Where have you been?

I am reading "Just So Stories" by Rudyard Kipling the famous English author at the moment and it is a bit ironic how nicely it fits into our discussion about naughty words and how they change through time and culture. This book is a collection of short stories concerning the origin of various things Kipling would tell his children when they were young. For example, how the elephant got his long trunk or perhaps how the camel got his hump. The story I would like to focus on is "How the Leopard got his Spots". The story tells how the leopard and his Ethiopian friend would hunt zebra and giraffe until one day they went missing. The zebra and giraffe had hid in the forest and developed stripes and spots. They were not found for a long time but when they were they were forced to tell their secret. The Ethiopian quickly painted his whole body black to better hide in the shadows but the leopard couldn't decide what he wanted. He didn't want stripes like the zebra, but he also didn't want large spots like the giraffe. The Ethiopian gave leopard small spots with his fingertips which still had wet black on them and the story finishes like this...

"Now you are a beauty!" said the Ethiopian. "You can lie out on the bare ground and look like a heap of pebbles. You can lie out on the naked rocks and look like a piece of pudding-stone. You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular. Think of that and purr!"

"But if I'm all this," said the Leopard, "why don't you go spotty too?"

"Oh, plain black's best for a nigger..."

Man, some old people have no tact.

A photo showing graffiti done right. This was taken in Wuppertal Germany along the banks of the Wupper river.

Some of you, Mr Anonymous in particular, might think that other countries are exactly like America. Same values, same goals, same everything. Even the same words with the same meanings. This in fact could not be further from the truth. We have already seen the example of the 'C-word', which we will talk about again soon, but today I wanted to talk about the 'N-word'. Nigger. Thats right. Nigger. In America this is about the dirtiest, most awful word someone can use. Calling someone this in anger is like asking to have not only your ass kicked but to be socially ostracized by everyone you know too. Just ask Dog from 'The Bounty Hunter' fame; his life fell apart after using that word. In many places in Europe, however, it is simply a word used to descirbe people from Africa. No strings attached or anything. Point in case: we went to a costume party this past weekend and someone was dressed as a hippy with bell bottoms and an afro. His friend, speaking directly to me in English, pointed, laughed, and said "Look, a white Polish nigger!"

A photo of graffiti on a Piastów bus stop. This is the "L" of KP Legia Warszawa, the local Warsaw football team. It is a popular thing to write on walls probably because it is easy to do for people with no artistic ability. Stupid kids that do this type of thing give real graffiti artists a bad name.

One day over Christmas break my girlfriend and I walked around downtown Warsaw looking at the different buildings. This building, the Palace of Culture and Science, is the center piece of the city center built in the 1950s. It was a gift from the Soviet Union to the 'People of Poland' (undoubtedly to remind the Poles who their master was). It was originally called the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science but for some reason after the break up of the Soviet Union they changed the name. There are many huge Soviet style statues of muscular workers, the corner stone of Soviet life, as well as many scholarly gentlemen holding books by Marx, Engels, and Lenin. It is also coincidentally the tallest building in Poland.


Here is a photo of my girlfriend on the day we were walking around. I include this photo because yesterday, January 21st, was her Name Day. What the hell is a Name Day you ask? Well, its the same thing as a Saint's Day. Still not clear? In Poland people not only have birthdays but also, if they share the name of a Saint, can celebrate their Saint's Name Day. For the name Agnieszka, for example, there are up to four different Name Days per year. I was told that the first Saint Agnieszka was a very important person (more then the other Saint Agnieszkas) and this is the most popular Name Day for ladies named Agnieszka. Everyday there are at least two names listed for Saint's Day but I have yet to find a Saint Ruben...

Without a doubt this video has made my trip to Poland worth it. A student of mine told me about this video, which is currently making the rounds as spam and is really popular. It is the original video of a comedy group named Ivan Mladek (I think) from the Czech Republic when it was still part of the Soviet Union - 1978 as the video says at the end. My student also said this was very typical of Soviet era productions with the talking heads and little else. Pretty funny.

Here are the lyrics in English:

I drive Skoda 100 to camp here on Orawa
So I hurry, take a risk - go through Morawa
The monster lives there, comes out of the bog
Eats mostly Prague citizen, its name is Jozin (Joseph)

Chorus: Jozin from the bog creeps through swamp
Jozin from the bog closes to the village
Jozin from the bog edges its teeth
Jozin from the bog bites, strangles
To defend Jozin from the bog, who could imagine, only works a plane with manure (white powder)

I was driving through the village on road to Vizowice
The village mayor greeted me, said to me during drinking Sliwowica
'The one who will bring Jozin dead or alive
gets my daughter and a half of National Agrarian Farm

Chorus

I said: 'give me a plane and powder, mayor,
I'll bring you Jozin, I see no trouble about that',
Mayor helped me, in the morning I went up in the sky
The powder from the plane prettily fell on Jozin.

