26. 10.

"Good" Mao, "Bad" Mao

VIDclip follows...

There is "good" Mao and "bad" Mao. There is the Mao of the Chinese Civil War, and then there's the Mao of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. So which Mao Zedong is the "real" Mao Zedong? Peter Levenda gets into all of this in his latest book, "The Mao of Business: Guerrilla Trade Techniques for the New China," where he describes how the majority of Chinese you'll be dealing with as part of your China business will have come of age during the worst years of Mao's sordid reign and why you should be reading Mao's "Little Red Book" instead of more traditional Chinese strategy tomes like The Art of War. It was a compelling read, and that's what we talk about in today's pod. Thanks again for watching!

23. 10.

Are Women Better At Languages Than Men?

VIDclip follows...

22. 10.

Erik Best's Final Word

Mr. Erik Best of the Fleet Sheet normally cops to having the so-called "final word," yet something I'd recently read in his October 21, 2009 "Final Word" e-dispatch entitled "Back to basics" got me pondering the last line in his thought of the day:

A better outcome to the [financial] crisis than a new world order would be a back-to-basics movement that revives the obsolete notions of fairness, honesty and hard work.

Moving on from that clever bit of woven wisdom, I made an executive decision that today's final word rests with Yours Truly, not the eminent Mr. Best, as I parse out those final three fragments of Erik's words as they relate to life in the Czech Republic's HLAVNÍ MĚSTO. Of course, I welcome any and all feedback from you, as per usual.

Thoughts On Fairness:

Is it possible to be fair in a place like Prague? Have the bitter abusive lessons of our urinated-upon past been so ingrained into the culture and the attitudes of the locals that it's nearly impossible to imagine an outcome where our society suddenly behaves equitably towards one another?

How can we possibly think about being fair when the actions of our non-clerical leadership cause us to look like the laughing stock of "New" Europe? When we're given the conch shell of pan-European diplomacy for half a year, yet we don't have the inner-fortitude to make it to the end of our allotted 6-month gift term? Or how about this zinger: how an inexplicably chronically overweight (is it glandular, Mr. Paroubek?) prime minister connives to undermine his taller, eminently better-looking, richer, and better with XX Chromosomal Units opposite number, drawing and quartering him behind the astonished gaze of our Brussels conferes while the rest of Europe waits with bated breath what will eventually befall us here in our Central European statelet?

Let's come down a notch from the rarefied air of higher office. So how about fairness as it concerns the Czech hoi-polloi? How do locals treat each other in our nation's largest city?

On balance, I'd say Czech interpersonal relationships can be better. Am I too pollyannaish to think that a day might soon come when our jealous backstabbing peers would revel in our personal successes? That, say, if I'm surging in my chosen field of professional or personal endeavour that those who are closely observing (ostre sledovali) me -- like my so-called "friends" and colleagues -- will loudly laud my various efforts, rather than conspiring to tear me down to stomp all over me, taking no prisoners and walking over dead bodies?

Hrm...

Perhaps I am in fact slightly "Prague-jaded," given how I've had a mixed bag of experiences in this burg. Still, I continue to find it amusing how some here prefer to maintain their relationships on a more adversarial tip, relishing opportunities to have endless shoutfest go's at hapless Magistrat bureaucrats or, even better, the chance to put the anxiety-ridden shakedown on yet another local employee/student/subordinate because that's "the way things have always been here, so why should I act any different?"

Hrm...

Thoughts On Honesty:

A toughie, because anything I may write here about how dishonesty reins supreme in Prague Town might be equally applied to a host of other nations, cities, and environments. I'll avoid slagging off on the Golden City, per se, because although I'm of the opinion that mild criticism is healthy, baseless critiques land the critic and those who are the object of the former's censure nowhere fast.

Nevertheless, I find we could make a heck of a lot of improvement on the honesty front. If only I had 50 hellers for the number of times I've heard young Czechs tell me -- in Czech, of course -- that "nejak bojim se o cizincu"/"I am somehow scared of foreigners" -- I could cash those obsolete pieces of pressed tin in for some crown notes, my friends. Notes!

I find that the honesty proposition here has a different radically application to those hailing from outside our nation, something that has a staying power which defies logical explanation.

This is no idle armchair observation! I know on good information that there exists a double-standard against non-Czechs in the CR, because I've lived with Czech roomates in the past -- not to mention having dated Czech XX Chromosomal Units before as well, my favourite -- and on many occasions was flatly told epithets like:

• "I never tell foreigners the truth. I just tell them things they want to hear, usually nonsense, because it helps me get what I really want."


• "I don't care about other languages (read: English) because foreigners are usually stupid, and besides, I'm not going to be living anywhere else anyways in life other than in the cesky bordel so what's the point in making an effort?"


• "There's no way a foreigner is cleverer than a Czech. No way in hell."

I realize the above lines read patently ludicrious -- and if I were told these myself over a chilly half-litre of beer chat I'd concur -- but seeing as I've heard these all myself you can take my word for it. Honest. This is the raw felt Czech daily reality.

