The Election from Here

I will preface this by saying that any and all comments posted in response to this will be deleted. This is intended as observations, not as the start of a political debate.

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Anyone who knows me will be aware of how I feel about the 2016 Presidential Election results but experiencing it from afar - both the process itself and seeing it through the eyes of others - was pretty interesting.

When talking to people from outside the US, it is remarkable how many  are knowledgeable about our government, and not only about this election. At a time when, for example, sizable numbers of US citizens know very little about the Supreme Court, it is striking when people know not just who is President but about the congressional structure, the Electoral College, key figures in any given administration, etc. I am confident in saying that they tend to know not only more than we know about their governments, but also more than many of us know about our own. As an example, someone I met in Slovenia (an ordinary citizen, not a politician or diplomat) was asking me specific questions about how the Electoral College operates and comparing it to the British Parliamentary system around the same time that a candidate for the US Presidency was unable to name a single leader of a country outside the US and college students were unable to name the US Vice President.  I had similar conversations with people in Malta, Taiwan, England, Holland and Belgium, making it clear to me that this heightened level of knowledge is pretty common.

My observations about this may be partly skewed because I work for an intergovernmental organization, one focus of which is democracy and elections. My co-workers are from many different countries (there are only a few of us from the US) and many had a more-than-usual interest in the election due to the nature of their jobs. Regardless of that, the interest I notice is also from people outside of my organization - people working in academia, advertising, finance, technology and science.

One result of the more international focus I see on the part of Europeans is that the election results were not as shocking for some as they were for many in the US, probably because the current trend has been going on in Europe for a while and has not stopped. Poland's presidential election in 2015 resulted in a candidate with limited experience in public office (four years in Parliament) defeating the incumbent president. His nationalistic, more-conservative party (although he officially resigned from it as he took office) went on to win control of Parliament and has since seen the one-party control as a mandate to carry out changes desired by the party leader. These changes has been very divisive, leading to street protests, heated arguments between friends and family members, and a lot of anguish on the part of people who believe that economic and social progress made since the fall of communism is in jeopardy. Supporters view these changes as necessary to reclaim Poland's pride and independence from what they see as European Union overreach, the threat of immigration and the dilution of Polish culture. Sound familiar? That the now-governing party won the elections in 2015 was a surprise result to many at the time.

The Brexit vote was another indicator. When I was on vacation last spring I had a conversation with a British man about the upcoming vote and he explained to me why he was voting to leave the European Union - he saw it as a question of safety, whereby allowing anyone from the other EU countries free access to Britain was a danger. When I asked him about the economic impact (that the cost of anything imported from outside the UK was likely to increase), his ability to travel easily and other aspects of EU membership he mentioned that he hadn't considered that but that he was sure all would be taken care of. The final result of the Brexit vote caught many by surprise, including people who voted for it. According to a news report: "After the result was announced, the top question on the EU that was asked on Google in the U.K. was 'What does it mean to leave the EU?' the company said on Twitter. The second top question: 'What is the EU?'"

Similar results were seen in Austria, where a far-right candidate came the closest to winning the presidency in 2016 than has happened since World War II. Gains by nationalist parties have also been seen in France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Hungary and Switzerland. 

So, as one colleague kept reminding me a the election drew close "the Populists keep winning" yet people here seemed to think the US might be different. This may be due to wishful thinking about what people have gotten used to with respect to US foreign policy. This is particularly noticeable when the topic of Russia comes up when speaking to Polish people, as the view of their neighbor can be politely termed as "suspicious". Those suspicions are understandable when you consider:

• Poland was officially partitioned three times among the Prussian, Austrian and Russian empires (the third one wiping Poland off the map until the end of World War I).
• Poland was again occupied following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and ultimately a lot of the territory occupied by the Soviets never made its way back into Polish territory. This rawness of this was recently renewed when the Russian ambassador to Poland kinda blamed Poland for the start of World War II.
• The Soviet Army "rescued" Poland from Nazi Germany, but waited to do so until after the Nazis stamped out the Warsaw Uprising and burned down most of what remained of the city.
• The governing party in Poland alleges that Russia assassinated its former president (who, by the way, was the identical twin brother of the leader of the governing party).

