News / Don't go to Poland ... because you could end up coming back in a coffin [313]


Whereas in Oxford, you could just walk down the street without the slightest fear, as we all do here. The worst we anticipate is perhaps tripping on a bit of uneven pavement.


... they started because some idiot said it would be more dangerous for a non-white person to go to the Olympic Games in London than to a town somewhere with a strong Hitler Youth following ... we have to admit that the UK is way more friendly to all people, because we are made up of so many different people now ... whether that is a good or bad thing is another matter, but Poland was closed for so long, no wonder they all look sideways at anyone different. It all just takes time. I hope nobody comes back from Euro 2012 in a coffin. I doubt they will.

News / Don't go to Poland ... because you could end up coming back in a coffin [313]


To be fair, you really wouldn't get UK fans shouting racial abuse from the stands in a football match, at, for example, black players, or attacking a group of Asian students who are supporting the same side. Or any side. There is such a mix of people here, that kind of blatant racism doesn't happen. Football matches are for families with kids ... So you really won't get racial abuse at the Olympics from Brits - we are an amazingly tolerant and accepting society here (which has its downsides, but in general is a positive thing).

Come on. We spend all the time on here saying how Brits are x, y and z - let me stand up for us for once. It is bollocks to say there is as much or more chance of racism at the Olympics as in Poland and Ukraine for the football. Poland is like Britain 50 years or more ago re: non-white races. Or almost worse. The comments I have heard from Poles about, for example, anyone black are just unrepeatable. And I genuinely would never ever hear anything at all like that from a self-respecting Brit.

OK. All get het up about that now ... ; )

Love / Polish men calling polish girl for dating englishman [80]


can quite believe it. here in Oxford the view tends to be that she has somehow struck gold if with an English guy, not least in that he will do the washing-up and cook supper and be generally nice, as opposed to, er, 'where's me tea?' and 'bend over ...' (what she might expect in Polish ...)

Life / Why is cheating at schools in Poland accepted?! [155]


Absolutely. Lying in court is the first thing Poles would expect to do - almost like a kind of obligation ... 'I swear to tell lies, complete lies, and nothing but outrageous lies, so help me God ...' ; )

Seriously. It is breathtaking to us sobbingly-truthful Brits. Almost awesome the way Poles lie.

Love / Polish men calling polish girl for dating englishman [80]


Yes, so you say, but you are being coy here ... there is something you are not telling us. Because English isn't your mother tongue - of course it isn't. Am not meaning to offend you in any way, but it is quite clear from your language that English isn't your first language (well, I hope not ; ). So where are you from? Because what people are trying to say is that if you are of any immigrant English/British origin, the 'objection' of those Poles at work will pretty much be without doubt to your original ethnicity.

I haven't ever seen Polish guys disapproving of a Polish woman with 'Anglo Saxon' male, but I have seen the whole community commenting with horror at Polish women with guys of other ethnicity (even if they have British passports). That's how it goes.

So just the passport isn't enough, I'm afraid. Or should I say: it isn't the passport they are objecting to.

But, as you know, the only important thing is that the two of you are happy, and if you are, then stuff the guys at her work. Sue them for racism. Find a different job for her. Do something so neither of you have to come into contact with this, because it doesn't sound great.

Polish men (some of them) see Polish women with men of exotic ethnicity as a kind of prostitution, I think. They can't believe a woman would want to be with anyone else just because she likes the guy ... they think there must be more to the deal than that.

Life / Polish Film World and Poland Movie Reviews [30]

Merged: A Short Film About Love says everything ... ?

Does this film, one of Kieslowski's best, surely not encapsulate everything it is that we non-Poles love about the Polish?

Way before I ever went to Poland, I watched this film one night, just out of my teenage years, on a battered sofa in an old Victorian shared house, about as English as you could get, and I was totally blown away. And I thought: Is there really a place on Earth where these things are brought into such exquisite focus, and are given such importance, as in this film? That film made me cry. It really did. And I cried because I thought: I have come home.

