Mailbox
Today's Mailbox includes: Topics: Yoga in the Czech Republic. Internet access and usage. Religion and homophobia. Living Czech. Quotes from: Hemant Sahay, Swopan Chakroborty, T.Lane, Richard Thornton.
Hello and welcome to the first Mailbox in 2003.
And we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you on behalf of the Radio Prague team for the numerous season's greetings that we've been receiving over the last couple of days. Some of you have truly taken a great deal of time and effort to wish us a successful new year and we appreciate that.
We have also been receiving a large number of reception reports and hope you'll keep them coming as we've got a new series of QSL cards, which we're sure you'll love.
Yes, they are pictures of Czech motor cycles. And we already named a few of them last month, some others are the Walter 250 from 1950, which can be admired at the National Technical Museum in Prague. The CZ 250 motocross from 1972 is also a part of the collection and the Jawa 350 from 1967. So, write in to get all of these QSL cards and more souvenirs from Radio Prague.
We have a question from Hemant Sahay who is a member of the Cosmos Club in Bihar, India. He writes:
"Yoga has been used by the people of India for a long time. Bodily exercises, breath control and mind control are all helpful to conquer bodily and mental ills. So, yoga can make a life different. I would like to know whether yoga is as popular in your country as it is in India?"
I don't think that the Czech Republic can beat India as far as the popularity of Yoga exercises is concerned but it is a fact that there is a growing trend in Yoga, despite the fact that good classes are not exactly affordable.
After the fall of communism in 1989, the idea of living a healthy life began to spread. The younger generation, especially, tried to stop eating the typical Czech unhealthy food, with its sauces, cream, and lots of carbohydrates and started turning to vegetables and fruit. After that, thanks to the country's queen of fitness, Olga Sipkova, aerobic exercises became very popular.
And now, in the last few years, we have been witnessing a growing interest in other ways of staying healthy - different forms of exercise, including yoga, as well as alternative medicine.
And Czech doctors, the old school doctors that is, are not exactly happy about this development. In fact, the government tried to make alternative medicine illegal in the country, saying that anyone who had not studied the classic forms of medicine at a university could not treat people with illnesses.
So, to answer your question, Mr Sahay, yoga is popular, although many try it out simply because it's popular to try out new things and they take the one or other class just out of curiosity to see how effective it is.
And we have a question from one of our regular listeners, Mr Swopan Chakroborty from Calcutta, India:
"What percentage of Czech citizens can access the Internet? Is it a popular medium there among the younger generation? Please let me know more about Internet use and access in the Czech Republic."
Now, that's a very good question. Unfortunately, we cannot answer it for you. We do not know the exact percentage but we can tell you that the Internet is available to the majority of the younger generation, most of whom make use of it. If you ask a Czech teenager today to do research, he will undoubtedly use the Internet as a means.
Furthermore, the Czech Interior Ministry has began its plan to give all schools around the country the chance to have Internet access.
Fact is that many of us would not be able to do our jobs effectively without the Internet. Just the other day I was working on a story and wondered how people at the radio could have produced good programmes without the Internet.
So, yes, it is very popular here in the Czech Republic and that's not just among the younger generation but also the older ones. Many server providers offer cheap rates after 7pm and over the weekend and there are numerous Internet cafes around the country that give people the chance to browse the web at affordable rates.
Mr T. Lane from the USA writes to us in response to one of our news stories last month, which reported on the results of a survey carried out over a four-month period in 44 countries by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press suggesting that the Czech Republic is one of the least religious countries in the world:
"Bravo for your irreligion! We are two older Americans who are considering relocating to the Czech Republic because of the homophobia in our country, which is made respectable as religious sentiment or Republican politics."
Now, according to the survey we just mentioned, only 11% of Czechs find religion to play a very significant role in their lives. But this does not mean that Czechs are not homophobic. Just like religion, homosexuality was suppressed under the 40 years of Communist rule and Czechs are therefore not open to either. Although the gay community has come a long way in the last ten years - Czechs are becoming more tolerant towards gays and lesbians, 60% of the population is in favour of a law on same sex registered partnerships and 20% of Czechs would be in favour of allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children - you may re-consider the plan to relocate if it's simply for the reasons you stated Mr Lane as you would probably not be better off here than you are at home.
Yes, as far as homophobia on the government level is concerned, the situation in the Czech Republic is probably the same as in the United States. Passing a law on same sex partnerships that are to almost equal marriage has been made rather difficult as the Christian Democrats and the conservative parties have not been very keen on approving it.
And we have a question on one of our discontinued programmes called Living Czech. It's from Richard Thornton from Montreal in CANADA:
"What happened to the series? Did it last for 1999 only as that is the only content I can find on the web site."
Yes, Living Czech was broadcast in 1999. My predecessor Nick Carey was the author and there were more than 30 Living Czech programmes which can still be found on our website. The programme I present is called the ABC of Czech. In fact, the actual ABC of Czech which followed the alphabet from A to Z has just ended but I have a follow-up course for you with the working title "Czech from Head to Toe". It starts next Wednesday. If you'd like to take a look at our newer Czech language programmes on the internet, just click on the "ABC of Czech" on the left hand-side of our homepage, at www.radio.cz/english.
So you can get your pen and paper ready, Mr Thornton, as of next week. And I guess that is all we have time for today. However, before we end today's Mailbox here's a reminder of our contact address. Write to the Radio Prague English section at 120 99 Prague 2 in the Czech Republic...
Or e-mail us your comments and questions to [email protected]. This is Pavla Horakova
And my name is Dita Asiedu. Thanks for tuning in and happy listening!