Therefore, while the populist slant of the US election was welcomed by the supporters of the government of Poland, the potential for a warmer relationship with Russia was not.

Overall, what I see is that many people in Europe feel affected by the US election in a way that is not reciprocal; that is to say, the role that successive US administrations have carved out and maintained over the years has led many to rely on the US for a sense of stability while much of the US population does not pay much attention to the politics of other countries because they believe it really has no impact on their lives.

The act of voting itself was also an education. During my stint in the Peace Corps I got familiar with the absentee voting process and thought I understood it, but things change. I voted without a hitch in the New York State primary - I was registered, I got my ballot by email, I mailed it back as instructed and I was able to confirm over the phone that the ballot had been received. I then waited for my ballot for the general election,,,and waited, and waited. As it was getting close to election day with no ballot, I logged onto the website but was unable to determine what had happened. I called the information line to discover that New York State had recently changed its rules about emailing ballots - only those who indicated that they were permanently away would receive email ballots while others (like myself) who were away only temporarily would have only have paper ballots mailed to them (problematic since I had recently moved and had not updated my mailing address - I know, my own fault). The person I spoke to was not able to explain the rationale for the change but indicated that if I changed my status I could receive the ballot my email. I did so (just in time, it seems) got my ballot, mailed it back via the US Embassy in Warsaw and was able to confirm it was received in time. Good thing I called.

The time difference also prevented me from keeping up with the results, so what I expected when I went to bed was quite different from what I woke up to. By the time the election was called officially, I was on my way to work rather than in the middle of an all-nighter (this works in my favor for seeing the Oscars also, but that is another matter).

Since the election, I am bombarded by questions about what it all means and, unfortunately, the answer is "I have no idea." The mixed messages about Russia, the UN, NATO, and pretty much everything else have made it hard to predict what it to be expected from the US. The Polish government is officially happy about the result but there are reservations as I mention above.  I note the protests going on in the US, note the ones still ongoing in Poland and notice a sense of unease among many people whose lives now seem a lot less predictable than they did only a short time ago. The recent announcement that the US may cut its funding to the UN and similar organizations makes me wonder about what that means for the OSCE (where the US is the largest contributor, although most people I know have never heard of it). In my office there are numerous programs funded with additional US assistance (such as combating human trafficking, improving electoral systems and combating antisemitism) and the uncertainty extends to the question of future projects.

Because (as I mentioned above) Poland had a divisive election of its own and from my visit to London after the Brexit vote, I have already seen the effect on human interaction that is going on back home. People viewing political differences as a character deficiency, the willingness to believe the worst about other people because of how they voted, personal attacks from strangers to a comment or a shared article on Facebook, happy birthday messages becoming springboards for hurling insults - none of this is limited to the US. Not to mention the real life stories I hear of family members falling out because they do not (or cannot) discuss things civilly. As someone who is frequently in the news is fond of saying: Sad.

So I will continue to support what I support and engage civilly when I think there is a point to it, but mostly I try to just get on with my life. When I was in a bar recently, a Swede who learned I am from the US asked me my opinion about the election. After pausing a moment I said I would rather just drink my beer. In vino civilitas. 

Watch Your Language

As of this past week, I have been in Poland for two years. A few weeks ago, I finished my fourth language course and am surprised in two respects - first by how much I have learned so far, and second by how little I can speak the language at this point.

As I have written previously, Polish is notoriously difficult to learn, even for Poles. And the more I learn about it, the more difficult it seems. I keep hoping that I will suddenly realize I do know the language (like Bart Simpson), but no such luck.

In addition to the things that seem odd to me that I have mentioned before, here are a few more things that I have learned in the last two courses that make my head hurt.

Why Use One Word When You Can Use Two?

