A Mad Biker's Ongoing Tale

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

THE LORDS OF CENTRAL EUROPE
III: The Return of the King

How? With so much said and digested, so much ranted and raved, so many tears, so much vitriol expended, how can I hope to offer anything of value towards redemption? And how could anyone think I have anything of value to offer? How could I expect anyone to listen?

Arrogance, that’s how. This is the curse and the blessing of being a writer. So let’s plow on, shall we?

1 - Here and There

My fiancée’ Gosia and I recently concluded a tour of Western Europe - plus a few select Central European spots thrown in for good measure. I've also been to Prague in the Czech Republic. Overall it’s just as expected - much better than in Poland. But there are a few things noticeably worse and enough things approximate to Polish life that it can’t help but make one wonder if all this posturing and pontificating - by both the traditionally-minded Poles and their detractors - is academic.

Bad trains? Really bad trains? Try Spain and Italy. Toilets? Ditto. Lots of those holes-in-the-ground. And when you flush, bring your bathing suit. One in particular, in Italy, damned near threw me out of the stall. Another looked like a horse had been backed up into it. In fact, you can say the same about the dirt and pollution in the large cities of these two countries. Lots of haggard people in Spain, looking like they were ready to pounce on anyone and wrestling with themselves whether or not they really needed a valid reason to do so.

My whole life, I never encountered a pickpocket or a bathroom pervert. But in one day in Madrid, I met up with both. Perhaps it was just luck of the draw. But after months of being warned of pickpockets and thieves of all stripes lurking about in Polish cities and train stations and not encountering a single besotted one, Madrid couldn’t help but leave an indelible stain upon me.

How about recent war-torn countries? Ethnic strife? And can we talk about unexploded land mines while we’re on the subject? Croatia and Slovenia, anybody? No? Then how about Northern Ireland?

So what I’m saying here is everything is relative. Everywhere we went we were met with smiling faces and warm personalities... Even in France. Yet we’d both been warned from friends and media of anti-American fervor in many quarters. Yet we didn’t see any fervor. Oh sure, there was the occasional rude dorkhead, but one person cannot represent a village or town or city or district or nation. I kept expecting to run into that fervor somewhere in my travels, but no fervor. Huh! And I really expected it in France. And that got me to thinking....

What was the distinction between me touring around all those European countries and me living in one - in Poland, to be precise? In one I am a resident, in the others I was a tourist. And tourist dollars are always welcome.

Would my experience of Warsaw be much different if I was here for only a few days instead of 10 months? Absolutely. Warsaw is peopled with dour conformists - and I don’t think such a description applies to any Western European country. How could it? In Eastern Europe for decades upon endless decades, conformity saved your hide. The Westerners were just decadant, damn them all. So as long as I come from decadance and have a warm spot in my belly... er, heart, for decadance, I will always prefer West to East. But it took those 10 months to truly appreciate how dour the East can be.

And if I lived say, in Paris or Stockholm, for 10 months and visited rural Poland for a few days, would I had then had had a hankering to move to the land of kielbasa and pierogi? Probably. Why not?

But the natives put on their best faces for the tourists, don’t they? Yeah, those of us whose jobs don’t depend on the tourist dollar, we can complain about busy-season traffic jams and moronic questions (my favorite: "what time does the sun set tomorrow morning?") and the like. But many of us do depend on the foreign cash flow - and entire countries, like Poland, can’t afford to antagonize. So turn on the charm, give us your money and get out - unless you want to stick around for a spell and invest even more of that precious green stuff into our flagging economy.

Besides, there’s a plus to being here I’ve never mentioned: I’m kind of special here. Warsaw does not attract many tourists, let alone ex-patriots. We’ve all been there - on one side of the equation or the other. How many times have we noticed the sexy foreign girl or boy precisely because of their foreignness, or maybe more specifically, their accent? Well, now I’m the sexy foreign boy. If I’m persistent enough to barge through the layers of defense most Poles have built up against humanity, people find me interesting because of my nationality. Or because I’m persistent enough to want to talk to them. And as a teacher, my students naturally find me interesting. In the social structure of this country, they’re even allowed to initiate a conversation with me. This specialness would probably be a factor anywhere in Europe. But moreso, I think, in Eastern and Central Europe because we don't top many international must-see lists. 'Cept for Prague of course. (Which, by the bye, is a bit strapped for cash these days itself).

So, yeah - everything is relative. Profound of me, huh? What that means is Poland ain't as bad as it once seemed. I remember when I first waited for the plane out of JFK last December and I chatted up the well-heeled lady sitting next to me in the airport. She fixed up my Western sensibilities in a moment and promised that I'd be "running and screaming" from Poland in less than a month. Well, after a month I had no desire to do anything of the sort. I smirked everytime I thought of her. But after two months I was seriously contemplating getting the hell outta there.

But times have changed and so have I. Poland ain't that bad. Now I'm back to smirking.

Sexy is always good.

2: Now and Then

It is by understanding the differences between nations we can perhaps hope to understand and appreciate ourselves and each other. Western Europe were the victors of the last 60 years of history. Even Germany came out big winners in the long run from American post-war largesse. Eastern (and Central) Europe lost big time. Western Europe believes in itself, Eastern Europe does not. Western Europe has bucks and military and economic might in the eyes of the world, Eastern Europe does not. So the Western nations are nice to each other (more or less) and believe in themselves, and that my friends, more than anything else, is what Poland needs to do. Come out of their shells and join both the European Community and the world (and they've only recently been approved to join the EU Community in 2004. Congratulations!)

I’ve seen this kind of thing again and again throughout my years: historically beleaguered populations beaten down so much they lose hope in themselves. And I’ve also seen historically beleaguered populations defy all odds to maintain faith in their community and in their God. Infused with a sense of purpose, they soldiered on past all manner of torture and turmoil. Poles have part of that.... 95% Roman Catholic, they love their church and love their Polish Pope. They believe that their incessant manhandling by the devils of history will usher them to a special dispensation in the afterlife. Ask your average Pole-in-the-street why their nation is fated to suffer so (and they’ll agree with that “fated” bit without even a blink of an eye) and they’ll answer that it’s just part of being a Pole. But all will be repaid when the King of Glory comes...It’s just in the here-and-now they have problems coping.

