I know the dark secret that lurks in every Croatian household. Oh yes, I know all about it. In most houses there will be a closet or a cupboard, sometimes just a drawer, and in the deep dark recesses of that secret space is … a pile of…
RECYCLED PRESENTS! Yes! Re-gifting is a Croatian way of life.
In America we have people that store food, water and even guns in case of an emergency situation (like the apocalypse, an Obama victory, or the return of Jesus). In Croatia people stockpile presents in case of a REAL emergency: THEY NEED TO SUDDENLY GIVE SOMEONE A GIFT!!!
Gift giving is a big deal in Croatia. Come back from a trip: bring gifts. Go to dinner at someone’s house: bring gifts! See someone you haven’t seen in a while: bring a gift. Just look at someone: give her a gift! See the doctor, minister, principle, mechanic, bus driver: gift, gift, gift, gift, gift. You never know when you are going to need to give a gift to someone. So, it’s always important to have an extra box of chocolates, an extra packet of coffee, another necklace, some wine, or rakija stowed safely away.
What’s a little funny (OK, actually A LOT of funny) is that for all the emphasis on gift giving, most gifts are never ever even used! Nope. Nope. Once a gift is given it finds itself condemned to the mysterious gift vortex (which is like limbo for gifts). It will never be opened, eaten, or drank. Instead it will swirl around in the void, passing from one giver to another, then to another and so on. Most gifts end up in the secret gift closet and are then given again as gifts.
Each time I would travel to Croatia we would spend HOURS buying gifts for EVERYONE! We had to pick out just the perfect present for Person A, B, C, and D (all the way up to P). Little did I know, but few of these people would keep their gifts. This made some very confused moments among our friends when I saw that the gift we gave to person A, in this case a picture, somehow ended up on the wall of person C’s house. Or the necklace we bought for person B, ended up on the neck of person D’s daughter-in-law! Wha? Huh? Gift giving in Croatia is like some altruistic circle of life. (I think the same packet of coffee has made the circuit through our circle of friends at least two times).
In America we usually give gifts on birthdays and Christmas. If you return from a trip you can bring gifts back for your relatives’ kids. Buying gifts for your sister, nieces, nephews, cousins, uncles, aunts, in-laws, godparents, neighbors, friends, and the occasional, casual acquaintance is, believe it or not, uncommon. When I was living between these two worlds, my wife would insist I take presents back to EVERYONE each time I returned to the states. It was awful. Want a make a situation awkward in America, give an unexpected gift. We don’t know how to accept it. We think, what the? should we eat it now? drink it? WHAT DO WE DO? And Smiiiiiiiiile.
Want to make it extremely awkward, give a gift from abroad to a person you only talk to when their trash-can lids blow over into your yard. If I showed up at my neighbor’s house in America with a gift from Croatia, I imagine this older gentleman would just scratch himself, look suspiciously at the parcel in my hand, squint at the unintelligible foreign words written across the top of it and yell:
“Huh? You went where? What the hell is a Croatia?”
No. In America gift giving is not our custom. Sure, if you go to dinner at someone’s house you can bring a bottle of wine or something. Of course usually you just bring part of the meal, a side dish of pasta salad or some deviled eggs (more on THAT in another post). So you can imagine all of this was and is still new to me, but I’ve accepted its karmic principles: give a gift, get a gift. And sometimes: give a gift and get the same gift back. Eventually.
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we would make Ephraim Kishon proud with our eternal box of chocolates that makes the rounds from house to house xD
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This is soooo true. I know Croatians living in USA who have dozens of never unwrapped presents under their bed in never ending supply which they take out only in case they go visit someone for B-day party or relatives or someone invites them for some celebration. It used to irritate the hell out of me. And you forgot to mention that we NEVER throw out wrapping paper and ribbons. NEVER.
ah yes…the crappy booze you get from relatives = instant party gift!
Happy see you’re still hitting the cultural high points! If I could suggest a challenge? I’d love to read your take on the female fertility myths (as I’m sure you’ve heard tons) so I can feel justified when I refuse to wear a potkošulja or papuče (because let’s be honest, the function of ovaries is not dependent on covered kidneys/warm feet).
Oh, but it’s possible to break the cycle. If you’re an American who loves chocolate. Yes. I would stash away those endlessly arriving bonbonjeri and boxes of Napolitanke. But then…. I’d get hungry. I’d get a chocolate craving. And I’d go to the spajza… So when WE went visiting, we always had to stop at the store and buy fresh presents to take. What the heck, they probably bounced back to me eventually anyway!
