Trista’s Grocery 小推士多

By Trista Lv

Hong Kong – February 9 – IJS-Global – Low temperature brings the off-season in a year to Kutna Hora, a touristic town 73 km away from the capital of Czech Republic. Jaromira, the oldest English-speaking tour guide in Kutna Hora, doesn’t have much work to do as the small town and its famous churches are covered by white snow in January.

She became a pensioner not long after Czech turned into Capitalism society. She works as an English tour guide in Kutna Hora for almost 7 years. Now the 66-year-old lady is the oldest English tour guide in Kutna Hora.

Jaromira, the oldest English-speaking tour guide in Kutna Hora

“My pension is not high, it only enough for me to pay for my flat and food. If I don’t work as a guide, I couldn’t afford to buy gifts for my sons or grandsons,” Jaromira said. “In the capitalism society now, if you have more money you can buy more.”

She is one of the old foreign-language speaking people who have been recruited as tour guide by Czech government. After a short training course, these old people who handle languages like English, German, Russian and French, etc, working as tour guides, ticket sellers or tour information consultants in all the touristic spot around Czech Republic.

They are organized by government under a tourism office. Once someone hires a tour guide from the office, the tourism office will recommend them according to client’s requirement. After their work, the costumer pay for the tourism office and they get paid by the tourism office on an hourly basis.

Jaromira’s work is to show people around the scenic spots of Kutna Hora and explain the history and general condition about those historical interests.

She moved to Kutna Hora from Prague, the capital of Czech Republic, 40 years ago. She used to be a teacher of primary students and retired in early 1990s. She learnt the history of the old town by her life experience as well as reading history books, and she retells the historic stories to the tourists in her tour guide.

She gets paid by the local information centre in Italian Church for 200 Koruna (US$ 9) an hour in English-speaking tour guide and 150 Koruna in Czech-speaking tour guide. She seems satisfied with her salary.

Jaromira is talking about her tour guide job

Though she lost many holidays and welfare, comparing with communist time, she could earn more money under capitalism social system in Czech, she said.

Jaromira has to rely on dictionary sometimes, though her English is understandable when communicating with people. She got the basic knowledge of English in middle school, but she learnt the language mostly through a few months living experience in England in 1993 when visiting one of her friend there.

“In communism society, we can only go to the communist countries around Czech,” she said. “But at that time, with my friend’s invitation, I can go there and live with them. I only have to pay for the tickets.” She is very proud of her experience of being broad, especially being in England.

She started to learn English by herself since then.

Jaromira said there are nearly 20 people working as part-time or full-time tour guide in Kutna Hora while 4 of them are pensioners. Besides she herself, two eldest guys speak German among them and the other lady speaks Russian. These old people handle foreign languages far better than their next generations because of their special life experience.

“The two men speak German, because it was ww2 when they were at school and they were forced to learn and speak German,” she cited. “When I was a student in school we can choose the preferable language to learn, though Russian is included, I chose English. But after 1993, school started to teacher English instead of Russian.”

She met people speaking different languages from Singapore, Korea, Europe etc, annually. She is enjoying her job as a tour guide. “I love to standing in front of St. Barbara church; I smile at the tourists while they are smiling to me. I feel full of energy at that moment.”

Jaromira and her dog “Lucky”

She still has to work after the off-season. She said there would be numerous tourists in Kutna Hora in summer, the best time for tour in a year. That is also the best time for her to earn money as a tour guide. She loves travelling and being a tour guide.

“In communist time, I can’t go aboard because of shut up of the country,” she laughed. “However, in capitalism, I can go aboard but I have no money.”