Party philosophy
So, the other night I went to a birthday party and met loads of new au pair friends. I think in just the few months that I've been here I've made more international friends than in the twenty years I've been on this planet - which is just brilliant! I now officially know about six German people, a few Swedish girls, quite a number of French boys, two Spanish girls, one Polish girl, one Czech one and one Dutch one - not to mention the lovely British people I meet on a daily basis :)! I just love how nice everybody is in this country - it's fantastic! (Although there was this one guy in the supermarket the other day who railed at me about the tweezers in the bakery section of Sainsbury - apparently I was using them incorrectly.)
Anyway, so like I was saying I had a really lovely time there ... but, on the other hand, there was one encounter that had me thinking quite a lot the last couple of days. You see, I was talking to the Czech girl on this party and everything was nice and lovely - until we reached the nationalities part of our introduction ... which went something like this.
Other girl: So where are you from then?
Me: Oh, I'm from Austria.
She: Oh.
And I swear, it was not the kind of 'oh' that means 'oh, how interesting, but I don't know how to properly express my interest' (which I all too frequently use) - it was more the kind of 'oh' that signifies 'what's that on the sole of my shoe?' Seriously. Which ... took me a bit by surprise to be honest, because as far as I know we haven't done anything horrible in the recent past. The REALLY recent past. ... Anything after WW II, I mean.
Anyway, but our conversation got somewhat worse ...
Me: So in autumn I've actually thought about maybe studying a bit of Czech? I mean, I'll probably embarrass myself terribly, but I've always been interested in learning it. So what languages do you know?
Her: Oh, Czech, English, Latin ... and a bit of German.
Me: Oh really?
Her: ... Yeah ... I don't like it. I don't like it at all.
Which, you know, on itself is alright - everybody is entitled to their opinion and if you think German is just too difficult to learn or sounds ugly that's fine by me ... but ... if you're just meeting somebody afresh ... wouldn't you, I don't know, have a bit more respect for their culture - or at least try not to be so unfriendly about it? But maybe I'm being a bit of a cry-baby - quite possibly so even.
I was talking about it with my mom yesterday as well and she said that apparently a lot of Czech people feel sort of irritated about Austrians - because the Czech Republic used to be part of Austria and we claimed/claim all their musicians and artists for our own. And yes, from that point of view I can totally understand their vexation and maybe even severe dislike towards Austria. But then again, I'm just an individual who happens to be Austrian - how is any of that my fault? Shouldn't you judge me by my character and my actions? I just don't think it's fair. And as a matter of fact I don't care if Kafka was Czech or Austrian. By all means, take him if you want to - I don't see how it matters. What matters is that he was a great writer, in my opinion. All this national pride ... it's never a good thing, really - because what it ultimately does is it separates you from other people, other nations. And in times like these I just feel that it would be nicer if we could finally all pull together.
... Or do I have this all wrong? Am I being a horrible ignoramus? What do you think?
Anyway, so like I was saying I had a really lovely time there ... but, on the other hand, there was one encounter that had me thinking quite a lot the last couple of days. You see, I was talking to the Czech girl on this party and everything was nice and lovely - until we reached the nationalities part of our introduction ... which went something like this.
Other girl: So where are you from then?
Me: Oh, I'm from Austria.
She: Oh.
And I swear, it was not the kind of 'oh' that means 'oh, how interesting, but I don't know how to properly express my interest' (which I all too frequently use) - it was more the kind of 'oh' that signifies 'what's that on the sole of my shoe?' Seriously. Which ... took me a bit by surprise to be honest, because as far as I know we haven't done anything horrible in the recent past. The REALLY recent past. ... Anything after WW II, I mean.
Anyway, but our conversation got somewhat worse ...
Me: So in autumn I've actually thought about maybe studying a bit of Czech? I mean, I'll probably embarrass myself terribly, but I've always been interested in learning it. So what languages do you know?
Her: Oh, Czech, English, Latin ... and a bit of German.
Me: Oh really?
Her: ... Yeah ... I don't like it. I don't like it at all.
Which, you know, on itself is alright - everybody is entitled to their opinion and if you think German is just too difficult to learn or sounds ugly that's fine by me ... but ... if you're just meeting somebody afresh ... wouldn't you, I don't know, have a bit more respect for their culture - or at least try not to be so unfriendly about it? But maybe I'm being a bit of a cry-baby - quite possibly so even.
I was talking about it with my mom yesterday as well and she said that apparently a lot of Czech people feel sort of irritated about Austrians - because the Czech Republic used to be part of Austria and we claimed/claim all their musicians and artists for our own. And yes, from that point of view I can totally understand their vexation and maybe even severe dislike towards Austria. But then again, I'm just an individual who happens to be Austrian - how is any of that my fault? Shouldn't you judge me by my character and my actions? I just don't think it's fair. And as a matter of fact I don't care if Kafka was Czech or Austrian. By all means, take him if you want to - I don't see how it matters. What matters is that he was a great writer, in my opinion. All this national pride ... it's never a good thing, really - because what it ultimately does is it separates you from other people, other nations. And in times like these I just feel that it would be nicer if we could finally all pull together.
... Or do I have this all wrong? Am I being a horrible ignoramus? What do you think?