What else is so different about West and East? It goes much farther back than World War II or the Twentieth Century. Harbinger of civilization, Western Europe long ago became the international standard of that “civilization.” They got all the breaks... all the right people settled there, wrote all the right books, sculpted all the right sculptures, had all the right political movements. Russia had its share too - and even Poland had Copernicus and Chopin and a few others - but somehow these small, mighty voices were overshadowed by the juggernaut of the West. And it wasn’t long before the greatest voices either migrated West, or were suppressed by the Tsars and the Communists and the dictators and were muffled, exiled, or killed.

So if we are to understand the true difference between West and East we must venture far, far back. Back even before the Catholic Church reigned supreme (which did so, interestingly enough, from both Rome and Byzantine - or modern-day Turkey, far southeast of Poland and which is really in Asia, but that’s another story). As far back as ancient Greek, cradle of modern civilization (which is also, geographically speaking, in Eastern Europe. Geeze, history can be so damned unfair.) Let’s go back to when Europe was up for grabs.... invading Visigoths, Celts, Balts, Huns and the Dallas Cowboys sliced and diced to their hearts’ content. After all the hubbub died down, three main groups emerged from the rubble, expressionable as three main language groups: Romantic, Germanic and Slavic.

Romance is from Rome. Germanic from Germany. And Slavic? Wherefore Slavic? People first started arriving and setting up shop in Poland some 4000 to 2000 years before the birth of Christ. Bet your sweet boopie that the Slavs were among them. They started making themselves known as BMOC (Big Man on Continent - to which all the other BMOCs “tssed” sanctimoniously) somewhere around the 4th Century B.C. By the year 966 the Polanie Tribe, also Slavs, united all the groups in the region, called it Polska, and converted to Christianity. A nation was born.

And a nation was crushed. From their very genesis they sewed the seeds of their own stagnate development over the millennia - and thus their own destruction. How? What was the seed and where did it take root? The answer is simple: it’s the language.

Recently my best bud Ion Freeman (yes, that Ion Freeman) remarked of a small child crying out to its parents in Prague: “my, but that child is terribly frustrated trying to express itself in the Czech language.” His tongue as always was firmly in his cheek, so much so that he has a permanent niche carved in there (don’t ask me how I know), but that little gal cried, burbled and gaggled, fighting valiantly to sputter a few fundamental syllables. Slavic expression is a struggle worthy of the most noble heroes. Poems and songs should be crafted (in some other language group, no doubt) to extol these brave feats. And it is only by indoctrinating the citizenry at birth that any hope of victory can be realized.

Do you know how many declensions (word endings) there are in Polish? Huh? Do ya? A gazillion, that’s how many. Then there’s case, and number, and gender - for every noun, pronoun, adjective and verb. That’s another gazillion zillion. So do the math. That’s a gazillion zillllloned gaz.... a gazzed zillioned.... a glazed bouillon.... a honey-glazed donut with chocolate sprinkles and cream filling.... NOT! It’s a disaster, that’s what it is. Or have I already alluded to that?

But that’s not the initial problem with this language group. The first thing anyone from outside the region will encounter is the pronunciation. It’s killer. Check this out: ch according to the language books is supposed to sound like the end of loch in Loch Ness but it doesn’t; sz is supposed to sound like the beginning of show; rz like a quick shh; dz, dz', and dz* all sound, I think, similar to sz, but the differences are at once both subtle and gross. If you get it wrong you’ll either be laughed down or will utterly confuse the person you’re trying to speak to. (By the way, the "z*" is actually a "z" with a small dot overhead, but you know how these accursed American web servers are....! )Then there’s the nasal vowels, " a, " and " e, " or “awwwww” and the way the smarmy New-England-nursing-home-aid with the cranberry up her butt recites by rote to her long-suffering clients “and how are you today?” Then there’s the infamous consonant clusters, such as the mono-syllabic szczand chrzm. Don’t even ask.

How is anyone supposed to feel joyous or safe or secure or anything when you’ve got all that garbage to learn? Poles have to do all they can to keep this stuff fresh and clean in their minds. tThey do a bang-up job and I am consistently impressed by their linguistic acrobatics. That’s one of the most lovely things about them, to tell you the truth. ‘Cause they sing when they speak - just sing, and it’s a beautiful thing to hear. All while keeping the declensions and the tenses and the pronunciations tight. Wow. You know, man? Just wow.

But that’s it. They don’t have time for anything else. Like branching out to the world and learning to trust their neighbors or even themselves. Hell, if their language is this hard, then how daunting navigating all the cultural and economic tics of the world must be to them!

Just consider, with no language hurdles to overcome the Gentiles could understand and talk to the Jews. The Nazis would have realized that the Poles weren’t such bad guys after all and left them alone. All the invading powers that besot and buggered this fine people over the centuries would have had reason to leave them alone. Shoot man, they were only laying siege to Poland and carving it up because they were sick and tired of trying to communicate in Venusian. It’s plain as the nose on my face that they ultimately pillaged and plundered to remove the agony of stumbling about in the Slavic languages. That over the years other Slavic groups, most notable Russia, also invaded, only proves my point. They’re all so frickin’ similar it just added to the confusion. They wanted one variation, one notion of SC (Slavic Correctness) to dominate, nay to exist in their pristine little world of melodic, marble-stuffed utterances. The Prussians, Germans and Austrians didn’t want to deal with any of it. Think of how different world history could have played out.

