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When you travel, this situation happens on daily bases: you meet cool new people and they ask you: Where you come from? If you come from a small country, I know how this feels. The reaction, in most cases, is very intereting. Some know it, many of them don’t. But usually, people have something to say 🙂
I can honestly say, I am glad my home isn’t some big and well-know country. When you come from US or Germany, there are no surprises. And you miss half the fun!
My friend from Slovenia who travels a gets all kind of reactions. People who can’t pronounce the country, people who never heard of the country.. Although population of Czech Repulic is 5x bigger than Slovenia, itstill belongs to one of those “strange countries”.
Check out what people tell me when I say I am Czech girl:
01 | Where do you come from?
Czech Republic (trying to sime and look cute)
02| Those blond hair… make you… look like Russian!
Well, I am Czech.
03| But that’s near Russia, right?
Well, at some point of history we were occupied by Russia. Apparently, it’s pretty far.
04 | I am little confused about all East European countries…
It’s Central Europe. Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and Czech Republic….
05 | Czechoslovakia?
Used to be! And then we split into Czech Republic and Slovakia.
06 | Czech…let me think! I heard about beer?
Yep, we produce a lot, drink a lot and also export. Like Pilsner, Budweiser…
07|I thought Budweiser is from the US?
It’s a long story. But the city called Budweis is in Czech, those guys kind of stole it.
Then the conversation varies. If you are in Taiwan (where I loved tow years) , the conversation usually go like this.
08 |The capital is Prague, right? I love this city, it’s so romantic!
Yes (happiness!).
09 |I read few books from Franz Kafka, he is one of my favorite authors!
(sparkle in the eyes! happiness!). He lived in Prague, but actually he was writing in German.
10 |And what do you speak there? Russian?
grrrr
When it comes to famous Czechs, I can prodluy say that most often people remember Vaclav Havel, our first post communist president whom I am really proud about. With all the luck, no one really knows our current representation and trust me – it’s better this way.
I wonder – what people tell you when you say where you some from? I look forward for your comments!
Veronika Tomanova is the founder of award-winning solo female travel blog Veronika’s Adventure, featuring travel tips, guides and stories from around the world. She is from Czech Republic and has been to 30+ countries.
28 Comments. Leave new
Great article Veronika! Love it! 🙂
You can be lucky your a re from a “smaller” country! Always stuff to talk about and to explain. Makes you even more outstanding!
If people ask me, I always tell people I grew up in a border-region – makes it much more interesting! 😀
Thanks for your comment, Mathias. Border region, huh:) Yep I guess this kind of things is really a great conversation topic.
For Romania, it is simple – Dracula, Ceausescu, communism. Obviously, if we speak Russian (here I usually amaze people saying that we are the only Latins who are Orthodox and the only Orthodox who use Latin letters). And some Europeans are surprised that now all Romanians are Gypsies.
I herd from Romanian friends that Bucarest is like a small Paris?
… “not all Romanians are Gypsies”
:]
I am not from a small country Im from the United States but the questions and things people say can be hilarious.
#1 – do you own a gun. Not every american is a guntoating cowboy, ok I have a horse but that dosent mean ther is a .22 in my purse. #2 – What’s your favorite food?Hamburgers? Yes I like hamburgers but im in France partially because I love food and hamburgers are not the only thing I eat. #3 Massachusetts is close to canada right? Yah like Germany is close to france.
Cool:) I wonder how is it with the guns actually, it is really unusual for the Europeans that so many people have guns at home. But yep, not everybody is a cowboy!
I’m from Scotland and in Asia a lot of people have never even heard of it. Plus, in Japan, China and Korea they use the same word for both the UK and England so if I tell people its part of the UK they say, ahhhh England! So now I just tell people that Scotland is a country in Northern Europe, close to Sweden. There are some people who have heard of Scotland. They always ask me if I like whisky. I don’t! Then I also get asked what my first language is lol. People don’t believe me when I tell them it’s English!
I did not know this, haha. Earlier when I was still learning English, I remember really had problems to understand people from Scotland. Where they come from was the only thing that I understood, then I just smiled stupidly the rest of the time:}
I’ll admit, I used to work for a guy from Czech Republic and I stupidly thought it was Czechoslovakia still…he was a little annoyed with my ignorance. In my defense, my public school system was stupidly poor and all of our maps said USSR still!
Oh no…Soviet union on the maps after so many years, that just sucks.
Great article. Good to know it’s not just most Americans who know nothing of the rest of the world…but I still think America is the worst when it comes to world geography.
To be honest, I don’t know much of geography of the US either…I would not win too much in a quizz about their capital cities:]
Coming from the Netherlands I can check off a lot of the above! Questions they ask me? If I smoke weed, where in Amsterdam I live, whether I speak German and so on. Love the Czech Republic btw, such friendly people!
Hi Rose, yep Amsterdam’s reputation suffers from the weed thing, but it’s anyway mainly tourists who did that….
With me and my boyfriend, it usually goes like this:
“Are you British? American?”
“No…”
“But you speak English so well! Where are you from then?”
“Czech Republic.”
“???”
“Well… do you know Prague?”
“Ah! Prague! The beer!”
It’s funny every time 😀
I feel with you. I always take it as compliment when people think that Czech Republic is English speaking country! Why not, right?
Ohh the never ending story of traveling conversations. And you have this exact same conversation all over again when you meet the next person 😀
I’m from Germany, so no surprises in conversation for me.
P.S.: Prague really is a lovely city! Had a great time visiting 🙂
We are CZECHIA since July 2016, officially https://unterm.un.org/UNTERM/Display/Record/UNHQ/NA/4275087d-4018-4082-899d-95f37efeda65
I hear you sister. I hate the immediate connection to Russia or “Eastern” Europe when I tell people I am from Slovakia. Also, many people associate us with Ukraine. Also, Czechoslovakia? Come on, it’s 2017! 😀
I think I prefer to be associated with Ukraine more than with Russia:)
Hi, I know that I have some czechoslovakian somewhere in my background, but I want to know, is it possible I could be Russian as well?
I am of Czech heritage from the state of Kansas. When I visited the northeast part of U.S. I was always asked, “Have you fought any Indians?” Sometimes if they know the state is in middle of U.S. they will ask, “Do the cattle and buffalo run through your streets?” They do not know that we produce the most wheat in U.S. Second producer of cattle for the table, and have been as high as the fourth most producing state of oil. Our production depended upon if the regulators let us pump or not. In the South most think of us as Yankees and do not treat us nicely. In the Rocky Mountain areas we are teased about being as flat as the table. Not true as University of Kansas does not require any physical exercise course as the hills are very steep and going to and from class is enough exercise. In California I was always ask why my family never had enough money to head west to California.
Most of Kansans are very easy laid back very eager to help and talk with you for more than just greeting. As for me, “jsem ochoten.”
Haha, yep Czech roots are a very special thing!
I believe I have czech roots. My great grandma and grandpa, who I didn’t get a lot of time with, and who don’t get talked about, came from the war. They were orphaned children and were brought to the us by a stranger. They didn’t know their real heritage but by their looks and some research I found they probably came from Czech. I want to have a heritage test done so badly, because if that’s the case I will be German, Czech, some Small percentage of Indian (but I have very pale skin because it’s been a rumor that a man who adopted the Indian heritage is my close relative. Not actual Indian.), and I do not know where my moms side came from because they’ve been in the us a long time. Kentucky heritage? LOL I have brown hair and blue eyes and fair skin.
I’m from South Africa and people mostly think we keep wild animals as pets or that we live amongst them in the Bushveld