Not being able to speak Czech, I use the minimal of verbal language to convey my intention/meaning, and only simple utterances in English that the Czechs might be able to understand, supplementing them with body language.
Five years ago, I’d sorted out the back injury of Mr Red Currant’s son-in-law, incurred when repairing the barn roof. I did not take any money for that treatment, conveying the message through Vláda (who acted as my interpreter), and he returned the week after with a food hamper from Prague to thank me.
Since then, I’ve acquired a bit of a reputation for relieving aches and pains. The year after their son-in-law, the Red Currants jumped onto the massage bandwagon, and the Prague lawyer in the first two cottages (knocked into one bigger house) and her mother asked for one, too, as there were three young children to carry around. Then Mr Singer (so-named because he looks like a famous Czech singer) wanted one for himself, followed by one the year after for his in-law, who shuffled into the room half-bent in obvious pain and walked out upright and pain-free. Next was Mrs Big House across the village green, then a year later her next door neighbour in the other half of the big house (which used to be the residence of the manager of the glass factory nearby — see blog The unconventional passenger), who was the last to succumb.
My idea at the beginning was that these people being OAPs, I wasn’t going to take any payment from them. At the end of the session, they’d try to pay me, and I’d say, “No, no,” and walk away, which they’d look very puzzled about.
I’d thought they were reacting that way because they couldn’t understand how anyone would want to do anything for free, especially hard physical work like massage (with the Chinese medicinal oil thrown in for free as well).
Later, I found out that the Czech way of saying ‘yes’ is ‘ano’ (pronounced something like ‘ah-nor’ in a rising tone), shortened to ‘no’ (still in a rising tone). My English “no, no” sounds like their ‘yes’, which is contradicted by my then walking away without taking the money.
Women have always been said to mean ‘yes’ when they say ‘no’. Maybe it’s Czech women who started this?
This reminds me of the perils of interpreting gestures that mean "yes" or "no" in different cultures. In Sicily, a man will say "no" by raising his head (a gesture of defiance, I suppose), then lowering it again, and it can be taken to mean that he is nodding in approval.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I have seen people from India make gestures of approval by bending their head first left towards one shoulder, then right towards the other, and it looks similar to a Westerner shaking his head to say "no".