Free-riding or Dodging ZET Inspectors

One of the more peculiar things about living in Croatia is the distance between what is legally permissible and what is socially permissible. To a certain extent gaps between the law and following the law exist everywhere. In Oklahoma there is the “five over rule,” meaning most police allow you to exceed the posted speed limit by five miles. In Croatia such discrepancies between the law and following the law appear much more pervasive. They range from avoiding parking infractions to under-the-table employment and under reporting payment in order to avoid taxes. This topic will come up again and again, yet for the purposes of this post I focus on what is probably the most ubiquitous illegal activity in Zagreb: free riding on public transport.

I first have to say that Zagreb has a fantastic tram system. The trains are new, clean, and well maintained. They run frequently and travel extensively throughout the city. There is nothing comparable to this type of service in Oklahoma, or most of the US for that matter. In Tulsa the buses come once every hour, stop running at five p.m. and don’t really take you anywhere all that useful. One of the few time I rode a bus was in preschool as a class, and I think that was just so we would know what a bus was. Unlike in Tulsa where you can live most of your life without engaging in public transit, the tramway in Zagreb is an integral part of life.

Of course this makes the reality of the tramway all the more ironic: Zagreb has a great tram system, and yet most people ride it for free. Riding the tram depends mostly on the honor system. There is no fee for entering the tram, no turnstile, gate, nothing. You just hop on; however, you are supposed to buy a ticket in advance at a nearby kiosk or purchase one with a text message from you mobile phone. There is some level of enforcement. Uniformed inspectors come around from time to time and check your tickets. If you cannot show them one you are fined 200 kuna (roughly $40).

Talking to residents of Zagreb you hear all kinds of stories about how people have attempted to get of out paying the fine. One of the more clever ones I’ve heard involved a friend who had already been riding on the tram when an inspector (called Kontrol in Croatian) entered. Once the tram started moving he ran up to her, pretending to be nervous and asked her if he still had time to purchase his ticket on his phone. The inspector a little shocked at being directly approached replied in a relaxing tone that of course there was still time.

When you’re caught inspectors exit the tram with you and write you a ticket on the side of the street. Another friend, an American married to a Croatian, related to me how once when he was caught he played dumb, acting like he didn’t speak Croatian, was only here for a conference, and couldn’t understand this “crazy” tram system. As he was on the cusp of success, having almost convinced the inspectors he was just a dumb tourist when a tram full of his former students stopped and they all yelled: “Hi Dave!” He ended up paying the fine. I’ve heard from other foreigners that they too act as foreign as possible. According to these stories the inspectors will get so frustrated trying to get you to understand them that they will eventually just let you go.

Usually, you just try to dodge the inspectors. When they enter, you exit. They are pretty easy to spot. They wear blue jackets with stripped blue button-down shirts, and have a way of parting the most densely packed crowds like Moses parted the Red Sea. The other alternative is to enter a text message into your phone and then only send it when you see an inspector.

Another preoccupation among free riders is trying to anticipate the inspectors’ behavior. It is assumed that inspectors don’t work after 8 or 9 p.m. or early on weekends, some assume they don’t work weekends at all. I’ve also been told that inspectors won’t work when its raining, snowy, or frigidly cold. I’m not sure if it is assumed that inspectors don’t want to stand in the rain, snow or cold when writing a ticket or if would it would be socially unacceptable to make a passenger stand in bad weather when getting a fine. In any case it assumed that fines for free riding are canceled due to inclement weather. I’m not sure if any of this is true.

Why all the free riding? Well, its logical. The economists tell us that few will pay for something if they can obtain it for free. Given the paltry system of enforcement its rational that few people pay for a tram ride. Since the fine is 200 kuna and a tram ride itself costs 15 kuna, if you can ride for free 13 or more times without paying, then its worth risking the fine. The times I do buy a ticket are when I’m either riding with my daughter or mother-in-law. And these are social inducements. I don’t want people to think that I’m a bad father when they see me holding my little girl and getting fined by the inspectors on the side of the street. (Also, since she speaks Croatian she would blow my cover as a dumb tourist.) My other friends have related similar reasons. One woman told me that since she was now over 35 (and on TV) she would be embarrassed if she was seen being fined.

But there is also another economic argument and this returns to the discrepancy between policy and practice. A tram ride costs 15 kuna, which is about three dollars. Now imagine if you had to ride the tram twice a day to get to work and back. That would be six dollars a day, $30 a week, $120 a month, $1,200 a year. In a country where the average monthly salary is between $800 and $1,000 a month, that’s 10 percent or more of your annual income, just to get to work. What’s more is that ZET (the tram operator) knows that most people do not or cannot pay this fare. Danas.hr reported that while 298 million people rode the tram (and buses) last year, revenue was only at 319 million kuna! That’s less than 1.5 kuna per person, roughly $0.25 a passenger.