I propose that were our society -- our Czech society, that is -- to employ a more honest approach in interpersonal dealings...not in business, where one of course is compelled to behave honestly otherwise I'll cease doing business with you and besmirch your reputation to my personal network and colleagues with no chance of recovery (just kidding!)...we'd all be a lot better off for it.

The perennial -- and oftentimes false -- stereotypes about "Eastern Europeans" being untrustworthy crooks with handy access to easy-come-easy-go dirty cash would come to a final resounding end. I look forward to that day, don't you? (One proviso to the above: as concerning Romanians, the Eastern European stereotype still applies).

Thoughts On Hard Work:

Yet another toughie...not just any sort of work, but hard work. In summary:

Czechs have:

• tremendous technical prowess. What I have previously referred to as being "Czechnical."


• the mysterious physical fortitude to somehow commence their working day at obscenely early morning hours (those drill bits sometimes sound off at 6am and I'm still convinced that there's a huge time savings from the typical cultural avoidance of a morning shower).


• burdensome social pressures to conform, ergo, they don't have the tendency towards sloth, slacker-type attitudes given their fear of social ostracism due to remaining unemployed ("You don't have a job, Honzo?! How can this be? Everyone does! It doesn't matter what sort of job, just a job...Comrade?).


• once a job is started, it normally gets completed.


• pride. Do not mess with a Czech person's pride on pain of suffering...your suffering, actually.

I'm going to get crucified in the comments section...again...for saying so, still I think Czechs working outside most MNCs and corporations can expend a heck of a lot energy than they presently wish to. Full stop. Think about it what you will...

You need examples? Well head out onto the streets of Prague during one of your end-of-week celebratory benders (every weekend is a cause for celebration in Prague), say, on a Friday night, to observe just how reticent the cops are to break up the rare Prague fisticuffs or in enforcing a measure of decorum in the City Centre, like silencing a group of druken British/Irish/Scottish stag travellers who are cruising for a punitive spanking. I've leaned against walls waiting for late night trams with my colleagues marvelling jaw-agape at how Prague "beat cops," the police who patrol the streets by foot, are reluctant to tell visiting British rowdies to cool off, or else...this kind of stuff would never happen in other European cities (egs. Copenhagen, Brussels, or even in their native London, Glasgow, or Edinburgh).

I realize in the cops' case it's a matter of how paltry they're getting paid, but for a Prague police officer who still lives with his parents or in one of those inherited panelak (panel) apartments which cost 3,000 CZK/month to rent from the City (approximately 115 EUR) or were inherited from the former "all-knowing" State for free, how bad is a 20,000 CZK/month (770 EUR/month) salary? What the heck is a cop going to spend it on that it's apparently "not enough?" Cops don't travel...so why can't they enforce the law at the rate at which they're being compensated? What do they need? A few beers, some food, and the occasional trip to the Eastern Colony (read: Slovakia) or to Croatia's Adriatic Coast (aka "the Czech beach") can be more than adequately covered on that amount of public tax money.

Personally, I'd like to see a lot less of the following here:

• drinky-poos at 11am on a Tues. workday.


• short Friday workdays ending somewhere around, um, 10:45am (so that drinky-poos can promptly commence at 11am stat).


• kvetchy complaints about how those who really want to excel in the globalized economy "work too hard," are "chasing after America," or "take no time for themselves." This is our modern form of "Communist thought" which dogs the marketplace of ideas...still.


• complaints about one's lack of linguistic abilities (just learn whichever language you need and get on with it! Stop the navel-gazing!).

I want to see young people excited about entrepreneurship -- truly the only way to thrive in today's chaotic economic times -- aspiring to do greater things than serving at the foot of the next "fearless leader," even if that leader is a foreigner with deep pockets. I want to see less breaks, and more concerted efforts when sitting in front of the computer, and more harnessing of the intelligence, grit, and strength which is the inheritance of this truly survivalist race at the heart of Europe.

To Conclude:

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, your final word of the day. Sometimes, I just have to have the final word.

Fondly,

ADM

DISCLAIMER: I do not work for the Fleet Sheet, nor for Erik Best, nor for the FS Final Word, and Erik Best did not authorize the above editorial. But this indeed is your Final Word of the day.

21. 10.

Undermining America

VIDclip follows...

