Culture Shock and the Expat in Slovakia

So here’s a scenario I hear about often (and have experienced myself):

You are moving to Slovakia or some other country that is new for you. You are so excited about the move and are distracted about all the details of settling in, such as finding a place to live and getting all your stuff packed and moved, finding a decent job that’s going to pay the bills with some left over to travel a bit, getting acquainted with some of the locals and getting exposure to the culture and cuisine, becoming familiar with your new neighborhood, traffic and comfortable with the public transportation system, experimenting with foods and becoming familiar with products in your local grocery store, and adjusting to a new currency.

And then all of a sudden it hits—A feeling of depression, or self doubt that you’ve done the right thing in making the big change. Or possibly a sadness because you miss your family, your home, or “your people” back in your home country. You get home-sick, sometimes bad enough that it makes you consider cutting and running.

What do you do? Try to ignore it? Wait for these feelings to go away? What is culture shock, anyway? Can anything be done to help minimize the negative feelings associated with it?

Everyone experiences culture shock at some level. I received an email from a woman who was originally from Slovakia but had lived in the US for more than 10 years and had just recently moved back to Slovakia with her American husband. She wrote to me asking if I knew of any groups where she and her husband could meet other expats. She said her mindset had changed over the last several years away from typical Slovak life and that a lot of thing were driving her crazy back in Slovakia. For her and her husband, finding other Americans would help in their transition to Slovak life.

Expat groups can help you get in touch with others from your own country, or those who are English speakers anyway. In Bratislava there is a group called Bratislava Expats. This group started up right after I moved back to California so I never got to go to any of their events so I don’t have personal experience with them. I am familiar with their forum, however. They usually meet at the cafe Next Apache located somewhere not so far from the Presidential Palace. Contact them and see if anything is going on in the near future.

Another good website for Americans is for the American Chamber of Commerce in Slovakia. They have events that are really great. Of course they have really nice parties or picnics for major US holidays like the 4th of July (in the past they’ve hosted a great outdoor event at Bratislava Castle) but they also host very interesting talks about the growth of the City of Bratislava or how Slovakia is adjusting to the euro, etc. Most of the time these events are open to the public.

And there is an American football league in Bratislava. I wrote a blog post about it. There’s also a great American football league in Vienna.

There are also good websites that provide forums for expats or other specific country information such as a list of popular blogs by expats in various countries. Expat Women for example, has links for over 1,000 expat women blogs on their site. Expat Women is a website that helps women living overseas. They’ve got readers’ stories, country resource pages, their own inspirational blog, and loads of motivational articles.

Expat-blog is dedicated to expatriates who want to share their living-abroad experience and to those who want to live, study or work in a foreign country, or just discover how life is on the other side of the planet. They’ve got forums, living abroad guides, and an “expat network” to help you make new contacts in your destination country. Sometimes surfing through pages on Slovakia provides more information than you ever realized existed.

But what else can you do proactively to deal with culture shock?

For me it was important to understand that culture shock in itself shouldn’t be considered as an entirely negative experience. Feeling symptoms of culture shock means that you are sensitive to differences from your own culture and have the capacity to gain deeper self knowledge as well as to be enriched by another culture. This sensitivity provides an important opportunity for learning; it’s something like growing pains.

Additionally, after living abroad for 5 years, I came up with a list of tips that help me deal with it. Here they are:

1) Keep active. This is particularly good advice if you are feeling symptoms of culture shock such as depression, extreme homesickness, or wanting to withdraw from people (culture) that are different from you. Join a fitness club, go sightseeing, or take a language class.

2) When you need a break from culture overload, take some time out for yourself: make yourself your favorite foods from home, watch a favorite movie or T.V. show.

3) Try to make friends with locals. It’s to your advantage to go out of your way to break through that barrier and work on making friends. For some, this is often easier said that done, but friendships are important in helping you get over culture shock and to learn about Slovak life. In addition to that, friends lead you to meeting new friends, which is a good thing.