I’d like to say that this is a case of an enduring status quo where the price was fixed and remains fixed given a set of circumstances, but its actually worse than that. The price just went up from 10 to 15 kuna via text message and from 8 to 12 kuna for tickets purchased from a kiosk. And since then revenue has stayed roughly the same. ZET is now earning less than it was before if you consider the price increase. Its as if Joseph Heller and Franz Kafka jointly designed this policy. ZET raises the price to make less money!! The politicians know no one is paying the price, the passengers know it, ZET knows it, and yet the price that no one pays endures.

Thats how life is here. We exist in a world where policy after policy, law after law attempt to impose an impossible standard on our reality. As a result, our daily life is learning how to dodge the rules, and to define the actual distance between the imaginary and the real, to discern the actual difference between what is demanded and what is permissible. For all that, Croatia pays a greater price; a fare-less ride on the tram only sounds free.
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Here is an even more outrageous comparison. A ride on the NY subway costs $2.50 and the city’s average income is $6,317.00 a month. In Zagreb a ride on the tram is $3.00 and the average monthly income is $1,356.00! Moreover, the income for Zagreb is from 2008. Since the financial crisis the average income has certainly declined while the tram price has been increased.

Propuh or The Great Cultural Chasm Between Us

“Someone is likely to mention the baffling absence of draft in the United States: Americans keep all of their windows open, and they don’t care if they are exposed to draft, although it is well known that being exposed to sever airflow might cause brain inflammation. In my country, we are suspicious of free-flowing air.”
–Aleksandar Hemon The Lazarus Project page 12.

The draft, or propuh, is an indispensable part of life in Croatia and much of the Balkans. A breeze blowing from one end of the apartment to the other, or a chilly wind on a cloudy day can result in all kinds of ailments. The draft is responsible for everything from muscle aches, headaches, colds, to infections or even inflammation of the brain. In order to preclude such maladies it is necessary to:

1. Immediately dry your hair after a shower. Never go outside or go to sleep with wet hair.
2. Never expose the back of you or your child’s neck to the wind during the fall, winter or spring. The back of your neck should always be covered with a hood or scarf.
3. Never go barefoot. Always wear socks and slippers (even during the summer on the coast).
4. Avoid having two or more windows open in the same room, especially if they are on different walls. The cross breeze is one of the more nefarious forms of propuh.

Before moving to Croatia I did not really believed in the explanatory power of culture. I was of the opinion that when someone said something was “cultural” they were trying to coverup their own prejudice. After all, most allusions to culture in the US are attempts to explain why blacks and hispanics are more impoverished than whites. As someone who leans left on the political spectrum I disparaged attempts to explain a whole population’s economic plight as a product of culture. Instead I tended to see black and hispanic poverty as a legacy of slavery, unbalanced immigration laws, discrimination, society structured in a way that gives whites an advantage, oh and white people talking about “culture.” In my book, cultural explanations were up there with phrenology and astrology. Then I moved to Croatia and came face to face with propuh!

The presence of propuh in Southeastern Europe or its “baffling” absence in the US is as indicative of culture and its importance as one can get. Propuh is a force that guides and influences the entire way of life in Croatia. Its why I sweat in the summer when visiting my mother-in-law. It is why public transport is stifling. It is why I am publicly reprimanded for being a bad father when out with my hat-less daughter. It is why we have to have extra slippers for guests and pack our own when we go visit someone. And my refusal to accepts its existence is why I will forever and always be an outsider.

My in-laws, friends, and students cannot understand how I cannot comprehend the reality of propuh. And whenever I meet fellow Americans we cannot understand how people can believe in it, at all! We laugh and poke fun at our friends and families’ fears of the wind, chalking it up there with other Balkans superstitions, like believing in Vampires, fairies and Big Foot. Those of us in mixed-marriages end up venting our frustration on our children’s relatives who we see as overdressing our kids to death. A friend married to a Bulgarian woman put it best when he said: “In Bulgaria, a sweater is something a kid wears when her mother feels cold.”

The scope of these differences is like when a group of explorers encounters a new and “undiscovered” civilization. Both groups have a completely different system of beliefs. The explorers learn that it seems impossible to teach these “new” people about their religion. Say the explorers have several gods and yet one god is completely incomprehensible to the other civilization. It is not that they don’t just have a god like the one our explorers believe in, they don’t even posses the concept to go along with that god. They cannot understand the deity since they cannot discern her purpose and nature.