DISCLAIMER | Trying something slightly different today. Hope you don't mind. Please let us know what you think, by the way...

~~~~

So have you ever wondered what's the big hullabaloo about the Chinese -- in one fell swoop -- having the power to undermine America's national economy if they one day up and decide to cash in their US foreign debt? We're talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 trillion US. Well, it's more of a media-spun thing than anything, and I explain why in this episode. Thanks again for watching!

21. 10.

On "diving in"...

Aren't long lost friends just great?

Well last evening here in Toronto was another one of those stellar nights where hot food, hearty brew, and some damn fine conversation intersect to create some of life's truly memorable moments. I had the good fortune of rendez-vousing with a wonderful old flame of mine, Julie Fernandez (@Julie Fernandez Carrasco on Facebook), as we spent the night catching up on what's been happening over the past six years of our lives.

Jules has since become a successful custom jewellery designer in the Beaches area of Toronto, capably running Vernissage Jewellery with her dad, Pepe, while becoming someting of a maven in her field. Julie's always been this way, which made her such a success in her former career as an bank officer at the CIBC bank. Given our time constraints, we couldn't possibly discuss everything we'd wanted to, but I got a good sense the business is keeping Julie on her toes. In her words, it remains an area of high challenge for her as she continues to carve out her niche in a heavily male-dominated industry. Julie's travel schedule remains full, her work is all-consuming in that way most idealize, and moreover, she's successful at what she does. And the neighbourhood fits her to a "tee." The Beaches can be best described as a comfortable lakeside remove from the bustling metropolis which is today's Toronto, populated in the main by older folks who made the Lake Ontario area their home during the forties and fifties. The quarter has since gentrified somewhat and has become slightly more trendy and hipster, but it maintains a healthy business community and the neighbourhood preserves the quaint charm characteristic of most "bedroom communities" while lying a mere hop-skip-and-a-jump away from Toronto's downtown core, Canada's largest.

Back around the time we went our separate ways, I moved (returned) to Europe, opting to hang my hat over in the Czech capital, a place that's been home over four significant and personally gratifying years.

Our conversation weaved in and out of the familar Toronto subjects. Given the multicultural explosion which defines the 21st-century megacity, we chatted about what it's like living in a town which is decidedly not purely "Canadian," yet somehow cleaves to a flavour of its former "Anglo-Saxon puritan" self despite the exotic proliferation of peoples who now call Toronto home. Julie spoke -- as she had in former times -- about her native Chile, and what life continues to be like for her as the consummate "insider-outsider," a feeling I know only too well from my own scribblings, chronicled in the 2006 award-winning We Are the New Bohemians: The Post-Communist Collection, my second work of fiction. Amazingly, Julie continued to describe herself (as I recall her doing) as a castaway Chilean stuck in a "gringo world," a reluctant gringo (i.e. American foreigner) of sorts who at once isn't quite Chilean, yet isn't quite gringo either. A brainy, independent, very charismatic latina not quite stuck in a white world, unable to fully commit to the local culture, detaching herself from her true cultural self, yet paradoxically not entirely acceptable to her own Chilean folk. The Chinese have a handy shorthand for these sorts of people: ABCs/BBCs (American Born Chinese or British Born Chinese). As they've been returning to China as the PRC economy heated up, they've become known as "returning turtles." I only wish I had a similar expression for it on the Chilean end. Julie?

Then we got to talking about Prague, and about how well I've absorbed into the local scene. I divested Julie of some of her not-altogether wrong impressions about Czechs and Czech culture, though she asked a wickedly good set of pertinent questions which really got me thinking about my future in the Czech Republic, things like:

• how well I speak and understand Czech.


• whether I respect Czech culture and identify with it.


• whether there's something about Czech culture I've latched onto and admire.


• whether I can see myself residing there over the indefinite future.

Admittedly, I didn't have adequate enough -- at least to my mind -- responses for all her great questions, though I can safely say I'm quite knowledgeable about all these areas on a technical (read: disengaged) level, if you follow my reasoning.

Basically, what Julie was driving at was whether there would ever come a time when I'd simply "dive in?" Like an aerial dogfight, would I ever engage my adversary and pursue, pursue, pursue? Whether I'd cease acting like the proverbial expatriate, what with one's expatriate habits and characteristic expat detachment, essentially how expats behave the world over, from China to the Czech Republic to Chile.

To be sure, I am better than most expats in the critical areas. For one, I speak and write better Czech than do some foreigners who have been living in the republic for twice the amount of time that I have. It shocks me how men (especially) wed to Czech women are clueless when it comes to the Czech langauge. How despite obvious pronounciation challenges -- yes, spoken Czech remains inscrutable for those easily tongue-tied -- the vernacular continues to elude certain foreigners. As for my reading comprehension -- if I may back-pat for just a moment -- I can safely say it's superb, and I write Czech relatively well for someone who doesn't use the language as part of his day-to-day work duties. Moreover, given my rigorous travel schedule across Europe, it shocks even me that I maintain a semblance of Czech language comprehension for someone who is not a native speaker nor is wed to a Czech citizen. Just to sum up the language issue -- the best way to wrangle down a language is to be in a committed relationship with a local. For true mastery, in my experience, a deft combination of immersion, a good ear, and compulsion are truly necessary in order to be a good speaker of tongues. Of course, I'd mentioned the sublimely talented Andreea Manea to Julie as an example of someone who possesses such skills, with her Spanish, French, English, and native Romanian (with passable Italian and rudimentary Greek) as examples of a divinely-inspired finely-tuned ear.

