Poles as tourists in foreign countries

Racism does not come from nowhere. Mine came from the federal agency known as the CDC. That agency posted a table with black, white, and Latino murder rates.

According to the US federal government, the black rate is seventeen times higher than the white rate. That's 17x.

That caught my attention. Would it catch yours?

Ha, ha, it just means that here I have to avoid dark streets after dusk, and you have to avoid even lit streets but with dark people. You poor thing.

Yes, I know about them. One of the problems talking about 'the Irish' with Americans is that they think Irish American is the same thing which it really isn't.


Sorry to be rude about your family but they must be a rough lot - skangers, as we'd call them in Dublin. How many times have you been to Ireland and how many times have you met these relatives? What part of Dublin are they from? Whereabouts in Waterford?

Anyway, all I can say is that I've been in and out of pubs all over Ireland since I was a teenager, and I've never witnessed a bar fight. Not saying it never happens but it's definitely not a thing in Ireland.

I think it's probably the same with any X American group (where X refers to a European country). Italians don't understand Italian American stereotypes and we've seen on this forum that Polish Americans are pretty out of touch with modern Poland....

Then you have unique Euro-American identities the most famous of which is the Scotch Irish (which don't really have much to do with Scotland or Ireland since they are among the most deracinated of Euro-Americans...)

Lowland Scots planters in Ireland who emigrated to America.

...as well as some roads. Nig*ers like shooting from bridges just for fun. America today...

A few days ago, I took someone here in New York to the airport in Newark, so they could catch a LOT flight to Rzeszow.

This flight flies only once a week, on Sundays.

The rest of the time you have to take indirect flights going to Warsaw first.

My expectation was that I would see a lot of the typical crowd of spies, defense contractors, big muscly men my age, reporters, etc.

Barely saw any of these. Mostly just Polish families. Actually few Ukrainians... Here are my impressions in bullet list:

1) Poles have a lot of kids, at least those traveling
2) Poles like dogs. Three different families shipping a dog in a crate.
3) Poles are quiet like Russians. Huge line of 200+ ppl, but still very quiet.
4) Poles have big noses.
5) Polish women are very pretty, up to about 35-40 years. Then they turn into Russian-style matrons.
6) Poles like luxury brands.
7) Poles don't like black people or Jews - picked this up just eavesdropping.
8) Polish grandmas and grandpas are identical to ours, in appearance, in behavior - everything.

Firstly, send your friend my sympathies for having to suffer the indignity and hell that is know as Newark International Airport.

Now, Poles are quiet...my story. First time I ever visited Poland I flew into Warsaw took the bus to the Central Warsaw train station and took train to Poznan. When I got on the bus I was struck by three things 1) how courteous most people were, 2) how pretty the girls were, and 3) how quiet they all were.

I chalked up the being quiet to it being 7 am and people were still perking up as they sloughed off the night's sleep.

I got to train station, it was nearly a ghost town. I had a two hour wait for my train, so I got a tea (or a Coke) from the small cafe in the train lobby that had just opened for the day. Once I got my drink, I sat down at a table--I had free rein over which table to choose from as barely a soul was rummaging through the train lobby--took a sip oif my drink and pulled a book from my bag and began to read. I read for 15-20 minutes unabated, then lifted my head from my book to take another sip of my drink and was absolutely astonished by the fact that the lobby was crawling with people. I had absolutely no audible sense that Poles were venturing about the train station, because they were so quiet.

I thought, this is a country that breeds assassins. I didn't sleep the entire three months I was there as I was always looking for some cat-like assassin to come from behind me and take me out.

Are you sure you brought your hearing aid? 🤔

I have the hearing of a bat.

I immediately remarked upon this to my friend.

When people from Russia visit me in America, they're always astonished at how extremely loud Americans are. A typical sentiment is, "I can't hear myself think in this restaurant".

Now, when I go home people tell me to keep my voice down, because "the whole restaurant can hear about your problems". I'm realizing I'm becoming loud as well.

In that line to the check in desk, we were definitely the loudest people there.

Even when people get plastered in Eastern Europe, it doesn't even approach the level of loudness from some Puerto Rican or Black mom in the subway casually herding her kids into the train car.

A Russian concert, is probably still quieter than your average American tailgate party consisting of just 10 people.

But I think it's not only Russians and Poles that consider Americans ridiculously loud - but all of Europe and Asia.

You guys have to go to Africa to find your peers.

Italians are also very loud.

@Bobko

We are loud.