And the vast chasm between Polish Jews and Polish Gentiles? Believe it or not, Poland boasts a rich history of being the most liberal country toward both Jews and members of all races and creeds. That’s why the highest quantity and the most barbaric of concentration camps were erected in Poland. This country simply had the highest Jewish population - by far. Poles today seem to forget that. Hell, I finally learned myself when an American ex-pat told me about it; I doubt anyone else would have volunterred that information. So when the Jews first settled here in the 13th Century they first had to learn that crazy language! (And Yiddish, you know, is no picnic either.) It took ‘em centuries to get it right but the immigrants kept arriving and having to put up with the same linguistic barriers. Jewish parents and teachers, bastards that they were, expected their progeny to be proficient in both languages. The Gentiles were walking around, mumbling to themselves, trying to remember all those blasted declensions, just to keep it straight enough so they could ask the hottie who lived down the street to the big dance on Saturday night, while at the same time their priests were expecting them to do more than mutter the Latin during the Mass and their nuns were rapping it into their knuckles daily at school. And in the meantime the Jews were trying to remember to pronounce the declensions of both languages with the proper Yiddish accent. It was madness! No wonder it all went to hell.

Maybe they all could have gotten together and told Hitler and Stalin (and Roosevelt and Churchill, for that matter) to go to hell. Or at least stuck together and found some solace in each other’s company when each of the four hotshots mentioned above took their own sweet time in plotting his respective course to the underworld. But Stalin - come on now? His Iron Curtain was draped (clunk!) over Slavic and near-Slavic nations. It’s that same “our Slavic is best” argument I’ve already mentioned. Am I the only one who sees this?

As good as things could have been, so much moreso today.. could it have been.... if would that.... uh, be better......

The European Union? Well, if Stalin had kept his grimy sperm-encrusted paws off Eastern Europe, there wouldn’t even be any contemporary talk of who deserves to join and who doesn’t. But let’s imagine that the Poles and other Slavs had committed to de-Slavinizing since the fall of Communism. Actung, baby! Viva la Polska! The barriers would fall, wheat prices would stabilize, GDP would rise, the Catholics would let the Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and tree-huggers in, and prostitutes would no longer ply their trade while big-muscled Russians lurked in the shadows (then again, maybe they would).

Money would flow, jobs could be had, bureaucracy would work (then again, refer to the concluding sentence of the above paragraph), trams would be brand spankin’ new, the snow wouldn’t fall on the train lines, all the pollution would drift off towards Russia, and the sewers wouldn’t leak while the streets would. People would smile in the trams, seek out solutions to problems, and there would be copulating in the streets. I mean dancing.

There would be understanding. And where there’s understanding, there is unlimited room for friendship and growth.

So I propose that this vast, populous, splendid nation phase out their declensions. Gradually, so the current generations will barely notice its passing and the next generation after the next will be fully indoctrinated in the ecumenical spirit of the times. Eliminate the distinction between dz and dz' and dz*, first and foremost. Then over time, get rid of the z* all together. That’s the easy part. Then teach all with eyes to see and ears to hear that strings of consonants need to have frickin’ vowels between ‘em! That may use up an entire generation in and of itself. There’s more to be done after that, but the last thing should be to get rid of the "a," and "e,". The most experienced Slavic speakers sling their nasal sounds the way Bert slung hash at the Market Street Dinner in Philly. Which is to say it’s nothing special: they just drop em’ all together. (Yeah, Bert used to do that, too.)

So, as these nasals are the most cherished of the Slavic anomalies - and therefore the most dispensable - I say save the easiest for last to both psychologically ease the transition and to preserve their sentimental value. They Poles can keep the genders and cases - hell, a lot of fine, fine nations do just that and look where it got them. Just look, I say. As for the persons, it can be just as confusing as the declensions - ‘cause singular and plural work of a kind with the declensions and word-endings are constantly changing. I propose they just add “s” - and catch up with that fat bastard of a country that’s always trying to dictate international policy to the rest of the pestered world.

Oh, by the way - Slavs don’t bother with definite and indefinite articles. Nice touch. I like that. For example, nobody else talks about "the" Ukraine or 'the' Czech Republic. Who needs those meaningless “the’s” anyway? Christ, we are fat bastards!

There you have it folks: my blueprint for domestic bliss and international harmony. That’s what I’ve learned in the past year. Take it or leave it. I’m not suggesting a global village by any means, just a trifle more common ground, is all. But whether I stay or go from Poland anytime soon, I’m sure to return in 10 years when the EU (uh, I mean “EU”) membership is in full swing and this country will be well on its way to adopting standards that transverse its borders. For all the hardships and grime I’ve waxed semi-poetic about in these installments, there’s a lot about the Poles to suggest they’re ready no matter what the world throws at them next. Because thrown they will be, thrown into the world-at-large. They’ll be just fine come-what-may. The best and most vivid among them recognize that the suspicion and fear and wariness begins to fall away when you find a way to communicate.

After all, love will save the day. But you’ve got to know how to say it first.

posted by mark 9:02 PM

Thursday, June 06, 2002

THE LORDS OF CENTRAL EUROPE
II: The Two Curtains

Warsaw has a healthy number of parks within and near its borders. Green is the dominant theme. Trees, trees, and more trees. Shrubs. Flora. Florets. Why, just outside my window is a pleasant little memento of the vast forest Poland used to be millennia ago. It’s only one square block, but there’s a statue there, a memorial to Polish soldiers who fought a hopeless cause against both Nazi and Soviet aggression in World War II. Wide paths. Manicured lawns. A quaint flower boutique on the far end. And, oh, yes, a recently added kiddie playland. Like the park itself, it’s not a large parcel of real estate, maybe only 200 square feet. But the slides and swings and pint-sized climbing gymnasium are all brand-spankin’-new and of good quality. There’s even a little outdoor café on its south side; herein harried parents can rest while they care for their children. The City footed the bill for the playland, and Café Zielnik, of course, turned to other resources for their altruism: over each table is a large emerald umbrella, emblazoned with the name of a popular beer. Thus the kids can always be assured of their ultimate source of largesse. The kiddie park stays open day and night, and the café likewise, serving eats and booze. Day and night.

