When I was 16 I lived in the Czech Republic for a year. 

·        I had no Cultural Anthropology background

·        My Language teachers told us to go to the pub to learn

·        I learned a lot by just talking to people

·        Now, retrospectively, I can look at my exchange and understand some things about it.

·        I know that I would like to go back someday to understand the culture better.

-Czechoslovakia, doesn’t exist anymore

-Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic’s on January 1^st 1993.

-The Czech Republic is split up into 13 regions or districts.  (Prague is the capital so it’s not technically it’s own region.) Moravian and Bohemian ethnicities

-I lived in Ceske Budejovice, the capital city of the South Bohemian region, comparable to the size of Watertown. 

-Using Cultural Anthropology

• When I was their I started out in South Bohemia, doing the student thing
• No grades
• No respect
• No beginner’s Czech language class
• Left school toured the country and adjoining areas. 
• Noticed:
• Moravian and Bohemian dialects
• Moravian and Bohemian cultures
• My 1^st host family was “modern.”
• Young, spoke 3-4 four languages including English.
• Had a computer, car, dishwasher, modern amenities
• Lived in a small village outside of the city
• The village was very pagan in practice.
• Didn’t drink a lot of beer
• My 2^nd host family was “Moravian”
• Moved here for a job
• Their dialect confused me and they thought I was stupid
• They had an ethnocentric view of the world
• Drank a lot
• My 3^rd host family was “Bohemian”
• Well respected members of the town’s community
• Nice house that’s modern but they were very traditional
• Went to traditional festivals and had beer w/ every meal but not in excess.
• What I learned:
• I should have paid more attention when I was their
• My Czech is South Bohemian and is bar talk because I didn’t learn it in school
• I want to go back someday and employ what I have learned here in this course and others that I will take as I attain my Anthropology Major.

In the future I hope to return to the Czech Republic and improve my initial analysis of the culture by keeping better records.

I will also have the correct mindset with which to look at the Czech people a second time.

Thank you

Any questions?