One of the most difficult for me so far is that you need to learn two words for almost every verb. This concept (a perfective form and an imperfective form) was first introduced when I learned the past tense. You use the perfective form of the verb if the action was completed in the past, while the imperfective is used if talking about something in the present, over a period of time, or not completed. Complicating matters is that there are numerous differences between the two infinitives, For some, you just add a prefix such as po- or za- and the verbs decline the same way. For others, letters in the middle of the work are changed and may decline differently. Still others have completely different words for the two forms (think of the difference between go and went and you'll get the idea). 

But as I have learned more, I have also learned that this distinction goes far beyond the past tense usage. For example, the future tense is built from the perfective form of the verb. Imperative forms use one or the other if you are telling someone to do something or to not do something. And with sentences communicating I want to do something, must do something, should do something, and so on, you need to know which one to use. 

The Gender Spectrum

Another head scratcher is that there are three genders in the singular (masculine, feminine and neutral) while there are two in the plural (masculine personal and non-masculine personal). What the masculine personal / non-masculine personal distinction means is that if the subject of a sentence is a group, there is one form if that group includes at least one male person or not. Ten women and a dog (dog is a masculine noun) is non-masculine personal, while ten women and one man make the group masculine personal (with or without the dog).

There are also different verbs to say someone gets married. A man marries, while the verb for a woman would literally translate to "goes out to (or after) a husband". Again, there are two forms for each of these verbs.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover

I touched on this in an earlier post, but it got worse. I don't know if there really are fifty ways to leave your lover, but I am confident that there are more than fifty ways to say in Polish that you are going somewhere. There are separate words to use if you are going in general (or on foot) versus going in a vehicle. Add another verb if you refer to frequency (with yet another if a vehicle is involved). Add other verbs if you want to specify that you are (a) arriving somewhere (b) arriving from somewhere or (c) going to somewhere. There is yet another which is used only when referring to when a form of transportation is departing. And, most of these (but not all) have two words for the same concept for the perfective/imperfective I mention above.

I know, I know, I know

There are three different verbs to refer to knowing something - one for specific knowledge (I know him, I know a fact, etc.), one to use with phrases (I know that he knows that fact) and a third to express "knowing how" to do something (I know how to cook). And don't forget that there are two of each...

All Hope is Not Lost

Having said all of that, there is a certain logic to many of the words here and I am getting better at figuring out meanings of words when I read them. While I often can't follow what someone is saying, if I have enough time to analyze the words, the gist emerges. For example, any verb that starts with wy- has something to do with exterior/out/exit, etc. So add wy- to the word for "to pay" and you have "to withdraw". Add it to the verb "to go" and you have "to go out". With the word "to run" you have "to run out of". Similar prefixes can change the same verb stem into "to order", "to schedule", "to speak up", etc.

Other things are easier to remember because they have a rather odd logic to them. The word for "north" is the same as the word for "midnight". The same with "south" and "noon". The words for "east" and "west" kinda mean the same as "coming" and "going", referring obviously to the sun.

Holidays also offer an opportunity to remember thing, strictly by virtue of numerous repetitions. I had a difficult time remember how to say Merry Christmas (Wesołych Świąt) and Happy New Year (Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!) but if you say it to enough people in the office, you tend to remember it.

I am also happy to say that my listening comprehension is improving. While at first all I heard was a series of sounds like "sh", "ch", "dz" and swallowed vowels, I can now understand the context (if not the content) of some conversations that I hear. People here still speak WAY too fast for me to fully comprehend, but I do make some of my colleagues nervous now since they can't be certain that I don't understand what they are talking about....

I Deserve a Break Today

After I finished the third course last June, I had wanted to dive right into number four. I knew I would be traveling a lot in the fall and would not be able to commit to classes then and I was afraid of waiting until January without the structure of the lessons. As it turns out, there was no summer session so I had to do without but that turned out to be a positive. Rather than trying to absorb new material while still struggling to remember what I had just learned, I spent time reviewing the classwork, got some self study books and concentrated on understanding. Having done that, the rules started making some sense, I started to recognize the patterns and I became less frustrated.