Its not that Americans don’t believe in propuh we don’t even have a concept for it. To us the breeze, swift moving air is er… well.. good. Especially if you’re from the Great Plains. After all my home state’s song begins with “Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains…” and this is considered a positive characteristic. (The Croatian version would be something like “Oooooklahoma, where the wind can. kill. you!”)

The wind is an iconic symbol of America. In our pantheon of heroes they all sit on horseback, silhouetted against the setting sun, with the tall grass beneath them rustling in the breeze and their hair blown back by the wind, ceaselessly.

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Where does this leave us? I’d like to end by saying that diversity is great and that its wonderful we live in a world with such varying opinions– but then I would be lying! I’m hot and sweaty. I hate blow drying my hair. My mother-in-law keeps reminding me that I’m barefoot. My daughter is wearing a coat, hat, and scarf when its 16 degrees Centigrade outside. And everywhere I go an old lady looks at me with a frown of disapproval. Propuh!

Birthdays!!!

Croatians its time for a change!!!

Now I spend a lot of time talking to Croatians about American culture (its actually my job) and usually after telling people about the USA, they are like: “Yep, we like our customs better and we will just go on living right here in good ol’ Hrvatska” (that last word is what Croatians call Croatia).Some of the biggest differences between the US and Croatia (actually the US and MUCH of the world) involve how people drink and dine together.

Let me relate one story. The first time I was ever invited to dinner with a Croatian we went to a local neighborhood restaurant in the middle of Oklahoma. This guy started ordering almost every appetizer off of the the menu. He kept telling me to order whatever I wanted. Meanwhile I was getting fumed, thinking: Man, this jerk is ordering all this food that I DON’T want and I’m going to be stuck paying half of the bill for an order of Queso con carne and some BBQ chicken wings. To my chagrin my friend picked up the entire check! Yep, that’s how it is in America. Even when someone tells you to order whatever you want you can still think that you will pay for it yourself, unless they specifically tell you: I WILL PAY FOR ALL THIS, which is ridiculously forward. In Croatia on the other hand, it is always assumed that the one who does the inviting will pick up the check.

This generosity is further extended when you are invited to someone’s house. Among my Croatian friends I’ve heard horror (actually normal in America) stories about going to a dinner party in the US and having to bring your own food and alcohol. Apparently this extends to Australia too, where a friend was shocked that each family invited to the BBQ had to bring their own food and no one shared. In Croatia, being the host is very important. The quantity and quality of food provided by the host is always impressive. The rule is basically you have to provide anything that your guest may possibly want at any time. When we have guests we always buy too much beer, too much dip, too much wine, too many cookies… from my perspective. Whereas from my wife’s perspective we buy a barely sufficient amount.

So what needs to change? For the most part nothing. I would contend that we Americans could loosen up a little bit and buy each other coffee, a beer or some chicken wings a bit more often; however, the one thing that Croatians I talk to actually think that Americans have one up on them involves birthdays. Here’s how it works in Croatia. On your birthday you invite your friends out for food and drinks. You eat. You drink. They eat. They drink. Then YOU pick up the tab! If you’re popular that could mean buying the meals and drinks of 10+ people (its also normal to invite ALL of YOUR friends) which can easily reach into the couple hundreds of dollars in a country where the average wage is around $1,000 a month. So what happens? You don’t go out. You sit at home, save money and have a sad, lonely birthday watching Dancing with the Stars.

In the States it is the friends of the birthday person that pay for that person’s drinks and meal. You know, its like a gift ON YOUR BIRTHDAY! Plus it makes a whole lot more sense (economically at least). A meal and a few drinks divided by ten people is much better.

So,
IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE! My faithful Croatian readers (all 3 of you!) you can be the vanguard of this bold move! The next time you go to someone’s birthday celebration conspire with their friends to pay for the birthday boy’s (or girl’s) meal. America has already invaded your country with our McDonalds, pop music and catchy sayings like “Super Duper,” so what’s one more change? Come on! Start the revolution and there will be inexpensive birthdays for everyone!!

Cursing, culture, and friendship.

One of my friends told me she was sick of my posts about economics, so this post is about culture. It will involve some neighbors, cursing, and generalizations –for anyone offended, my apologies.

