The Polish Character: Stereotype Health Warning! Blog 136

Dzień dobry

So last day here in Wroclaw. This trip has been significant - the third in two months. I feel like I have earned a strange kind of residency status - quite usual now for me to wave good morning to people we see every day in the street cafes. An odd feeling of already living here. I have said to a number of friends over past weeks that I am quite drawn to living in Poland, there really is no other country that speaks to my heart quite in the way this one does. 

And goodness knows - I am not entirely sure why. It just feels like home. It may be something to do with the familiar catholic narrative that weaves its way through every sinew of this country, coupled with a rebelliousness that suits me, a kind of sacred and profane meeting place. 

Penny for them Maciej?

Maciej tells me that I have a romantic view of the country and Poles in general and insists that at some time soon I should come back and live a bit in its underbelly - the bit that demands of people that they leave to find work elsewhere, often in England. I get a feel for why many Poles feel the need to come home after a period of self chosen exile. I must also accept that I have not lived in the Polish underbelly. Never say never.

Its true that there is a schism here. The bureaucratic system is monolithic - think papers in duplicate, carbon copies in triplicate, emails unanswered and payments stuck in the system and you may get a sense of the sluggishness that is at one end of the Polish continuum. 

At the other is the poetry, laughter, sheer madness of this country, there is such a level of vitality it is intoxicating - well at least it demands of me a daily siesta. Having lived in the States for over 30 years this practical 'stuckness' incenses Maciej. It takes forever to get things done and yet the conversations continually going on in bars and cafes are intense, important - full of passionate urgency and debate about music, art and politics. You name it - there is an opinion not far away!

Lech Twardowski

I spent some time yesterday with Lech, discussing the piece that he has asked me to collaborate with him on. He shared his scale drawings - and we talked about how the relationship will work between actor and painter - I love it. I do think though that there is every likelihood that we might kill each other in the process.


Before that I had spent some time at Literatka (artists cafe) with Wanda and she introduced me to a historian/journalist friend of hers. I began tentatively to ask the question about the Polish 'character'  and  the mood music of this place - she began to say something very interesting just as we had to leave........

I did a bit of sleuthing later when we got back from a visit to Kristof and Ewa in the country...

Nervous always about the dangers of stereotyping and exacerbating ignorance  I am however deeply interested in the rhythms of culture and how they play out in our everyday lives - not least when we butt up against each other - in commonality and difference. Found this on a search:

Wyspianski Unwinding
Living in Krakow

The central mystery of the Polish character, possibly
March 14, 2008 by Jamie Stokes - A Brit in Poland

I feel I’m getting close to the central mystery of the Polish character. I’m probably completely wrong in this belief but it makes me feel better so humour me. I’ve written recently about the strange behaviour of Polish people on pavements and on the road. I’ve written that I’m very confused by the way that Polish people seem to wander around in a daze without any awareness of the people around them and about the way that they drive as if they were the only person on the road. I’m starting to get the feeling that both of these things point to a fundamental feature of the Polish psyche.

Walking down an average Polish street I observe Polish people trying to walk through each other. It’s almost as if they literally cannot see the people around them, or if they can see them they treat them as ghosts of some kind. When people look into your eyes it’s with an expression of suspicion. For a long time I thought it was just me they were looking at this way, that my foreignness was somehow obvious from my appearance, but I don’t believe that any more. Polish people look at other Polish people with just the same latent suspicion they look at me with. Nobody trusts anybody. Everybody expects everybody else to be a bastard. I got a cold feeling down my spine when I finally saw this.

I remember some wise person making a comment on one of my posts somewhere that said something like “all Polish people believe that all other Polish people are idiots, anti-semites, drunks, thieves, or religious maniacs

APART FROM the ones they know.” In other words the average Pole wouldn’t trust another Pole as far as he could throw him unless he was part of his extended family or clique of friends. If I meet an Englishman I’ve never met before my default position is positive; I’m expecting him to be a decent honest bloke. When a Pole meets a Pole he’s never met before it seems the default assumption is precisely the opposite. I find that kind of scary.

It explains a lot. People who work in shops are rude because they assume you’re an idiot or a thief. People fail to get out of each other’s way on the pavement because they assume the other person is a rude and uncivilised

person and they are damned if they are going to give way to a rude and uncivilised person. People drive as if they were blind because they literally have no respect for the lives or limbs of the inferior people around them.

It can’t be that simple… can it?

Get the feeling that this is the beginning of the next chapter in My Big Polish Adventure! 

Back home later today - to contrast - oh yes! 60% of the folks where I live are Polish - so home from home. Don't call me obsessive! Ok - call me obsessive!

Have a great day - I hope to!