4) Keep an open mind and try not to fixate on how things are done back home in comparison to your adopted home. As I have heard it so eloquently stated, “You’re not in Kansas so don’t act like it!” Not only does complaining not solve anything, it makes you a bitter and unpleasant person to be around and makes locals defensive and antagonistic.

5) Remember that part of your education is to learn to decipher foreign customs and try not to let the differences annoy you. Some people can adapt easier to new surroundings than others but everyone can get frustrated or feel out of place from time to time, particularly when upsetting things happen. When you aren’t familiar with the customs it’s easy to get frustrated at another’s seeming lack of respect. For example, I’ve had this reaction before: “I don’t understand it. I refused an offer for a drink and still he keeps asking me to have one. Didn’t they hear me the first time? These people are so pushy!” Later I learned that if you are at someone’s home, it’s customary for a host to offer you a drink of an alcohol, and your host will not feel like he or she has done their job until you accept at least one drink.

Finally, travel and living abroad are extraordinary opportunities for growth, self knowledge, and life-long experience. Some people think that you need to be adventurous or willing to take risks to travel or live abroad. This was never my philosophy; you just need to have a little determination, do some planning, and be flexible. In return, the value gained from traveling and living abroad is impossible to measure. Not only do you gain insight and appreciation for other cultures, but time away from your own country often makes you aware of who you are and the significance of where you come from.

Conquering the Nut Roll Koláč

Nut-roll koláč is probably the most commonly-known Slovak dessert. For me it had become a mountain to climb and conquer. Why? Making good koláč is not easy, at least it’s not easy for me. To get the dough just right you have to know what you are doing and that takes experience. Additionally, any time you are dealing with yeast things get exponentially more complicated. For me the risk that my entire attempt may be sabotaged by uncooperative yeast always looms.

Since my Slovak in-laws are visiting, I asked my aunt-in-law to show me how to make koláč, working in my kitchen, using American ingredients. This has probably been the best learning experience with Slovak baking thus far.

But let’s start with the name. Though “koláč” (or the anglicized “kolach” or “kolachy”) is a general word that could be used to describe many kinds of dessert cakes or pastries, the more precise Slovak word referring to a rolled pastry would be závin. Among my Slovak-American acquaintances I’ve never heard of “nut-roll zavin” but in Slovakia orechový závin is definitely what we are referring to as nut-roll koláč.

Regarding the recipe and baking it just right, let me tell you this has been one heck of a learning experience. First, I had issues with translating Slovak recipe ingredients:

• How much is a half kilo of flour if I don’t have a weight scale at home?
• What if I’m using dry yeast instead of cake yeast? How do I compensate?
• What kind of oil do I use?

Then I had to translate Slovak bakers’ interpretations such as the following:

• For the filling, add as much sugar as you want
• Bake it on medium heat until it’s done

Hmm. Ok.

I was also surprised to see that the recipe I ended up using doesn’t use eggs. How can that be? Almost every Slovak recipe, or Slovak-American recipe, I’ve ever read for nut-roll koláč calls for an egg or two. My aunt says eggs make dough more dense. If you want the dough to bake light and puffy with a good height then don’t include egg.

Another important step I learned is how to work the dough. What my aunt showed me is how dough is supposed to look once you mix the yeast with the flour, and then what it’s supposed to look like once the dough has been worked.

Here’s another secret: never slice the koláč until it has completely cooled. If it is cut while still hot, it will flatten. Instead, once you take them out of the oven, leave them in the baking sheet and cover them with a clean kitchen towel.

So here it is, folks; the recipe for nut-roll kolač:

Ingredients for two rolls


Dough

• 1 envelope of dry yeast
• 1/2 cup of milk, slightly warmed
• 1/2 teaspoon of sugar mixed in the milk

• 4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 12 teaspoons of sugar (slightly rounded)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk slightly warmed
• 1/2 cup of oil (canola oil is best)

Filling

• 2 1/2 cups crushed walnuts
• chopped apple (optional)
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• added milk until walnuts and sugar are moistened but not runny, about 1/4 cup