Chorus

Another, although somehow less important, holiday in November is Poland's Independence Day. It is November 11th but comes and goes with little or no fanfare. People get the day off of work, the government will meet and give speeches around the Tome of the Unknown Soldier, and that is about it. No fireworks, no parades, no flags on houses, hell, we didn't even drink Vodka!

This pictures shows my sweetheart playing with the public phone near our house. I used this phone to call home before we got a VoIP phone installed courtesy of PT Inter-Media, the company my girlfriend works for.

I posted the night photographs first because a bunch of candles in the day time are not that impressive/creepy/neat looking/whatever. As you can see they are just a bunch of plastic red cups with some candles in them.


I am the first to bitch about capitalist holidays. Christmas, Saint Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, the list goes on. If Hallmark or FTD Flowers were not able to peer pressure us into buying a bunch of kitsch stuff, how ever would they be multimillion dollar empires today? Anyway, one of the best things I have learned living abroad, besides that Europeans have high divorce rates too, is that they also have holidays based on money as well. As we can see in this picture there are plenty of street vendors willing to provide candles, flowers, and idols for your loved one's grave site.


This panoramic, taken just outside of the Powązki Cemetery, shows us a few interesting things. First, that the public transportation Authority had to break out the old school busses to accommodate the heavy flow of travelers on All Saint's Day. Second, we notice the Police car in the background. It looks to be an Opel combie (thats a Chevy station wagon for you Americans) but could also be a VW Passat combie as well. The point is that the Polish Police do not have any single car but rather at least one of every single car. I have seen new Volvos, Fords, Opels and VWs as well as older BMWs, Mercedes vans, and even an old Polonez. The Wikipedia link says that these cars were produced into 2002 but I find that hard to believe. Just look at them. Maybe, but the Police ones are definitely closer to the 1978 launch models.

And finally a few more pictures from Powązki Cemetery.

In addition to these extremely religious holidays Poland's Catholic nature often manifests itself in odd legislation and political dialog. An example is a backlash by the more traditional (read: religous) members of the government against Halloween. Much like the character Father Mackie on the show South Park, these politicians feel that Halloween is an abomination and can only lead to evil. They believe this so fully that the wearing of costumes and participation in Halloween parties are openly discouraged in schools.


Other interesting conversations (but not legislation) include the outlawing of the sale of condoms, the introduction of a tax for unmarried men over the age of 30 - I think the idea is that this would encourage men away from unpure paths (lots of sex or homosexuality) while at the same time promote the building of the Polish family, and, more recently, there has been a discussion about banning IVF (in vitro fertilization) as this goes aginst God - if he wanted you to get pregnant it would work the natural way.


One final interesting note: the government is also against abortion. This is not so suprising as many Christians are against it. It turns out a bit strange in Poland though because while the law in Poland and the EU allow for certain types of abortions (say in the case of rape or incest) the atmosphere in Poland doesn't even allow for these to occur. Recently a Polish woman was awarded 25,000PLN by the EU courts because there was a medically proven risk to her life if her pregnancy was allowed to go to full term and she was not allowed an abortion. Several doctors would tell her it was a risk but none would actually sign the appropriate documents to allow it. She was poor as well and could not afford to go abroad as many other women do in her situation. As a result she is now blind and can no longer support any of her kids, the new one included, as she was once able to.

Another holiday that is very important in Catholic Poland is All Saint's Day. This is held November 1st (as it is held in all of Western Catholicism) and honors all Saints, known and unknown, and is a day to pay respect to dead loved ones. It is customary to place a candles and flowers on graves and spend time with family.


As you can see as night falls the candles turn an otherwise normal cemetery into an eerily lit graveyard!


We visited two different cemeteries, one of which was the famous Powązki Cemetery. I have been told that it is the oldest cemetery in Europe but after looking online several different times I have found plenty of other places that make that claim as well. Reguardless of its oldest status it is really quite amazing and is home to the remains of many famous and infamous Poles.

I must apologize for the delay in posting more photographs, I have been recovering from the Polish holiday season. As some of you may have read below Christmas, and indeed most holidays in Poland, can be different than those in other countries. For example, in conservative America most people would try to tell you that alcohol is not a part of Christmas. This is not true but you might have to look in the motorhome parked in the driveway where the boys were forced to sleep while all the girls were comfortable in the house. Er, but thats just what I have heard, I have no epxerience with that...

Another thing I have no experience with is the Polish tradition of drinking a shit-load of Vodka for each and every holiday. In the anonymous photo above you can see two unknown individuals partaking in such a tradition. Their identities have been withheld to protect the innocent. You can see, however, the cleverly placed Vodka bottle behind the juice and the not so cleverly place extra-large shot glasses, all highlighted in red. You can also see some really warm Ugg boots that were imported from America - thanks guys.

As I said above I am feeling much better now so the posting will continue at a normal rate again (there are not more holidays until April!). :)