Work / Why English Teachers stay long term in Poland [30]

I'm glad you don't regret it, CMS, however you might find you enjoy in-company teaching in Poalnd more than method language schools, though without a teaching qualification it does make things harder. The frog in the simmering pot is an interesting metaphor. Remember that after a while some people consciously choose to cut ties with their home country (Poland ceases to be "strange" after a few years) and others find the ties cut for them. Just as Poles who emigrated find that Poland has changed hugely in their absence, it also goes the same way.

There was a lady I slightly knew who'd travelled the world, really some amazing places as a (high-end) EFL teacher. She finally settled in Poland towards the end of her career and stayed on in retirement. A lovely home in a good part off Warsaw a few tram stops from the centre. The philharmonic twice a week, opera or ballet twice a month, plenty of art exhibitions and a great life in a nice capital. Then her health started to fail and she was faced with the dreadful prospect of failing Polish language skills. Her worst fear was realised and she did indeed end up going home to some god-awful place in the mid-west U.S., surrounded by miles of fields and the nearest professional theatre 300 miles away. Nevertheless shed spent a far more rewarding life than most career monkeys and even the most boring bits were better than day, month, year in year out staring at the water cooler in an office back home.

Life is what you make it; your career (if you're lucky) will turn out very differently than you plan. Poland can be a wonderful place to live, especially in my opinion Warsaw - others are happy in other cities and although many do move on, others realise that they've found their home.

Work / Why English Teachers stay long term in Poland [30]


Pretty well my sentiments. The guy's still relatively young and wet behind the ears and only a couple of weeks ago was asking about method schools in South West Poland not knowing what it actually entails. A career start in Poland can lead in various directions. For some, doing military English at the British Council somewhere interesting in Africa, teaching EAP at a Japanese University or technical English upstream on an oilfield in Kazhakstan for megabucks is a nice career. For others, there's very good work to be found in Poland. Though not unqualified work at method schools in one-horse towns.


Remember, some people do like being in Poland. It can be a bit of a staging post, and when the Polish EFL gold rush happened a few years ago, a lot of people passed through and some stayed. Yes, some became washed up in situations similar to those you describe - the EFL 'stayed too long' person is a real phenomenon - but most didn't. Some found wives, husbands, partners, some found very rewarding work in Poland (it definitely does exist) and some do have qualifications that allow them to earn a good living, often textbook writing (can pay a fortune and most mainstream course books are trialled in Poland), EFL Management and/or Technical English which was the route I took, or as an examiner for the Cambridge Suite, LCCI, BULATS etc.

By the way, I certainly wasn't comfortably off before I came to PL - I brought very little with me having been a public sector worker only a few years older than the OP and a natural spender rather than a saver however life took off in so many ways thanks to the decision one day years ago to move to Warsaw.

Law / Cheated $21009 by a Polish man - what shall i do? [15]

Depends on contracts. In Poland, if it isn't on paper in the correct format and with a rubber stamp (that bit's essential) it never happened.

Love / Polish girlfriend told me we cant have sex because I'm not religious [40]

Presumably because they


She's probably just waiting until she gets married or settles down with someone at least. Some girls still do that. Or she just doesn't feel ready.

The OP doesn't mention their ages, however I suspect neither of them are very old or very experienced.

Work / Why English Teachers stay long term in Poland [30]

Well, some choose it as a second career (or even a first career) and stay in Poland because they like it. In a decade of teaching EFl in Poland (and a decade in other places) I've never come across the


among language trainers - perhaps you associated with the wrong people.

Plenty have found that they like Poland, they've found themselves at home there, they've found the love of their life etc. often people have a private income from home, perhaps by letting out their house in the UK or US. Many just want to be in Poland because they have family roots there or enjoy some other aspect of the place. Warsaw is a great place to live

I do agree that the Middle East and offshore petrochemicals rigs/vessels pay much, much higher salaries however it doesn't necessarily mean


- I've always managed to do it without being away for more than 3 months at a time and then back in PL for a nice while. I can think of quite a few people who do month on month off work (including myself) who choose to live in Poland. This gives you close to 50% of your time at leisure in your home and usually a 6 figure (in dollars anyway) tax-free salary.

