Oh Oscar, how you bridge the cultural gap....

I have been thinking the Czech Republic is in need of Oscar Wilde or at least someone very like him. The Czech sense of humor is irreverent, sarcastic, cynical, self-deprecating and most of all very subtle. All qualities Oscar seemed to display in abundance when being... well Oscar, except for maybe the subtle part. Often delivered with straight face and no sort of tonal clues they are being funny, even for a trained professional, such as myself, in the art of sarcastic/cynical humor, it is easily missed, especially if you blink. Needless to say I love it.

For the few friends I have made here who speak English well enough to understand me, they often marvel at how easily I pick up on their humor and how similar my own is. This comprehension in the similarities of what we find funny usually leads to the statement "you are not very typically American". For some reason I love hearing this, despite the fact that I know tons and tons of untypical Americans, with their sarcastic remarks and irreverence. I think I like the idea of breaking down the stereotype of the fat stupid ignorant American who has no idea what is going on in the rest of the world. I especially like doing it here in Ceske Budejovice where they don't get a lot of American tourists. Which, while thinking about it, may actually be helping in this pursuit.

However, this statement also leads to what I like to call "Hey, wait. I can talk shit about my family all I want, but you can't because you're not a part of my family" syndrome. For those of us with a family, you will understand this idea quite well. It is the emotion which leads you to defend the thing/person/car whatever you were just talking shit about because the person who has just joined in is an outsider. I find myself getting quite irritated at people here, especially those who have never been to America or really even met an American before me, when they spout off about everything that is wrong about my home country. I find myself repeating "don't base all of your opinions about us on the news and mass media." over and over again. I mean really. We are not all like Chuck Norris (who is the new spokesperson for T-Mobile over here), the people from Friends, Sex in the City, or The Hangover. Some of us actually get your humor and like it.