What's wrong with Poland? I don't see anything.

Not really. The North American Polonia on this forum are fundamentally cowards - most of them doing nothing but boasting about how much they're there to "help" Poland without actually doing anything.

I would define helping Poland as doing voluntary work without personal gain rather than actually working in Poland for pay and personal gain. I would also define helping Poland as not denying your heritage, being proud of your roots and helping to keep the traditions alive; when Poland was under foreign occupation this was particularly important, especially the teaching of the Polish language.

" I would define helping Poland as doing voluntary work without personal gain"
I agree with you. However, our north American friends refuse to do any of such work. I guess they must really hate Poland.

Agreed. I wonder when the last time that our North American Polonia friends on here did any real voluntary work for Poland?

Me, Harry and a few others have an open offer to our American friends - they come here to volunteer for a year, and we'll pay their airfares. Not one has taken us up on the offer yet, although at least two of them are long term unemployed.


Given that most of the US Polonia can't even speak the language nowadays, they're hardly helping. They're also trying to keep alive traditions that were never Polish traditions, such as the legendary Polka dances at "Polish" weddings in America.

It never ceases to amaze me that America produces so many fake patriots.

I think it is some jealousy. When they visited grey,rather poor Poland 20-30 years ago they felt on the top with (very often) patronising manners.I ma sure it was good feeling.

Today ?- It is different matter.

Even property prices......Except top ones in new York,Chicago.... they are so cheap that if they sell it will not be much to buy in Poland.....

A learning disability, perhaps? America produces enough bona fide patriots, the counterfeits are superfluous. Not that there's any mettle to be tested by most people in most countries, period. What you consider a test of patriotism others might consider knee-jerk tribalism. Altruism is rare, rarer than patriotism, and twice as effective, socially. Everyone bleeds, red, not red-white-and-blue, or białoczerwony.

Thats nothing more than posturing on your part. Besides doing volunteer work for nothing is no where are helpful as bringing jobs, investment, and cash to the country.


Indeed, and Harry's 'good deeds' were done two decades ago when it was far easier and cheaper to do so. His 'sacrifice' has given him a mortgage free home.

Would either of these to give up everything they have now and work unpaid in Zimbabwe, today ? somehow I doubt it.

They could do that too, but volunteer work is an easy place to start. Anyway, most of the trolls here are admittedly unemployed, so not much hope of them bringing jobs, investment and cash here.


Why can't we do unpaid work in Poland?

uhhmm....why would someone be jealous that others pay much more for something?

Less than two decades ago, although I'm not sure why it was then cheaper to do volunteer work back then. As for my home, that has come from hard work for money. But do keep looking for excuses for why you do no volunteer work at all and never have done any.

I have no connection to or affection for Zimbabwe. Plus I've done my year of full-time work and continue to do a couple of hours a week here in Poland.


We can and we do. Our critics can but choose not to.

Exactly. There are plenty of opportunities do do voluntary work. I sometimes help out with a Catholic organisation which runs social events, parties and other activities for people who for various reasons receive 24 hour care from often elderly parents. The attendees get a rare chance to get out of their 4 walls and also gives their careers a much needed break from physically demanding and intensive personal care. They are always very glad of hands-on volunteers. Speaking Polish helps, but isn't necessary since most of the people who come to the events don't communicate by speech. PM me for details.

There are also many other opportunities to do unpaid work in Warsaw.

People can easily talk about what's wrong with Poland, but most visitors, expats (and even returning Polonia) don't always scratch the surface.

Do you suggest that the returning Polonia may be like this British tycoon once depicted in the BBC satirical programme "Week-ending" as saying:

- Most people do not care about the disabled, the handicapped or the chronically-ill, and I amno exception! ?

There was a Europe-wide survey done about people's willingness to do unpaid and voluntary work in the community. Poland came fairly near the bottom. There was quite a lot of publicity about it at the time. I don't know about 'returning' Polonia, but I do know that some of the things I've been involved with would be glad of input from them or anyone else and given the American tradition of community work I would have thought that plenty are willing.

eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2011/02/en/1/EF1102EN.pdf

It's very strange, because I meet plenty of American volunteers here. But no Polonia - why?

The explanation might be very simple, and may be heard in the further confessions by the said tycoon to the BBC "Week-ending" programme:

- I'm usually too busy at the casino ...

It is very strange. The closest I've met was a Canadian girl who was out here teaching music (in a few villages in the arse-end of nowhere) but as she was born in Poland and had left when she was about two years old (and been raised in a home where Polish was spoken), I'm not sure that she counts as Polonia.

To bring this closer to the topic:

I had to drive to a client during morning rush hour last week in Warsaw. As soon as I joined the main road (Prymasa Tysiaclecia) I hit crawling traffic; I barely got out of first gear for three kilometres. This traffic was far worse than you get during the summer, so something unusual must have happened.

It was 25 minutes later when I got to the next road (Bitwy Warszawskie 1920) that I found the cause; a woman's car broken down in the middle of the street, orange lights flashing, forcing three lanes to squeeze into two. All that traffic because no-one wanted to stop and help her push her car to the parking spaces at the side of the road.

I stopped. I got out. She called me "prawdziwy English Dżentelmen" and said it was a shame the first person to stop and help was a foreigner.

