Moje historie z Gdańska: my stories from Gdansk

Hi guys, now that I am back from Gdansk, Poland and I want to share with you some of the experiences I've had in Poland. Three episodes stand out - now they may seem like fairly minor, even mundane events, but I have chosen to share these with you for personal reasons. This is my second trip to Poland - I first visited Warsaw in 2013 six years ago but I have traveled extensively throughout Eastern Europe over the years. So let me begin with the first incident which took place on a ferry - as Gdansk is on the banks of the Motława (pronounced 'Motwava') river, there are plenty of ferries which operate on the river. I do recommend it as that gives you a more relaxed way to travel and you get to see Gdansk from the water - I took the ferry out to Westerplatte and it is a 40 minute journey that takes you through some of Gdansk's biggest shipyards, giving you a chance to see them up close from a different angle. When I was on the ferry, I began to take selfies and this other tourist barged past me to take a photo, ruining my selfie. It wasn't that I hadn't taken enough selfies on this trip (have a look at my Instagram for my photos from Gdansk) but I felt that what he had done was very inconsiderate - if I saw someone trying to take a photo, I would make sure I didn't photo bomb them or barge past them.

So I confronted this guy both in Polish and English (there were quite a few Polish people on the ferry) - yes I do speak a little Polish, given that I speak Russian, I can understand Polish a lot better than I can speak it but I have made a genuine effort to learn Polish so I knew enough to confront someone in Polish under such circumstances. This guy replied in English and it was clear that he wasn't even aware of what he had done or why I was upset with him. When I realized that English wasn't his first language and that he had a German accent, I switched to German and explained to him in German what he had done. He claimed that he was standing beside me or behind me, but he wasn't in the way - I then told him that he could have simply said excuse me, entschuldigen sie bitte (in German) or przepraszam (in Polish) if he was desperate to get past me to take his photo of that lovely bridge, but to simply push past me the way he did was impolite. He then apologized and said, look he saw something nice on the bridge we were sailing past, he wanted to take a photo and in his excitement he probably didn't notice that I was standing there trying to take a selfie. We're all on holiday and he didn't want his inconsiderate actions to ruin my day, so he apologized - I said that I appreciated and accepted his apology and I also wished him a nice day in Westerplatte (well it actually started raining when we got there unfortunately). I handled the incident rather calmly but assertively in three languages; he was actually pretty impressed with the quality of my German and was surprised that I could speak Polish as well given that I do obviously look Chinese.

The second incident took place in a Polish milk bar - now don't be misled by the name, a 'bar mleczny' is a kind of cafeteria where you can get quite down to earth typical Polish food - I would compare it to the "economy rice" experience in Singapore and Malaysia. It is a far cry from the more touristy restaurants in the old town of Gdansk where the staff would speak English and the menu would certainly be in English as well. I visited a very Polish milk bar where everything was only written in Polish as I wanted an authentic Polish dining experience. There are a few main courses with lots of side dishes for you to choose from, you just pick what you want and pay for it. I actually saw a sign that offered a main course + soup + drink for just 19 PLN (£3.82 or S$6.77) which was a really good deal. But when I got my meal, I was charged nearly 30 PLN for my food and that was when I had to ask the cashier (who didn't speak any English) why I wasn't charged 19 PLN. She explained that the 19 PLN meal deal was only valid if I had picked the dish of the day and that I had picked one of the more expensive meat dishes, so my selection didn't qualify for the meal deal. Besides, you could only get a bottle of still or sparkling water with that deal and I had picked a fruit juice, which once again was more expensive. I explained that the signs were all in Polish and my Polish was rather limited, she laughed and said it was okay since she barely spoke any English. She asked if I wanted to change my food in order to get the meal deal but I said no - it was still only about £6 or S$10.70 and it wasn't too expensive. Besides, I didn't really like the dish of the day.

