Upon arriving at the waiting room of a Czech doctor’s office, one is invariably met with a wave of “dobrý den” from the strangers already gathered there. This is not to be taken as an initiation of further conversation, nor a signal of particular personal interest. It is a requisite, perhaps involuntary reaction to a routine encounter.
Back when I was initially preparing myself for life in this country, I heard many self-reports that Czechs are not superficial people. They will not smile unless genuinely happy and will not ask how you’re doing unless genuinely interested. “We may seem cold to foreigners,” they said, “but around our friends and family we are warm and sincere. We just don’t bother with these fake niceties.”
Perfect. My kind of people.
Imagine my surprise, then, when after several months of life in the country and with an unfortunate incidence of tonsillitis, I found myself in a queue to be seen at a doctor’s office, enduring a wait constantly punctuated by “dobrý dens” and “na shledanous” with the arrivals and departures of complete strangers. I couldn’t bring myself to join in. After all, what really would be the difference between this vocalized greeting and a polite, wordless smile?
I expressed this culture shock to my friends. I shared my discomfort with the performative social behavior that read only as superfluous and insincere. And they reassured me that these greetings are simply a functional indication of cordiality; that it would be incorrect to read them as fake, even though they are not really substantive. They’re just normal.
Yeah guys, sure.
I do understand their cognitive dissonance, though. Even after unlocking this truth, that the waiting room “dobrý den” just is the polite smile, I wasn’t able to authentically perform the former as I was the latter. It took me considerable time and acculturation to embrace the greetings as a normal bit of benign etiquette.
It is a kind of unremarkable warmth, and in the Czech Republic, that does make it remarkable.