television channel here in the Czech Republic. Imagine that I made a video of one of their popular programmes, put it on DVD and started marketing and selling pirated copies. Their lawyers would be down on me like ton of bricks in no time at all. Please note CET 21 spol. s r.o., who claim copyright to the whole of the prask.nova.cz website, including the plagiarised version of my blog post, the law of copyright, also applies to you!

I am extremely grateful to Igor, someone who I do not know, who kindly left a comment on my blog late last Thursday evening, alerting me to the plagiarised version of of my blog post that had been published by Prásk!. He asked, ‘Did you give them permission?’ followed by a smiley. I think he already knew the answer! Thank you again Igor!

Fortunately, the publishers of Prásk!, allow people to leave comments. Within an hour of publication, one person had already left a link to my original blog post. Several others had also pointed out that I was British and not American and that I lived in Prague. Of course there were others who took no notice of this information and instead left rude comments about Americans.

Very late on last Thursday evening, I left the following comment.

‘As several commenters have already pointed out, the original article can be found here https://rickyyates.com/how-to-be-czech-in-10-easy-steps/ & I am the author. This is a shortened & plagiarised version of it. Clearly prask.nova.cz have not heard of the word ‘copyright’. In particular, the photograph of shoes before the door is my photograph which I have not given permission to be used. prask.nova.cz could also spend a few minutes doing a little research – I am British, NOT American, & have l lived in the Czech Republic for over five years. However, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’.

I am pleased to say that this comment, despite being written in English, rather than Czech, at the time of writing, has received 48 ‘likes’.

But the most amazing outcome of this act of plagiarism, has been the impact on visitor numbers to my blog. On Thursday 23rd January, the day the Prásk! article was published, this blog had 5,272 visitors. On Friday 24th January, it was 8,695 visitors, more than four times the previous highest total of 2,040. Today, as it is just approaching midnight, the total has passed 4,000. I suspect that this proves the old saying that, ‘All publicity is good publicity’.

Likewise, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps’, now has over 6,400 ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ on Facebook and has been ‘tweeted’, forty-seven times. As Sybille keeps reminding me, I need to get on and finish writing my book, ‘How to be Czech’, ASAP! It seems that plenty of people will want to buy it.

In the meantime, whilst I cannot afford a copyright lawyer, via this post and in any other ways possible, I shall seek to embarrass the publishers of Prásk!, their ‘journalist’ who does not even give his name but only his initials ‘pul’, and the management of TV Nova and the media company CET 21 spol. s r.o.. As another of my commenters has remarked, ‘The behaviour of Prásk! tabloid is unacceptable and repugnant. I concur!

How far is it?

Distance 1 — Exactly 111 metres to the Optician’s Shop © Ricky Yates

The picture above is of an advert on the window of vacant retail premises near where we live. It is advertising an 80% reduction on the cost of frames and a 70% reduction on the cost of lens at an Optician’s Shop further along the street. But how far away is the Optician’s Shop? It isn’t a simple round 100 metres. Nor is it slightly further at 110 metres. No – it is exactly 111 metres!

This is an example of something we see quite regularly on a variety of signs here in the Czech Republic. An exactness in distance that borders on the absurd. For from where is it 111 metres to the Optician’s Shop? The poster itself is about 2 metres wide. From which end of it does anyone start measuring? And is it 111 metres to the beginning of the shop window, or to the shop door, or until one arrives at the shop counter?

Distance 2 — Kaufland is 1.1 km away © Ricky Yates

Distance 4 — Kaufland is 2.1 km away © Ricky Yates

Here are two more examples, this time for the benefit of car drivers, advertising how far it is to drive until you reach our newly opened Kaufland Supermarket. But surely 1 km and 2 km would do perfectly well? Once more it begs the question as to where in the Kaufland complex is the end point of this exact measurement. The route a car would take from the vehicular entrance on the public road to a car parking spot, well exceeds 100 metres.

If anyone can offer me an explanation for interesting Czech phenomenon I would love to hear from you. As always, comments are welcome. However, I do think there are some Czech people who do see the absurdity of this over-exactness with regard to distance. Possibly one such person is the owner of a shop called ‘Hardware & Software Services’, an interesting English name for a Czech business 😉 As you can see in the photograph below, this shop is only 1 metre away. However, the advert is on the side of the shop building and the entrance door is literally around the corner!