Directions

-In a mug, warm the milk to just above room temperature and stir in the sugar. Add the yeast, briefly mix it, and let it rest for 15 to 20 minutes.
-In a medium-sized bowl, measure out the flour, add the sugar and salt, and then mix it with a wooden spoon. Add the yeast mixture and then the oil and mix, making sure to scrape the sides of the bowl with your spoon.
-Here’s an important part: once all the dough ingredients have been incorporated you’re going to have to work the dough by hand (this is when using a bread maker machine would come in handy if you have one). The most comfortable place is to sit in a chair and work the dough for 5 to 7 minutes by using your fingers to pinch and pull the dough together. Work the dough around the bowl until it becomes smooth and begins to pull cleanly away from the sides. The dough is ready when it doesn’t stick to your palm.
-Lightly dust the dough with flour in the bowl and leave it in a warm dry place for an hour, covered with a cloth.
-After the dough has risen, dust your working area with flour and cut the dough into two pieces. Roll your first piece out into a rectangular shape approximately 1/2 inch thick.
-Spread half of your filling over the dough making sure to leave about an inch of dough visible from all four sides.

-From one of the longer sides, roll the dough without leaving pockets of space.
-Lightly pinch the ends and tuck them under.
-Place the rolls on a baking sheet lined with baking paper or greased to keep the roll from sticking.
-Bake at 400 F for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.

Note: Since we’re not using eggs for this recipe there are no egg whites to coat the top of the roll before baking. Brush on a bit of milk, or when the rolls are done baking and you have just removed them hot from the oven, lightly brush them with oil.

Note: If you have apple added to the filling, bake at 375 and for a longer time, probably 30 minutes or so.

I hope all my notes and lengthy descriptions aren’t discouraging or off-putting as seemingly too much work. I’ve written in such detail because they were points that stood out in my mind.
I hope you have success with this. If you have feedback, let me know.
Good luck!

World War II and the Jews of Slovakia

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II, a fight against Nazism and totalitarianism that cost the lives of more than 50 million and destroyed the lives of many millions more. A ceremony took place earlier in the day in Poland to mark the date and remember. For most people, remembering WWII also means remembering the ethnic Jewish population in Europe that was all but decimated within those five and a half years.

I’m not Jewish. As a matter of fact, before I moved to Europe I had little reason to ever think about Jewish life or the Jewish people. But over the few years I lived in Central Europe I couldn’t help to become interested in the story of the Jews. Why? Because at times it’s possible to actually feel the void of an ethnic group who once inhabited Europe, and who are overwhelmingly gone.

The signs of former Jewish life in Slovakia are there if you look for them. For example, a monument in Bratislava Old Town with a large etching on marble of what used to be the main synagogue in the Jewish Quarter, almost all of which was torn down to make way for the new Nový Most (pictured right); In Zlaté Moravce, a small town I’ve spent a lot of time in, the building of the former town synagogue is now a rock climbing gym; and Jewish cemeteries can be found across the country. But still, almost no one talks about the Jewish people or of what Slovaks saw or heard before and during World War II.

People forget. I believe that honestly happens, especially to the older generations as they age. But also, often people want to forget. I remember one adult student of mine told me that the Second World War ripped a gaping hole in the hearts and minds of people and that some families still have not recovered to this day. He told me that he personally lost uncles and for some it is still too painful to talk about, and he wasn’t even referring to the Jews. Often I’ve had to make myself remember his words because sometimes I’m frustrated about people’s reluctance to talk about what Slovak life was like during World War II and what was happening in their towns and villages. I have to remember that there is still a rawness. Unfortunately it’s difficult to balance sensitivity with the need to record information coming from credible sources before there is no more opportunity to do so.

My grandfather-in-law has an amazing memory. He loves to tell stories about his youth and about his service in the Slovak Army at the close of World War II. My husband and I like to hear his stories, mostly because he so enjoys recounting them. One afternoon he was telling us about being “on the front” and of his military days. Just because I was curious, I wanted to ask him about the Jews in the Zlaté Moravce area and in his village of Žitavany. Of course, because he has an excellent memory, he was able to tell us specifically that there were three Jewish families taken from his village and that after the war only a single man returned. The man didn’t stay but instead immigrated to Israel. He also said many of the shops in Zlaté Moravce were owned and operated by Jewish people. What he didn’t have to say was that everything was confiscated and given over to Slovaks and that the Jews were taken away to concentration camps.