Then I found that place ... and two kids later ...

But seriously. I am interested. Is it just my lyrical, fanciful self enjoying a bit of sexy Euro-Kino, or is there not something in this? The question:

What is it (apart from lovely faces in the women / nice biceps in the men) that we non-Poles find so delectable about Polish people?

Life / You've been in Poland a while if .... [49]


Are you a doctor, then? Or just very sure of yourself / good on google? ; )

Life / Why is cheating at schools in Poland accepted?! [155]


Statistics about who cheats are easy to find - yes, no doubt cheating is now rife in the UK as well, and yes, of course, naturally, coursework was an open invitation to parents and others to get A*s for the kids ... so that the exam results would look better (that's another story) ... but this question is about cheating being ACCEPTED. There is a fundamental difference between Poland and the UK in this. In the UK it is a shameful thing to do, however many do it. In Poland, how well you cheat is a badge of honour. So we should be discussing what it is in the Polish (and of course other European, but this is a Polish forum) mentality and national identity that makes cheating a sensible, clever, necessary skill. That is the interesting thing. And for that, I think, as I said before, we have to go back and look at what it was in the Polish environment that made this skill essential ...

Life / Why is cheating at schools in Poland accepted?! [155]

The strongest deterrent in the UK is the strict indoctrination throughout childhood that:

- If you tell the truth, everything will be ok
- (and you must tell the truth)
- If you cheat in an exam, it is pretty much the worst and most shameful thing you could ever ever do ... you should do well on your own merits.

Believe it or not, that is why cheating was unheard of at my school. Apart from one American girl who wrote something on her hand, and none of us spoke to her much after that. She was tainted.

In Poland it is totally different, because of their geographical position. In Poland being able to cheat/to judge when it was ok to tell the truth or be honest without blindly trusting was ... a matter of life or death. We weren't invaded by Germans or Russians. The Poles were. They had to become who they are in order to survive. The cheating in schools is just one example of the heritage of an occupied-country mentality ... and people still live as if in times of war, in my opinion.

So, as a teacher in Poland, at first nearly having fainted when I had a classroom of English teachers doing FCE and all of them cheated (all), I have now learnt to understand, accept, and forgive ...

Love / Can Polish men date with Chinese women? [23]

yeah, and I've only had two Polish husbands because i speak and look Polish (really, not joking) (about why, and about the speaking and looking) ... and now that i have nailed the cooking/making the house look spotless while at the same time fixing stuff up so his earning potential is growing ... i am a CATCH. ; ) So, from the sun, maybe think of bumping up your household and business skills to compensate for not being Polish? ; )

Love / Mixed Race Relationships (Polish guy married a Filipino/Spanish) [13]


Actually, there is apparently a genetic disposition to addiction, but I guess it is the environment that really clinches it.

Law / Polish child maintenance-why do they need to know my sons earnings? [3]

If she is applying for child maintenance, then the earnings of your son should not be taken into account.
If she is applying for maintenance for herself, it would be.

In the UK, the ex-spouse and the court can ask the new partner to reveal their financial circumstances - but only ask. If the new partner refuses, they cannot force him or her. It would be an idea to check if that is possible also in Poland. Your son should, I think, send a letter back saying that he prefers not to inform anybody of his earnings, and see what happens. Or, he should ask why. Or, he should go to a UK lawyer or Polish lawyer, depending where he is (you don't say if they are in the UK or Poland).

Either way, he shouldn't just answer with his earnings - he must take advice first. He might not have to reveal them. And of course the cost of raising his child with the Polish girl should also be taken into account.

Love / Can Polish men date with Chinese women? [23]

All the Polish guys I know have at one point or another expressed an interest in oriental girls and said they like them because they are small/pretty/cute/etc. ... so I don't think you need to worry. If he likes you, the fact that you are from China will be something good, and will be the opposite of a problem.