So not as bleak as you make out.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]


Pretty well the same things that people have rioted about for centuries including in Poland over the ages. If anything it happens less than before. So, if you really do cherish tradition rather than just control, you should approve of it.

Genealogy / Suminska surname. Is my Polish Grandmother a Jew? [9]


Quite popular before the war in Bialystok, especially among Jewish people who converted.


Or for that matter with one led in the same period by a pope who married his own niece and another who poisoned his son.

That's veering off topic though. It is however relevant to the OP that people did convert and for various personal reasons..

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]


I see what you mean about not throwing the baby out with the bath water - an idiom which by the way exists in both Polish and English - however unlike Pol3 I believe things are changing for the better. As for minorities, one change is that as society becomes less rural and more pluralistic in Poland (i.e. a virtual urbanisation caused by increased mobility - a century ago most people never left their village, and a real urbanisation caused by population movements) people who do not fit a real or imagined 'norm' are simply less unusual and less excluded. And after all, urban Poland has always been a pluralistic society.

Inevitable change in Poland or elsewhere doesn't mean discarding valuable traditions, merely discarding the less desirable mores of the past.

@The Other, yes, nobody today should feel guilty about the crusades. In any case they were motivated by greed rather than religion - the religious aspect was part and parcel of the contemporary habit of seeing everything through a filter of religion since they knew no better. Interesting if there were any Polish crusaders? There were certainly some German Silesian ones.

Genealogy / Suminska surname. Is my Polish Grandmother a Jew? [9]

Extremely rare except for people trying to survive during the last war. Most converts did so because they wanted to, perhaps to change their social status or simply because of religious belief. Anglicanism was a popular choice, especially in Warsaw and Bialystok - it was seen as being free of anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

Exactly. And in Poland, there have always been different opinions. There has always been a conservative current just as there have always been a liberal one. Due as much to the religious establishment and the judgemental behaviour -


- of people from certain tendencies as sociopolitical factors and the appeal of progress, Poland is becoming less conservative and traditional by the day. As I say, it's impossible to freeze time.

By the way, drink, drugs and the love of money have always been around in Poland, even in this mythic Golden Age that Pol3 would like to see return.

Work / Cost of living in Warsaw with two kids [14]


You're beginning to sound like the wrong sort of person from an HR department in the wrong sort of company. And not one here in Europe. The job may well be fine and the OP is obviously very seriously considering it. It will take careful planning re. education and child care, however it may be one of the better possibilities that the OP has and could also open a lot of doors.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

That's nothing new. In fact all of those things are more of the past than the present. What you're in effect saying is that you just hate life.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

Hard to see the point you're making Pol3. You seem to be prophesying an inevitable downfall without one single positive comment or, (frankly ignoring the best traditions of hysterical prophecy) making any suggestions about how to avoid the unavoidable. Except perhaps by trying to turn the clock back, cling blindly to traditions formed under different circumstances, and never change - which we've established is impossible.

@NocyMrok, you make a very good point, as always :-)

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

The whole point is that humans anthropomorphise. In Europe anyway. All those depictions in human form. Science tries to do the opposite; it accepts nothing without proof. A long tradition of that in Poland, centuries old and running parallel to the concepts that Pol3 prefers.

Interesting about the human instinct to believe - this runs very deep and seems the same whatever the person believes in.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

@Nocymrok, Dardawk last posted 3 years ago.

Google the phrase you're interested in - it's much to do with the very human habit of anthropomorphising the unknowable. He is using it ironically (and misplacedly) in the context of religious tradition in Poland B.

Study / Is there racism in Poznan and hate crime against coloured people (students)? [59]

Poznan is fine, plenty of people from other continents, especially at the universities. Warsaw is even better.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]


Who's talking about Poland? Check out the thread title. Spengler, by the way, is much debate and his hypotheses are far from a given. The world does change, constantly, and no, you can't stop that in Poland or anywhere else.