What was interesting to me was that he recounted all of this simply as historical fact, no judgments, no comments. It made me think, why don’t young people ask more questions? My grandfather-in-law didn’t have difficulty in the telling. Maybe it simply was a matter of someone asking a straightforward question to get a straightforward answer. Ask and you shall receive? Possibly.

In The Foreigner’s Guide to Living in Slovakia, I wrote a short section about Germans in Slovakia (called Carpathian Germans), and also about Jews in Slovakia. In that section I included the following powerful statistics:

• According to the Czechoslovak census of 1930, 136,737 Jews lived in Slovakia and 102,542 in Subcarpathian Rus, which was more than 4% of the population in Slovakia and more than 14% of the population in Subcarpathian Rus.
• Today there are approximately 2,300 Jews living in Slovakia.

There are many painful stories that have not yet been told, but there are also good stories of non-Jews helping Jews and other targeted groups during World War II that have not yet been told. I think I’m open minded to hear both, not to judge, but simply because we – citizens of the world – need to know more, and move beyond the feeling that people are holding back important information and want to forget about the past.

Note: The photo is taken by Griffindor who added the following description in Wikipedia Commons:

Image of the Holocaust monument in Bratislava. The Reform Synagogue used to stand there and survived the Nazis but not the Communists after World War II. The synagogue was torn to make way for a highway. Only after the fall of Communism was a black granite plaque (visible in the back) and a monument constructed for the murdered Jewish population of Bratislava. However no sign in English explains the meaning of the monument to anyone.

Vianočka - Braided Sweet Bread

Vianočka is a common yeast bread in Slovakia. It is a braided bread, slightly sweet, and eaten often at breakfast time. Vianočka is available in just about any grocery store in Slovakia. It is so common in fact, that I’ve never seen or heard of any Slovak baking it at home. Why would you bake a basic bread if you could just pick one up at the local market?

Vianočka is also a good bread to bake for Easter. In Vienna I’ve seen this bread sold at bakeries with a few colored hard-boiled eggs set between the weave of the braids. It’s very festive.

Well, I wanted to bake this bread at home in California and after consulting several recipes, I’ve come up with my tried and tested version for authentic vianočka. To me it tastes almost identical to what you can buy in Slovakia. Below is the recipe and my directions:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup (.4 liter) milk
• 2 rounded tablespoons sugar
• 2 packets (1/4 oz each) of dry yeast or 30 grams cake yeast
• 4 1/2 cups (600 grams) flour
• 1/2 cup (120 grams) butter
• 1 cup (225 grams) sugar
• 3 egg yolks (keep the whites to brush the dough later)
• 1/2 cup (120 grams) raisins
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• grated lemon peel

Directions: Mix the two tablespoons of sugar into lukewarm milk and add the yeast. Let the yeast rise and become active. In a bowl combine the flour, butter, sugar, salt, egg yolks, raisins, and grated lemon peel. Add the yeast mixture to the flour mixture and transfer everything to a floured surface to kneed the dough thoroughly. Gather the dough into a ball and place it back into the mixing bowl, making sure to sprinkle the base so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom. Cover the bowl and set it in a warm dry place for an hour or so, until the dough doubles in size.

Kneed the dough a second time thoroughly until all the air pockets are removed. Separate the dough into eight equal sized parts and let them “rest” for another 15 minutes. Make a braid with the first four pieces. From three more pieces make another braid that will be set on top of the four-piece braid. Cut the last roll in half, roll them thin, braid them, and place it on top of the three-piece braid.

Tuck the sides under and brush the top with egg whites. Bake the bread at 350°F (180°C) for the first half hour and 325°F (160°C) for an additional half hour.

Note 1) To make the crust darker, start baking at 375°F.

Note 2) The recipe yields one large loaf. To make two, separate the dough into 16 pieces.