Polish people in general can be very conservative, but a lot of the younger generation are much more adventurous, and actually are very keen on other cultures and 'exotic' partners - and you are exotic!! And that is great! So I think you should feel happy and be yourself.

Law / Poland father right to be mantained by richer sons [4]

In the UK, he can apply for maintenance from his ex-wife. If he has children of the marriage under 18 or in full time education and living with him, he will have more chance of getting spousal maintenance.

As I understand it, he can only apply for maintenance from his ex-wife. He could also, if she owns property, apply for a share of that property (half). If, however, when he got divorced he signed a 'clean and clear break' agreement, then he can't ask for anything from his ex-wife now.

I don't think he can ask for maintenance from his sons. I have not heard of that in the UK. They were not married to him ...

Life / You've been in Poland a while if .... [49]


i still have that problem with some of my Poles in England ...

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]


ok, ok ; ) ... just important to know who we are talking to :D

Deal with it in PMs.

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]


now what does that mean? have i missed something? sounds like a rather bold non-sequitur to me ... but pls enlighten me.


so very little chance of you making the switch ... what switch? from men to women? women to men? dogs to horses??

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]


????? Nobody called him a loser because he didn't want to teach English. It wasn't me, anyhow. NMPolak said that we all know what happens when Polki go back to Poland with a loser who is only capable of being a TEFL teacher. You've got that a bit mixed up (loser BECAUSE TEFL teacher, not because not ...).

Of course Jasono isn't a loser. And he isn't going to teach English. But ... it will be different over there, when they are on his wife's home territory, not his. Having said that, she is defiantly not one of the 24/7 slipper-wearing brigade, so she will no doubt be different in other ways as well. She is the other type of Polka, I suspect ... the type I love and among whom I have several really really good friends ... the intellectual Polki. They are usually great people. So we should stop telling him to worry about white handbags and having all his furniture stolen by his in-laws, because he hasn't got that kind of wife, by the sounds of it.

Life / You've been in Poland a while if .... [49]


wow - get her DNA checked - you absolutely sure she is Polish??? Unless ... oops ... you've got one of the reactionary ones! Better keep a close eye on her ... They can be troublesome ; )

You've been in Poland a while if ... you think wearing seat belts is for pussies. (so you fix your car so that the seatbelt beep doesn't ever go off)

Real Estate / Thinking of buying an offplan Luxury Property Wroclaw [79]

I thought this thread was entitled 'Have 50K zl - better to put in as deposit on off-plan scheme, or burn in a big bonfire outside?'

Language / Listening to a CD is not working - I want to learn Polish? [8]


If you like having sex, have sex in Polish. It really is a good way to learn. I can vouch for that. : )

Life / You've been in Poland a while if .... [49]

and if, as a female ...

You have come to understand that eating is an entirely unnecessary activity.
You appreciate the colour white as a fashion statement.
You only feel fully dressed when sporting matching shoes, gloves, hat and belt.
You feel naked without your slippers.
You feel a mixture of rage and panic when your child is not wearing their slippers.
and
You are able, on receipt of a large bunch of flowers from a visitor, immediately to unwrap them, cut the stalks off and arrange pleasantly in a vase in c. 3.4 seconds, whilst also serving up a delicious home-cooked meal with the other hand. (as opposed to the English skill of putting them gratefully on the draining board, drinking too much wine and finding them all wilted and surrounded by washing-up the next morning ...)

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]


yep ... has to be said ... he is left minding the baby while she 'relaxes' with 'friends' ... and then he gets a thick ear when she comes back the next morning, just for asking where she's been ... and that is only just the start ... and he will still have to keep buying the cigarettes, bringing the coal in, mopping the parquet floor and killing the Christmas goldfish ...

Jasonczyk, it has to be said that the dynamic will change beyond all recognition, probably, when you live in PL.

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]


No, don't believe it. You would FIND your soul in Poland! : ) Actually, I'm sure you have a firm grip of your soul and do know exactly who you are, but I think Poland would interest you, daily, in a lot of ways, as you seem, dare I say it, a thinking guy who engages with what is around him with no small degree of insight.