Question: In Croatia is it better to tell someone to “f*** their mother” or use the word “no?” The answer is of course its much better to indicate some impolite form of fornication involving one’s mother than to say no. I’ll explain why in a minute, but first let me give you an example of the appropriate context for telling someone that you want to have intercourse with their mom. This kind of potty-talk can actually be used to enhance a compliment. One time a neighbor (in her 50s) came over to our house while Mara was eating. She saw Mara and said: “Ti si najlepša cura na svijetu, jebem ti mater!” Which basically translates to: you are the most beautiful girl in the world, f— your mother! In Croatia this a huge compliment!

Now on to why “no” is more offensive than mentioning sexual relations with one’s progenitor. Its all about friendship. Wha? I know sounds CRAZY! Croatia is a country with what we could call “THICK” relationships. Whereas in America we make friends willy-nilly. Par example:

Person A: Hi, what’s your name?
Person B: Dave.
Person A: Hi, Dave. I’m John.
Dave: Nice to meet you John.
John: Say do you like stuff?
Dave: Stuff? Sure do!

And both are now friends. In Croatia, on the other hand friends are not something taken as lightly. Friendship is something earned and respected. After John and Dave are friends, if John asks Dave for a favor, Dave can easily refuse and say: “no.” Not so in Croatia. Part of being one’s friend means you need to be there for them whenever and wherever they need you to be, and if you can’t, you need to come up with a really good excuse that makes it sound like the only reason you couldn’t be there for them was due to EXTREMELY extenuating circumstances (this is basically why I have no friends in Croatia).

Once when I was giving a talk about cultural differences between Croats and Americans in Split (which is on the Adriatic Sea), I mentioned how I know that when you live on the sea everyone always wants to come and stay with you. My audience nodded. Then I related how sometimes this can be a big inconvenience, like when you have a four month old baby and are not quite ready for a bunch of houses guests booked into your very living room for an indefinite stay. Again an audience of nods. I finally added that in America, under such circumstances you could say no to someone wanting to come and stay with you. Afterwards a lone hand went up, its owner looked at me with this gaze of disbelief while asking: “and they would still be your friend?” See, THICK relationships.

Why the differences? I don’t pretend to know (oh wait I do!), but I have some theories. One, we Americans move around all the time. Its hard to keep strong ties when you are always on the go. You also need to be able to make friends easily in all the new places you live. I’ve lived in three states, attended three different universities and lived in three different countries, and I have made numerous, casual, friends. In Croatia on the other hand, most people only move to Zagreb, if they move at all. And even then there is a connection between people who are from the same place as you. (Ask someone from Croatia about Imotski). Second, here (in Croatia) you depend on people more than we do in the states. Calling someone your friend means you need to know you can depend on them. Apparently it also means you can tell them “f*** your mother,” but not tell them no.

Good night.
I’m here all week.

A headfirst dive off the Fiscal Cliff

So, in my last post I complimented Croatia for its lack of crime and strong community norms (i.e. nosy neighbors). In this post I am less in awe of Croatia, in fact I’m down right disgusted in disappointed. I’m not too worried about offending my Croatian friends because I’m pretty sure most of them feel the same way. So what’s leaving me dejected and pessimistic about living in Croatia? Is it the neighbors? The dreaded propuh? Nope, its still tax policy.

At a time when most Americans feel like our political system is entirely broken, its even worse in Croatia. And here’s why. Let’s look at the Fiscal Cliff facing the United States in the coming month. Without a deal taxes will go up on everyone and automatic cuts will go into effect halting government stimulus across the board. Most, no every, economist has explained why this will have horrible consequences for the US economy. Wow, really bleak huh? And yet, still better than in the current state Croatia finds itself. Because despite all of the doomsday talk and the extreme partisanship between the two political parties the positions of the two are at least sensible. The GOP doesn’t want taxes to go up on anyone, understanding that tax increases will drain money from the hands of consumers who would otherwise spend it, which will result in a drop in demand and trigger another recession. Meanwhile the Democrats don’t want to see a cut in spending because they know that a cut in spending will result in massive layoffs, which will also result in less money being in consumers’ hands, resulting in a drop in demand, triggering another recession. So here’s where I see some good news: both GOP and Dems understand a drop in money among consumers = a drop in demand and another recession.

So while Congress and the President are scrambling to avoid falling off of the Fiscal Cliff, Croatia’s government has jumped and is diving headfirst off of their cliff. Last Thursday the teachers and nurses went on strike over the Government’s proposed pay-cuts. Other civil workers are also facing pay cuts. No lie, the Government needs to trim the number of civil servants (its estimated there are 200,000 civil servants in a country with 4.5 million people), but they are cutting wages while also raising taxes. The value added tax has gone up 2% since this Government took office and they’ve just proposed introducing a new, higher, property tax. That’s right, while Democrats and Republicans may disagree on which is worse for the economy, tax hikes or budget cuts, the Croatian Government has decided to implement both! Both!! This is in an economy with 20% (or higher) unemployment, 3 years of zero growth, and a drop in the average wages by several hundred dollars. Worse still, is that given the last Government’s unprecedented corruption (the PM is heading to jail) there is no real opposition to these incompetent rubes. So they can apparently keep designing poor policy with impunity… .