While I was in this last class, I had to acknowledge that some of the other students were far ahead of me in speaking ability, and I concluded that part of it is that I understand the grammar more than I remember the vocabulary....and if you can't remember the words it's pretty hard to speak. So, I have decided to retrench again. I plan to take individual review classes for the discipline, but to focus on what I already learned so as to absorb it better.

I also need to practice more but, as I have said to many people, it is very easy to not learn Polish here. So, I read along with the Polish subtitles when I go to a movie. I use an online practice site to test my skills. I occasionally tackle a newspaper article. I try watching soap operas on television. I have started to go the theater in Warsaw to see shows that I am familiar with, but which are performed in Polish (not that Mamma Mia is very intellectually challenging in the first place...)

But most importantly, I try to speak my pidgin Polish in restaurants, shops and anywhere else I go out. On a daily basis I see how far I can carry a conversation with a co-worker before I have to revert to English.

So it only took Bart Simpson deux mois and I have been here for dwa lata....ale robię postępy. 

Techniques and Technology

As of this week, I have lived 18 months in Poland. My last language class was three months ago. I still don't speak Polish.

As I have written before, it is very easy to not learn Polish when you live in Warsaw. As I have also written before, Polish is notoriously difficult to learn (even for Poles). The combination of both those factors makes it challenging to get motivated to study, and when I attend a class I always have a headache by the end (and I get tired when I do homework or do self-study).

By the end of my last language class, I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed and each new exception to the exception to the grammatical rules made me laugh out of frustration. I thought I bombed the exam at the end of the third course but was pleased to learn that I actually did pretty well. Despite the overflow my brain was feeling, I considered continuing immediately into the fourth course (because I knew I would not be able to take classes in the fall and was afraid that a long gap without classes would cause me to lose any knowledge I had built up). But then two things happened that turned out to be very good.

Firstly, the school determined that the class I wanted would not be offered during the summer. The school I have been going to will only have a course if a minimum of five students sign up. There were nine of us in course three and only two of us were willing to study in the summer - so the decision was taken out of my hands.

Secondly, my teacher recommended some books for self-study and one turned out to be perfect for the way I learn. The book illustrates that there are actually logical patterns underlying the exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions. I understand better the dozens of ways to say "to go" and how the words are formed. I have not yet seen any logic as to why past tense is different for men and women, or why plurals are differently constructed for 2-4 of something than for any other numbers, at least the language seems to be consistent in that regard and there are rules you can follow (provided you memorize them).

One net result has been that I am studying less, although I am still studying. My current technique is a mixture of approaches:  I try to do an hour of self-study per day, reading through that grammar book a second time now, or watching Polish television or skimming a newspaper while also mentally translating all of the signage I see on the street.

A second net result, oddly enough, is that I seem to be understanding more despite studying less. Similar to when I was learning Armenian, things started to seep in when I stopped pushing myself so hard. If I eavesdrop, I still can't fully follow a conversation but more words are getting through now. If I skim a newspaper, bits and pieces break though. When I watch a movie in English and look at the Polish subtitles, I am starting to identify when translations are not literal, and sometimes understanding why they aren't. When I go to a restaurant, my Polish is still met with English responses, but when I persist in replying in Polish I make some headway and it becomes a mixed conversation. I now know enough to realize when I have made a grammatical mistake even when nobody points it out to me.

My biggest problems are still (1) listening comprehension and (2) vocabulary. The first is getting somewhat better as I understand the rules more and my ear gets more attuned to the Polish sounds. The second just requires me to knuckle down and do some regular repetition study - or try using words in real life. I confess that I have not done much of either but that is the next step after my second spin through my grammar book.

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In addition to honing my learning techniques, I also paid a visit recently to the future of the past (or maybe it is the past of the future).

The Palace of Science and Culture was given that name for a reason. Beside housing a movie theater, three live theaters and a concert hall, the building also has the Museum of Technology and Industry. At the time it opened (1955) I am sure it was intended to showcase the wonders of science that the good Communist people were producing. The collection there has been broadened somewhat, but the setting doesn't seem to have changed.