Maybe this is just a syndrome of living in Warsaw and not a problem of Poland as a whole, but the fact that a woman can sit in a broken-down car in the middle of the road for half an hour, cars going past left and right with not a single person stopping to help, is something that needs to be dealt with.

I think that's about the size of it. Still troubling, though.
A couple of years ago I saw a cyclist lying by the side of the road, on the grass verge. Several cars in front of me drove past, but I stopped, and so did (by coincidence) a doctor former student of mine, who was coming the other way. The cyclist was unconscious and still more or less sitting on the saddle, but there was no obvious sign of injury. Hearing voices, the gentleman awoke and assured us that he was "just drunk" and asked us to leave him to sleep it off.

There is one type of American volunteer I see often: the ones that are separated from their families and friends, often because they do not want to share their wealth, or they want their contributions to be re-paid one way or the other.

They are usually lonely and bored, and the volunteering is their way to prove to the world that they are unselfish..
They think giving their struggling, but adult, children money is not the right thing to do. They prefer to give it to total strangers.
They prefer to eat alone, rather than pay for someone else's meal, or they'll think they are getting ripped off.
Polish people are able to live together, sometimes 3 generations, the parents give away all they have to their children to assure their better future, and in return have their children take care of them.

I know this is a generalization, but there is definitely a difference in cultures when it comes to helping one another.

Yea, statistics really do tell you the whole truth dont they? If you dig a little deeper, you'd find that...

most Poles are already either directly or indirectly financially supporting a number of family members or friends I can see why their sympathy for other suffering individuals might run thin, as they already have enough on their minds.

There is a bumper sticker I see sometimes on the road, usually on RVs and I think it's my "polishness" that makes me think that the sticker is embarrassing.

It says: "We're spending our children's inheritance".

Its a very cheap place to live if you go there with no connections. So working for nothing would be possible if you had a income of a couple of thousand pounds per year from another source. It would be clsoe to what you are asking other to do to match your saintly contribution.


You think cleaning some old guys arse is a better contribution to Poland than employing 20 people or investing a million Zloty's in a business?

I didn't have any income from another source during that time (other than giving one private conversation per week in the second semester).


No: I had to pay my own way to and from Poland; the Polonia members here are being offered their airfare paid. Hell, I'll even throw in their bus fare to get to where-ever they're working along with a slap-up meal and a night on the razzle dazzle to celebrate the end of the school year.


To the old guy I'm sure it is. But of course with regard to you it is a moot point: you've never done any of those three things and never will.

Your observations regarding American volunteer workers are very insightful, f stop, but the fact that you felt the need to make them in a thread titled "what's wrong with Poland?" is an unfortunate result of the shoddy moderation upon this forum which allows threads to be hijacked by an insane little gang of British expatriates.

P3undone, you are a moderator here and a Polish-American. Why don't you explain to the gang why they shouldn't engage in this behavior, and threaten them with some consequences if they persist in disrupting the forum?

Oh, zip it.


But they don't have a million zloty or the ability to employ 20 people. But they can clean arses.


I've got some media contacts, so they can even get some nice free publicity for themselves at the conclusion of the school year too. It would make such a nice story - Polish American comes to Poland to teach deprived children for a year. What about it, Dave?

Nah. He's too busy defending Poland on the internet to actually help deprived kids.

Why pay more? Some people have got properties for years and they have high value now.

So they can sell it buy smaller one have some savings left. In America they are cheap- what about all these boarded houses in Detroit I think?

I know someone in USA and value of their house in relatively good area is the same as small flat in Krakow. So by comparison how they can come to Poland now and patronise people who have in total higher assets?

I agree with you there. It is difficult to make money here from my experience. I have never had to make life decisions when I have to go grocery shopping.

i don't know how that's related to the discussion.


You bring up the dumpiest, most economically struggling city in the USA. Good tactics. Anyways, again, it is completely unrelated to the discussion and the reason for my original post about housing prices. If you have your own agenda here, leave me out of it.


I'm not going to give you an economics lesson and I'm certainly not supporting any members of Polonia that "patronise" people living in Poland, but it is not beneficial to live somewhere that has extremely high priced real estate unless you're rich. If you saw the house I live in now and told me that your 50 sq. meter flat in Krakow is more expensive, you would not have anything to brag about, unless spending more for less has suddenly become "stylish".

I don't live in Poland.

No comment. You sound like kid ...o my toy is more expensive than yours!!!!

And as you seem to compare SUPERIORITY of USA to poverty of Poland I do exactly the same.

Firstly it is idiotic comparing sizes of properties in Europe and USA. Clearly as Europe is smaller properties are in general smaller and more expensive.

But built of proper bricks and lasts for years contrary tu USA.

I wasn't suggesting you did. I was using "you" as a generalization. ok fine, "mieszka sie". jasne?


WHAT?! man you are thick. you don't see the point i was making? THAT is how you interpreted that? what can i say. just forget it.


how, exactly, have i done that. you started comparing, i starting calling your bull$hit.

it's the same thing over and over. people come on here and start making a poland vs usa comparison, i call them out on their bull$hit, and it always turns into, "oh you just think you're so great and everything in the usa is great."

no. it is not all great. stop talking BS and i'll stop typing.