And that’s the source of our frustration. Few people here understand why the Government has chosen this course of action, and fewer still think there is much we can do about it.

GUNS! GUNS! GUNS?

One of the reasons I’ve elected to live in Croatia is the absence of random, violent crime. While some of the US’s biggest cities have annual murders topping over 400, homicide in any Croatian city is almost unheard of. In 2009 there were 23 murders by gun in the entire country. The annual rate of homicide by gun per 100,000 people is 0.52. While in the US the same rate is 2.98.

Now I thought that all of this was a result of Croatia having tougher gun laws than the United States. I assumed that criminals couldn’t easily obtain guns and so there were less murders and violence. Owning a gun in Croatia is an arduous process. Not only do you have to obtain a license, but the police actually come to your apartment and interview your neighbors about what kind of person you are. They can even interview your friends and family. Obtaining a gun in Croatia is more like working for the Federal Government in the US and having to pass the Secret Service’s security clearance. But then my Croatian friends would laugh at me and say, “No, lots of people have guns in Croatia, we had a war you know.” I thought they were just being dramatic. Then I looked at the statistics on gun ownership in Croatia. I was bit surprised, of the estimated 960,000 guns in civilian hands in Croatia, 576,000 of them are unregistered. This means the police do not know who has them. Which means they should be perfect for criminals to use. Not to mention that in Serbia the number of unregistered firearms is 944,000 out of 3 million. If you were enterprising criminal it wouldn’t be that hard to bring some of these abundant weapons from Serbia into Croatia. And yet, the murder rate and overall rate of violent crime in Croatia is low.

Maybe you’re thinking Croatia doesn’t exhibit other elements that we associate with crime. Well its certainly poor and getting poorer. GDP per capita has dropped in the last three years. Unemployment is around 20 percent, and even higher among young males. The country also suffered through a war not too long ago, and yet Croatia as an entire country is relatively safer than any major city in the US.
So, where I used to want to explain the difference as a result of the availability of guns I’m now more likely to believe the old saying “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Once when I was talking to an American friend about this he said he just thought people here (in Croatia) were socially different then Americans and that this somehow led them to be less prone to violence. I’m not entirely sure I believe this, but I am beginning to believe part of it. Here are a few possible explanations for Croatia’s low crime rate:

1) Preschool. Almost every kid in Croatia attends at least 1 year of preschool. It is cheap and has a good quality. To be a preschool teacher you must have a bachelors degree in education. According to the Perry Preschool Project, young boys who attend one year of preschool are half as likely to be arrested than those that don’t.

2) Nosy neighbors. There is no easy way to put this. In Croatia everyone is up in your business! And their not afraid to to tell you when your are doing something wrong (or at least gossip about you to the other neighbors). When it comes to my child rearing skills old ladies will tell it to my face that I’m putting my daughter in jeopardy if she is barefoot or hatless. While this used to bug me to no end I now think its kind of nice that there is such a concern for the well being of my kid by my neighbors (and sometimes complete and total strangers.) There is very much the idea that people will see and hear what you do, so you better be on your best behavior. I imagine this is a deterrent to quite a few would-be-criminals. The person you might be robbing might also be your cousin’s sister’s neighbor, and in that case, you aunty, grandma, mother, and the other neighbors will all hear about it!

3) They’ve had enough violence. My first time in the Balkans was through Sarajevo. Before that trip I was like any Oklahoman, a gun owning one. I thought owning guns and having the ability to “defend” yourself was an important part of being an American. Then I saw Sarajevo and East Mostar. Almost every surface in sight was riddle with bullet holes or damage from exploding shells. Scorch marks still marred the ruins of buildings that burned down almost twenty years before. Any need for firearms in Oklahoma was now, in my mind, imaginary. Here in the Balkans there had been a need, but as many of the region’s residents expressed to me that need had also been invented. The bigger point is that after such violence, after Sarajevo, Mostar, and Vukovar people weren’t clinging to their guns, they weren’t paranoid about bumps in the night, they were tired of violence and tired of guns. So maybe the legacy of the last wars has left the populace with a tragic appreciation for violence that people in the US fail to grasp.

Any other explanations would be appreciated.