Cultural Differences

Camp is held in another city called Doksy, which is about an hour and half outside of Prague. The first camp we have is a peewee camp so the campers will be younger compared to our senior camp that follows after. Part of being on this trip is getting us out of our comfort zone and familiarities (for the U.S. staff) and noticing how it is in another country and culture. Being in America, we are used to this mentality that we do everything the right way, the best way, the only way. The problem with that mindset is that it can make us insensitive and open to differences and changes we may encounter when we encounter something different. For example, the culture in Czech from my experience is that the people here are more reserved publicly compared to most Americans. For most of the U.S. staff, this is a new concept because they are used seeing a lot of self disclosure through both body and language. As for me, low self disclosure is similar to my own Chinese culture so it has never been that hard to adjust or sometimes notice.

A huge difference here has been the size of drink containers. One, if you go to a store, at least the one we went to, there are no aluminum cans. Instead, the size of their drinks come in bulk so all our water bottles have been large 1.5-2 liters. Food wise, it has been a little difficult for me since I don't eat any meat besides seafood as well as little dairy. Most of the meals we have had either contain a huge amount of cheese or butter, or some sort of meat. However, the food places have been very gracious in trying to accommodate me by making things from veggie plates, salads, and omelettes. One of my favorite things to eat in the Czech besides Nutella is Tatranky bars. These are wafer bars layered with either chocolate, hazelnut, or cream. Not healthy whatsoever but SO GOOD!

Some random differences: blowing your nose loudly is more accepted than belching, animal noises are different (frog goes "quack quack"), milk here can sit out for days because it's extra pasteurized, when you're finished with your meal place your knife and fork parallel, and fresh bread in the grocery store is preferred over packaged bread.

So just little things, but does not mean one is better than the other, just "different" ;-)