The museum has sections devoted to transportation - with two halls of motorcycles (most Polish made), and another with cars and some life-size models of early aviation - as well as mining and metallurgy, computers, space exploration and music (phonographs, jukeboxes, etc).

The place is pretty run down and it seems that some of the employees have been there since opening day. Regardless, it is an interesting opportunity to see how the idea of "new and exciting" changes constantly.

The most popular exhibit the day I went was about video games. Along with their collection of seemingly every generation of computers there were video games for each system and they were available to be played. Adults were reliving their youth or showing their kids what technology was in the age before smartphones.

I suppose that the museum doesn't draw too much of a crowd since the state-of-the-art Copernicus Science Center opened a few years ago. But it seems to me (seeing as places like this put one into a mindset of thinking about the future) that the Copernicus Center could one day seem as quaint as the Muzeum Technniki looks now. As a colleague of mine told me, he used to have his parents take him there all the time when he was a kid but he hasn't been in many years (his kids want to go to the Copernicus Center all of the time). Perhaps what I saw at the Technical Museum was not only the presentation of what used to be the future, but also the future of what is now the view of the future.

Now I am getting so deep that my head is hurting the same way it does after my language classes....

The Shop Around the Corner

As with every place I visit these days, I see people all over Poland on their phones - texting, surfing the web, checking their Facebook pages, just like I see in New York. But in addition to that, I see something that I found more and more rare in New York - people reading books.

Nearly as often as I see someone walking blindly on the sidewalk because she is texting, I see someone almost walk into someone because she has her nose in a book - a real book. On the trams, buses and metro, most people have something to read - a newspaper, a magazine, a textbook, a printed book or a Kindle.

Looking on Wikipedia, I see that Poland has a 99.7% literacy rate (higher than the US which is listed at 99.0%), so maybe that is the reason. I saw an article recently that discusses the cities with the highest number of book stores per capita and that Buenos Aires is the winner. Digging into the data source, I noticed that Poland wasn't even included in the survey, so unless I go out and start counting I don't have a real comparison. Whatever the reason, in times when it seems New York has fewer and fewer book stores, it is quite refreshing to see how many Warsaw has. While it can be expected that my neighborhood should have a lot (I am near a University) and places such as train stations and airports have more than one, I see them all over the city where it is not so easily explained.

Some specialize by topic such as law or education, some are part of a chain of multimedia stores (think Tower Records back when it still existed or what Barnes & Noble still is for now), some are small and quite a few are big. Many seem to be independent, but there are several other chains that I have noticed, which is more than come to mind when I try to remember what is left in New York, I can think of three individual stores offhand that are within a few blocks of my apartment, and I can think of at least ten more without having to go too far. Striking to me is that with so much new construction in the city (most with retail space), I am seeing bookstores in those buildings also which tells me they are a growth industry rather than a sinking one.

Granted, Amazon has not fully entered the Polish market yet. While there are Amazon warehouses in the country, there is not an Amazon.pl yet (many people order from their German site). Still, even when Amazon does launch it's Polish site, it might put a dent in the number of book stores, but it will likely feed the hunger for books themselves.

Meanwhile, I just try to keep out of the way of someone with a book she literally can't put down.

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Something else you can't help noticing here is how many used clothing stores there are. Not that there aren't plenty of high end places to shop also (as I have written about before) but they are all over the place. 

As with many other countries, there is a growing issue of income inequality (the perceived lack of response to which I have heard is one reason for the surprise result of the recent presidential election), and many people are living on pretty low wages. And I have read that there is some resentment to the fiscal bailout of Greece (Poland is also a member of the EU) since average wages here are lower than in Greece, 

While there are opportunities for conspicuous spending here, I have a sense that thrift is more common and there is a general aversion to debt. The used clothing stores are an emblem of that - it's not just hipsters and the poor who shop there, it seems to be a broad cross section of the population  with no shame associated with patronizing them.

And, honestly, I like some of the shirts I have bought at the Humana store better than the ones I've bought in a mall. 