Anna, I hope you know it’s NECESSARY to iron your underwear after washing it. Because “a woman is open down there.” If you don’t iron your underwear (to sterilize it), you’ll get an infection. I heard this from my mother-in-law, which used to be the equivalent of reading it on the Internet–so it must be true. Never mind that the washing machine has a “boil” cycle. The doctors say (she said), you HAVE to iron your underwear. (And everyone else’s.) And don’t forget you have to iron the diapers, too.
Oh Lord, I hadn’t heard that one yet… And yes, everyone freely quotes doctors when telling me “brinuti o svojim ženskim dijelovima.” I would love to meet these doctors! Mother-in-laws are notorious for these little pearls of wisdom- I wonder if there is advice for men’s fertility also?
Nancy, you are well informed and I hope you ironed your underwear! 😉 From what I know, the male underwear should be ironed, too – for the same reason. Doing the laundry in certain way is just as important. All the underwear, towels, and kitchen towels have to be washed on the boiling cycle. Finally, you cannot wash your underwear together with your kitchen towels; you simply do not mix those (for imaginary sanitary reasons again). :)Luckily, there is an entire ocean between my mom and me so she cannot see how I do my laundry and my AM husband could care less.
OMG Mira, you brought up the Big Hygiene No-No–washing underwear with kitchen towels!! I remember how grossed out my husband and in-laws were when I attempted to do that. When I pointed out that THEY used the same bath towels to dry their hands and face as they did to dry their post-bath butt–everyone’s ONE towel would be hanging off those stacked rods for a week at a time–they were reduced to speechlessness!However, five years there ingrained the habit in me. I have never again mixed my kitchen towels with my underwear. But I never ironed my underwear if I could get away without doing it, although I guess I did my husband’s for a long time. I’ll never forget my shock when I’d just arrived and my mother-in-law brought up my clean laundry: “…and I hung it out to dry in the sun and I folded it for you, and I ironed it, too” [smile, nod]. I thought she was just being excessively nice. “Oh, you didn’t have to IRON my underwear.” “Ohhh, YES, milo,” and then there was the “open down there” explanation.I also learned that it’s a bad reflection on a domacica if she hangs her wash out “grdo,” because the neighbors will think poorly of you. My mother-in-law had to teach me the correct way to hang out laundry. For example, men’s shirts must be hung upside down, with clothespins at the side seams. I can’t remember all the other rules, but there were plenty of them.Anna: I’m afraid I never heard anything about men’s fertility. But yes, the mother-in-laws were (are?) the direct pipeline from the doctor-gods. The doctor says you have to iron your underwear, and baby’s diapers. The doctor says you HAVE to give the baby tea. (“Tea!?” said my mother indignantly when she came for the birth. “My granddaughter’s not going to be fed TEA!” while my mother-in-law was practically crying, pleading desperately with me to give the baby tea, “to clean it out after the birth.”) Love those moms!Here’s my theory on the doctor’s advice. I bet in the old days, in the villages, the doctors DID tell moms to iron diapers, because no one yet had washing machines with boil cycles–but they DID have electricity and irons available, so this helped sterilize the diapers. And no one ever questioned the idea again. (This dawned on me when I saw one neighbor–in Zagreb but an area with old houses–washing out her diapers under the cold-water pump outside.And I bet the doctors DID tell moms to give their babies tea, because they knew then they’d boil the water. But somehow the advice morphed in mother-in-law minds from “if you’re going to give your babies something besides milk to drink, give them chamomile tea” to “the baby MUST have tea!”I felt so triumphant when the visiting nurse came several days after the birth and confirmed, in front of my husband and mother-in-law, that the baby did NOT have to have tea.
Oh no, Nancy! : ) I forgot about THE proper way of hanging the laundry to air dry. My grandmother tried to teach me how to do it properly for the same reason when I was a kid! I never got it and I never cared but I still remember that shirts had to be hung upside down and all laundry had to be grouped – shirts, pants, towels, underwear, etc. Silly memories from the past! Cody… sorry for hijacking your blog. 🙂
My mom is also always telling me I can’t hang laundry. That’s why she never lets me do it at home when we air dry it on the balcony, so that I wouldn’t embarass her in front of our neighbours 😀
Exactly, Mira!! I was going to mention the “grouping,” too. You can’t mix ’em up on the laundry line. Personally, I always thought it was far more embarrassing to hang the whole family’s undies out for the neighbors to see than to get caught hanging a shirt the wrong way and risk the wagging tongue of Susjeda Gina–“jesi vidjela kako je grdo objesila ves!”My mother-in-law was old school, but I must also say that she was a real dear, a very devoted and kind and loving woman who would do anything for her family and welcomed me with open arms. For all the fun I”m making of Croat customs, the people are gems.I, too, apologize for getting this thread off track, but I just couldn’t help it!
