The BEST Guide to POLAND
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Posts by SeanBM  

Joined: 10 Mar 2008 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 6 Jun 2017
Threads: Total: 34 / Live: 3 / Archived: 31
Posts: Total: 5781 / Live: 787 / Archived: 4994 		From: Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

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SeanBM   
3 Nov 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

I think the break down in communication on this thread is a good example of how Europeans and Americans experience life differently.

I notice it a lot on these forums, our use of English is different, I can think of a few key words that have completely different meanings to us, Ethnicity, Liberal, Socialism, discrimination are but a few.

When Barney said

the inability of your average punter to discriminate.

it looks as though people read it as him meaning that people are being discriminated against but he actually meant the opposite, that the difference isn't known.

I think "discrimination" in the States, even as a word sets off alarm bells.
I am not saying it is good or bad, just conditioning.

Oscar Wilde famously declared that Britain (lets say English speaking Europe) and America were two nations divided by a common language.
SeanBM   
3 Nov 2010
Travel / Poland wildlife and similar wild life where you live. [243]

I have seen quite a few small snakes with ZASKRONIEC (Common grass snake) over the summer.
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaskroniec_zwyczajny

I will point out that there are no snakes in my country of origin, so there is nothing common about these guys for me :)

Playing dead also in ecdysis.

So it's defence is garlic farts and a nose bleed. Nature truly is wonderful :)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Snake#Defence -> Grass snake (Wiki)
SeanBM   
3 Nov 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

Really? i have no problem distinguishing a Pole from a non Pole, there is something as looking Polish

Polish? How about this fella? And her? Can you tell if someone is half Polish? what about a quarter? what about a Polish Lithuanian?
SeanBM   
3 Nov 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

I think of ethnicity more in terms of DNA and I don't think there is a Polish DNA strand, unlike what people from America pay money to find.

And DNA ethnic linage is really just mutations, I wouldn't be all that keen on a girl who told me her chromosome was mutated :)
SeanBM   
3 Nov 2010
Travel / Poland wildlife and similar wild life where you live. [243]

This year, I had around 15 kg beans and over 120 kg of potatoes. Next year, I will plant carrots, onions, and potatoes.

Living off the land, sounds wonderful.
Do you have any live stock?

I could have you mixed up with another poster, excuse me if I do but do you run a tourist visiting centre there?
SeanBM   
3 Nov 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

they'll be beaten until they learn ;)

So you intend on bringing them up the traditional Scottish way, good for you ;)

I'd hope that they would follow Miroslav Klose's lead and simply call themselves European :P

Can't we be both?
I see myself as from Dublin, Ireland, Europe, Northern hemisphere etc...
I mean if I met someone in an Airport and asked where he was from and he said Europe, I'd think he was being a smart arse, know what I mean? ;)

It's a form of snobbery, I think.

Considering many know about their Irish ancestry and how we fled famines and arrived in America desperately poor and in many cases hated like rodents, I am not sure if snobbery is the right term. Although it depends on what type of snobbery. e.g. Irish are better than Hungarians but worse than Czechs. (totally made up but maybe there is snobbery that I am unaware of?)

Everyone is confused about their ethnicity, We look at Europeans where it seems important to know where you from.

Country or ethnicity?
SeanBM   
3 Nov 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

That's what i thought, well guessed, same as European.

Why are Americans so fond of ethnicity? A new culture looking for something older, possibly deeper? I do not mean to insult anyone here, America is a relativity new country, that's all.

And delphiandomine, if or when you have kids, will they be plastic Scots? :)
SeanBM   
1 Nov 2010
Life / My experience in Poland 15 years ago as an American trying to live and work there. [167]

I feel it was true to the time, in Krakow.

Fair enough but it also says a lot about yourself back then, full of confusion, doubt and you sound nervous, even sickly (perhaps undernourished?).

With a touch of the old "crime and punishment" thing setting in there at the end, laughing at an old one falling on her face...

I married the girl,

So you fell in love in the end? I like happy endings :)
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
Life / Wszystkich Świętych (All Saints Day) // Dzien Zaduszny (All Souls day) [93]

Halloween actually began with the ancient Celtic tribes who lived in the British Isles.

I thought as much but here is the thing I don't know, All saints is not celebrated in Ireland but in Poland, is there a connection there?