I would like to contrast these two incidents with something that happened to my family when we were on holiday in Japan way back in 1985. Now none of us spoke any Japanese and back in 1985, few people in Japan spoke any English. Trying to do anything as a tourist was a lot more challenging back then because of the massive language barrier. My father was trying to buy some Japanese candy from a store but the woman refused to take payment from him - she did try to say something to him in Japanese but my father couldn't understand what she was saying. In the meantime, she served other customers who were Japanese. My father walked away from the store angrily, claiming that he was a victim of racism. Now if my memory serves me right, we had only just arrived in Japan and the money changer had given my father some rather big notes of Yen rather than small change. So if my father was trying to buy some candy with a 10,000 Yen note, then the lady may have said that she didn't have any change and she might have asked him if he had anything smaller than 10,000 Yen. I find it really hard to believe that a Japanese person would actually be so racist as to refuse to serve a paying customer; but nonetheless, that was the impression my father got. Now I was able to resolve the two incidents on the ferry and in the milk bar mainly because I spoke enough Polish and German to communicate effectively with the people involved in the incidents. Had it been my father, he would have assumed that the German guy on the boat was deliberately racist and that he had been maliciously overcharged in the milk bar because he was a foreigner.

In hindsight, I do feel sorry for my father - he spent most of his adult life fearful of the outside world because his inability to communicate even in English. I do remember an incident in a car park in Bukit Timah back in 1990 when I was 14 when a white American guy approached him for help - all this guy wanted was directions to go to the nearby tennis courts and my father literally ran way out of fear of having to speak to this white guy in English. I then told the American guy where the tennis courts were, but I could see the shame in my father's face because I dealt with the American calmly whilst my father was in a total state of panic. I didn't say anything about it afterwards but I could sense that my father felt ashamed by his reaction. I suppose I would take something like speaking to a foreigner in English for granted whilst it scared the hell out of my father - like he was genuinely freaked out by a white guy politely asking him, "excuse me sir, could you tell me where the tennis courts are please?" Now I realize it is impossible to learn every language in the world to communicate with everyone you will meet but I hope my two case studies in Poland this time have proved a point that if you did have the language skills to communicate with the other party, then you're either going to get a logical explanation to clear up the misunderstanding (as I did in the milk bar) or even an apology (as I did on the ferry). But even if you couldn't speak the language to facilitate that kind of conversation, then you can at least give the other person the benefit of the doubt instead of just assuming the very worst of the other person (as my father did in Japan back in 1985).

There's really nothing to be gained by assuming the very worst of the other person - let's go back to the incident in Japan back in 1985, we really don't know what that Japanese shopkeeper said to my father and there's no real way to track down that woman 34 years later. And hypothetically speaking, even if we do manage to somehow find that same lady in Japan today, I doubt she would remember what she said that day. By choosing to believe that there was a logical explanation such as her not having a change for a big note allows you to get on with life without feeling like a victim, but no - my father chooses to assume the worst of that Japanese lady and wants to be a victim. After all, my father has very low self-esteem: he tries hard to hide it but I could see his weakness exposed that day in 1990 when that American guy asked my dad for directions in the car park. You can't expect people to constantly give you explanations or reassurances in real life, sometimes you have to let such instances go without assuming that everyone hates you and is out to get you. But if you're autistic and don't have the social skills to make friends, if you grew up being the awkward kid who was mercilessly bullied at school, then you're far more likely to assume the very worst of people and be far less willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because you're just so used to people treating you like crap all your life. If my father spoke some Japanese, he would have been able to resolve the situation in the candy store the same way I had resolved the situation at the milk bar in Poland. So for my father to have made that assumption of that Japanese lady despite not understanding a word of Japanese, well - that says far more about his very low self-esteem and the way he has been treated by others all his life. That realization actually made me rather sad as I had figured this out in hindsight years later.

