Croatia

So today i met up with deadspeaker and starchild and melissa (that's why everyone has such weird nicknames) and deryao and a special guest star: deadspeaker's croatian friend, Vladimir. (his last name...... somehow too complicated to remember.)

How did they meet? well shall we say there were elements of science fiction, technology, and linguistics thrown in.....as well as some hot croatian babe somewhere too.

Anyway the point is that besides our usual catching up, we talked to him about Croatia too, and I learnt a fair bit about this country i knew next to nothing about. About their military and parades and things where Vladimir, as a kid, would pretend to be wounded with a gash on his leg or smth, and lie on the ground and medics would come and treat him, and with all the gunfire and tanks and planes and stuff it almost seemed like a real war.... about how the country was actually pretty modernised and the standard of living was akin to some western european countries until the nationalists put their own people in charge of the successful industrial companies and bankrupted them... about how nobody really reads and children treat the latest harry potter book more like a status symbol than a storybook... which is why the Neil Gaiman books he translated (American Gods, Stardust, Endless Nights) aren't getting published coz the publisher thinks there's no market ("tell Neil Vladimir said hi") and all sorts of things.

So i realise that I've always thought of Croatia as a sort of backward country, in a sort of Goodbye Lenin kinda backward, but the truth is that it's backward only insofar as political regime and public systems are kinda backward, and their level of exposure to technology and pop culture and such are, while not quite as deep as, say, paris, are still reasonably representative of the 21st century. Did that make sense?

Anyway places exist where the whole society has rather different motivations than social progress.

.......

I want to visit them.