Vesele Velikonoce! (Happy Easter!)

The Czech Easter tradition is far from traditional. Easter Monday is a national holiday where boys and men weave braided switches and whap girls on the butt all morning. Sounds like a good deal for the guys, but it gets better: in return, the girls give boys chocolate and men slivovice, a plum brandy. Once the men are drunk, the women retaliate by dumping buckets of perfume-laced water on them.

Will, Danny, Andy and I met in the lobby of the dorm with our pomlazka (willow switch), which was made with love by Zdeněk. “So, what do the girls think of getting hit on the butt?” we asked Jindrich, the receptionist. “They don’t mind. It’s tradition! But one time a girl ask me if she can call police. I tell her, ‘yes, but they will whip you also!’”

The four of us arrived in Old Town shortly after 8. The square was disappointingly empty; booths were just opening up. Tourists began to fill the square, and we were virtually the only ones with a pomlazka. Danny was the bravest, and tapped a Czech girl who turned her head but showed very little emotion. Danny bought a second, larger pomlazka and asserted that the bigger stick instilled confidence.

We met a very inebriated Czech named Daniel who had fewer reservations than we Americans did about harassing girls. For the next hour or so we followed Daniel, living vicariously through him and his lack of discretion. It might be called a social experiment. Most European tourists showed horrified and angry looks. If they spoke English, he would explain the holiday tradition until they were smiling. An Asian tourist turned a confused smile, but Heidi, my Asian culture expert, has suggested that she was probably inwardly as horrified as the European tourists. The Czechs were the most fun. One screamed with surprise, some ran away, some laughed, and a few became pretty angry. One gave a lethal glare and asked, “Are you normal?” One girl wearing thin sweatpants was leaning over the edge of Charles Bridge; she was asking for it. It took Daniel a long while to talk his way out of that one with the girl’s father, but her sisters were laughing hysterically as he explained it. There was also Spanish couple that was less than impressed. Several beatings later we settled into a coffee shop and bought Daniel the last thing he needed—another beer.