Wednesday, 2 May 2007

Maja in Austria - 4

Although Slovenia and Austria are neighbors and have a lot of cultural things in common, there are some significant differences I’ve come across during the last 4 years.


1- Attire

In the last few years Slovenians are trying to become more casual. In a lot of banks and firms they have introduced casual Friday, which means that all employees are allowed to wear jeans or other casual clothes. In Austria it’s basically the same.

But I notice a difference in the way students dress. They don’t distinguish in their everyday clothes, but they differ in how they are dressed for an oral exam, for example a “Matura” – oral exam.

While having an oral exam students at Medical University have to wear white coats. So actually nobody sees what do you wear under the coat, but all the Austrian students wear formal clothes, like men wear a jacket and a tie and women dress in a skirt or black trousers with high heels. Definitely nobody wears jeans.

I have also spoken to some Austrians who all have told me that they have to wear formal attire for their Matura exam.

In Slovenia it is much different … actually nobody cares what do you wear …whether you wear jeans or a suit is completely up to you.

Maybe our Translation department is more easygoing than the others, because we have a wide range of people from different cultural backgrounds, so everything is much more casual and there are no rules how to dress.

2- “Knocking on the tables”

In Slovenian schools nobody knocks on the table as a sign of respect or as a reward for good work … never…

When I first saw and heard that I attended a lecture with approximately 600 other students. I was really shocked … I didn’t know what does this knocking mean … and probably you can imagine what a weird and awfully loud situation this was … 600 people knocking on tables...

In Slovenia the only thing that students do, but only in the first grades of primary school, is to stand up when the teacher enters the classroom at the beginning of the lecture. The high-schoolteachers are happy if the students sit quietly in the class, without any special rituals.

3- "The next round goes on me”

Let us take this example: a group of 5 Slovenian friends (boys and girls) drinking in a pub … the location doesn’t matter … but what is typical Slovenian: nobody pays only for their own drink, but one person pays for all drinks, the second round goes then on another person and so on… everybody pays for one round.

Ok, not everybody sticks to this “rule”, because there are also some misers in Slovenia. But most people do that.

Actually, no waiter in Slovenia will ask you “Getrennt oder zusammen?” because it is just normal that only one person pays the whole bill.

In Austria it’s much different, it’s absolutely normal that everybody pays only for their own drink.


That's enough for today … after talking about drinking I think I deserve a nice refreshing cocktail …

Bye! ;)

2 comments:

Aleks said...

Heh, funny, I don't fit in the 'Slovene' bracket apparently. :( :p

1. I have to wear full academic dress (lounge suit + gown) for exams at my university, but admittedly it's not in Slovenia.

2. We used to stand up when teachers walked in the classroom all the way until the end of 4th year of secondary school.

3. I know 'older' people always mention this to me, but whenever I go out for coffee or even lunch with anyone my age (21 now, but only just) - and I mean every single person - it's always, always, always assumed that each person pays for themselves. And I don't even just mean other people from Ljubljana, I have friends from all over Slovenia and everyone does the same.
I've actually talked to several others about this, and we're all in agreement that 'going Dutch' is how it's nearly always done.

And waiters in Ljubljana often ask if we want to pay separately in a sort of 'rising' pitch which assumes the answer is 'yes'. They bring you one bill, but they usually give everyone their change separately.

On the other hand, my sister, who is only four years older than I am, is still used to the 'rounds' system. I find it quite fascinating to see how the cafe culture has changed generation-wise rather drastically (and uniformly) in the past few years.

Yakima_Gulag said...

The 'rounds system' is used a lot by Irish people too. I have to say that I don't like it unless it's a situation of a party. For just a normal night out, I can see it leading to real trouble. It makes going out for a drink or two pretty expensive.