Distance 3 — Exactly 1 metre away! © Ricky Yates

Keeping your tab

Tab 3 — Running tab on slip of paper with beer & wine © Ricky Yates

One thing that I have increasingly realized living in Prague, is that most Czech people do not expect non-Czechs to necessarily be able to speak their language – many of them recognize what a difficult language it is to learn! But what Czech people do expect is that foreigners should understand, respect and follow their cultural manners and practices.

I have previously written a post entitled ‘Eating and drinking in a Czech Bar-Restaurant’, explaining what to expect in contrast to the UK and elsewhere. In this post, I’m going to expand and illustrate a practice I mentioned briefly in that previous post – something that is quite commonplace in many bar-restaurants throughout the Czech Republic.

When your first drinks order has been delivered to your table, the person doing so will produce a slip of paper, mark it accordingly, and leave it on your table. If you have only ordered normal 0.5 litre glasses of beer, then a simple mark will be placed at the bottom of the slip, one for each beer that has been ordered. If you order small 0.3 litre glasses of beer, then a cross for each one will be put there instead.

If after the drinks have arrived, you then also order food, then the cost of each dish is recorded on the top part of the slip. The slip in this first photo shows that we ordered one main dish for 137 Kc with a side dish for 35 Kc, together with a second main dish for 99 Kc with a side dish for 35 Kc. By the time I took this photo, I was on my second glass of beer. On this occasion, Sybille was drinking wine and was on her second glass, each of which cost 30 Kc.

At the end of the evening when you are ready to leave, saying “Zaplatim prosim” – “May I pay please”, will bring the waiter/waitress to the table to add up your tab. Below is ours from this occasion, duly totted up – the extra 45 Kc was a digestif slivovice. The total bill of 463 Kc translates to around £16.00, a reminder of how ridiculously cheap eating out can be here in the Prague suburbs. But don’t expect a printed receipt – this simple paper slip is all you’ll get!

Don’t offend or be offended

Shoes, shoe horn + crash helmet — Take your shoes off before entering a Czech home © Ricky Yates

The picture on the left illustrates a Czech practice that any foreigner visiting a Czech home, needs to be very aware of if they do not want to cause serious offence to their hosts. When entering a Czech home you should always remove your shoes.

Normally, this is done immediately after you have just set foot inside the front door of the house or flat you are visiting. There will usually already be a number of pairs of outdoor shoes sitting on a mat in the entrance hallway and, as a polite visitor, you should remove your own outdoor shoes and put them alongside those already sitting there.

Sometimes your Czech host may say, “O don’t worry about taking off your shoes”. If you want to be invited back, ignore what has just been said and still remove your shoes. Those who take what has just been said at face value will always be known and remembered as the impolite foreigners who didn’t remove their shoes!

The accompanying picture is of the doorway of a flat on the first floor of our block of flats where we live. The scene always brings a smile to my face each time I walk past it. Sybille reckons that the reason all the shoes being left completely outside on the public landing and stairway, is because the family have a young puppy who might otherwise chew them. But not only are there shoes but also a motor cycle helmet. And I love the provision of a shoe horn to help everyone put their shoes back on again as they leave!

Newly Recontructed — What is newly reconstructed? © Ricky Yates

This second photo is of an advertisement on the side of a public telephone box for the M1 nightclub in the centre Prague. When Sybille and I first saw it several months ago, we nearly collapsed in a heap with laughter. Not only does it feature yet another example of Czenglish by indicating that one should ‘Make left’ rather than ‘Turn left’, one also has to ask whether ‘Newly reconstructed’ refers to the building wherein the night club is located or to certain parts of the young lady’s anatomy!

What the advertisement does illustrate is the very relaxed attitude that Czechs have to the exposure of the human body, something that comes as a complete shock to some people, particularly to those conservative Americans who hail from the Bible belt. This relaxed attitude is sometimes reflected in men publicly urinating when they could quite easily use a little more discretion. But it also has some very positive aspects, particularly with women being totally free to breastfeed in public places without anyone, (other than conservative Americans!) batting an eyelid.

During the summer months, there are a number of places in and around Prague where it is possible to swim and sunbathe, in or alongside open-air swimming pools, lakes or rivers. In these locations, some women happily go topless. It is far from being obligatory but just accepted as being natural and normal.

All I have described is part of what any foreigner needs to understand when s/he moves to live and work in a different culture and society. Learn how not to offend, and equally, learn how not to be offended.