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What’s in My Inbox? Why Don’t Asians Take Vacation

By: cd - September 18th, 2011 Filed under: Europe Add Comment

4/8/2011

Dear sender,

I am out of office till 14th August. In urgent cases you can reach me on +420 xxx xxx xxx.

For all support requests please contact X.

Best regards,
Y.

Dear sender,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I am currently out of the office till 08.08. I will have no access to my e-mail account during this time.

Best regards,
E.

Dear sender, I am not able to answer your e-mails today. In urgent cases, please contact John Dee. I’ll be back in office on 16th August.

K.

I out of the office on vacation and will return on Monday, 8 August.

T.K. may be contacted for urgent topics.

Dear sender, I’m on holiday till 22 Aug.

Dear Sender,

I am on vacation and cannot answer your electronic communication. I will return in the office on September 1st. I apologize for the inconvenience. For integration issues D.P. and J.P. are appointed as substitutes with power to act.

J

Dear sender, I’m on holiday till 22 Aug.
If needed you can contact:

Best regards,
G.

Hello,
I am currently on holiday and will be back on Monday 9.8.2011.

From June until the end of August, these messages are the most likely response I receive after hitting the ‘Send’ button.

I changed jobs, departments, colleagues and have moved to different projects but one thing has remained the same: the automatic “out of office” replies and their frequency in the summer.

In a way, Czechs and Europeans take their jobs seriously and I could feel their sense of urgency when we were working on projects together. But regardless whether we had a mountain-load of work to do and their concern over meeting the deadline, nothing and no-one could stand in the way of Czechs and their vacations. This applies not only to the Czechs but also to all other Europeans I’ve been working with.

It took a while for me to adjust to this mentality.

Why Asians Don’t Take Vacation

My parents hardly took any vacation except for the free holiday trips organized and paid-for by my father’s company. In retrospect, neither did my aunt who worked in a hospital, another aunt who worked in the tourism industry and definitely not the relative who worked as laborers.

In those days, economy was the main reason. If you constantly worried about making end meet, luxury such as travel was the last thing on your mind.

But when finance is removed from the daily worry and they still don’t travel, we are looking at reason no. 2: habit or simply culture. Vietnamese don’t travel. While Europeans take time off to recharge their energy by running off to country side, engaging in adrenaline weekend trips or flying to exotic destinations, Vietnamese take time off get together with the family or to tend errands they can’t do while working. First of all, my parents and my friends are descendants of people who didn’t have any perception of vacation or had a completely different concept of “time-off”. Being Vietnamese or Asians, they are trained to think and behave collectively. If kidneys come in pairs, Asians travel in crowd. If they don’t have anyone to travel with, they will stay home.

Maybe this is why I couldn’t get any of my relatives to visit me in the city flooded by millions of tourists every year.

Tags: czech

7 Common Stereotypes about the Dutch.

By: cd - August 16th, 2011 Filed under: Europe Add Comment

WRITTEN by ISABELLE

Isabelle is a culture expert of all-thing Dutch. She hails from the tulip, Heineken and cheese nation, a real Dutch. When she’s not busy with school, work and contemplate about what it’s like to be Dutch, she jumps on any adventures to places further East.

1. The Dutch are stoned all the time.

This might be the most common stereotype about the Dutch, or at least something they are infamous for. However, the fact that soft drugs are more or less legalized in the Netherlands actually contributes to the lower numbers of addicts and users compared to the high percentage, almost twice as high, of soft drug users in the USA.

2. All Dutch are tall, have blond hair and blue eyes

This stereotype is indeed true only if you consider the people who are ethnically Dutch. The Dutch are the tallest people in the world with 1.84m on average for men and 1.70 for women. Dying your hair blond and putting on blue contact lenses won’t make you feel any special in the Netherlands. However, with the arrival of immigrants from all over the world, this once-a-fact can be just another stereotype.

3. At least half the population is gay

Most Dutch are very tolerant towards the gay community. Amsterdam is the unofficial Europe’s gay capital. The Netherlands was also the first country in the world to allow gay marriage in 2001. This has made it easier for gays to come out of the closet and for society to open toward them. But this doesn’t mean that most of the population is gay and that in 100 years there won’t be any heterosexual children.