Look, I lived on an exquisite Greek island for a year and half when I was 21/22. It was a paradise. And a tiny place at that, with only a thousand or so residents in the winter. I had everything one could wish for in terms of natural beauty around me, and I was adored by the village where I lived (no exaggeration). My long golden hair to my waist, my innocence, those cheekbones that come in handy in Poland because they seem Slavic, the green eyes ... it all worked. Old women and young men alike wept when they saw me. I was known universally as 'The Girl'. Seriously.

And then ...

I came back to rainy London, peopled by friendly-ish, moderate-ish mongrels, nice enough as they are. And a job came up in Poland. For two weeks before Xmas, two weeks after. Then I would have started a job I had fixed up in London. And I though 'hey, why not? Let's go see Poland'. I went. A greyer and more dismal lunar landscape one could not have found. The startlingly spartan and shabby concrete towers that strode across those endless flat planes of grey and white. The people hunched inside their monochrome coats, and existences. But once knock on a scratched metal door in a graffitied concrete corridor, and it is opened, and ... my God. What people. What energy. What life. What love. What colour. The people were that splash of colour in Poland. I loved them, immediately, in all their obvious mortality and need, with their hearts, however proudly hidden, still quite visible on their sleeves. And for me those monstrous blocks, those dirty roads and blackened walls, the dark canals and beaten trams that cross the cities ... that all became some kind of beautiful landscape for me.

I guess I fell in love with it all, with them, with the romance, the pathos ... just all of it. So don't ask me, probably, whether you should go, because I will say yes, yes, go.

And I haven't seen the half of it. My next plan is the mountains, to the South.

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]


fair enough : )

What do I know? I won't get in a plane (watched too many 'clean air turbulence fatalities' vids on You Tube to consider it prudent), so I guess am not going to be run over by a street car (or, indeed, crushed beneath a collapsing building, courtesy of the San Andreas Fault) too soon ...

Again, I vote Poland for you.

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]


Ok, that's good. I know that scenario. So then indeed the real question is: Poland or Malibu? : ) ... If I lived in the States, I would be asking to check out California first. But I just like beaches and sunshine and the idea of those Spanish haciendas and 1977 beach parties and wine country and all of that. And everyone always tells me that San Francisco is one of the nicest places in the world. But then I know v little about it, apart from old TV shows.

For what it's worth: I think you should try Poland. I think you would find it immensely valuable, actually, in further knowing your wife. And I think it's important for your child. And I think you should keep learning Polish.

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]

You would, of course, be safe, but I think your heritage would be noted/noticed in a way that I imagine it wouldn't be in the States, and even if on a subtle level, 'conclusions' would be drawn about you. I think what Meathead is flagging up is that there is still a very real awareness of where people come from/how the fit in, among particularly older Poles. The opinion I come across most is that somehow the Jews hijacked the sympathy vote for the persecution that happened during WW2 - that 'millions' (always the figure quoted in these discussions) of non-Jewish Poles were also affected, but nobody 'cares' about them. (because ... they are not rich and have not been able to make themselves influential/put themselves in a position to make blockbuster films about it all, etc.). So it isn't any kind of aggressive anti-Semitism, but more a lingering resentment and mistrust.

I think, unfortunately, you will come across it, whether it is overt, or in the general undercurrents of feeling informing how people treat you.

Poor old NMP - what did he do?! I was the one who suggested England. It was only a thought.


I am more worried about this. It is all tipping in the direction of ... you just do what your wife wants. I don't think there's a choice about moving to Poland, is there? She is going whatever. She can't see the US as her home. Poland has to be. For her career, for her family, for her happiness, and as a place where she wants her child to be brought up. So your choice isn't really a choice ... you will have to get on with it. You aren't just 'thinking of' moving ... you are moving. And in terms of what you do when you get there - you will have so much to take in and think about, maybe writing about it is what you will do. (Not just on PF though, as rather counter-productive in terms of earning hard cash ... certainly seems to interrupt my paid work enough ; )

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]

Really? Are those things free? I don't think so, or at least, what you get 'free' always needs supplementing.

