UK, Ireland / TRUTH AND DELUSION ABOUT POLES IN UK [65]


The Welsh have a history of doing this with incomers, particularly the English, so again, no special treatment for Poles there. A particular fringe see themselves as an oppressed and exploited people and resent people buying Welsh land and houses and running up the prices. A few years ago a number of English owned premises were firebombed. Mind you, at least Poles can buy land in UK, foreigners had to wait 7 years to buy land in EU Poland, if I remember correctly.

Another reason for some antagonism against Polish dwellings was the practice of local firms renting accomodation for their Polish workers and queue jumping the rnting/buying process. This happened in Telford, Shropshire when a syndicate had promised a number of local families new flats. In some cases two weeks before they were due to move in they were told the flats weren't available. It turned out a local factory had hird all the flats for their incoming workers (funnily enough the local press played it down, so I'm told).

I live and work in Poland and I've had absolutely nothing but hassle concerning bureaucracy... 'foreigners can't start firms in Poland!' (seems the local offices had thir own ideas), "You can't get credit because you don't have an id with your PESEL" (which is a card which doesn't exist), "you can't get 5 year credit to buy a car because you don't have 5 years on your id card and you might run away back to UK".

As for minimum wages and no contracts, fact of life for many Brits (I remember seeing a programme in Poland about how Ireland had no minimum wage). A friend of mine has worked over 20 years in the temp market and now has not been able to get work for over 6 months. I workd as a temp in UK during the summer (2008) and it took me weeks to find a job (they wouldn't accept my UK photo driving licence as id!!!!) and then it was only 6 quid an hour. McD's pay 6.37! I was told the rate hadn't moved in 3 years.

Ironically I was earning more in Poland as an hourly wage.

As to only taking low wage jobs... if you are not going to stay long in a country and forge a career it can be hard to get well paid jobs. I heard several times that employers were moaning that there wer a lack of skilled workers in highly skilled jobs which could have been filled by Polish workers IF they had tried for them.

Travel / Valkyrie movie - have you been in Wilczy Szaniec??? [4]


Yep... take your Mosquito repellent.

It is interesting but it is pretty well destroyed and is largely a collection of demolished blocks. It's not like you can walk down into the bunker.

Life / Just cross the damn road...Is Poland strict about road crossing rules? [13]

In Poland the best place to get killed is on a zebra crossing. If one driver stops the others are so busy looking at him they don't see the pedestrian and drive straight across the crossing.

Drivers generally don't stop so pedestrians are often wary of crossing. Sometimes I've seen the whole street stopped and the old biddy waves the car on!

Also the zebras are often placed as close to a junction as possible so drivers have to watching several things at once and don't stop.

Life / Traditional Polish Music - Where can I find some? [25]

Maybe these?

Life / What is kolęda? [11]

Kolęda is a form of carolling. It starts after Christmas and can go on until Candlemas. It sometimes blends in with carnival guising as well.

It's form might differ in different areas but it is generally a bit like British Mummers plays. Kolędnicy often dress as different charcters, King Herod, Death, The Devil, Jew etc. They go to houses and perform songs, dances and perhaps a short play about Herod being taken by Death.

In some areas there might also be a 'Szopka' puppetshow.

It can get pretty rowdy. In the old days it wasn't unusual for soot to be thrown across the house. The people in the house would give food or money (I've heard of alsorts going in the same bag... cakes and bloody, raw meat etc). I heard of one kolędnik who told his wife not to let him and the others in because the house would get trashed. Needless to say, a fair amount of vodka would be consumed.

These days it still exists but often it is done by kids or theatre groups.

Found this on Youtube: uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eV1uiDpAL9s

There's a scene in the film "Chłopy" (is that spelt right?)

Life / Facebook - is it popular in Poland? [22]

Many of my students are of FB but I think more of the older people are on NK (looking for old friends).

The thing with FB and MS is that many younger Poles have international friends.

UK, Ireland / WHY DO POLISH PEOPLE THAT COME TO ENGLAND CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH? [118]


Agreed, however that she even tried to tell me that was just too funny, especially as her son is studying in a UK university.

UK, Ireland / WHY DO POLISH PEOPLE THAT COME TO ENGLAND CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH? [118]

Mr H, what if the factory worker was deaf or non-speaking? Would you still discriminate? Presumably such workers are under the charge/supervision of a Polish speaking gang leader/charge hand.

"Should I expect free Polish lessons if I went to Poland ?"

No way! In Olsztyn the immigration office doesn't even have an English speaking member of staff! My bank, which claims it speaks English, has a member of staff who deals with credit cards who doesn't speak English and I ended up having to just hope I knew what she was on about.

The school where I work was part of something called EFS, an EU funded programme of free language courses. The paperwork was horrendous and was all in Polish. The administrator even refused to fill in forms for me (so I could just sign it) but she had to write the information out for me in Polish for me to copy. "Why not just write it out on the form?" "We have different handwriting... they might not accept it!"

When I commented that as an EU citizen involved in an EU project I should be able to get forms in my native language... "Oh!" says she, "I'm sure if I went to England I'd have to learn English to read all the paperwork..." My shrieks of laughter have resulted in a large bill for new windows all the way up the street.

I once applied for credit to buy a laptop at a local cash'n'carry. GE Moneybank refused me credit, despite me showing evidence of being self-employed and a regular tax payer. Their reason? My ID card doesn't have my PESEL (lik an NI number) on it. Such cards do not exist for EU foreigners!