Ha ha 😀 Sorry for interrupting girls talks…So, I grew up “bogu iza nogu”. Had no sister to do house works, only elder brother and 1001 rule we had to stick while growing up. And, as life goes, I moved out. Big city, new work, new friends, and new girlfriend of course. At fist she would just spend evening or night at my place. Eventually, it comes to day-two. And then – shock. I really didn’t know what’s the problem. What did I do? Or didn’t do? After questioning myself first, and finding none, I start thinking about her behaviour. Is it those days in the month? Or she’s psycho? Poor girl. She thought I have some oppressive-compulsive disorder. All my life I thought that hanging laundry by type, size and colour is normal. Ironing socks, underwear, toilet towels, kitchen towels, linen, tablecloth, or jeans and summer shirts – have to do before sleep !So, we talked about it.Sky is somehow more blue now 😀
You forgot to mention the constant stream of lamentations about “good old times” All laundry was put to boil into a special big pot on the stove. That was the right thing to do, the loundry was cleaner, whiter and much much better this way. Mayself, I think that washers and dishwashers are biggest invention after the fire. But, some things are genetecally impressed i me. I still hang laundry by tipe and color, and iron almost everything. At least, God gave me enough brains not to complain when my doughter and douthers-in-law don`t do it.
Each time I read your new blog post I become aware of another thing that I considered normal until now. The truth about this post becomes apparent also in the fact that each time my mom would get a box of chocolate as a present she would say: “Look what I got today, but don’t eat, I may need to give it as a present to someone else”
Congratulations Cody!!!I found an article about you in a daily newspaper, and spent an hour googling you trying to find your blog that they mention…then I’ve spent the whole evening enjoying it!It should definitely become a book! Published both – in english as well as in croatian!You’ve got the talent, definetely! You’re on my Favorites bar now, so you better get down writing more… lolAll the best and keep up! Enjoy discovering this “piece of Earth that God has preserved for Himself, but gave it to Croatians”..as that song of Shorty nicely states…
So the main problem is when you give a present to lets say a doctor. And you wrap it up in a white paper and put some money inside. Usually doctors receive tons of gifts for various reasons and do not ever use it. Lets say booze. They have a ton of good quality booze that they pass on. And unfortunately they sometimes pass on money within the wrapped box of chocolates. You never know what you will find in your gift!! So open it, check if the date is OK, and eat/drink it!
well, that’s why you shouldn’t bribe doctors : (of course it’s not the only reason)
Hmm, when I lived there in the early 1980s, you bribed doctors and others (or at least showed your appreciation, a “znak paznje”) with the famous “plava koverta” (blue envelope), a plain blue envelope full of money.
mirjana – kitchen towels as in kuhinjske krpe? sori al ti ti ne ide s gacama nikako, evo jeza me hvata bas sad. ja svoje kuhinjske krpe prvo namocim u wanishu na 1 dan, pa perem na 90 jer mi inacesmrde i ne daju se oprati. valjda vecina razumije hrvatski (ukljucujuci i autora bloga, blog je super 🙂
True story: We received the same (unique and therefore easily recognized) bottle of wine as a gift on two separate occasions from two different families. The second time we got it as a gift, we finally caved in and drank it.
Ha! That’s hilarious.
True story, all the way!!!
I still cannot decide what is funnier – reading your blog or the comments after 😀 I’m so glad I have discovered you! :))
Thank you for the sensible critique. Me and my neighbor were just preparing to do a little research about this. We got a grab a book from our area library but I think I learned more from this post. I’m very glad to see such excellent info being shared freely out there.
I laughed my ass off, and you know what…I’m a croatian! 😀 I exactly know what you’re talking about. This circle of uncontrolable giving gifts won’t stop, ever! Our country is so magical, gotta love it – just like your blog 🙂
Greetings from Samobor! (If you haven’t been to this beautiful city, GOOGLE it at least, i think you will love it!)