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Then there are the kebab stands. While I like it, Polish cuisine is pretty basic, hearty and not terribly spicy, Since the fall of communism and joining the EU, I have heard that different types of food have become trendy and seem ubiquitous until the next thing arrives (I understand that the recent sushi mania was preceded by a wave of Vietnamese restaurants) so maybe kebabs are the current fad. 

But kebab has two things going for it - it is cheap (in line with my perception of thrift as noted above) and is a very handy antidote to the high consumption rate of alcohol here. A third (more minor) factor could be that these places are open on the religious holidays on which much of Poland shuts down. 

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Other places I tend to see everywhere:

• Dental clinics
• Flower shops
• Travel agencies
• Bakeries and sweet shops
• Electronic cigarette shops
• Military clothing and gear

This is in addition to the pharmacies, banks, mobile phone sellers and coffee shops that seem to be overrunning every city I have been to. 

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These aren't the only retail spaces that I am somewhat surprised to see in abundance - there is a large supply of, shall we say, "adult emporia". Not far from my first apartment, there was a stretch of the main road (named after John Paul II, no less) on which there were at least eight adult shops all on one side of one block (the other side of the street had a lot of kebab shops). This is not a marginal area like where they cluster in New York but in the middle of a residential neighborhood. My current neighborhood doesn't have as many, but the few that are there are brightly lit, with big glass windows showing their featured merchandise. 

While the existence of the shops isn't very surprising in itself, it is a little to me because of how conservative this country remains. Wikipedia indicates that 87.5% of the population identified as Roman Catholic (2011) and, according to an article from last year on sexual norms:

In today's Poland, both doctors and pharmacists can deny women contraceptives, abortion law is the tightest in Europe (with attempts to punish women who do it illegally) and sex education practically nonexistent.
So maybe the shops are just for tourists. Or maybe it relates to what everyone is reading about...

What's In a Name?

I was talking recently with a fellow student in my language class about the impending birth of his twin sons. Like several of my other classmates, he has a Polish wife and he was describing the discussions that have been going on about naming the children.

Names here have been a little confusing to me from the beginning but I hadn't been aware of other factors that play into the naming itself, complicated when the parents are from different cultural backgrounds. In this case, the husband has specific names in mind, but he mentioned that his wife's family was involved in the conversations and they seem to have some influence in the decision. While it doesn't seem as tradition-bound as in Armenia (where I was told the new mother's mother-in-law chooses the name) this was more communal than I have seen in the US.

One problem that he was having related to (I think) one of the names ending with an "A" since in Poland that would signify a women's name. I am not aware of a single female name that does not end in A, meaning the whole joke of "It's Pat!" would fall flat here. On the other hand, I have noticed several men's names in Polish that sound like women's names in English. Marian, Kamil and Karol come to mind, although the latter is the local equivalent of Charles.

For many of the names here, it is easy to identify the English equivalent. For example, Mateusz, Marek, Łukasz and Jan are pretty easy to figure out, Małgorzata  = Margaret, and many of the female names are exactly the same although the spelling may be different (Katarzyna, Ewa, Karolina). But there are names that don't really have an English equivalent, such as Przemysław, Radysław, Wojciech, Malvina and Jagoda (the latter, by the way, means "berry").

Unlike in English, some of the diminutives of names do not have apparent connections to the formal name. Some are easy (Katarzyna => Kasia, Magdalena => Magda, Przemyslaw => Przemek) while others are a bit more difficult (Jakub => Kuba,  Joanna => Joasia => Asia) and some just confuse me (Aleksandra => Ola and Aleksander is Olek).

Since the people working in my office are from different countries, some of the diminutives differ. A Polish Ola is a Russian Sasha. It can be difficult to remember the name to use, and which person you are talking about when it is a popular name. I work with at least four Kasias and two Katias and usually have to specify which department the one I am referring to works in. This can also cause some potential awkwardness as I learned that the word "tania" in Polish is the feminine form of the adjective "cheap". I guess maybe one should stick with Tatiana....

