Going back - Reverse culture shock

This is my first post from outside Taiwan. After three days back in the Czech Republic, I've obviously had time to drink a beer or two, but don't feel like doing that Taiwan reflection quite yet. Instead, I'll focus on my trip back and what the first days brought.

Probably the worst part of the trip from Taipei to Prague was trying to get to the Taipei airport. Even walking from home to the bus stop, and then from public bus stop to the airport bus, in the scorching Taiwanese heat, was rather demanding. Still, I guess I was lucky, as there was no thunderstorm and no crazy Taiwanese rain on that day, unlike all the other days last week.

I was a little scared of the flight itself, because KLM uses an old Boeing 747 on that route, which doesn't have the personal screen with audio/video on demand at each seat. What an outrage! I may have become a bit spoiled, but all the other intercontinental flights I've been on had that, even in economy class. What's more, I couldn't see properly even the 'communal' TV screen from my seat. That didn't matter, because the movies they showed were stupid anyways. But at the end, I didn't mind this lack of entertainment one bit. There were many eating and drinking opportunities during the flight, which took up a lot of time (I learned this trick during endless rides in trains in China. When done properly, eating can take up a lot of time, which passes rather quickly. Similarly, time passes faster with a bottle of wine or beer). I spent the rest of time asleep, half asleep or in a state of stupor.

The first thing I did at the Prague airport was try to address a lady at the information counter with 不好意思.. The I got out of the airport and attempted to flag down an approaching bus. I spent the trip to my Prague home observing the Czech people. I felt that I fit in rather well with the Czech men. I was wearing unmatching sports shoes together with a loose and not very pretty t-shirt (comfort during the flight was of utmost importance for me), I also didn't smell that well after 24 hours of traveling, and had not shaven for a few days. Fortunately, at least I wasn't sporting a large beer gut or a fanny pack (ledvinka), which appears to be the one accessory no Czech man leaves the home without. I may have just been lucky to only meet IT men though. Anyways, at least the girls in Prague looked very pretty, even without the mini skirts and very short shorts that I've become used to.

Also, people in general seemed very tall and it was a shock at first when the grandmas making small talk on the bus spoke Czech. I didn't need any Easycard to get on/off the bus, and the bus came exactly at the time that the schedule said. Weird.

Later that afternoon, I went to the center of the city, which was completely taken over by foreigners. The people in the cafes spoke Russian, the exchange offices were either Russian, Turkish or Arab and everyone else was a tourist. Then I accidentally ran into a friend at Václavské náměstí - a Turkish guy. It seemed that tattoos made up of Chinese characters are particularly popular this year. The characters usually seemed somehow weird or didn't make much sense. I even saw someone with a mirror-imaged Chinese character! I chuckled, but decided not to break the bad news for them.

However, arriving into my hometown of Jablonec nad Nisou later that afternoon, everything looked exactly the same as it was last year. As if I never went away. Except for the fact that a new Lidl supermarket is now around the corner from our house.

On to an unrelated topic. I wrote another short report for Zápisník zahraničních zpravodajů, this time on the topic of North Korea. You can find it here. It seems that I'm doing quite well with the voting for the competition so far, but please support me and send me a vote :) Maybe I can win a cup or something wonderful like that. It's in Czech only, but if any foreign readers want to give me a vote, then 1 means good, while 5 means bad. Therefore, I'd prefer the 1's. Thanks.

Speaking of North Korea, during the tour to the border, people were joking around and asking what would happen if they tried to cross the border and enter the land blessed with the genius of Our Dear Leader Kim Chong-Il. The story of the two American journalists sentenced to 12 years in labor camps for allegedly crossing the border from China gives a pretty good answer. At the time I went there in early May, North Korea seemed like a laughable country that doesn't need to be taken seriously. Just one week after my trip, they started playing around with the missiles and nuclear tests.. I guess they do want to repair their international reputation and be taken seriously after all.