Welcome to Warsaw.

Make no mistake: life is tough here. Communism tried hard to break this country, but the Solidarity Movement and the indomitable will of the Polish people eventually proved too much. The Reds were sent packing, but exacted a terrible price. I’ll try to explain it in 9 sub-sections over the next few pages, then in the next chapter I’ll speak about what maybe can be done to make things better. If the City fathers see this, however, I may be writing that next chapter in a cardboard shack somewhere in Siberia. (The Communists are back in office, remember.) So let me pontificate on the state of this former Soviet state just east of the fallen Iron Curtain and we’ll see what happens.

Poland is struggling to find its balance, get some sort of foothold on a extremely slippery slope. Confusion and inefficiency reigns, but everywhere there are signs of a brighter day. Poland is slow, uncertain, xenophobic, disorganized, and weary. Yet there are legions rising surely from the ashes of this former totalitarian state trying to make it quicker, self-confident, open-minded, efficient and indefatigable. Mazeltof. In both the good and the bad, everything is focused in and on Warsaw. So let’s take it point by point.

1 - Spirits

This city boasts strict anti-drinking laws, or so I’ve been told. No public consumption of alcohol. No public billboard advertising of alcohol. But there are ways around this. The police don’t care, thus one need travel only a few blocks before seeing buddies stumbling down the pavement, swearing their eternal fidelity to each other. (In stentorian drunken Polish, which everybody should experience at least once.) Once a week an obnoxious drunk will climb onto a trolley I’m on, spoiling for a fight. Warsavian (or "Warsaw" in the mother tongue) men are fond of picking their noses in public, and I hope it’s only the drunks who are doing this. Everybody and anybody can hold a can or bottle and imbibe liberally. Beer companies get around the billboard law by adding very fine print at the bottom of their ads that the advertised product is non-alcoholic.

Simply put, booze is everywhere. Vodka is referred to as “liquid bread” though in these hard times Poles have turned to beer instead. Also omnipresent are the legions of pissing pedestrians (er, just the men) who don’t bother to try to hide the fact that they’re relieving themselves. Just walk ten feet from the sidewalk and find a tree or patch of grass. I’ve watched more mothers than I care to count tell their kids to do this in broad daylight. One little guy let it all hang out against a fence as I walking by, with no tree in sight. Trouble was, the fence was one of those old-fashioned iron deals with the bars spaced about a foot apart. Add to that the roughly hundred people in the park as the kid bared his all. I guess the funniest thing about all this was I was the only one who seemed to notice or care.

What else is everywhere? Dog poop. You can’t buy a pooper-scooper in this city and nobody bothers to clean up anyway. (Although I did once see an elderly gent kick his dog’s business toward the nearest sewer grate. Considerate guy.) In some of the parks and greens in this burg you can’t take one step without an unfortunate mishap. You only see the occasional deposit on the sidewalk, however - that and the blotches of vomit. Like I said, booze is everywhere, in one form or another.

2 - The Spirited Hordes

Public transport hasn’t improved since I wrote my first installment. Recently I was in a bus older than me that reacted violently to every bump and grind. Passengers will do anything to avoid eye contact with each other - although I often catch them staring at me. Too American, I guess. They’re quick to look away when I do catch them, however. This despite being locked together in the most intricate Rube Goldberg fashion: if one person moves, we all move. Yet they absolutely refuse to talk and may even hold their packages and briefcases just a little closer if I try to start a conversation. The trolleys (or “trams”) are worse: they break down intermittently, stranding all the others trams using the same line. Just today this happened twice, each time stranding a dozen others behind it. The subway is rather modern but damn, it’s loud. And again, you’ve got the same problem of people refusing to acknowledge a common humanity. It’s rare when the passenger who bumps into you says “excuse me”. As for the trains, forgedaboudit. The compartments are either too hot or too cold and of course, crowded. The corridors are wide enough for one person to pass and often they are crammed with passengers who arrived too late to get a seat.

Speaking of crowds, people bump into each other all the time. It’s tough to explain this if you’re not here. America has its share of crowds, too - special event and mall pedestrian traffic can be maddening in any county, but Warsavians will not budge for another person until that other is practically on top of them, stamping on their toes and rubbing various pairs of cheeks. It’s much worse when it rains. It’s that watercloset phenomenon again - the first-time observer will think that nobody else exists or matters to the self-absorbed Pole. But it’s not that easy. The Communists taught them that life is brutal - be extremely patient and you’ll get what you need. But that level of patience numbs. A small but salient example: if there’s two or three (or a dozen) trams in a row approaching a station, the crowds will board the first tram without even looking to see if the others are empty. The same is true of the cars: each tram has two cars, but one is often packed in tight while the other is half-empty. Which car it is depends on where the crowd happens to be standing.

And speaking of public transport, tram and bus lines can be lengthened, shortened, added, rerouted, deleted, bent, folded or mutilated with no notice. I’ve climbed aboard a tram or two which had the wrong route numbers on them! You cannot get a schedule in any bus, tram, train or trolley. They are posted at each stop, though vandals often tear them down. Or, if you’re brave or rich enough to have a computer and Internet access, you can fetch it off the ‘Net. Churches do not have schedules, either, or mass booklets. But then, in Poland, a Catholic State if there ever was one, I guess nobody needs them.

Trash is ubiquitous. I recently was in a suburb of Warsaw - a rather nice little town that bordered a national park, where a prim and proper lady pulled up to a turnout in the dirt and dumped the garbage she had stored in her trunk onto the ground, all while I stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief. The city water supply is filthy - as, naturally, are all the waterways. Turn on the faucet and the water is likely to flow chestnut-colored, no matter what part of Warsaw you’re in. It eventually runs semi-clear, but dishes and bathtubs can’t help but develop henna-toned stains. So do some of the people.