🙂
(I think the same packet of coffee has made the circuit through our circle of friends at least two times)
This is so true, the same packet of coffee can make circuits for years 😀
now you set me thinking. Five years ago I moved to Zagreb to go to uni, to a fresh new flat devoid of all the secret gift piles. and now, reading this post, I realized that I have actually started my own collection of re-cyclable gifts – it’s terrible! I wasn’t in the slightest aware of this!
I can speak to this topic as an American with Croatian relatives.
When you come from America, it is almost expected that you bring a suitcase full of “gifts” (usually Coffee) to each of your aunts, grandfolks, cousins, etc.
This has been going on for decades, since the days of the old Yugoslavia.
Funny thing is, I still see that same container of Koolaid sitting in my aunt’s pantry many years after it has expired. LOL. And that coffee I brought to grandma, she ended up using it as a “gift” to pay off another grandma.
Then there is coming Back from Croatia… another suitcase full of gifts for the relatives HERE. If you don’t bring everyone a bottle of Maraskino and Kras chocolate then you will seriously be disowned!!! no joke!
Groan… my daughter never used to be able to come back from a visit to Croatia without at least half a dozen crocheted doilies that certain female relatives insisted on sending me. I like doilies all right, but it got to be quite a joke with my daughter and me. I probably have more hand-crocheted doilies in my house (most stashed in drawers) than everyone else in my city of half a million people.
Bottom line is.. Croatians are VERY resourceful people!
I always tell the tale of my 2 fathers.. my American dad and the Croatian dad.
My American dad worked in corporate america, got laid off a few times, took out a mortgage to live the american “middle class dream”, took out another loan to start a business, bought a few cars with more loans, got married, had some kids, the business failed, the loans all came due, wife divorced him and took half, lost most of his money, kids stuffed him in a retirement home. No one even visits him.. he lives on boiled potatoes and a meager pension, just waiting to die.
My Croatian dad came to America and eventually got a well-paying Union job and his company paid his education which made him even more money. He lived modestly for 30 years but was able to own a car, always had food on the table, no debt, and money to visit Croatia every summer. At 60 he is now retired on a full pension, saved a good $100K in the bank, and moved back to Croatia to live on all that cash$$ for the rest of his life.. in a house he inherited from his father from his father’s father. No mortgage, rent, or retirement home. The sea is within walking distance, he grows alot of his own food or catches fish, and there is always family nearby to help.
Croatians… resourceful people!
Try to get aquainted with Istra. It is most prosperous part of Croatia but in some ways still in 19th century. I myself am still newcomer, barely acknowledged by neighbours (she is from the City. She is different) And worst of all I loved life in the city. Back to gifts. 9 years ago my in-lows got sick and being retired my husband and I transfered to his parental home. After some time my mother-inlow died. For 2 days, till funeral we had constant stream of visitors, relatives, friends, neghbours and some strange people that nobody new who they were. They were helping us with the wake. God forbids that exausted family goes to sleep. Lights must be on day and night. Needless to say, after few glasses of wine, they forgot the occasion and started to enjoy the company. Jokes, laughter, loud speaking were heard from our house in the late night silence. And all of them came with plastic bags from nearby shop with identival contents, cofee, juice and napolitanke. I was descreetly adviced to put in each and every bag the note with donors name. It was for later bookkeeping. It was to control if all our previous gifts were returned, and to know when somebody elses parent die what is going to be the worth of our future gift. Same applies to wedding. It is well known who is going to bring some coffe, olive oil and rice or sugar only, and who should spit the cash for dishwasher. Needles to say, I neglectet notes with names.
H there,
I haven’t read the comments, just read your post, and you are so right. I live in then Netherlands, and would you know… I have a little cupboard full of gifts that I bought in advance for my family and friends. So, God forbid I forget the birthday or a wedding anniversary or anything like that and it is Sunday and shops over here do not work (catholic south of the Netherlands; shops work up North in the protestant and mixed p-c part of NL). I am stocked! See, they do come handy. 🙂
Of course, they are not that handy when I am in Croatia and all my presents are in the Netherlands, are they?
Regz from Eindhoven
p.s. This summer my friend I’ve known for more than 20 years (long friendships, met her during summer vacations when just a teenager) showed me your blog. I started reading from the beginning, including the comments and enjoyed it so much (still looong way to read the rest). I showed it to my Dutch hubby, and will ask him to read it thoroughly. It could actually help quite a lot to show those hidden cultural differences that make our life more difficult. Nah, not difficult, interesting. 🙂