4. The Dutch are greedy

There must be a reason why splitting the bill is called ‘Going Dutch’. It’s true that many Dutch keep a tight watch over their money. Men are unlikely to pay for their dates. (Ladies, take a clue. If you like to be dined and wined while in Amsterdam, going Dutch is not going to be a solution.) I am no sociologist, but perhaps this explains why there are not many beggars on the streets in Amsterdam compared to other mega cities in Europe. You will find street artists in other European tourist destinations complain about greedy Dutch who won’t spare changes for their acts.

But as a collective whole, Netherlands is a very generous country with a high percentage of their GDP going to development aid, 0.82%, above the UN target of 0.7 and lower than only their richer neighbor from Luxembourg, Sweden and the oil-loaded Norway.

5. The Dutch wear wooden shoes

Yeah only if they come with Oilily. They are quite popular with little kids and people in rural areas. We make them so you tourists can buy them. If you think we’re still wearing them, fine as long as you buy a lot of them.

dutch wooden shoes

6. All Dutch speak English

Dutch study English from an early age in a good education system and this combined with the similarities between the two languages ensures that you never have to bring a language guide to the Netherlands. You can ask for pretty much anything in Netherlands. Waitresses on the tourist squares are more likely to approach you in English than in Dutch and even if you try to speak Dutch, the Dutch will almost always switch to English in order to make it easier for you (or to brag their language skills).

7. Every Dutch shed keeps at least a dozen bicycles

There are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands. For short distances people prefer biking over driving and waking.. Dutch also take pride in decorating their bikes. Every morning thousands of Dutch school kids will take their bikes an ride a distances up to 20km to get to school. Every season, rain or shine, summer or winter Dutch are seen on their bikes. There is probably nowhere else you will see many women in elegant dresses or skirts pedalling on their bikes

Decorated bike in Netherlands

My First Ramadan Fasting

By: cd - August 7th, 2011 Filed under: Random Thoughts Add Comment

Sarajevo mosque I fast. Finally. I’ve been doing it for seven day straight. This is my first Ramadan fasting. But I’m not a Muslim and don’t believe in it. So what does this mean?

At first, I decided to do this only because it was one of the things I wanted to do in life, an item on my bucket list, nothing more. I was introduced to Ramadan in 2005 when I lived in Sarajevo. I landed in the country on the day of the Eid ul-Fitr, the festival celebrating the end of Ramadan. This country, the people and Muslim events forever has left a strong impression.

I’ve always wanted to live in a Muslim country in the Middle East, and once came so close to achieve it and while there I would fast. Unless you are a Muslim or live in a Muslim country, Ramadan isn’t something on the back of your mind. I kept forgetting about it. The Muslims around me either didn’t observe this tradition or if they did, they would not shout from the rooftop. This year, I met a Muslim colleague from Malaysia. She fasts regularly. We talked about it and here I am.

The 5 Pillars of Islam

I’m a loose faster and don’t observe anything else other than not eating anything from 4.00 to 20.00. Any Muslim will tell me that my fasting is invalid and means nothing since I’m doing it for myself. They are right. My fast is absolutely invalid under Islamic rules which are very strict. To see why, you have to understand the five pillars of Islam.

Shahada – Chant, accept Muhamad as God’s messenger and believe it.
Salad – Pray five times a day.
Sawm – Fast during Ramadan.
Zakat – Give alms to the poor.
Hajj – Make a pilgrimage to Mecca.

For one to be valid, you must also do the one(s) precede it. For example, it doesn’t mean anything if you pray five times a day and don’t believe in Muhamad or fast and don’t do the first two. This is my 1st violation according to the Islamic pillars.

The 2nd violation is that I drank water, not only water but together with vitamin tablets and protein power to maintain energy throughout the day. In addition, I popped chewing-gums every couple of hours to keep my breath from descending into a bacteria pool because as I need to talk to people.

I don’t follow the strict fasting hours, my 3rd violation, which change every day (319, 342, 354… to 830, 812…). To simplify, I rounded up to 4 in the morning until 8 in the evening. I can’t help it if my first fasting coincides with the summer when the day is much longer. My last one is I do the things that even Muslims violate.

Why Fasting is Unhealthy

Fasting isn’t as bad as I thought before trying, however I don’t think it is a healthy habit if one does it for a long time. The first day of course was the worst. My head hurt so much due to the lack of morning breakfast. I felt hungry every hour. It was unbearable already at only 10 in the morning.