3 - Spirit gum

Sidewalks are like funhouse floors, what with the damage that tree roots and the decay of time can do. Funhouse floors made of concrete, that is, which come to think of it really isn’t all that fun. The sex industry is relatively sizeable, as it employs a host of people to pass out business-card-sized graphic adverts onto every car in the city, several times a day. Bare breasts are used to sell products here, including the most recent cover of Poland’s most popular newsmagazine Wprost. The next had a full-page blowup of the Pope. I guess they were making a one-two push to sell Miracle bras.(Oww! Somebody stop me!) I had to pay several hundred zlotys (or zl., the local currency) just to make a month’s worth of local phone calls. Internet access is controlled by the state phone company and they charge by the minute. When I tried to figure all this out I was chagrined to find that I didn’t get an itemized bill, but instead had to pay an additional fee to acquire one. Public transportation fees are 2.66 zl. for a single ride, 7.60 for a 24 hour pass.

The bureaucracy is maddeningly inefficient. When I had to extend the time on my passport the process took several weeks and several interminable lines. There was no order to these queues, except that of the honor and honesty of those who stood in them. Finally when my passport was approved (although it almost wasn’t since the information I received in the first line was vastly different from the information I received in the last line) they refused to take my money. Instead I had to travel to the local post office - which functions as a government account office in addition to its more civic duties - pay the passport office’s account, acquire a paper receipt, return to the passport office, stand in another absurdly long line, and finally get my passport approved. And how did the passport office find my application when I returned to them? Why, it was in the middle of a large stack of applications. Sitting on a shelf amidst a ton of other stacks. Imagine the results of one lazy or ineffectual employee: I have a Polish friend who had exactly that happen to her. She lost her ID and it took her over 6 months to replace everything - because all those bureaucrats at the end of all those long lines lost her replacement applications and papers more than once. Recently I was told that I have to give up my original passport for 2 to 3 months to the courts to get married in this country. Imagine how I feel about that.

Speaking of honor and honesty, there’s a great deal of that among the common folk. Poles may not expect much from their government or each other, but they do expect a lot from themselves: don’t complain, don’t make waves, don’t cheat. They’re remarkably loyal - and remarkably complacent. The Warsavian mantra is “you can do nothing”; the average Pole on the street seems to accept life as it is and does little to change it. They don’t complain about their countryman’s mess and have no compunction about creating a mess of their own. This makes them resilient, friends you can count on for comfort and empathy. But a bit short for offering solutions.

4 - Vexations of the Spirit: Inflationary Blues

Inflation is rampant. 20 zl. for a pizza. 2 zl. for a liter of milk. 100-200 zl. for a pair of shoes. 500 zl. for a decent bicycle, the same for a pair of roller blades (meaning one that won’t break the first time you use it).100 zl. for a cheap pair of jeans, 200-300 for a good pair. 100 for a bottle of Kahluha. 1,000 zl. rent for a one-room flat. 3,000 for a basic computer, 50,000 for an average sized car. Though most people tool around in what I call a “Mr. Bean car” and what they call a “can on wheels”. These cars are smaller than my parents’ bathroom! Washing machines are the size of American clothes hampers, clothes hampers are the size of trash cans, trash cans are the size of slop buckets. Clothes-driers are rarer than Jews (more on that later).

And while we’re on my favorite subject, did I ever mention how often toilets break down and leak, and how sinfully small and stuffy they are? I think my landlady’s “WC” must have been designed by the Communists as an interrogation room. Recently I was treated to more old fashioned model, still in use. It was merely a hole in the floor, flushable, believe it or not, with a small water tank above but no place to sit. You figure out the rest. I thought it was a shower when I first opened its door.

Unemployment is over 20%, although I suspect this is the underemployment rate. Whatever, the average professional salary hovers around 1000 zl. net per month! The State maintains salaries and benefits at artificially depressed levels in ever more desperate attempts to control inflation... It ain’t working. How anyone can afford anything in this town is beyond me. There are a number of restaurants and boutiques that cater exclusively to tourists and the few rich workaholics in town. One Mexican restaurant charges 25 zl. for a margarita, and 44 zl. for a couple of burritos. Ay Dios Mio! Mexico should declare war. Well, I’ve got news for them. I’m not making dollars anymore; nobody who lives here is. I work with a staff of 55, though only 2 of them own cars. Most people under 30 out here live with their parents.

Am I the only one thinking of Argentina at this point? Yet in the face of this economic madness, to the former Soviet countries which surround this struggling nation (with the possible exception of the Czech Republic) Poland is the Promised Land. This boggles my little mind. To the good folks of the Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus and Slovakia, Poland means economic opportunity. In-frickin’-credible! There is an Other Curtain that extends from the erstwhile Iron one, which drapes all of Poland and the Czech Republic; to the west of the former Iron Curtain life in Europe has its problems, to be sure, but generally it’s coming along quite nicely. In Poland it’s bad. To the south and east it’s even worse.

I was recently in Slovakia where the average monthly salary is 20 U.S. dollars and it takes 100 units of their currency to buy a bottle of dish soap. The dollar is 4 to 1 in Poland; in Slovakia it’s closer to 40 to 1! The mountain villages I visited few had cars or jobs; the main mode of transport was feet and if people had to carry anything with them they employed wheelbarrows or two-wheeled carts. Imagine little old ladies and others dressed in colorful but dirty rags, moving to and fro about the town. Still those little villages were the friendliest places I’ve visited yet, and no one stared at this strange American in their midst. They wore smiles and old smocks and had little else. To those countries on the wrong side of the Other Curtain economic stability is as distant from actual reality as the Contract for America is from the New Deal.

The citizens of the Other Curtain come to Poland seeking jobs, but not Russians. There is a tiny sliver of Russia, separated from the motherland, which Russia keeps as a strategic Baltic Sea port. It too borders Poland, but that’s only because Russia took it from Poland over a century ago. Just one more reason why the Poles and Russians don’t like each other.