To stay closer to the thread title, it's actually a false question. In the cities Poland isn't that conservative and is getting less religious all the time. Whether you personally approve or disapprove. And yes, I do think the world is becoming a better place.

Genealogy / Suminska surname. Is my Polish Grandmother a Jew? [9]

@kujawa4sure, you might like to look here at a list of surnames of Jewish people in the Bialystok region. The list includes Slominski.
jri-poland.org/surnames/bialysto.htm

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

Not very relevant to the thread and full of the usual nonsense. There's no suggestion that ISIS are going to 'take over' in Poland and whether you like it or not, the country is drifting away from the ultra-conservative Catholicism that was thriving under the unusual conditions the country experienced.


You object to pleasure? Can't be much fun in your house...

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

It happens anyway, Pol3, and you can't turn the clock back. Change is good - nobody in their right mind would want to be stuck in some parody of a Golden Age which never existed. Impossible anyway.

News / Should Poland change its Government from Parliamentary to American Style Republic? One-mandate districts? [20]

Well, Poland's had both far right and far left governments and people do seem to be happy with the centre-right government we have now. When a more socially conservative one briefly held office due to an unelected coalition with fascists and agrarian protesters they were voted out at the earliest opportunity. People don't like extremes.

One huge benefit of the first past the post system is that it keeps extreme nationalists out, unfortunately at the expense of more moderate groups like greens.

News / Should Poland change its Government from Parliamentary to American Style Republic? One-mandate districts? [20]

Or makes for stability. Preferable to the system in PL where people Sometimes don't know the name of their representative.

Having said that, if the UK had proportional representation, we wouldn't have all those Scottish Nationalists, we'd have a decent handful of greens and the conservatives wouldn't be continuing - many people voted for left/centre left parties.

Study / Studying in University of Lodz as an Indian student? What's the city like - is it safe here? [56]

Both are good, as is Lodz. Any big city is fine.

Why not start a separate thread?

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

People move from place to place, ideas change, historical factors that shape behaviour (and in the case of Poland the excessive role of the RCC and reactions in certain circles against any innovation) come and go. Since the days of the early Celts or the Neolithic Beaker People, Europeans have been adopting new cultural packages and ditching some older traditions while keeping new ones. Just the way things are.

News / Should Poland change its Government from Parliamentary to American Style Republic? One-mandate districts? [20]

It certainly gives interesting results however you have to balance that against everybody knowing who their representative is, members of a local party being able to deselect them and any member of the public having access to their MP in their surgery.

News / Presidential elections and debates 2015 Poland [472]

I liked Kwaśniewski too - despite the drunken antics he did have charisma which the current one doesn't. One thing I like about him is that he never set out to be a leader - power was thrust upon him automatically when the duck was killed. And he's not put a foot wrong since.

The thought of some walking moustache like Duda getting the job is grim. Even Ogórek would be better. Personally I think Anna Grodzka would make a great President but there's no way she'd appeal to small town Poland. Perhaps she should become the Speaker of the Sejm and we could save up to buy Duda a Tupolev...

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

All of those are just stereotypes and inaccurate ones at that. The important thing is that the factors that made people cling on to things for the sake of tradition are now largely absent and perhaps for the same reasons religious observance is dropping dramatically.

News / Presidential elections and debates 2015 Poland [472]

Now you know that simply isn't true. The polls show him in a fairly good position. He's a little too conservative for my tastes however he's done the job very well - he's certainly the best President Poland has had so far.

Travel / Polish Architecture [147]

Merged: Best modern architecture in Europe prize - for Szczecin

The biannual Mies Van Der Rohe prize has gone to Poland. In effect, it's for the best modern building in Europe over the last two years - the building in question is the new Szczecin Philharmonic. It's certainly a very good building and very radical architecture.

This link is to a Polish article, saying more or less as above and with a good picture.


polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kraj/1610941,1,filharmonia-szczecinska-najlepszym-budynkiem-europy.read

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UK, Ireland / Polish plane almost kills off UKIP leader Nigel Farage in 2010. [24]


And won 2. Let's hope Farage sticks to his promise and resigns


Plenty across the UK don't.