Me, Myself & Prague

Smile!

I just knew I'd hear it here! Had the feeling there'd be no escaping the inevitable command from perfect strangers either passing me in the street, standing in line at Starbucks or minding my own business at the grocery store check out counter. Coming to Prague, I thought that maybe… just maybe I’d have the chance to walk around stone-faced without being questioned or called out.

At home, I used to hear it often until it irked me so much I forced myself to walk around town with a plastic smile. Granted, some days I had something wonderfully random to smile about, but on others, my non-emotional face would apparently be just too depressing for some folks to handle.

For most of my life, I believed I was the only one in the world who had repeatedly been told to smile. But it wasn’t an occurrence I spoke about often either. Was a tad bit concerned that if my friends heard “Yeah, some complete stranger shouted at me to smile from across the street today” too often, there’d be some unnecessary worrying going on. So I would usually just turn to the stranger, give the smile that was asked for, politely walk on and forget it ever even happened. Only in my unruly imagination would I flip him the bird.

I wasn’t in Prague but a week – nor was I fully recovered from jetlag - when I was first told to smile. Damn! I really thought I could escape it! But wait. That’s funny. The guy who told me to smile wasn’t Czech. He was Australian. Sure enough there couldn’t be too many Australians in Prague. So I thought that just maybe I had a chance… Maybe the Czech’s really don’t give a shit whether I smile or not.

Turns out they don’t. I’ve been in Prague for about four months and have not again heard the command. I rather enjoy this. Walks and tram rides to and from places can be long. And if I’m not lost in a book, I’m usually lost in thought. As a result, my face tends to emit this sort of blank stare, absent of a smile. It’s never personal. It’s not a reflection of what I think about the woman passing me in the street or how I’m really feeling that day. It just is what it is; a face without a smile.

It was just recently that I realized I wasn’t alone in this sort of uncomfortable dilemma. One of my favorite bloggers and a very talented writer so accurately describes the feeling she gets when told to smile in a recent post. And in the book I’m reading now, “Me, Myself & Prague,” its female author also addresses the topic. Her feeling is that the Americans are a bit too overbearing when it comes to shiny, happy faces, and yet most Czechs are simply too depressing, too avoidant, too smile-less.

My dad says, “You’re not fully dressed until you’re wearing a smile.” I don’t know. I’m just not ready yet. For now I guess I’ll be walking around Prague a tad bit naked.

Comments

Posted on 10/28/2009 by

Beth Mitchell

Amy, you're beautiful with our without a smile! I was just told by an airport TCA that I didn't look like my ID because I didn't have a smile on my face. I wanted to tell him, "did you just stand in line for an hour, F.... off!!!

Posted on 10/28/2009 by

Amy Smith

Ha, that's funny... Click on the link above ("recent post"). Kathleen had a similar situation happen and blogged about it... It's hilarious!

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