CZECH LIFESTYLE

CZECH LIFESTYLE

The first thing to say is that czech lifestyle itself is not strictly czech. It is influenced by neighbouring countries,mainly by Germany and Austria. But in my opinion the country which influences czech lifestyle most is the USA which also changes lifestyle of the whole Europe. But of course we do have many typical czech habits and ways of doing things in our lives!

If we speak about place for living, the important thing to say is that so many people still live in blocks of flats. Here we can still see the influence of comunism. In this period blocks of flats were seen by the government as the best place for living and they were built in every town and also in many villages. These buldings often do not look very good, they are grey and high and usualy many of them are built on one place together. But in the past ten years people started to move to family houses. These are built in parts of the cities, which are far from centre and also in villages. For exaple in Prague have been built whole parts consisting of these houses.

Also the way of our grandmother´s cooking sometimes still remains comunism. Because these days meat was very expensive and the one who cooked it at home more than once or twice a week was seen as someone wealthier. And the others just envyed. It seems funny now. But nowadays there have been great changes. Our cousine has been influenced by the Western European coutries and also by American hamburgers and Coca - cola. People in Czech Republic started eating healthier and I think this is a good way.

In my opinion, the thing which hasn´t changed for past 50 years is number of children in an average family. It´s still one or two. Also almost all birthdays and anniversaries celebrates the whole family together. But these days we can see the influnce of the rest of Europe and USA - many women want to live alone, or want to have child but not man. They want to be more independent. Or both men and women live very often alone till they´re about 30 years old, because they want to make a career and money.

The next thing to be noticed is that the way of spending free time has changed a lot. And I think this is the part of czech lifestyle which has been influenced mostly by USA. Nowadays many people sit in front of the TV and eat there - in USA these people are called couch potatoes. Or eating pop-corn in cinema is, I think, a typical American habit and many czech people influenced by this do the same. Also TV and cinema are influenced America. But in Czech Republic I think you have many possibilities how to spend your free time - especially in bigger towns. There are usually many sport fascilities like swimming pools, tennis courts, sports centres ... and also many fascilities for entertainment like cinemas or music clubs.

Travelling and the way of spending holidays is the thing which has changed completely in past ten years. Now people can travel wherever they want. And they do so. Many families save money all the year to have a holiday abroad because this kind of holiday is still rather expensive.
And finnaly - attitude to work. In the Czech Republic people are still a little bit lazy. But these days I think more and more people realize that it´s not a good way how to earn money, which they want so much. So it´s getting better.

I think that Czech lifestyle is very interesting, because if we compare it with neighbouring countries, there still is a difference and I think we shouldn´t let our lifestyle be influenced by the others too much.