You are Polish if...

- You are selling a car thats 15 years old for the same price you can pick up a 5 year old car in UK

- You think Beer is a soft drink

- You think all them Placebo,s your Abteka sells really work

- You come from the city and think your somehow better then people from the country even tho your Gran lives in the country.

- You think that the pork exported overseas is worse then that sold in Poland even tho its all from the same big factory farm

- You think property prices in Poland will keep going up and up...... (dream on your crash is coming)

was funny

you treat hypochondria as sth normal, rather than a last resort.

you have thousands of L4 forms set aside at the start of every day (doctors)

you neglect to mention how the impetus of communism in Poland wasn't solely determined by Russia but by others within home ranks.

you think you are some form of nobility (in public offices)

you can't outline the central tenets of Catholicism when asked

you value your heroes and culture very highly

you dislike being compared to Pakistanis in the UK as an immigrant group

you can freely move from topic to topic. Academic Poles are good at this :)

Oooh, that one's gonna hurt a few. Some friends of mine hired a Polish au pair. I'd love to have seen her face when she met them first time - they're Nigerian.

It didn't work out. :)

Myszolow, it's a reality. If you know areas like Peterborough in England then you can see competition first hand. Many English folk see Poles doing manual labour and they base their assessment thereof.

The Polish legal adviser that I teach even mentioned it. He is not happy with some of the ambassadors that Poland has sent but life shouldn't be about judging.

I imagine a lot of Poles take pills for their hypochondria.

I wasn't saying it's not true, but we all know the truth hurts - particularly since there aren't many Pakistanis or blacks in Poland, so they do tend to look down on them. can you imagine Murzynek Bambo being allowed to be read in UK schools? I can't.

"Mama powiada: „Chodź do kąpieli”,

A on się boi, że się wybieli."

First time my wife read that I was quite surprised - I'm not a PC type, but it made me laugh and tut.

Good point! Worried that he got bleached to turn white, ouch!

Well in context of come and have a bath it's rather a dirty implication don'tcha think? ;)

Mind you I'm sure Tuwim didn't mean any harm by it and it's only the modern PC way of thinking that could ever really find it offensive. It's supposed to be innocent kid's poetry FFS. :)

So to remind others why this is still on topic, you are Polish if...

You think it's funny that Bambo might get white after a bath and there's no possible way anybody could find that offensive. ;)

Still, it's below the belt but I won't be too PC about it.

You pick up messages from church, e.g love your neighbour etc, then go and do what you can to go against that ;0 ;)

When you start complaining about the barometric pressure - you've really got to consider citizenship.

Yeah. First thing you do in the morning is look at the outdoor thermometer, shake, and proclaim "zimno" unless it's above 30 Celcius. ;)

"zimno jak cholera" if it's below 15 C.

geograph.org.uk/photo/905902

A notorious pub sign in England. The name of the pub is "All Labour in Vain" (ie 'wasted effort')

No, only THE Netherlands - but it just confirms the rule ;-)

(by the way, I was rather convinced, that Poles mostly omit these unnecessary a/the things, of very unclear and doubtful purpose ;-)


But only Wedel's :-P


Nooo... You find jokes about "Polak, Rusek i Nemiec" funny and true! (I don't know, if they are still told nowadys though... They used to be popular in a primary school)

I'm surprised it hasn't been banned (but glad it hasn't - I'm all for free speech).

- if your female in your 30,s and find your self sitting under a blue light 3 times a week

- if your female and have more shoes then Imelda Marcos

- if you are angry, that the world is not grateful to Poland for inventing a kerosene lamp in 1853 by Ignacy £ukasiewicz

You win 10,000 Euro and eat the scratchcard coz they can't give you the money straight away.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8539560.stm

Well, we were always told, that THIS is the famous, highly estimated British sense of humour... ;-)

you were born to Polish parents

I think this is why Wizz Air staff are so very very surly on the Warsaw-UK route... it's hysterical. SIT DOWN!!!!!!!!

True enough, Bev. There was an old goat who couldn't accept the fact that I was waiting nicely for sb to put sth in the overhead compartment. She started to maneuver to get past me and I swiftly moved across and told her, 'nie bądz chamem'. She was offended but I think I taught her a lesson there. She just humphed and waited. I have no tolerance for hurried people, this rat race is a nonsense and, anyway, doesn't apply to airplanes ;) ;)

I know that feeling. I was on a coach from London to Poland. I'd just got on as they were about to leave and the stewardess told me to sit down so they could leave the station (I could stand up after). There were only 2 seats and so I sat in the nearest. The old bat I sat next to kept huffing and moaning, asking why i did sit next to the girl further up, because she was nearer my age! I tried to explain that it was just for the moment... (not as if I preferred the company of a moany old cow who seemed to think she'd paid for two seats, to the company of a young lady).

You think so?
Let see from a different point of view - the line of thought that stand behind sentence you make hassle about is that Bambo regardless different skin color is basically same than withes.

On the other hand way of thinking you presenting finding it offensive is viewing Bambo and his skin color as something different and foreign, and seeing him as an outsider because of this very skin color.

Who is racist,now ?

Ironside, you misinterpreted me. I was clearly trying to say that the insinuation of washing him 'clean' is there for all to see. I don't want to second guess him but you err on the side of caution in such cases. Many people who read that would likely say that he needn't have said sth like that at all. I judge by people, not by skin colour. I've met and liked people who were white, brown, yellow and black. I can just sense racist undertones/overcurrents in writing. It's not like I'm consciously looking for sth that isn't there.

Trevek, I hear ya. In Scotland, quite a few people want their own seats but I've noticed that, in Polish buses, they sit 1 to a chair of 2 throughout the bus and others stand.

Spoken like a true American.

maybe :)

As for your observation on cattle like behavior polish population at large I find it very accurate.
Its pisses me off all the time!
I can think about three reasons for that kind of behavior.

Hopefully it will change in time !

Don't get me wrong, I don't see it everywhere. Many queue correctly and don't firmly brush by you in the streets. I just see many tense people which makes me appreciate the nice, laid-back Polish people that I know.

Yes, it will be interesting to find out why Poles behave strangely when they are on the plane. Since majority of the Lot planes is too small to use the connecting bridge, so most of the time you need to go to terminal/plane by bus. I can't understand those rush if in any case, you will have to wait for everyone in that bus!?! Let alone those started to call once the plane landed (at the same time, open the overhead cabinet and taking out everything to search for their bags) to inform the other side they are in the plane now!?!

And is true that when you see the queue in front of an ice-cream shop or bakery, they are fine, no pushing at all.

Why is that?

You burst out in rapturous applause when the pilot of your plane lands safely.