I know what some of my more cynical readers are going to say, "oh that's Alex going on about the same two points again - that he speaks loads of languages and that he hates his father." Whilst those two points may be true (well, I don't hate my father - I just don't get along with him and we don't talk), this is one of the few times I'm trying to understand why he was this very difficult person who always assumed the worst of others. I remember an incident back when I was in secondary school, this was in 1992 when I was 16. I got talking to the mother of a classmate - I thought she was a very pleasant lady and we had a lovely chat in English in my father's presence. My father immediately took a dislike to her and said some rather awful things about both her and my classmate which I thought were totally unfair at the time but in hindsight of course, I now realize what's going on. My father was probably thinking, "help! My son is talking with this woman in English and I don't understand enough English to follow the conversation or even know what the hell they're talking about. I must not panic, I must not freak out. I hope she doesn't realize I don't speak English as it would be so embarrassing, she will look down on me as if I am stupid and uneducated. Will they stop talking soon? I hope they don't try to involve me in that conversation." Of course, I wasn't able to see things from my father's point of view then - I remember that was just so flattered by my classmate's mother's attention and I couldn't help but feel hurt that my father took an instant dislike to her for no apparent reason. But of course, now I realize it has nothing to do with me or her - that was just a manifestation of his very low self-esteem. It must be horrible going through life believing that people generally just hate you, that you're not deserving of respect or common decency from others when they really don't hate you at all.

Okay, moving on to the third incident I witnessed in Poland, my regular readers will remember that I wrote a post back in 2013 after watching a racist TV programme in Warsaw. I was then shocked that every single Polish person I spoke to further to that went into complete denial that anyone in Poland could even possibly be racist - that racist didn't even exist in modern Poland because Polish people are so enlightened and civilized. This is in very sharp contrast to the reputation that Poland has for being extremely racist towards black and other dark skinned people in their country and their current ruling party is from the far right of the political spectrum. Oh that was a frustrating experience because whilst all the Polish people clearly agreed that any kind of racism is bad and that racism has no place in a modern, civilized society - they seemed to be in complete denial about what I had witnessed and if they are not even prepared to deal with the racism that I saw, then how are you supposed to even start dealing with it? Allow me to state categorically please that I experienced no racism in Poland on that trip and on this most recent trip - every Polish person I met treated me with courtesy and respect, I think they were mostly just curious as to why I speak some Polish despite obviously being a tourist. So when I was back in my apartment watching TV one evening, I came across this ad which I have managed to track down on Youtube. I have embedded that ad below and I invite you to watch the 30-second ad. The brand they are promoting in this ad is Blik - it is a Polish online payment system that allows you to transfer money quickly and cheaply.

Is the ad racist? No, I don't think so - it is a bunch of white Polish people dressing up in pseudo-Asian costumes doing bad kungfu in a comical manner, they were not taking themselves too seriously, it is meant to be funny and memorable. There may be an element of cultural appropriation going on here, but at the end of the day, I just see a bunch of Polish actors acting in a comedy ad rather than any racist content. This is in sharp contrast to the programme I saw in Warsaw back in 2013 when a bunch of Polish comedians dressed up in Buddhist monks' costumes, coloured themselves yellow with face paint (like Homer Simpson yellow) and even went as far as to use sticky tape around their eyes to stretch their eyes to create the Asian 'slit eye' effect. Now that definitely crossed the line into being offensive whilst the Blik ad merely looked silly - if they want to make fun of themselves, then I think they are free to indulge in a bit of self-deprecation and look silly. After all, those ad breaks on Polish are pretty long and that's when people go to the toilet or go get a snack from the kitchen - you do need something quite memorable rather than something bland and forgettable if you really want to get your message across in this medium. Do I think it is a good ad? No, definitely not - it comes across as cheesy and unsophisticated. But would I take offence to this ad, as a Chinese person? No, whilst it may be a stupid ad, it is definitely not racist. Sometimes you just have to not let such things bother you otherwise you may end up like my father - you don't want to see an ad like that and get the impression that Polish people are racist. Life is too short to have that hanging over your shoulder, so in such cases, you just have to give people the benefit of the doubt - you will be a lot happier this way.

So there you go, what do you think? Have you visited Poland before and what are your impressions? Do you like Poland? Have you ever interacted with Polish people? What were your impressions of the Polish Blik kungfu ad? Could it possibly come across as offensive? I definitely do recommend Gdansk for a long weekend because of one brilliant aspect of it - it is still relatively unscathed by Chinese tourists. Phew. There were too many Chinese tourists in Tuscany, I'm not fond of them. I'm not saying that there are no Chinese tourists at all in Gdansk but certainly not in the numbers you may find in a major European capital city like Rome or Brussels. Leave a comment below, many thanks for reading!