5 - Spiritless Babble: Xenophobism

Forget whatever nonsense you’ve ever heard about racism not existing in Europe. Poles and Jews do not, under any circumstance, get along. Amazing, huh? I mean, of all countries...! Many former Polish Jews blame Poland for the conditions that inspired the Holocaust, and many Polish Gentiles blame their former countrymen for being unwilling to see how Poles of every stripe suffered under the Soviet and Nazi heels. Some older Gentiles complain that, pre-WW-II, “the Poles owned the streets and the Jews owned everything else.” (To which the impartial observer may remark: “Geeze, go out and get a job, why don’t ya?”) The obvious point they're all missing is that they were all Polish, but neither side will acknowledge that simple fact. In fact, the relationship between most of Europe and Jewry is not good. There are several hundred Africans here attending local universities and they tend to complain about how they are glared at and called by what they consider racial epithets. (Although the Poles don’t see it that way). A small number of vocal Catholic priests have been outspoken in their speech and writings against Jews and for racial purity. Blacks may not be discriminated against, but I defy the state to allow them to run any large Polish industry or company. Every country in the world has its share of racial intolerance. It all depends on the race. (But thankfully, Europe has no legacy of slavery or genocide; Yugoslavia and Nazi Germany notwithstanding.)

The English hate the Irish and Scots. The Germans hate the French. The French don’t like anyone. Greeks and Turks hate each other. Spaniards don’t trust Italians. Italians don’t trust the Swiss. The Swiss don’t like anyone who’s a brighter shade of pale. Slovakians don’t like Poles. Western Europe scorns Eastern Europe. And so it goes.....

The Mafia is strong in Poland. (No, not the Italians, you jackass.) You’ve got to pay to play with the big boys, though it’s not as bad as it is in points east where they kill those who complain too loudly. Bribes are pretty big business, too, of the police and bureaucrats and corporations. Nepotism and corruption and the uneducated masses rule. Used to be the big joke here was of “Polish customer service,” which, simply put, meant there wasn’t any. People were paid for their work no matter how inferior its quality. So if on your job you took four one-hour breaks, and then chatted on the phone while customers queued up at your counter, that was alright. And it happened many, many times. The older workers out here, in particular, are reluctant to see this change. It is this very same demographic which is growing increasingly blunt in its calls for a return to a full Communist state.

These days, do not expect much better. Lines will move abhorrently slow. You can buy alcohol in the supermarkets, but you’ll have to withstand one long queue in the liquor department and then another at the main checkout, where they’ll ask for your liquor receipt and run it thought their register again. Nobody bags for you, and the clerk will give you these infinitesimal, thin plastic bags. So you stand there, wrestling all your groceries into the paltry bags, then inevitably beg the clerk for more, while the rest of the line backs up.

Take two of the homeless ladies who are regular fixtures on the local street corners. I’ve never seen the like: they have to be at least 70 though I’ve never actually glimpsed their faces. They stand, bent, at 90 degree angles, wrapped in heavy coats, with uncontrollably shaking hands outstretched for coins. They’re permanently scarred by their former Nazi and Soviet caretakers, starved until their bodies mutilated themselves in a rare form of rheumatism (rare for us, not for them). I don’t know what I could possibly do to really help them. Begging is an art form out here: just acquire a foot permanently twisted the wrong way or profound bloody scars or get really old and bent, maybe write a long, sincere message of your plight which you carry as a sign, and make your case. You can stand silently as the people pass, or kneel with hands clasped in prayer, or board the trams and buses, preferably with a baby in your arms, and appeal directly to the masses. Above all have a sense of humor as most people turn uncomfortably and maybe even angrily from you. Many of these unfortunates used to have health care and jobs when Poland was colored Red.

There are an alarming number of people here who have deep physical scars. The only inexpensive things I’ve noticed in this country so far are cigarettes and basic health care, but people who can only afford one of the two often make the wrong choice. Or they go with neither, deprived of even the simple liberty of that choice. There was a rainstorm here a few days ago which made all the dog droppings runny and the whole city smell like shit, which was followed by a torrential downpour which caused Warsaw to stop dead in its tracks. Sewer grates and tunnels are lacking and practically all the streets flooded; the subway tunnels leaked and shut the rails down for three hours. Gnats descend on this city in late Spring by the millions.

Friend of a friend was beat here recently, by four skinheads. Black guy. Busy night. Completely ignored... There was a multiple murder here a week ago. Four people, cold blood, on a weekend evening. Busy street in a main shopping district. Hundreds of people around. One elderly lady “saw” something; everyone else continued shopping, refusing to let the bodies get in their way as they went about their business. The throng stepped over, not around, the dead, until the police arrived twenty minutes later. Hey, all this stuff I write about happens in America, too - and America is worse, far worse, in other areas. I've written a lot about that too, believe me. But here in Poland, many people in this burg are scared stupid, plain and simple. Communism not only wrecked this country economically and aesthetically, it consumed its soul. Everywhere you go, people want to change - but many are afraid to try. Or simply haven’t a clue how to go about it. Thank God for the aforementioned legions who do.

8 - Spiritualism, the Quest for Enlightenment

Many, many college students complain of the dictatorial nature of their professors; dissent and independent thinking are definitely out of vogue, have never been in vogue, and anyone who tries to put them into vogue will often find an “F” on their report card. Nobody really owns an apartment, or “flat”, out here: they’re all co-ops with the local city authorities. Even my landlady, who’s been in this flat for 50 years, pays building rental and her heat is turned off in April whether it’s still cold outside or not. (And this year, believe me, it was.) Bring your long johns.

The flat buildings, by the way, are called “blocks” and they look it: large slabs of gray and dismal concrete, totally devoid of character. In some of the outlying Warsaw districts and suburbs the blocks have more the feel and appearance of modern apartment units, but they’re still in the shape of huge rectangles. Architectural innovation out here is not valued, while the original gray models blight the whole of the Polish landscape. The effect of this and all the above is that much of Warsaw and many other communities look, feel and smell like American ghettoes. Praga (or "Prague") and Wilano'v (or "Villa Nova") are really nice, though.

