02nd Jul 2002
Prague Props
Matt Welch responds to my earlier rant about the novel “Prague” and my comparisons between Prague and Budapest, giving the Prague point of view. I concede to the fact that Matt has a better perspective on the question, having lived for years in both cities:
Ha ha! Of course, you realize, I used to busk on the Charles Bridge… [No, I did not. Oh well…]
Funny stuff; I always noticed & enjoyed the consternation/mild jealousy among the Budapest crowd about all the Prague hype. I would take issue with your melt-into-the-culture observation, though — a far higher percentage of American expats I knew learned pretty good Czech than Hungarian (easier language, after all), more of them inter-married, and far less fathered surprise children. It was my experience that Americans in Prague were far more likely to live on a similar economic level as the Czechs (at Prognosis, we basically made the Czech minimum wage; and I knew a lot of English teachers who made less). This explains, in part, why you saw so many young hippie bums doing unseemly things like busking — they needed the money! The Budapest expat scene always seemed more apartheid-like… But then, that was my personal experience, too — poor as shit & speaking some of the language in Prague & Bratislava, rich as Midas and living like a colonialist in B-town. And since Prague was so damned small (and only longtime residents would know how to deal with downtown w/out running into tourists), you couldn’t help but notice the fucking Americans everywhere.
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