As for the Czech cultural issue, I have made it a personal crusade to bone up on as much as I can about the Czech national saga -- ranging from historical tomes (my favourites) to Czech novels and Czech and Czechoslovak films -- so that I can safely hold down a conversation with Prague locals about their nation without seeming like a disinterested tourist. I note that this isn't what's lacking in Prague amongst the English-speaking foreign community, at least from what I can glean as part of my occasional hobnobbing around prominent expat haunts. Most foreign residents I've spoken to have a good grasp of where the Czech nation has been, and where it's going. However, I'm still convinced that the true yardstick of success in any foreign posting is having a local "fixer," anything from a business partner to a romantic interest or husband/wife, who can attend to the most niggling things about life in a strange country or who might pave the way forward. I have had professional dealings with people like this who defer all official responsibilities to their Czech spouses, which in my estimation is quite shameless and ignorant. You know, someone who can call the electricity company when there's a problem with the latest invoice, for instance, or someone who can crack the whip on a better price on stock for sale. Personally, I haven't resorted to such measures and have opted to go my own way in many instances, labouring thorugh the occasional conversational flubs and boondoggles in order to be understood, convinced as I am that this is the sole way to learn. Prague, alas, is not Beirut or Karachi or Beijing. It remains a modern EU nation which -- I believe -- is on the cusp of something huge. It is easy to get around for those who choose to embrace it, and the Czech Republic -- despite its many many many detractors -- can and will do some truly great things...if only the nation can overcome its persistent also-ran underdog self-image, one which chronically dogs the 10.5 million strong Middle European statelet still.

My ultimate takeaway from my meetup with Julie was this: indeed it's been four captivating years since I moved to Prague, but have I really "dove in" to the place? Have I severed those comfortable bonds which have kept me firmly tethered to my old ways of doing things, those old mannerisms which are no longer of any use in the new society which is my home?

Ah, there's the rub....

I still don't have answers for these things, as I continue to struggle over the seeming efficacy of shedding old skin to permit the growth of the new. I remain of the stubborn opinion that our planet is not the hot-cold globe of former times. We are no longer dwelling in a 20th-century universe of stark opposites: of Cold War foes, of hard and fast ideological rules which threaten to polarize the universe into two embittered camps -- one left, the other right, one "Communist," the other "capitalist" -- which stare at each other across a fierce divide to keep us divided and divorced from each other at all bloody costs. In other words, I can safely maintain my individuality in a sometimes hostile, sometimes unforgiving environment because this world of today isn't all about "countries" anymore. Borders have since been obliterated and rendered meaningless. This "old-new" world is everyone's personal playground, provided one has the necessary equipment to get into the game (another dialogue entirely).

So do I have to dive in? Or is the fact that I choose to remain my own man firmly paint me as a social misfit, diametrically opposed to a melding with the mainstream, a persistent gadfly, critical, absrasive type who prefers to pine and snipe and grouse like a petulant child as opposed to just -- in the words of President Obama's 2009 inauguration speech -- "unclenching my fist" -- and merging with the liberating slipstream of the Czech day-to-day?

Thank you again, Julie Fernandez, for a night rife with engaging points of departure...

18. 10.

Vitamin C | Episode #46 | "Enter the Juggernauts"

VIDclip follows...

Welcome back, it's been quite some time since our last episode, hasn't it? Anyways I've been on a reading tear of late and just ploughed through Robyn Meredith's bestselling THE ELEPHANT AND THE DRAGON: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us, a thin comparative study between the two juggernauts and how this affects the US' future prospects. I was so inspired by the content that I made a short list of the main themes, comparing and contrasting as I have a tendency to do. Man it's cold out there...thanks again for watching!

12. 10.

Vitamin C | Episode #45 | "Lethal Industry"

VIDclip follows...

Welcome to Copşa Mică, Romania, the most polluted city in all of Europe before Wall Fall (google it if you don't believe us!). Apologizes in advance: we didn't intend to be so "Speedy Gonzalez" on this ep, but some barrel-chested former miners -- the same irate cats who were summoned by the reconstituted post-Ceauşescu regime to clobber down on major Romanian student head during the dying days of the Romanian dictatorship in June 1990 -- and the station master were after us to get this one wrapped up STAT. But we think you get the picture though...we hope to see more of these former sooty belch towns closed down in China over the coming years.

09. 10.

Stalinist-era Construction Projects...Sort Of...

I'm a regular listener to the BBC's Documentaries podcast and during this morning's cycle I caught up with an archived episode called "Building Out of the Recession'" (2 parts).

The smooth presenter, Jonathan Glancey, travelled to New York and Chi-Town to poll the spirit of the US' present economic times and through his various interviews learned that America's GDP wasn't the only thing taking a good ol' fashioned hiding.

Glancey's main finding? As economies soar, so do their cities' buildings and skyscrapers

Have yourself a listen to this 23-minute cast (Part One) and leave a comment, if it inspired you. I'd be curious to know what your government's doing in your country to stimulate the economy through building projects.

The relevant take-aways -- country-neutral ones, mind you -- from the above clip:

• there are increasing scores of unemployed and under-employed workers around the world. That's hardly a secret. But when private-sector investment takes a beating, it is a national government's job to pick up the economic slack. For the mostly high-tax regimes of Europe, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.


• taking a page out of FDR's New Deal playbook, national governments might start considering large infrastructural projects like roads, bridges, and airports once more as a means of stimulating the economy and inspiring the population through overt physical acts, like mega-construction.

• skills atrophy, like unused muscle groups. So as a means of keeping workers' skills from getting rusty, national building projects might be one way of keeping people limber.


• for evidence of the soaring economy/tall buildings phenomenon, compare the present-day sagas of the UAE (Dubai) or Doha, London's 2012 Olympic campaign, and China's many gargantuan construction campaigns.

And for those of you game for some extra-curricular reading on this subject, dance on over to Adam Cohen's Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America.

07. 10.

Prague Bureaucratic Hosannahs: A Case Study

Bear with me as I get this out of my system...

As I travel often throughout the former Communist world, I have a lot of opportunities to compare the various bureaucratic procedures in the several countries I moonlight in, monitoring -- as I do -- how they've been improving since '89.

A little anecdote would suffice...

My company's Creative Director and I have recently paid visits to our respective People's Republic of China Embassies (I in my adoptive Czech "Republic," she in her native Romania) to obtain our obligatory Middle Kingdom entry passes. Allowing me just a few beats of your time, I thought I'd contrast our two different embassy experiences in highlighting how far (or behind) these two countries have come since Wall Fall.

Notes on ADM's Visa Odyssey at the PRC Embassy in the Czech Republic:

• the Consular Section was clearly marked at street-level and the complex was easy to find.


• when submitting my application, the entire procedure -- queueing up, organizing the list of required documents, handing them over to the clerk, deciding on a date for a return trip back to the Embassy for pick-up -- took no more than twenty minutes. I've been told this was an anomaly -- with the standard situation involving a serpentine snake of a thing which trails all the way out the compound onto nearby Pelleova street -- something I'd noticed myself when I returned to retrieve my passport. Still, it's those first impressions which count and -- fakjo -- this was a good one.


• the queue moved fluidly. Czech people are typically extremely well-behaved when it comes to this sort of thing. There was zero need for the famous Chinese "sharp elbows" or raised voices. I was startled by how mellow the whole scene was, compared to the sordid tale I'm about to recount shortly.


• the Czech clerk doing application intake was a gem. She chose to converse with me in the Queen's English and her high British accent -- a speech affect I normally find cloyingly sickening amongst younger Czechs (why fight it? America is our chief sponsor, quit the pose) -- her overall diction, and her vocabulary were sensational. This, in my opinion, is the new breed of Czech citizen: confidently multilingual, possessing an ability to smile freely, and, moreover, completely professional in the performance of her/his duties. Bravo to this woman for putting on the good show.


• the reception area was immaculate. The johns were spotless. There's even a for-pay coin Xerox machine in the waiting area for those who need to do last-minute copying. They were even serving fresh coffee and sticky buns, which I thought was a very nice touch. Okay, so I'm kidding about the coffee deal, but otherwise everything came up roses.

The Chinese appear to be very serious about making an impression on the Czechs with their local diplomatic presence, and I've been doing some thinking as to why (I note, these are strictly my personal views, not sanctioned in way by the Chinese authorities, nor have I been told such things by local Chinese contacts). Given how Czechs traditionally support global underdog movements of any kind -- note the mass demonstrations against the Janjaweed in Sudan's Darfur region, Grassroots Missile Defence Protests, their unswerving support of the Tibetans, and countless other causes with the notable exception of scant support for the Palestinians -- I can see how the Chinese are keen to employ "soft diplomacy" in Prague with an aim to gently persuading the Czechs to see their side of things. Given the large numbers of locals who were waiting to be served on my pick-up day, I think the strategy's working.

Now, let's compare how things went down for "the Double E" (aka 2xE) in Boo-Koo (at the PRC Embassy in Bucharest, Ceauşescu's Former Playground here -- by the way, I think The Conducător looks stellar in his wiki page profile shot):

• during her second visit to the Embassy, there was a near-fatal collision across the street as a wayward car went careening into a nearby dealership.


• crusty former Communist loyalist women have managed to keep their Embassy positions despite there being younger, better-looking, and more linguistically-talented, university educated replacements on offer. The former had no idea what the correct sequence of required documents were and did no better than to merely badger around applicants like The Double E by throwing their ample weight around and/or engaging in intimidation tactics with virtually zero customer service orientation. To wit, Andreea told me she was hustled back and forth from the Embassy like cattle at least thrice in order to fetch some allegedly "missing hotel vouchers" and all manner of other assorted bureaucratic dreck. There were no clear instructions (in the national language, mind you!) off the main PRC Embassy in RO page. Andreea had to use her personal guanxi networks in order to source the remaining required forms and this despite the fact she will be travelling with a so-called "Western" colleague who himself carries a bona fide Canadian passport...Chinese spun gold by any other name.


• the Embassy's signage is terrible. Instructions are poorly given. Chaos reigns everywhere in the reception area.


