Do Poles drink before noon?

Big events dont happen that often, and as said here already, a visit from relatives can be a once in a lifetime thing. Also, most people in Poland don't actually have relatives who went off to distant continents and those who do don't necessarily feel quite as sentimental about them as some would like to think.

Day to day, morning drinking is strictly for army officers (though that is stopping) and problem drinkers.

You really don’t know a bloody thing about American Polonia, even though I have tried to explain it so łopatologically as possible so even a moron could grasp it.

Think of a retired couple in Buffalo, Greenpoint, Cleveland or Chicago. He may have worked in a steel mill or car factory, she may have been a housewife. The house is finally paid for; the five kids have been off on their own for some time. A few bucks (dollars) have been set aside for the one big trip abroad. Of course, some may choose the Caribbean, Britain, France or other such stereotypical tourist haunts, but our discussion focuses on a couple that

has decided to visit their ancestral homeland. Since more likely than not they are US-born, it's actually a visit to the country of their parents or grandparents. All they may know is some family stories and a few faded snapshots. To expect a royal reception, they would have had to have touched base with their long-lost relatives ahead of their trip by corresponding. They may speak only halting Polish or nothing at all. They sign up with a PolAm tour group which gives takes them on a guided coach tour of Poland’s major tourist destinations but also provides free time to make contact with families in Poland. The old Polonia from which our hypothetical couple was descended was entirely rural and hailed from tiny villages in the three partitions, so they will invariably want to visit the old family homestead and family graves. Maybe see the church their great-grandparents were married in. Their Polish relatives will probably butcher a pig, maybe whitewash the fence and tidy up the farmyard. At any rate, typically it's a big deal for both sides. These are not the kind of snooty, urbane self-styled sophisticates with whom you probably hobnob but simple, common, salt-of-the-earth folks, hospitable to a fault. Maybe that's why you have such a hard time understanding. This thread was not about morning drinking but about ancestral kinship, family ties and Old World hospitality. As a language professor you should known that śniadanie in Polish is a broad and capacious term meaning everything from breakfast to brunch and lunch. If the meet-up had taken place at noon or 1 p.m., would you have also gone on your morning inebriation rant?

Funny.

He post was indeed either a cracking attempt at comedy gold or just plain delusional.

Those were the 70' to early 90' realities.

I think it's a splendid example of satire, personally!

Have you recently visited the remote rural areas of Podlasie, Lubelszczyzna or Podkarpacie? Believe it or not, people tehre still keep chickens and pigs on theri small farms rather than dashing down to their nearest Tesco for pork chops or eggs.

A couple simialr to the hypothetical one I mentioned this summer visited long-lost relatives in Popowo Kościelno and were treated the way I described -- like royaltry. They couldnt' speak much Polish but a grandson of their Polish cousins was learning English at school and with a dictionary they were able to communicate. One of the cousins took them to Warsaw in his Tico and showed them Arcardia like it was the 7th wonder ofthe world, but they only said: 'We've got places like that in America.' What they really enjoyed was a musuem of old farm implements in Ciechanowiec or Ciechanów (one of those) - they felt it was part of their ancestors heritage and that's what they were after. They also preferred their cousins' home-made studzienina, salceson and kaszanka (comfort foods remembered from childhood) than some fancy-shmancy downtown Warsaw gourmet restaurant.

À chacun son goût!

Polonius - we may not know about Polonia, but you are clearly out of touch with Poland.
It DOESN'T MATTER that they originally came from rural area, the family they have in Poland more than likely migrated in the last 50 years to towns or even more likely to UK (a lot of Poles in UK come from rural areas, there is much less jobs there).

Not many People in Polish village actually have farm.
Those that do - yes, they might slaughter a pig, although if they do have farm it's probably stock that they are intending to sell to butchery, so I wouldn't count on that in every case.

You call all of us who don't agree with you "snotty urban style sophisticates" - we are not that. We are just realistic.

Things changed in Poland, it's not like it was 50 years ago, please either believe it or come here for yourself and see. You might be disappointed with some things and happy with others. OK, who am I to say - I don't even live in Poland now - but I did until 5 years ago.

Things changed even in last 5 years, you can't even imagine the change compared to 50 years ago.
You seem to have this romantic idea in your head which is build on what Poland used to be like and which has nothing to do with reality.

It is not about Polonia.
It's about reality in Poland.

