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What are the things which cause culture shock in Poland? [164]
I'd say the biggest difference and the hardest for anglophones, me included, to fully come to grips with) comes under the general heading of 'rules'.
For a Brit, according to stereotypes (mostly accurate imho at the individual level), there shouldn't be too many rules*. For Polish people (IME) there need to be a lot of rules, the more the better (which is why government efforts to trim the bureaucracy are bound to fail - despite what they say, Polish people want there to be bureacracies with lots of rules.
For British people rules need to make sense and be fair. Polish people just don't care whether or not rules make sense or are fair (the reason for this in a moment).
Brits also think everybody needs to follow the rules while Poles think other people should follow them and treat the question of whether or not to follow them themselves as one of personal discretion. If you don't like a rule and think you can get around it, more power to you!
Another area is medical care. British people think most illness will naturally work themselves out and oddly enough doctors seem to think that too. The British press is full of people dieing after 6 British doctors fail to recognize some really hard to miss disease.
That happens much less often in Poland where people tend toward hypochondria and are supported in all their most dire predictions by most doctors. Anything out of the ordinary is thought to probably be dangerous and you can go to the doctor for something minor that seems obvious and you'll wind up taking 6 tests for other things and have three new prescriptions. (post operative care is also more thorough a former British colleague had a procedure done in Britain and their Polish doctor was horrified at how little follow up there was.
*I know this is not backed up by UK governments over the last 15 years or so, but I'm pretty certain that UK governments over the last 15 years or so have been purposefully trying to destroy the British state and build something different so I'm not sure if that counts.