• her single-entry visa, at $75, cost more than my double-entry pass at 45 EUR. She couldn't even obtain a double-entry pass unless she had proof of a future subsequent entry.


• there are no metro lines which run anywhere close to the Embassy grounds. The historically close ties between The Chairman and Ceauşescu ensured that the Chinese would have an enclosed diplomatic compound far from the Romanian factory-toiling bun-in-the-oven-baking hoi-polloi.

Call me a conspiracy seeker, but my take-away from The Double E's Embassy debacle is that the Romanian state aims to do everything in its power (even on the grounds of foreign consulates) to keep its people hogtied to Romania, stymieing their well-intentioned travel plans by erecting all manner of artificial -- even egotistical -- roadblocks. As if Romania is signalling to its own people: "If I can't (afford to) go, then you can't either! Take that! I'll destroy it for all of us."

Therefore, what is the Czech take-away from all of this?

Personally, I think we do far too much complaining in this statelet and undervalue how truly progressive we are in comparison to our post-eighty-nine neighbours -- despite being one of the more corrupt nations in both Europe and the world. When we grouse, we ignore the obvious successes of how eagerly we've adopted new techologies (egs. metro tickets and taxi requests by SMS), new methods of doing things, not to mention beautifying our capital city to the extent that she remains the ultimate dreamcatcher for all and sundy the world over.

Think about it...

So the next time you feel a bitch session coming on. Be grateful for what you have...because things could always be like in Romania. Woof-woof!









More wild dog snaps on offer here... (all images courtesy of Jiggle -- sorry, but I don't say the G-word).

06. 10.

BRIC 101 In Our Schools

My business partner and I are often berated for our seeming audacity in writing and opining as much as we do about China and Chinese matters, especially once it becomes known that the both of us have never set foot on the Middle Kingdom's soil (which changes as of November oh-nine). Much of the invective and trolling attacks apparently centre around the fact that our opinions -- for now -- should be roundly dismissed for being merely speculative, as such, would carry little water.

To wit, our initially strong page view numbers at our daily vidblog, Vitamin C: Your Daily Dose On China attested to our strong burst out of the starting gates, though our metrics have diminished somewhat in the interim. But while things may have slowed down over the past month -- hardly the meager trickle our would-be nemeses would wish upon us ("Dude, you are so not my nemesis, okay?") -- we expect to enjoy those brisk fan numbers once more once we touch down in the PRC and continue our antics from there.

Since we kicked off our journey, I've been stunned by how few of our Western detractors actually know about China beyond the media-fuelled sound bites and the usual slew of betes-noire wheeled out in criticism of the ne'er-do-well People's Republic. Basic stuff, actually, the sorts of things that -- given the soaring importance of China in our day-to-day affairs, come what may in that country -- would be incumbent upon each and every US citizen, for instance, to grasp.

Lest I'm focussing too much on China and you find yourself in the camp of critics claiming the entire China fetish is one massive bubble that's going to get a poppin' an inflated phenomenon that's going to go crumbling to cookie bits in the not-too-distant future, why don't I toss another term your way? BRIC. That's right, BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India and China (plus South Korea and Mexico), and if that ain't enough to cause you to lose sleep over, then you really need to be doing more homework. For a good primer on the influence of what this six-pack of nations are truly capable of, you can always have a good skim through of Pran Tiku's Six Sizzling Markets.

Look, I'm not talking about hardcore metrics. Things like how many tons of sugar go this a-way while this many tons of steel come back that a-way. That's for the economists to bite their nails and lose hair over. What I'm speaking about is more qualitative than that: What's China good at? What does it produce? Why is the nation's economy and society constructed this way and how does that affect (insert your nation here)? Or how about India: yes, it's slated to become the world's most colossal nation (on track to surpass China's humungous population by 2015), but how will this affect its development given the fact that infrastructure is alarmingly poor in comparison to their East Asian juggernaut neighbour's? For now, I'm going to refer to these things as the down-home basics, about as basic as a high-school level art class...

Just as there are educational advocates clamouring for the introduction of course in schools like How to Manage Money 101 or the even-more critical How to Organize Your Personal Finances 101 I'm almost positive I'm not the first one to propose the creation of a similar-sounding "BRIC 101" primer, evidenced by the almost 4.19 million Google results the Search Engine Gawds recently spit back to me when I jiggled the term (by the way, I have officially sworn off use of the term "google").

Here's what a proposed "BRIC 101" would cover during the first year it's offered to students in their final two years/forms of high school:

• A geographical component: Teach kids where these various nations are located on the atlas, what they possess, who lives in 'em, and the usual slew of Discovery Channel shiteree that would make this section not only educational but also "edutaining," as they say.


• A political-science component: Now careful here, friends. We don't want to propagandize to these young impressionable minds. We've all been down that road before, haven't we, Comrade? But it's important to understand the inter-relationships these surging economic "forces to be reckoned with" have vis-a-vis each other and what this portends for the rest of the world. Today, I'd cast my vote that not knowing this is a career-killin' faux-pas.


• A linguistic component: Were I to have the good fortune of becoming The Engineer of "BRIC 101's" Human Souls, I'd canvass strongly for the inclusion of a linguistic module. Basic Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish/Portuguese would be must-haves in this series! The all-too-common phenomenon of Non-hispanic Americans having just unilingual "English language" skills must come to a conclusive end. (Though, Dood, I'd liken what Americans speak to their own sort of wordy concoction).