UK, Ireland / What do Polish people think of Ireland and the Irish? [50]

Fiish,

I live in Warmia (so can't talk about the big smokes like warsaw and Krakow) and several of my friends have worked in Ireland and even have Irish husbands/boyfriends.

People want to go back to Ireland. So they must like it and the Irish.

There are more tourists coming from Ireland. They seem to have a good time.

Oh, and there's a Irish dancing group in Olsztyn. The kids are fanatical about all things Irish.

UK, Ireland / WHY DO POLISH PEOPLE THAT COME TO ENGLAND CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH? [118]

Just a few observations:

In UK many people had not been abroad on holidays until the 1970's. Being an island there was often little contact with non-English speaking cultures in many parts of UK. OK, if you lived in a city you might be in regular contact but not so much in other areas. In some ways this explains why people didn't bother learning languages so much. I mean, I grew up in Shropshire and learned French and German at school. In 25 years (I'm older now) I only ever met 2 French people once in my area... so what good was my French.

In areas of Europe you were/are more likely to find speakers of other languages and more likely to have a reason (trade, tourism etc) to learn another language (think Russian, German etc).

Funnily enough, I was more likely to experience Polish or Czech because of the 'displaced' people who came to the area after the war. But as such immigrants usually assimilated they would probably speak English amongst 'the natives' (even today you'll find many old Poles don't speak Polish to learners of Polish).

I'm now teaching English in Poland and find there is a high level amongst many of the younger people... and a willingness and reason to learn the language. Amongst the older people it is often German... very useful for speaking to tourists (so, a reason to speak it). In fact, when I was in Mazury recently nobody would speak Polish to me... only bloody German!!!!! Ich weisse nicht, ist mein Polnisch sehr schlecht (or only my German)?

The standard of English education outside the large towns is a problem, partly because they can't get decent teachers and partly because no decent teacher would want to work for the wages when they could make more in a private school. There's a lack of facilities generally in the villages and that includes education in many places.

A few years ago I was teaching English on a course run by the Irish Tourist Board for young Poles to go and work in hotels in Ireland. It was a 10 week trade-training course for waiters, barstaff, cleaners and kitchen staff. It was also run in English. When the course was run in areas like Poznan many of the applicants had good English because thy were town educated and often university educated. Whe the course was invited into Warmia/Mazury (because of the high unemployment) many of the applicants were from rural areas and did not have the necessary level of English. After 2 or 3 years the course closed... one year there wasn't even the necessary number of trainees because the levels of English were too low.

So, why do Poles come to England who can't speak English? Well, having worked a few years in factories myself, I know you don't always need to say (or hear) much to work a press or pack boxes. You can guess what the food is in the shops (pictures on wrappers are great things). Oh, and when a job in McD's pays more in a week than you might make in 2 months in your dead end village... go figure.

By the way, I think it is easier to get by in UK with poor English than it is to get by in Poland with poor Polish. At least in UK people are used to hearing forigners speak poor English and get the drift easily. In some areas of Poland the experience of hearing a student of Polish making a mess of it is something out of a fantasy novel... it's almost like they can't understand that you don't speak Polish. In Britain we supposedly speaker LOUDER and SLO-O-OWEEER!, whereas in Poland they speak faster!

UK, Ireland / Scottish Festival to include Polish bands. [8]

I once tried to get Celtic Connections to include some Polish bands. It was like banging my head against a brick wall. I provided CDs and info of some of the biggest and successful traditional and klezmer bands and was told, "Maybe they could come and play the open stage!"

UK, Ireland / 90,000 Scottish Immigrants in Poland! [67]

I wonder whether he spoke Latin as his working language when he first arrived. In Warmia there is a town, Braniewo, where once used to be a Jesuit College which was co-founded by a Scot. In a little village on the main road to Braniewo is a small chapel built (1617) by a Scot who started as a farm-labourer in East Prussia and gained an education at Braniewo, later becoming a rich merchant. I have some photos if anyone is interested.

UK, Ireland / 90,000 Scottish Immigrants in Poland! [67]

This might be of interest: warsaw-life.com/news/news/1228-Warsaw's_Scottish_Mayor_Remembered

I've also found a couple of places in Warmia-Mazury with Scottish connections.

Life / When in Poland, should I be British or Scottish? [104]

My father was Scottish and I lived in Scotland about 10 years bfore coming to Poland with a theatre group. People just assumed I was Scottish and I didn't really contradict them unless they asked outright (naughty of me, I know).

That said, since then I've been described as "English", "British", "Scottish" and "A Real Irishman" (not sure where that came from).

UK, Ireland / 90,000 Scottish Immigrants in Poland! [67]

There wer a fw Scots came over to Poland for the Northern Crusades (with the Teutonic Knights). Szkotowo, near Nidzica was founded in 1348. Nidzica was founded later by the Teutons.

The website electricscotland.com has 3 old books which have information about Scots in Poland/Germany/Prussia (they are from 1902, 1903, 1916 so they talk about Gdansk, Poznan etc as being in Germany).

Another book worth reading is "Agents of Change: Scots in Poland 1800-1918" by Mona K McLeod (Tuckwell Press 2000).

For those who wonder about clans, not all Scots names are connected to clans, particularly if they are lowlanders, as many settlers were.