Food was the only thing I thought about before, during and after lunch hour. I walked past someone’s room at work and immediately noticed a bowl of chocolate. In the evening, I arrived at a Vietnamese restaurant 45 minutes before 8 so I took a tram going away and then back on the hour and shoved an entire plate of grill-duck noodle and tempted to ask the waiter to bring me some more. I went home and stuffed a giant bowl of salad after that. I boiled two eggs and made a big plate of spaghetti for the breakfast the day after which I ended up didn’t eat because I woke up later than 4. This brings another serious issue: possible weight-gain and packing around my waist-line. By eating less regularly, your hungry body thinks that it should store the food instead of burning it. I can feel the effect almost immediately. Though I felt very hungry, I also felt stuffed.

The Benefits of Fasting During Ramadan

Nonetheless, fasting brings many benefits.

Wake up early – For a few days, I woke up a quarter before 4 to have breakfast to not have an empty stomach for 24 hours. I couldn’t go back to sleep again with a full stomach and did a few things before going to work.
‘Everyone is wonderful‘- Occasionally, on my not so good day I complain this and that about other people, and on my worst day I scream murder on the world. For the last few days, every time I really wanted to stick it to somebody, I tried to switch immediately. This didn’t happen smoothly though as ‘b’ and ‘a’ words occasionally slipped from my tounge.
Discipline – Anybody who knows me knows discipline is not my strong suit. For years, I’ve tried to working on following things through and sticking to a schedule. To keep up with a rigid diet without food and only water and vitamin for 14 hours a day in god-knows-how-many days I plan to keep this up requires a lot of self-discipline.
Happy – The other day a colleague said to me when I passed him after work “Must be a very satisfied woman!” and explained that I was smiling the whole time. How was that even possible? My stomach was begging for mercy and my brain was practically on strike for being deprived of food, and he thought that I was full of content? Maybe the thought of having doing all the above in addition of doing something so secret yet so interesting and no-one else around me has a clue.
Keep busy – Another trick to forget about the food is to keep busy. I stopped procrastinating and started on pending and new tasks immediately and finished them asap.
Social – If I have no meeting or things to do, I intentionally sought out other people for chit-chat to distract myself from the food. Instead of being subdued and lethargic, I became even more hyper with all these meetings with people I wouldn’t have met if I didn’t fast.
Independence of food – Now I know I can be perfectly fine for hours without food. Beside the main meals that I ate, the rest was often from craving.
Eliminate junk food – For the entire seven days, I have not touched any junk, sodium and sugar loaded food. I can only eat one a day; I can not afford to weaken myself with high-calorie and low-energy food.
Prepare food slowly – With the odd hour of dinner, I can’t stay at work until 8, and then eat a quick dinner nor can I prepare a quick 15-minute dinner before I eat which I usually did. I thus stay at work longer, go home and then slowly prepare my meal. By the time I finish, it’s also about time for me to eat. Also, why hurry to prepare food if I can’t eat it right away anyway.

I am throwing in the white flag next week and reconsidering whether I should continue until the end of the month.

How to Work and Live in Europe

By: cd - July 24th, 2011 Filed under: Europe, Tips 1 Comment

prague puppets I had a chat recently with my cousin, a 22 year-old about to graduate from college. She is of the same age as I was when I started to develop this urge to see the world far beyond my front door. We are both immigrants, and America was supposed to be that world. But after a certain time, even America can get a bit small. Like many 20-something Americans who followed the rite of passage from the New World to the Old World, I too, had my nose sniffing for opportunities in this old continent. The most popular route was to participate in a study-abroad program or take a year gap and run off to clean tables in United Kingdom. The difficulty was never the lack of option but to actually do it. “What am I going to do in a foreign country, let a lone in a foreign continent?” “I should stay and get a useful job to put on my resume, to impress my interviewer.” Excuses and justifications. I know this feeling all too well since it prevented me from packing my bag and leave during my years in college and then right after my graduation. I feared, procrastinated and delayed my inevitable trip until I was 24. You can’t stop something inevitable anyway, and it’s never late to leave and discover the world.

