UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


If you think about how cold the winters can be in Poland (or other parts of mainland Europe for that matter) you will realise that "hiding" the pipes inside the walls is not only a matter of aesthetic pleasure. A typical English house transplanted into a Polish winter would not survive more than a few hours - the water in the pipes would freeze solid, end of story.

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


No, they don't "rinse" the dishes - they wash them in running water unless I'm very much mistaken. And I would agree that pre-soaking and then rinsing is a horrible waste of time and common sense ;-)

UK, Ireland / Do the poles like British culture [127]


Just because one person said so?

Personally I think there is no correlation whatsoever.


I don't follow the "logic" of this statement. I would say fewer people nowadays get married to "couple" because they can do that anyway, if people do get married it's because they are thinking of having children - as well as for the financial and emotional security marriage brings.

UK, Ireland / Do the poles like British culture [127]


do you mean gay couples have more children out of wedlock? the things I didn't know!

UK, Ireland / Do the poles like British culture [127]


...and what on earth has patriotism got to do with gay rights?! Do you seriously think a gay person can't be patriotic or what?

Life / Polish people raised during communism... how do you feel? [5]

How would we know? We're not them ;-)

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


Only if she knew the right people. She didn't.

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


Remember those pleasant years between 1981 and 1986? When even baby formula was strictly rationed?


Nobody blamed the government for the weather.


The round table was a clear sign that the structures of the state were crumbling and the the commies knew this perfectly well and were ready to negotiate.

BTW, how old were you in 1989?


Well, I stood in one every day around 1982 - 1983. Maybe one of the reasons was that there was one tiny "shop" (a tin shack actually) for the whole of the neighbourhood where I lived (the whole area was still under construction then and any service infrastructure was almost non-existent).


Keep kidding yourself. I remember exactly two kinds of yoghurt on sale, one "fruit-flavoured" and the other plain. The fruit flavoured one was vile, I know that now since I've tasted normal yoghurt. Sickly sweet, pink, and very runny. The one with a picture of forest berries on the top - do you remember it?


What changed? Pretty much everything. I can buy toilet paper, tights, feminine hygiene products, meat, sugar, and other "luxuries" without standing in line and / or operating a vast network of "friends" who could help me "finalise a transaction". True, I might not have the money to buy expensive stuff. But for every roll of soft toilet paper with bunnies printed on it, there is a roll of good old trustworthy grey and crinkly recycled toilet paper which I can afford and which I remember as being a great rarity in the eighties. You could make a person happy by giving them a few rolls of that, or even by directing them to the shop which was temporarily stocked with them.


That's the good old attitude right here. Ask around in any smaller town with a meat plant, most older inhabitants will be happy to tell you how everyone was well stocked with meat during the martial law - it was called "wynoszenie" (i.e. theft). The meat or other products were "taken care of" and then sold on the black market, so the shops were empty and rationing lasted longer than it possibly could have. I see a lot wrong with this, myself.

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


Of course. But the quality and availability of clothes, shoes, infrastructure, the provision of food to the shops (all centrally dictated then, remember! and rationed!), the infrequent and unheated buses with icicles dripping from their ceilings, the undeveloped public transport - all this has a lot to do with living in a failing communist state. I remember all this and I would never want it back. There were other "inconveniences" of course - the lack of school books (I had almost no books throughout secondary school, our Polish and history lessons had to be presented in the form of lectures with us taking everything down), rationed notebooks (paper was scarce!), long bread lines in which I had to stand every single day after school, long lines for almost everything else...

On the other hand, people who were comfortably cushioned within the system, who had so-called "backing" (plecy), or who participated in the shady dealing and trading that took place all around, the good working men and women who stole coveted products from their factories on a daily basis and sold them on or bartered them for other goods and services... The Pewex shops stocked with seemingly normal products like lipstick, jeans, and cans of Coke, which some of my friends could easily afford to buy, but which to me were like artefacts from another world... My school friends frowning at their ham sandwich lunch (Not ham again!) while I looked at my own jam sandwich with tears in my eyes... Have you all forgotten everything?!

Someone said earlier on: "Blame your mum". Yeah, I could blame my parents for not playing along, for not joining all those dealing, trading, stealing, and "borrowing". For refusing to stand in line for hours to buy an ugly piece of furniture / primitive kitchen appliance or other stuff we didn't really need (you never knew what you would get when the cry went up that a shop had supplies), but you could trade for something else later. For not buying or wheedling their way into a better position or a car list. As much as they could, they lived outside a system they hated. My hat is off to them!