Yes, last month. I'm usually in those parts a few times each year.


We do know about Polonia: we know that they know three fifths of bugger all about post-communist Poland and very little about commie era Poland.

sa11y
I have come and seen many times. And seen what the people of Poland gradually becoming technical titans and...moral midgets. You can call it the Czech syndrome. If you put it in a fancy, shimmering package people will buy even 'hovno'. The difference is that back in the early 1990s the Czechs added: 'And the writing should be in German' (they have since graduated to the English master tongue). Since people in Polonia see all this fancy-shmancy commercialism and glitter at first hand on a daily basis, they do not react like Poles to whom this is a first generation revelation and act like 'burek spuszczony ze smyczy'. And the old family farmsetad and graves are not in the big cities or the UK, but in Wólka Plebańska, Brzeziny, Mikołajów and thousands of other such rural hamlets and villages.

BTW I did not say 'snotty' (which means cheeky), but 'snooty' (stuck-up, snobbish, condescending, looking down on one's fellow man).

Is there anybody on the planet whom you do not consider yourself to be superior to? Other than other Polonia of course.

I don't think the commercialism is a novelty any more. It's been around for at least 20 years.


Sure - but your relatives will be the ones in the graves, the ones that are alive will probably be living elswhere...


That's what I meant - typo

20-.25 years is usually reagrded as a generation, so this is the first generation faced with consumer abundance. No ration cards, emtpy meat-shop hooks, etc. The downside is that many are living high on the hog on credit, as if not realisinn that e'ventially has to be repaid WITH HEFTY INTEREST..

I live in a village there. Want to tell me more about charming rustics butchering pigs?

Yes, I never questioned that, I know it's still a generation, but it's nothing new. And by now most people realized that there are dangers of living on credit.

Mere fact that they buy stuff with credit cards does not mean they are in red.

Right then: all round teflcat's place! His family will no doubt slaughter a pig, white-wash the fence and tidy the farmyard for visit from the mighty PoloniaForums crew.

Way to go Polonius - if you knew anything, you'd know that Poles have low levels of personal debt.

No. I'd like to hear your take on it. Is it a famring village or mainly chłopo-robotnicy who work in towns and have a few chickens running about? Do they have anyone to leave their farms to? Young male farm heirs have a hard time finding wives. Many rural girls flee the drudgery of farm work and prefer to 'malować pazury', work at a nice, clłean desk job and sip capuccino in big-city cafés. But that's just my impression. As an honest-to-goodness wieśniak you can provide a first-hand account.

...how surprising is that Polonius? Would you prefer "macac kury"?

You really need to ask him why he's surprised that Polish women should want to be anything other than pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen?

It's a village where people either farm or commute. There are quite a few dairy cows and, yes, people keep hens. I doubt many of the farmers' kids want to continue farming on a small scale because it's a rotten job. When I'm having my morning coffee at six o'clock I can see people bringing their milk churns to the depot up the road. Who would want to do that? Some of these people have a just couple of cows. How much milk is that? 30l/day/cow?

More proof that you are out-of touch again. That may apply to your Polska B family, but all of my relatives live in (or are descended from) cities with a population of at least 220 000.


If only he spent as much time finding out about the real Poland, as he does on judging our morality, he would be running the country! :)

Check out the thread title and your own first post, and don't be so bloody rude.


A bit tricky in a third floor apartment or a gated estate, no?

No graves or ancestral homesteads in gated estates! If it turns out that no-one lives at the old place anymore, many Polonians will go out of their way to be driven there, take pictrues or camcord what's left of the old family farm and crumbling gravestones. You see, these people were peasants but they had spirit. They did not believe if you can't eat. drink, wear, drive or shag it, it ain't no damn good.

donkey?

I've only driven cars and have no experience in the donkey department. Ask Jon 537 - he's on top of all these trendy things.

Could we swing this back to something that's looks a bit closer to the title please?

You forgot about Poland! Or at least you forgot about this:

I think we pretty much exhausted the topic.

We could talk about whether Poles used to drink more in the morning in the past. How about that? According to a study conducted by the Polish Academy of Sciences' Institute for Prognosis and Scientific Research in 1986, some 3,000,000 people were getting drunk every day of the year. And at that same point in time 60% of the total alcohol produced in Poland is consumed by no more than 5,000,000 people.

So why do Poles get hammered less now than then?