"BRIC 101" must be made compulsory during the said final years of secondary school, as mandatory as basic calculus/trig/chemistry/physics, basic (insert national language) grammar, and the dreaded "phys ed." If a student fails to receive a passing grade in any of the BRIC components, they can expect to kiss their university career zai jian.

So have I missed a needed section?

05. 10.

Theoretically Speaking...Episode #2

VIDclip follows...

01. 10.

Striking Similarities Between Czechs & Chinese

As I pen this post, China's in the throes of its 60th birthday bash. Military hardware shows of bravado, soldiers goosestepping in the Beijing streets in perfect marshal formation -- from tallest to shortest -- as Zhongnanhai's aging leaders wave to the assembled kowtowing masses from atop the Forbidden City's Gate of Heavenly Peace, the centrepiece of Tiananmen Square, the site of so many monumental Chinese national happenings.

In the Czech Republic (CR), there'll be no fete-ing the Chinese (CN) milestone, just the usual slew of student-led protests outside the gates of the PRC Embassy in Prague. Czechs, in general, are no fans of the surging People's Republic of CN, with the tradition of passive resistance firmly entrenched in the minds of these folks since the end of the aptly-named "Velvet" Revolution, whose anniversary Czechs will be celebrating in a month and a half's time. The latter was that latest of "Czech last stands" against autocratic power, a regime they are well-familiar with. In 1989, they applied the padded boot to the posterior of their former Communist majordomos. This, they claim, was a revolution.

Alas, we're getting ahead of ourselves here...

Since it's human nature to self-absorb about one's local environment, in that spirit I got to thinking this Prague morning during my commute into town about the striking similarities between Czechs and Chinese.

Here are my not-so-random observations about how I compare these two great surviving peoples:

• Both have sordid histories of national humiliation, especially during the past century: Let's count: over the past 400 or so years the Czechs have been occupied and shamed by a number of formidable foes starting with the Czech defeat at the hands of the Combined Catholic Armies of Europe during 1620's Battle of White Mountain. Later, there was the formidable spanking by the imperial armies of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg Dynasty during the Revolution of 1848. There was the Nazi Protectorate, the Soviet Invasion during the Prague Spring, and even -- yes -- a recent fear that the modern "Czech Republic" be occupied yet again, this time by the US Army. Note: as part of these endless occupations and reoccupations, the Czech language has often been relegated to second-fiddle -- or lower -- status in its own birthplace, often beneath German. In CN, in comparison, Chinese humiliation began with the series of "unequal treaties" which came into force at the end of the First Opium War as part of 1842's Treaty of Nanjing following the Qing Empire's defeat at the hands of the British Crown. More ignomines followed the putting-down of the Boxer Rebellion, 1919's May Fourth Movement (after Japan was unfairly granted China's Shandong Pennisula at the end of WWI by the victorious Great Powers). It got worse with the advent of Japan's Manchukuo Colony, 1937's Rape of Nanjing, the Sino-Japanese Wars, the Warlord Era, and ended in the culmination of the Chinese Civil War, that definitive and resounding national tragedy which ultimately lead to the foundation of today's People's Republic of China (PRC).


• Linguistic nationalism: (CR) Spend any amount of time in the Czech capital as a visitor or businessperson, and you're likely to realize your ability to function as a non-Czech speaker in Prague is severely curtailed. This applies doubly so for trips outside the Golden City -- most Czech towns possess a minority of capable speakers of foreign tongues (not including Romany). Indeed, there are exceptions: in border burgs like Plzen, Usti nad Labem, or Ostrava, some German is spoken; completely natural given the frontier context of these places. In the Czech Republic, all DVDs and television programs are dubbed into Czech (except for cinema pictures). English, German, or French magazines are not widely sold in the country, only via specialty distributors or by internet subscription. Czechs outside of Prague's tourist areas are reluctant to engage with foreign language speakers in assisting them with directions or obsequious banter, for instance, and this has resulted in some unwelcome feedback from some of the people I've spoken to. All of this exists due to the strong educational tendency in Czech schools towards dissauding the use of English (or other foreign tongues) in the classroom and the poor availability of good teachers -- even at the university level, which logically explains the overall poor grades Czech 18-34s receive in the language department. Plenty of expats who have taken note of this upon arrival, and the reams of blogposts and comments at Czech international community sites like Prague.tv and Expats.cz relate the sorry tale in all its gory detail. (CN) It's almost humourous to compare China to the CR, given the gross disproportionate numbers (though some Czechs behave as though they have the clout of a China), but Chinese are quite similar. Language is a prominent barrier to Western penetration of the Middle Kingdom, though for entirely different reasons. Travel outside of the major towns like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, or Beijing, and you'll likely be resorting to subtle hand and/or eye gestures in order to communicate your most basic ideas to the locals. As part of the contradiction which is today's modern practice of Communism with Chinese Characteristics (or "Chinese-style capitalism"), China's leaders trumpet the supremacy of the national Putonghua -- Mandarin Chinese -- the officially-sanctioned dialect of Chinese, while young Chinese students and corporate employees have fallen obsessively in love with English (and only English!). English (pirated) DVDs are subtitled in Chinese, not dubbed as they are in the Teutonic and German-influenced worlds (egs. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Austria). Banned English language books are sought after and pirated with as much of a collector's zeal as one-time Beatles X-ray records were traded in the Former USSR. Chinese youngsters in China's big cities are gaga about meeting foreigners, in cultivating friendships with these various waiguoren ("far away people") and transient expats, and in learning as much as they can from them and their ways in as short a period of time as possible. Their ambitions to succeed and strive is fast becoming legendary in this 21st-century. Colloquial English lessons and Japanese-style English grammar drills are exploding in popularity, with most Chinese parents urging their mostly lone children to become proficient in the language -- the international language of business -- as part of their preparation for the Chinese Gao Kao.