Why would Poles want to look fashionable and have freedom of movement, I wonder?

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


I know who you mean. But the other type did, yes ;-P


I'm talking Warsaw in the eighties. I lived in a new (partly built) neighbourhood on the outskirts (then) of the city. For the first year or two, there was ONE and then all of TWO bus routes serving the whole area. I needed to be in central Warsaw every day (university). The buses ran few and far between. I would not risk missing one or God forbid two of them in a row, the journey back home took almost two hours even if the bus was on time. Remember the winter of 1986/87?


Yeah, they got so mild that when I moved to Mazury in the early nineties the lake I lived next to would freeze over completely several winters in a row. ;-)

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


Who then sold it to your mum on the side, more often than not.


Yeah, that would be definitely fun, to start walking and have the bus pass me by on the way, and then wait another 20-40 minutes for the next one.


Funny that I have never felt that bitterly cold since I could actually start buying proper winter clothing. I bought my first down jacket in 1990 and I still remember the bliss. My mother's hand-me-down sheepskin coat from the sixties just didn't seem to cut the mustard.

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


I didn't say I was freezing or starving. I just went around with a rather empty feeling in my stomach (of course, I had my fill of of potatoes, scrambled eggs, soup, some vegetarian dishes my mother used to make etc). But I absolutely craved meat (don't ask me why, but I did), and my mother pretty much refused to stand in line for hours for a pathetic piece of mangled meat on the bone. And because my winter clothes and shoes were not the best quality (to put it mildly), and living in Warsaw meant waiting at bus stops (sometimes for an hour, mostly over 20 minutes) - I was basically ill all the time from November to March. I do not look back with nostalgia.

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


It is true in my case and that's all you need to know.

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


I am currently living in the UK doing exactly the same job that I did in Poland - running my own business. For the last time, I came to the UK out of curiosity and for a challenge, not because I was starving in Poland - actually, financially I was much better off back home. I came to the UK now because during good ole' communist times I would not have been able to.


Generally speaking, people who were well off during communist times were either Party members, or had influential friends / relatives, or did some more or less shady deals (by contemporary standards) on the side. A lot of stealing and cheating was going on, because since everything was state property, it was nobody's property. Having relatives in the country or living in the country was another bonus, because you could trade meat or other farm produce for a whole spectrum of other goods, obtained legally, half-legally or illegally.

Have none of you ever watched "Miś"? It's a lot more realistic than you might think.
Speaking of the poor old people "whose life has crumbled around them". My father, a university lecturer, now retired, worked hard all his life and would have gotten a very measly pension (around the 1000 złoty mark) because his salary was always very low. Fortunately, capitalism came and he took a chance with a new job requiring new skills and earned a bit of extra money before he retired. He was already elderly then, but somehow he was able to seize the opportunity he was given. IMO, most of the people who would like to see the old times back were the people who profited from the old system in no uncertain way.

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


You might be curious, but I am not about to do to you what you just did to me (it was highly unpleasant you know).

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


Many of my relatives don't get much more than that. I know an old lady who still works - doing stuff she loves.


I would assume she owned a flat as she spent her working life in good old communist Poland, so a flat would have been supplied to her by the kindly State?


You mean 1989? The credit crunch of the communist state?


No, the daughter of an Orientalist, actually. Nothing fancy there at all. The Embassy people did not let me and my mother use their swimming pool when we tried once, as we "lived with the natives and were probably dirty".


Now I could make assumptions about YOUR parents. Like where they worked and who they knew. But let's not get personal.


So I can't talk about my youth in Poland because I temporarily live in the UK? Wow.

Life / British living in Poland - documentary [42]


Well, I am Polish, and I lived through the eighties in Poland (as a teenager and young adult), and believe me, I did not like it. Not everything is wonderful in Poland today, but please - don't start telling me how things were great earlier. I was constantly hungry and in the winter, I was constantly cold and ill. Some things were of course "better" than now - but these nice things were being subsidised by the State with money it didn't really have. Nevertheless, growing up in that time was a rather cheerless affair - we felt we had no control over our future, that both our working and personal lives were pretty much preordained by what the State had in store for us (i.e., not much).


Wrong - there was a thriving second-hand car market which included old beat-up cars brought in from abroad, esp. Germany and the States.
Often illegal, which didn't stop anybody.


I'm sorry, but I was in Poland during the redenomination (1995) and money did not drop in value - four zeroes got cut off, true, but 20 000 złoty and 2 złoty had the exact same value and were used interchangeably for several years, with the old złoty gradually phased out.