Basic Polish quality is an oxymoron. As anywhere, you get what you pay for. But you can’t afford much on 1000 zl. or less per month. Clothing is thin and fragile, electrical wiring is shoddy and dangerous, and phone and Internet connections are dismal. And that’s very sad, since ‘Net access is controlled by the State and costs .12 zl. a minute. Utilities are monopolized, so the common man can do little - and often does nothing. In the same vein, hardly anyone recycles. I've heard that years ago an auto stalled out over a railroad crossing as a train approached. The passengers couldn’t get out, however, ‘cause all the doorhandles broke off in their hands. That’s how they were found: with their mangled hands clutching the handles. Do I believe it? Well, the mangled hands is a nice touch of dramatic license, but yeah, cars did fall apart in the Communist and immediately post-Communist era. And nobody was sued. Hey, usually I’m the first to complain about the American culture of litigation. But sometimes it’s necessary.

Maybe that’s why things American and British are omnipresent. 8 out of 10 songs on the radio are English, and most of them American. 1 out of 10 is Western Europe or Latino. Cinemas run mostly American films with subtitles. Tee-shirts and businesses are emblazoned with English logos. Even in the small village of Bendzin in the south, the local bus line is named in English “Red Bus”. There is a palpable sense here of all things Western (except vodka of course), American in particular, being better. Which circles back to the backlash against Poland’s modernization and floundering democracy.

Nobody seems to like Lech Walesa anymore, the man who led his Solidarity Labor Party to topple the Communist government and thereby start the process of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today many of Warsaw’s denizens are opposed to trade unions while Walesa pitches computers for a Western firm. He continues to be idolized by many in the West and is a hot ticket on the lecture circuit... “A prophet is not without honor” and all that.

9 - Holy Spirit

Once again I must praise the legion of Poles who stay here and try to build a better life. Things are changing, but slowly. The dismal failure of the Great Soviet Experiment has ransomed the happiness and livelihoods of millions. God bless anyone who tries to pull it all together - and despite all of the above, they are trying. It’s just real hard to see sometimes. The average Pole is scared and wary - and with their past, they have damn good reason. The Polish government wants to join the European Union in 2004, but many of the common folk just don’t trust anyone but their Catholic countrymen. We all must learn from the past as we forge the future. Walesa and his supporters understood that; they’re still here. Their cause and their passion are still here, within the borders of this country. It can and must be tapped again and not allowed to fade once more.

Used to be life here was much as it is now in the East. And life in the East was much, much worse. I guess. It certainly wasn’t any better. fiancée’ reminds me constantly of how good people can be and how uncompromisingly dour my own view of Warsaw is. Fact is, she’s offended by my opinion. Let me use her own words here: “It is true that we are not as joyous and open to one another as Americans with their big artificial smiles, but under our hard shell which is caused by an extremely hard life we have to live. There is a big heart in many Poles and we do help one another... one example comes to my mind: yesterday I was on the bus and at one of the bus stops a handicapped woman tried to get on the bus. At once many people came up to her to help her......it is just a small thing but life consists of doing small things and that’s what matters.”

And whatever happened to Café Zielnik? Nothing. I wrote letters to the local paper out here, the most popular in the county, but they were ignored. If Zielnik takes away the beer or beer advertising they’ll lose their funding, and the City wouldn’t dream of moving the kiddie park. According to Zielnik’s co-owner, the City has never successfully undertaken a project so quickly. The park went up in two weeks, when most City projects of similar or greater size take months or years to complete. The City provides security for the Café, which last year was vandalized and robbed when there was no kiddie park alongside it, so now they need each other. Faust and the devil are alive and well. At the recreation area across the street, where there is no round-the-clock security, robbery and vandalism are common themes. Of chief import are the “rocking-horse” ducks. I have no idea why.

And so it goes...

posted by mark 12:26 PM

Saturday, February 02, 2002

THE LORDS OF CENTRAL EUROPE
(Poland.... an Appreciation)
by Mark C Still

I The Fellowship of the Toilet Ring

Toilets. Polish Toilets. Understand them and you understand Poland.

Poland is populated with stouthearted souls who have been baptized in the vermilion fires of bondage. The current generation has been born under the fractured yoke of Communism, and the scars are real. Not deep, perhaps, but neither are they healed. The older generations lived under the heel of the Soviet boot for far longer... and the resentment is profound. Yet former communists have recently regained the reins of government, so maybe the Poles’ resentment is most profound against themselves and their long national legacy of ill-advised political choices.

For less than 20 years between the World Wars Poland was a free country, and its Restoration still peals loudly in the hearts of all patriotic Poles today (and what Pole is not?), no matter their age. It was the most glorious time in contemporary Polish history, a historical era that many wish they could experience for themselves or even return to. But that time was mockingly brief. After more than a century of virtual non-existence, partitioned to Prussia and Germany and Russia as slices of a living, heaving verdure-and-bronzed pie, Poland was betrayed by Britain, devastated by Germany, betrayed once more by Britain and America as well, then subjugated again to the harshness of Russian avarice. Two of the most bloodthirsty dictators who ever trod this Earth took sinister delight in decimating one of the proudest races which ever lived.

Freedom was a tease, a forbidden apple forever out of reach. When Poland regained its foothold on the shores of liberty after the collapse of Communism, they soon found it eroding back into the Baltic Sea, a polluted and tideless depositary of broken dreams and unrealized aspirations. While Communism was collapsing upon itself and lying to the world about the state of its health, the world left Poland behind. Today it is a penniless regime – which is exactly why this desperate people elected ex-Soviets to the posts of president and Prime minister. (Many of the ballot-droppers were rural eastern farmers who lost everything when their state-sanctions disappeared). Poland is reeling. Poland is distressed. And it shows on the faces and in the hearts of its greatest assets: it's people

Make no doubt, these are a stalwart people. But I was talking about toilets, wasn’t I?

