Wonderful Poland.......but

I was appointed to work on a project in poland earlier this year, I was located in Katowice, I work with strategic planning and development for coal mines...

Poland is got to be one of the most beautiful, cultured countries that i have been to(i've been to many) MY experience of poland is quiet confusing though...I lived there for 9 months, for the first few months it was great, I am a Asian male of 27 years old and loves to socialize and enjoy the beauty of nature. The people I worked with were some of the best people i have ever met, they were absolutely helpful and caring, and so was their families...I enjoyed every bit of that part...

Unfortunatley....when I used to go out with my friends from work, alot of people who did not know me used to be very ignorant to my presence and also started to offend my polish frineds for being with me, there was alot of times when there was a fight after an evening out due to a buch of drunk guys wanting to pick a fight with me becuase of my colour, I was born in Australia and lived there all my life, neither me nor my parents have any family or have been to india before, as far as i am concerned, I am Australian who belongs to the asian etnicity, however its a shame that so many people have become so tabloid and are tempted to interfere with someone of a different colour because they believe that I should not be in this country. it got so bad, that I was even afraid of going into shopping centres on my own, i experienced many assaults and was quiet supprised that when reported to any higher authority, I was always looked upon as the criminal and even interigated as to why i was in poland. I felt it was not safe for me to live in poland any more as even my close buddies decided to want to leave poland becuase of the attitude of other human beings,

My company used to purchase in the region of 1 million metric tons of coal per month which was good business for poland, however I was forced to leave, my company now purchases its coal from indonesia as this is where i am based currently,

Its a shame as i really do love poland and would love to go back, but unfortunatley it swwms likw it can take a long time before the majority of the polish people opens their minds to the rest of the world...due to my experience, the coal mine in poland has lost majority of their export trade and had to make 450 people redundant, i wonder if this is the reason the unemployment rate is so high in poland, is it the attitude of the people, or is it the foriegners who should stay away???

I hope things change in poland as I said it certainly is one of the best pieces of land in the world....

It's good you liked Poland, but your unpleasant experience is what happens, unfortunately, in Poland. Call it "Polish jelaousy" - if you are a little different than your mates or hand out with people who are "better" than the other people's friends, you can expect unpleasant comments indeed. When I go to Poland I don't even take my best clothes as I don't want to be an object of people's jealausy or gossip. Polish police is somewhat corrupt too - by default they will value the native Pole's word more than the foreigner's.

I hope this is only one-time episode of such behaviour in Poland. But again - you are not the only one, I notice it too.

Some people have bad experiences, some have good. There are jerks everywhere in the world. Including the USA.

They say "Pole becomes wise after the damage is done". I bet the 450 people who were redundant stay now by the liquor store and don't know what to do with their lives.

or worry how to provide for their families....much as I have my opioins, in the UK its a real mixed bag and for the most everyone gets on, a dark skinned person wouldnt get treated badly in a bar in any region in the UK...

Very true, I have been to the uk many times, I even lived their for a while and will be going soon, everyone slags the British and the uk, however when you travel alot and go to many parts of the world not on holiday but for a long period in time you will notice what the community in that place is all about. The uk really is one of the best and safest, modest and free spirit places to be it, I would really like to extend my appreciation to the british people as they really are a great nation, no wonder why they are accepted in any country....

There were many concentration camps through out Poland, horrible experiments performed on people, millions of people died. Poland can't forget those easily. They are a proud nation, they are proud of who they are, they bravely fought during the war and maybe they don't trust foreigners too much yet?

hey, i'm a caucasian male from Canada. I'm 50% Polish and 50% English by blood. I get scowls from guys. they look at you like they might want to fight. babies look at me wierd, the girls/women know give me interesting looks.

my GF said its because I look different.

I guess i dont have that Slavic male look. short buzzed hair, beady eyes set close together, work out only the upper body and wear tight fitting shirts.

I'm me.

I can sympathize with you and your experiences. PL is a very homogenous society, and don't have any experience dealing with ethnic differences. There is no ethnic diversity in PL unlike other countries of the world.

I'm an ESL teacher here in PL and i start off the classes with a question/answer session with the students. One male in his 40-50's asked another male student, what he thought of black men. I was so shocked, i made him ask the question again. the answer btw, was "i like them."

I used to teach English in Poland. I am from POland myself, back in Canada now. My friend used to call such people 'stare masters". I didn't know what she was talking about, becuse for me it was part of the culture. There is hardly any eye contact in Canada in public places. In Poland it's natural. I can understand why it makes you uncomfortable. You are not used to it.
Poland experianced a lot of harship from hands of foreigners in the past and some habits die hard.
As for racism - there is still a lot of "quiet" racism in Canada.
When one visits another country -there are challanges and perhaps it's better to be open and not take anything personally.

can sympathize with you and your experiences. PL is a very homogenous society, and don't have any experience dealing with ethnic differences. There is no ethnic diversity in PL unlike other countries of the world.

that is not true we have quite big community from Vietnam in Krakow.

experience dealing with ethnic differences

When I see how it looks in Uk- hidden racism, aggresion, streets full of ethnic minorities that any "stranger" is not welcomed maybe I prefer our homogenous Poland...

ok what is your perception of "big"? in a town of 780,000 (2004 count) give me a percentage. "big" for me is a definite visible minority. that being you would see a member of that community at least every 5-10 minutes.

not it is not very big comparing to UK ethnic minorities but it exists and I didn't heard about racists behaviour towards them.

But what is wrong with being homogenous?

did i say there was anything wrong??? umm no.

there is nothing wrong with it at all. Where i come from in Canada there are loads of Chinese, East Indians, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Mexicans, South Americans.....

one thing i like about living in PL is that i only hear 1 language that i don't understand that well yet.

Unlike back at home... where there is such a mix of cultures, all with their quirks and quarks. Well you live inthe UK so you know all about the mix of cultures.



i guess you didn't hear last week about the 2 black soccer players for a Polish team (in Warszawa i think) were beat up stabbed and robbed. Now being black in Poland, in the city where i live, you are def a visible minority. I hardly think if they were caucasian, that would have happened. but who know what led up to it.

I heard about it.

Unfortunately racist behaviuors happen everywhere and we can't help it.

Not much time ago black boy in Uk was killed because he was black ....
White boy was killed by Asian racist as he was white....