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denominacja_z%C5%82otego_w_1995
The lady you talk about would not have lost a single grosz due to this process. The problem is that many people, seeing those zeroes disappear, automatically assumed that they were getting less money. The lady's pension - about 1000 złoty - is not exceedingly low, though on the lower side of the scale. BTW pensions in communist Poland were not terribly exciting either.

I'm not British, so I'll shut up now. But please check your facts before you post.

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


I absolutely agree.

On the other hand, something very strange does come over many (or even most) Polish immigrants to the UK. I had naively invited some of my good friends to stay at my place and tried to help them when they wanted to start a new life in the UK, and they morphed into people I didn't recognise almost overnight! It must be the stress or something. It's fascinating to watch, but very very sad as well...

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]

OK, so it's Poles abroad you're talking about! That completely changes the situation, actually. I and my SO have both noticed that a lot of Poles who come to the UK become strange, to say the least.

1) One explanation is that because they're out of their comfort zone, they tend to behave as if reality wasn't "real" (i.e., a bit like children). They refuse to acknowledge that whatever it is that's happening around them is truly taking place, because things are real only in Poland (this would mainly apply to first-time travellers though). The china mug episode would fit in very nicely here, actually. They weren't confessing or apologising because it wasn't really happening! (Like in a computer game, sort of).

This might seem a funny kind of attitude but on the other hand, I have worked with Americans in Poland who actually behaved in a very similar way, with a typically American twist, of course ;-)

2) Another explanation would be that most of the Polish immigrants in the UK are people who weren't terribly well liked in their original communities, people with communication issues, people who couldn't settle down and find their place in society, and so they had no regrets about leaving for another country - and who have taken all their issues with them.

Or it could be a combination of the above...

Any other ideas?

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


I am Polish myself and have lived in Poland for donkey's years. I would never use the above generalisations. People do apologise, they do thank you and they don't always lie! But I have seen similar complaints before (always from foreigners!), and I am beginning to think there must be some issue running deeper here... Some sort of "vicious circle" interaction between people who each do not understand the underlying intentions and body language of the other.


Poles are generally assertive, I'll admit that. The problem is - why shouldn't they have things their way? We're speaking of Polish people in Poland, right?

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


And as daft as saying "kurisumasu" instead of Christmas (Japan). Get over it. It's obviously easier for some Poles to pronounce it that way, so what? It's such a tiny minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things! Save your breath for something worthwhile, is what I say. I would guess that when you react so vehemently to "babington", people automatically become defensive. I'm not saying it's right, and I know there are people out there who say "babington" and write "hod-dog" on their fast-food kiosks to boot, but please... Not everybody has to be super educated and super knowledgeable about English. They are the exact equivalent of English speakers who say (and write) "galumpki" and "busia" etc.

Just let it be.

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


Rosół is nothing without a pinch of nutmeg ;-)

Off-Topic / Languages you [dis]like [9]

All languages are wonderful. Finnish sounds particularly attractive (to me).

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


As a Pole and frequent washer-upper, I see absolutely nothing strange in them. I use them, my dad uses them... since forever.

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


Not a sales technique, just a typical shortage. Vegeta was / is a Croatian product, if I remember rightly (Yugoslavian then), and it was quite easy to get e.g. in Czechoslovakia, but for some reason not in Poland.

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


I have eaten spicy unsalted food and didn't like it ;-)


You could get all the usual herbs like bay leaf, marjoram, allspice. But nothing very fancy or "exotic". Vegeta ruled - and it was usually quite difficult to get. I still have a thing for Vegeta ;-)

The saltiest food I have ever eaten was Japanese - cooked at home by a Japanese lady, mind you. Salty, but at the same time tasting of nothing much. Weird.

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]

Because it makes food taste better and it's good for you as well ;-)
You wouldn't survive long without salt in your diet.

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]


"Culture"? Seriously? ;-p

Life / Why Radosław, not Czesław? [34]

Are you Polonius in disguise? ;-p

Life / Why Radosław, not Czesław? [34]


Really. It is a name of pagan Anglo-Saxon origin no matter what happened to it later.

So because Czechs and Poles happen to share a given name, Poles don't use it because it's "too Czech"? Balderdash, my dear Watson.


One Wiki article is enough to convince you?

You're not stating facts at all, my friend. Even the Polish version of this article is slightly different. Another wiki article:

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzieje_imion_w_Polsce
An interesting read.