It might be dissimilar like a farming seasonal thing or just when the sundials go back an hour ;)

Death is another similarity to the events, the coming of winter perhaps?
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

The really, really fascinating one for me at the moment is

The one for me is Islam, it means something very different to today's interpretation and perception.
Islamic countries in the past were places of real scientific advancement.
But I can see the PF hate crew with their talons drawn to type "how wrong I am". So I will save it for another time.

Ireland will be fine now we are not at war.

Edit*

This thread is wandering from the opening post.

Fair cop guv, Halloween and alll :)

Americans, bunch of mixed up folk who us Europeans love to hate to love :p
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

Can I use the cop-out that taxes paid in Scotland are given to the English oppressor?

Only as a Celt :)

Do you speak Scottish Gaelic?

Nope

You have already answered above :)

I wish I could find it again

Do.

Cultural identity is very interesting, especially how it changes.
People live and die because of it, some serious stuff, I am just trying to figure it out...
There is a very "Plastic" idea of culture in all countries.
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
Life / Wszystkich Świętych (All Saints Day) // Dzien Zaduszny (All Souls day) [93]

I have a question that I will try to look in to myself but just thought someone might know.

Tonight is Halloween (Celtic festival), tomorrow All Saints day, both must be pre-Christian but all saints was adapted for ease of conversion, are they linked to each other in any way?
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

Pledging allegiance to a foreign flag every morning doesn't strike me as being 100% Polish

Paying taxes in Poland makes you less Scottish? what about typing on a polish forums about how Polish people feel about their diaspora?

well, they always say that you need to know the language to understand the culture.

Do you speak Scottish Gaelic?
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

SeanBM As you know it is upbringing not some fantasy bloodline.

Yet many of them claim that they're 100% POLISH

But some were brought up 100% Polish just in America.
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

but when they really are just your average American mutt, it's very odd.

Mutt? care to define that sir? :)

It's even stranger when they have a very mixed bloodline, yet they identify so strongly with Poland.

But it's not just bloodline, it's upbringing, it's what you are told you are, "never forget where you are from".

Although of course you do have a point where we have some (SOME) Americans on here going on about "blood lines" in such a varied "blood line" country as Poland.

But the same shite can be said about people from our countries...
It is culture or if you really want to water it down, "perceived culture" but is that not what culture is anyway, perception? identifying characteristics that run parallel?

Yep, it's now being reported quite widely - not that anyone is surprised by it ;)

Do I really have to come up with all those adverbs about how I have not heard anything about that? or could you just post any link?

the Lithuanian elite spoke Polish.

They also consider themselves Polish.
I lived there and mingled...
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

what I mean is that it's surprising that they don't have more of a balanced opinion, because there's no reason for them to be fiercely defensive of Poland.

Would that not work the opposite, that they would be fiercely defensive because that is the team they root for?

It's common knowledge now about collusion,

Is it? I have not heard a murmur of anything in the slightest that could be even remotely misinterpreted as giving me the faintest impression that this was even the seed of a concept in world media or even English media,

(see how far away I am trying to put it:)

Being brought up in Irish and British media, I found the bias disgusting.
Paradoxically of course, the world was well aware of how experienced Britain was at overpowering the media and I never experienced any bother outside of England.

I must make a note here and now that I am delighted that the war is over.
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

That's what makes it odd

I don't understand your point, could you give an example perhaps?

and you'll have to excuse me for editing posts, I never know if it's the last :)
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

one thing that they often do ... is ignore the bits of history that doesn't agree with what they want to hear.

The same can be said for every nationality.

Irish history - many of them knew fine well that Noraid was funding the IRA.

British media in world press left out the bits about the U.F.F, the red hand command, the U.V.F etc... and that the majority in Ireland are Irish not Unionists.

It didn't agree with them.
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

before your homeland was a country....

But that's the whole point isn't it?

The old world just can't fathom the new world.

As if everyone fits in to a nice little box, I should know, I talk enough shite on here about it.

So although they are Americans many have the will to know about their European roots.
SeanBM   
31 Oct 2010
USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

Why be Irish and expect to have a vote in that country which you dont live in?

Because to me, a nationality is more than about voting.
it's about getting locked drunk on paddies day, about roaring about how Halloween is an ancient Celtic festival made popular by Americans, about getting drunk and being poetic.

Did I mention drinking twice? :)