The old-fashioned Polish receptacle - presumably I’m speaking about the Communist model here - has as its main body a shallow depression that holds maybe an inch of water in its center. At the very front of the toilet is a six-by-four inch hole, a deep well into which all the detritus in the depression must flow. And flow it does. It takes a considerable amount of pressure to move what’s in the depression to the well. I learned quickly that it’s a good idea to stand whenever you flush. On the bright side, all that pressure renders these commodes essentially self-cleaning.

Poles take care of themselves; in fact, they are loath to accept outside help. You can see it in the faces and postures of practically everyone you pass on the streets: stern, practical and joyless; the very stereotypical picture of Soviet doggedness (45 years of Communism has taught these Poles well). Proud to be a citizen of one of the most abused and misused nations in the world, thank you very much... now leave me the hell alone. As I said, self-cleaning. Or at least so they think.

Like the exuberant rush of their privies, Polish life can be a bit... messy. Let’s review: Wars, partitioning, freedom, another war, then the communists set up camp for 45 years and ruined this nation economically. Next, Lech Walesa came onto the scene and staged a brilliant series of nationwide strikes, expressing the ruddy exasperation of an entire race - the communists were defeated, then the newly-made-President Walesa publicly auditioned a slew of emerald-hued-idealistic prime ministers in his many attempts to resurrect the Polish economy, all of whom crashed in radiant flames. Poles grew tired and impatient with his fruitless efforts so they voted Walesa out and the communists in.

Heaven help them, they’re used to this. In fact, they pull together in times of crises against a common enemy. At all other times, well... they seem to be a people in search of an enemy. When people pass on the street or board public transport at the same time, they not only don’t utter a sound when they coarsely bump into each other, they in fact often seem to deliberately bruise one another. As if the streets and facilities were universally-sanctioned-mosh-pits. There is a profound lack of trust in this country, so many don’t even bother to communicate. As I said, messy. (45 years of Communism has taught these Poles well.)

Poles are proud and ostensibly efficient, just like the traditional commode. But it’s still got to go down that well. And if you get to close to a Pole going about his business, you might just get bumped out of the way, swept away by his flow. It’s best to stand up and get the heck out of the way.

The newer toilets don’t have cascading levels; the water funnels down to a rather large hole at the far side of the bowl. But that sudden, enormous rush of water appears to be fixated in the Polish mind. And so the upwardly mobile young Poles are perhaps in the long run a little more efficient and a little less messy - and certainly more ostentatious - but the difference between the Polish yuppie and the rest of the population is as striking as that between the toilets. Polish modernism is ultra-modernism - while the rest of the country is a decade behind the rest of the world.

Another aspect of the toilets is their situation in the general structure of the Polish household. The toilet is in one very small room (the British “watercloset”), the bath and sink in another. In the public restrooms, you will very rarely encounter anything as trite as a “stall”. Instead, you’ll find each loo comfortably tucked away into another one of those ubiquitous water-rooms. The Poles value their privacy, yet their notion of personal space is laughable, with they way they all bump into one another like errant lavender-tinted pinballs. (Many of the public lavatories themselves are unisex, so you lock yourself away into one of those WCs, then emerge to share the sink with a member of the opposite sex. Of course all the time completely ignoring you.) But try to crack the veneer of a passing Pole on the street and at the very best you’ll get an icy stare. At the worst you’ll get nothing. Privacy. They walk around in those little waterclosets of theirs all the time.

When a Pole gets to know you, however, and takes you into his heart he’ll often take you into his arms, as well. They have no American-style prohibition against men hugging or crossing their legs limply one over another. They exchange niceties and terms of endearments loudly, and as they do in the rest of their lives, totally ignore everyone else around them. Because 45 years of Communism has taught them well: true friends are rare and must be treasured, since it all may be gone in the blink of an eye (just like good toilets).

Those traditional privies of theirs break down a lot. They leak. Their wells are deep and wide and don’t get clogged as easy as their American counterparts... just like their trains and buses are big and heavy and lumbering and you better stand far to one side when you hear one coming. But if you’re taking one for a ride and don’t hang on tight at every stop and start of the transport, you’re going to get thrown halfway across the car, limbs akimbo, briefcases and purses flying. No one seems to mind, though. During rush hour people cram themselves in cheek-to-jowl... but still refuse to make eye contact or even say mutter something as innocuous as, “Boy, It’s crowded in here!” Why, two weeks week after I arrived in Polska a few inches of snow thoroughly disrupted the trains - and a six hour ride cross-country turned into a 24 hour ordeal. In the midst of all this and more, Poles will very rarely complain. At least not in public.

I guess they know that the flow will always resume. It just may take some time before they flush.

The Polish national character is a wonder to behold, rich in its history and noble in its pursuit of some modest manner of simple dignity. In the Polish mountains to the south, the Polish character is much more open and embracing, willing to bend and flow at will - despite an even lower standard of living and a more dire economic standing than that of the large cities like Warsaw and Gdansk. Like the old Buddhist monk who faced an angry lion on one side and a precipitous cliff on the other only to take pleasure in the moment by plucking a succulent berry from a nearby bush to enjoy its sweetness, the southlanders find joy in their health and environment. In simply being alive. In the things most of us of any nation take for granted.

Locked down inside - sometimes deep inside indeed - is that same joyful mountaineer in every Polish heart. You just need a little patience to draw it out. Believe me, it’s worth the effort. A Polish friend is one for life, a loyal and trustworthy companion. Polish laughter warms the heart, just as their cooking warms the belly. It was the communists who marred the Polish soul, but despite 45 years of sometimes brutal efforts, they could not vanquish it. If the Soviets had been in power another 500 years, they still could not squelch what makes these people marvelous to behold. Unquestionably, this nation will recover from the hardships it must now endure.

Because as the southlanders knew all along, the communists were like any toilet. Full of shit. Any anything that stands in the way of the Polish flow is going to get swept away.

posted by mark 12:04 AM