• Cultural speaking norms: Similar to Asians who have a tendency to speak indirectly through hints, allusions, and suggestions -- rarely declaring something for what it is -- Czechs have also developed a keen ability to avoid confrontational conversations and being bold. In CN, this finds its roots in more imperial, Confucian times, where speaking directly to a superior implied disrespect, and calling attention to oneself through direct speech brought unwanted scrutiny. When mistakes were made at work, for instance -- especially during the horrors of China's Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 -- speaking up meant that you were in some way responsible for the error, and by calling attention to it through precise description one would often invite catastrophe upon oneself and one's family. Czechs, as a rule, are rather timid and unassuming. They are not a people built for ironclad verbal commitments and ebullient enthusiasms, an understandable outgrowth of their recent national history. This is also how children are raised in the Czech Republic -- in comparison to the rest of Western Europe -- which only serves to reinforce this negative habit amongst the Czech Republic's future talents. While this has changed considerably since the fall of the Berlin Wall, there is much work left to be done in this country in teaching the locals how to "grow a pair."


• Internet properties custom-designed for their local populations: (CR) While Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Skype, and Google are proven online darlings in the rest of the developed world, the CR's surfing behaviour continues to astoundingly favour chatting via the Czech version of ICQ (ICQ?!), its popular Seznam.cz ("directory") search engine (much to the chagrin of the local flavour of Google), and community sites like Lide.cz (which means "people") instead of LinkedIn or Facebook (though this is changing). In CN, the Great Firewall of China prevents access to the above-mentioned sites, while China has QQ.com -- its own ICQ or Skype -- Tudou.com & Yukou.com -- its own YouTube -- Sina.com (it's own Google) -- and Fanfou.com, its own Twitter.


• Their economies are firmly pegged to exports and foreign nations: While China's leaders have -- since the advent of the global credit crunch -- been begging the nation to boost domestic consumption by "buying local" and to somehow reduce Chinese industry's dependence upon US exports, there is still work to be done in this regard (though CN will make lightning-quick headway as soon as all parties get up to speed). The CR, in contrast, remains the EU's consummate transporation and logistics hub, given its near-ideal location in the middle of the European phallus (save for Italy, doesn't it look a male member?), boasting strong auto exports with the TPCA joint venture and Hyundai plants, and is a net energy exporter through the corrupt practices of state-owned CEZ. Still, the CR must rely on outside forces to make up its budget deficits, regardless of what the nation's embarrassing juvenille politicians will otherwise tell you.


• Both are innovation centres: The Czech lands have a vaunted history of innovation, especially in the modern era. Few people know that the soft contact lens was created in the Former Czechoslovakia (RIP) by Professor Otto Wichterle among literally hundreds of other obscure technical innovations. Today's Czech Republic is also remains a robust technical statelet -- what we resident foreigners humourously call "being Czechnical" -- and the nation spins out a high proportion of engineers, scientists, and technicians for its compact size despite the inexorable lure of "doing byznes" amongst today's young set or the desire to press into service high-level crooked Czech parliamentary contacts in order to achieve windfalls and corporate privileges unavailable to the average Czech citizen. Young Czechs just aren't as in interested in science as they are in having stuff or gallivanting off to world-dominating metropolii in Turkey, the Greek Islands, Slovakia, Croatia, Germany, Austria, Spain's Balearic Islands, France, and the UK (read: as close to home -- and in the case of most Czech men I've met, Mama -- as possible), though Czech innovation will eventually recover as the nation recants its present profligate consumer ways, mimicking the habits of its present "big brother," Uncle Sam. As for CN, the world's third-largest economy is the planet's greentech and cleantech innovation leader -- even though it becomes increasingly blacker as it greens out. And there are now more strident calls for cleverer marketing, promotion, and branding efforts on the part of its tech industry titans like Huawei, Haier, and Lenovo. What is indeed certain about China (like the Czech Republic) can be summarized by the following piece of apt advice a China-based CEO recently told me:

"Everything is difficult, but everything is possible."

Throughout the course of this monumental sixty years of PRC statehood, I'll be revisiting the subject of Czech-Chinese similarities as we go along.

A final thought: Tomas Garrigue Masaryk would often claim to confidants like the journalist-writer Karel Capek -- who with brother Josef coined the term "robot" -- that it would take fifty years for the Czechs to learn how to act like sovereign people in their own land. "Communist" China has already made it to sixty. Just imagine the year 2039 in a multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual democratic Prague...

Sweet, don't you think?

01. 10.

Theoretically Speaking...

VIDclip follows...