Sorry but I can't believe you think that having to buy your kid's pens and books for school is a rip-off ... Don't mean to sound so astonished, but really? They don't cost much. And Polish state schools, in general, are so so much better academically than UK ones, and there is much more uniformity of standards. OK, maybe you have to buy the pencils and textbooks, but ... what's important here?

I think the Polish school system is something worth being there for. Ok, the health system all costs, and things are pricey, and if you are on a 'native' salary you will not be able to do anything. But you speak English as yr first language ... there must be something you can do. Even if you spend 2 weeks working in the UK then come back with yr salary for the remaining 2 weeks in Poland ; ) ... I don't know. Teacher's salaries aren't bad, and you can supplement easily and well with private students, can't you?

But this has nothing to do with Jasono and his choice, apart from to say 'don't be put off by the schools - they're good' ...

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]

English is my native language.
I have had 2 years living in Poland in my early 20s, my first husband was Polish, but we spoke English, and I had a break of 6 years, and now have had 5 years speaking Polish with second husband, who hardly speaks English. So yes, I have had, one could say, 2 yrs in the country (although mostly among Brits), then 5 years intensive exposure. Our child is totally bilingual; I only speak English with her.

Ok, so I did have a patent for language-learning. I did Latin for 10 yrs (now that IS difficult, as no living language to help), French & Italian at school, and then lived in Greece and picked that up very quickly (much easier than Polish, despite the slight difference in alphabet).

Sh*t hot to me is that Poles think I'm Polish. Ok, maybe been living in the UK for a while, but still undoubtedly Polish. Am only saying that because it is an example of how it is possible to learn Polish. Without doing much apart from sleeping next to someone ... as I said, by osmosis.

BUT I have to say that when I was among Brits in Poland, most of them were completely useless at Polish, despite their best efforts. But they did try, to their credit. I knew an American girl - lovely girl - but struggled worse than any Brit with it. I wonder whether it's to do with openness of mind, on some deep level, or something ... who knows. Not something one can really generalise about. V much down to the individual.

Oh - and for the English tongue, French is MUCH harder than Polish - takes far more effort to pronounce convincingly (easy to speak hilarious English-style French, though - hard to be good at).


You just need to be there. It has a very strong, very distinct music ... the cadences and intonations are not dissimilar to those of some Southern European languages. Poles are also rather fiery. I say they are the Italians of the North.


Thank you ... and no, not really a brain-box ... just seem to drink in languages. I still feel the unease and the shame, though, like poor Pushbike, even now - it is like stage-fright. I used to try to work sentences, etc, out in my head, but have found that the instinctual, musical response generally works better, and is more accurate. We are taught to put languages together like building blocks when we are at school, but the artificiality of that approach falls down so often, in so many ways. The thing I was reminded of most as my daughter acquired language was how repetition is the total key. Blind repetition of tiny elements of language. Like sticking bits of tissue paper to a frieze. Once they are on, they are there forever, but catching those butterflies in the first place is the trick. You will only do it by repeating the same action a thousand times.

Well look at me, waxing lyrical. I am enjoying expressing myself in my first language for a change ; )

USA, Canada / Living in Poland - prospects for Alabama guy ... need some advice! [146]


It depends how easily you pick up languages. I don't work hard at it and I am sh*t hot at Polish and I don't find it difficult ... that is not anything for me to take credit for, as it just sinks into me by osmosis. So ok, yes, Polish isn't the easiest, but how hard or easy depends to quite some degree on the learner. Granted, we don't know what he's like at language learning. So it might be horribly difficult for him. But if so, I also think he'd be sh*t at French, even after 10 yrs ...

They should move to England. No doubt.