Haven't been to Africa, but the Africans immigrants that I come in contact with are as quiet as mice. Now, black Americans, especially black women, take loudness to a whole different level. It is not a rarity to go to the grocery and some black chick is loudly yammering into her phone, which she has on speaker, talking to another yammering black chick.


By European standards, but put an Italian in America and he seems soft-spoken.

You are right.


Yes!

I don't understand, why two guys standing 40 centimeters away from each other, in an absolutely silent train car, feel the need to tell their story about what happened at the construction site that morning at 110 decibels.

But I also like it, when my favorite guy at the local Subway shop greets me like I'm king Ashurbanipal III entering Nineveh.

That reminds me of a war memoir I once read where a former young Wehrmacht officer recalled how his older colleague warned him not to be fooled by Poles being calm and quiet. He said that "when Poles are quiet it means they are sharpening their knives, and Poles can sharpen their knives so quietly that even God can't hear it" (or something to that effect). :)

The reality is, we are just careful with strangers. You never know who the stranger might be (an enemy, a ferret, a Frenchman), better keep quiet. When we're with friends or family we can be pretty loud too.

Hahahaha! There's a time and a place.

But, Torqi, they were walking and talking with friends! :D


True that! A wesele is anything but quiet.

Also, really tick off a Pole...I've seen Poles rage with the very best of 'em.

:D

@Torq

So no protest at you having big noses?

The person I was with, though from Ukraine, has always claimed to me to be Polish by blood.
In that line, she told me - look they all have big noses like me!

Big, impressive noses.

Protest? You know what they say, "co na wystawie, to i w sklepie". :D

This is of course not true. And if they did, they were operated on a long time ago.

Have not heard this one, but I like it!

There was a family ahead of me. Father, mother, three small kids.

He was very fit, and made me feel a little self conscious.

But she was amazing... Thin, tall, and with the most amazing smile. Kids from another family would dive under the divider, and play with her kids - and she would light up with a smile that made the heart sing.

Then, when some Polish babushka had trouble understanding the black guy working for LOT in Newark, she stepped in and translated with the most delightful accent.

I was looking at them, and thinking... is this really who we are to drop some nuclear bombs on???

Good people.

The problem is that even if you nuke the entire Poland, you still can't kill us all :) Poles are everwhere from Alaska to Brazil, from Africa to the North Pole. If you kill the 40 million in Poland, the 20 million outside it will avenge us and Plastics are some crazy motherf*ckers (think amiga500 :D).

@Torq
Erasing Poles through some nuclear holocaust would be the greatest ever Russian foreign policy mistake - in all of our nation's history.

Poles and Russians are brothers - this much is clear to me.

Catholic, violent, and emotionally unbalanced - but still brothers.

Or, my wife during that godforsaken week in the middle of every month. That's something you just don't want to feck with, Bobbie.

I'm not sure if I should give you a high five or tell you to f*ck off. Would it be strange if I did both?

I have a literal Polish plumber in my building, a guy named Anton.

Well, he always tells me he is a Slovak, that grew up in Poland, but for me he's a Pole.

Let me tell you - I'm so afraid of Anton, that unless I know there is a risk of flooding other people I don't call him.

Dealing with Anton is quite a bit more stressful than dealing with some of my counterparts.

With Russians, we say, they are slow burning and then finally they explode.

Poles - first they explode, then they burn.


Acceptable.

I wouldn't say so. I think for us raising voice is like a madness gauge. That gives time to de-escalate. In other places people won't yell until it's too late and the conflict is too big to do anything about it.

Poles in general, I've found, do indeed wear their emotions on their sleeve, so the saying goes.
Well known story about the once famous US-silent screen star Pola Negri, nee Apolonia Chalupiec,
who, even after living and working for over fifty-odd years in the US, first on the East Coast and then
of course in Hollywood, could never get used to the Anglo-Saxon concept of "keeping a stiff upper lip"
and repressing her feelings. This by her own admission.

when someone tells you who they are.... believe them

I keep quiet in public places for several reasons.
1. It is a characteristic of cultural intelligent people who don`t seek to attract the attention of random onlookers by loud behaviour. Only halfwits troubled with complexes do it.

2. I save my voice after exploiting it massively at school.

3. I make it problematic for Russian agents/spies to learn what Poles/Polesses talk about in private conversations.

4. I might be close to a homo sovieticus or nationalist person who might snap and suffer a major meltdown after hearing me and we certainly don`t need it in public places coz it deters foreign and domestic tourists.