Below are some of the most common ways that you can live and work in Europe. The focus of this post is about Europe only because I’m familar with this place more than any other. You can use the ideas from this lists for Asia, America and Australia.

11 Ways to Find Work in Europe

1. Study-abroad: Most universities have programs to send their students on one or two semesters studying abroad. If you have financial aid or scholarships, you don’t pay any extra costs other than application fees and flight tickets. You might have to pay from your own pocket if you attend a summer program as financial aid doesn’t cover summer program. This was the reason I missed out on my summer study abroad in Italy.

2. Reciprocal Student Exchange Program: You and your foreign exchange partner switch place. You go to his country and study at his school and he goes to yours. A Czech friend of mine who studied at Czech Technical University participated in this program. He relocated to the US and studied for a year in Arizona while his partner from Arizona moved to Prague.

3. IAESTE, AIESEC Internship: I can personally vouch for these programs as I did both. Both internships offered me the opportunity to use the skills and knowledge I learned from school, the money to finance my living and traveling in Europe and life-long friends I made while working there. Working in Eastern Europe will not earn you a lot of money, and you will dip into your own saving. If money is your priority, choose Western Europe, especially Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium or Netherlands. A friend of mine earned more as an intern in Zurich, Switzerland than as a regular employee in Hamburg, Germany. (By the way Hamburg is the richest city in Germany). Check out IAESTE and AIESEC’s local chapters at your school.

4. Au-pair: This option was very popular for young students 10 years ago. I guess it still is now. These au-pair programs find you host and arrange your paper work. It’s a plus if you speak fluent English as parents like for their kids to practice English with you. I

5. Teach English: This option works best for those who are native English speakers and don’t cringe by the thought of living in Eastern Europe due to the higher demand for English teacher in this region. I live in the Czech Republic and can vouch for this profession. Ads for English-teaching schools and private teachers can be seen everywhere in the city. Many teachers have certificates, but there are also many who have only their native-tongues as credentials. If you want to live in Western Europe, your best option are France, Italy, Spain and Portugal since the locals don’t speak good English there. Central and Northern Europeans are very fluent in English; you can find janitors and shopping clerks in remote place speak good English, thus I am not sure if there is a great demand for English teachers. A lot of English teachers I met in Prague just show up, find temporary gigs before getting more stable positions in schools and either move on to new destinations, return home or stay longer.

6. Temp/Seasonal work: The most common destinations are the United Kingdom and Ireland where you can find jobs in bars and restaurants. You pick fruit in Norway and can earn a decent money. If you can teach people to ski, snowboard, canoe, kayak, the customs and border control is your limit.

7. Volunteer: This isn’t my favorite option because you won’t get any money to finance your stay in a foreign country. Many agencies even charge you a hefty application fees to find you a position. However, many people choose this option because it and many hosts offer free boarding and food. Check out www.transitionsabroad.com and www.helpx.net

8. Work for food and board: You don’t earn any money; in return you get free boarding and food with the host family. Working on farms is more common in Australia than in Europe though I don’t want to dismiss farming entirely from Europe. A friend from New Zealand came to Czech Republic to work first on a farm near Prague for three months before moving to Prague to teach English at a school. I visited the farm with her, worked there for the weekend feeding rabbits, calf, stacking hays for the cows, gathered chopped woods, fought with the goats in return for 3-time-a-day Czech meals and wonderful hospitality. In the evening, we went to the village’s dance prom, a very common activity for Czechs. www.helpx.net

9. Freelance: If you work for yourself and your work is location-independent like graphic designers, web designers, computer programmers or writers, it doesn’t make any difference where you work. I met a lot of such people in Prague and on my traveling. These people have two things in common: the love of traveling and laptops.

10. Regular job: You arrange a job prior to the move or get it after you come to the new country. This is what I did when I moved to Prague. I heard about the company through a friend of a friend. I submitted my half-finished resume, and a recruiter contacted me immediately. I was lucky because it was before the financial crisis and my company hired a lot of people. Many people I met here did similar thing by just showing up. I kinda showed up too, but then I had an ex-boyfriend who gave me a roof over my head and loaned me pocket money for the first three months while I was waiting for my working visa.

11. Relocate: If you work for a multi-corporation, use the opportunity to get a transfer. This applies to many of my co-workers who moved from the US and Malaysia when their projects finished or outsourced to Europe.

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