Names pose one of the (many) complications in learning Polish as they have declensions like other nouns. The Polish equivalent of Mark is Marek (nominative case), but depending on the sentence it can be Marka (genetive and accusative cases), Markiem (instrumental case), Markowi (dative case) or Marku (locative case). Depending on your surname, it can have a declension like a noun or like an adjective. Making it more complicated, "noun" surnames may be treated differently for men and women depending on whether it is a masculine or feminine noun. Therefore, Robert Nowak's surname would change based on the grammar case (it is a masculine noun), although Kim Nowak's would not. But if the surname is a feminine noun, both sexes are treated the same. With names that are treated as adjectives, the women in a family will have a different surname than the men - Krakowska versus Krakowski - and both have multiple versions depending on the sentence.

Name days (imieniny) are important here and may be celebrated instead of birthdays (although some people celebrate both, which is good because it means more cake). Each day on the calendar is a name day for at least two names. Some common names (such as Jan) have multiple name days and you celebrate the first one following your birthday. Most of the office calendars I have seen here show the daily names and, while I have not seen it in Warsaw, I have read that some cities display them on buses.

Some of the names here can sound comical to English speakers, including the newly elected president - Andrzej Duda.

Personally, I can't hear his name without thinking of this song. But that issue cuts both ways. I was recently informed that one of the candidates in next year's presidential election has a name that Poles find amusing.

Apparently, "jeb" is the imperative form of a vulgar verb in Polish (and the exclamation point only reinforces that). In case you are wondering which word, think of what the director of a porn movie might instruct his (or her) actors to do....When I was told this, my colleague was even more amused when I informed him of the off-color alternative usage of said candidate's surname.

What's in a name, indeed. I wonder if his advisors warned him about this before his recent trip to Poland.....

Visible History

To me, one of the striking things about being in Europe is how close you can be to things you learn about in history class, read about or have just heard about your entire life.  There are an abundance of historical sites in the US, but being in a relatively young nation they don't have the same historical heft as, for example, the Coliseum in Rome.

Last year, I was reading a book that took place in various parts of the world in the decades following World War II. Sections of the book took place in Warsaw, and it was interesting for me that I knew exactly where the landmarks mentioned are. I happened to be in Berlin when I reached the part of the book about the construction of the Wall, which added another dimension to my visit of the memorial park there.

With it's complicated history, Poland has quite a few fascinating stories to tell and the country has made quite an effort to make the history visible.

Concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Majdanek are good examples. Just after it was liberated, a museum was founded on the grounds of Majdanek making it the first memorial and museum on the site of a camp. The area is largely intact and is said to include all of the victims' belongings found there upon liberation. Auschwitz was dismantled to a degree after the war but became a museum in 1947 and I recently read an article about the painful process of maintaining the exhibition without diminishing the authenticity. Such preservation was not possible with Treblinka, which was leveled by the Nazis before the Soviet army arrived, but its absence makes conserving the others more necessary.

Some sites in Warsaw that give a chilling view into history are the former Gestapo headquarters office and what remains of Pawiak prison, both of which are museums now. The two are linked because many of the people held in the prison were transported one or more times to the Gestapo office and one of the displays in both museums shows a video simulation of the route taken between the two. Much of the prison was demolished following the Warsaw Uprising but what could be preserved has been. Preservation went so far as to create a bronze cast of a tree that stood at the entrance, which replaced the actual tree when it died.  

The remains of the prison gate

Replica of the tree with badges of remembrance

The Gestapo office was in a part of the city that was used by the occupying army and therefore not destroyed, and part of it is an office area much as it would have looked during the war, including an SS officer coat on a coat rack and a framed picture of Hitler. The building that houses the museum is, fittingly, the headquarters of the Ministry of Education.

While the Old Town section of Warsaw is mostly reconstruction,  buildings that were used by the Nazi regime were not destroyed (the beautiful building where my gym is had been a bank before the war and was used by the Wehrmacht. 

Former State Agricultural Bank Building

Many buildings around the city have descriptive plaques mentioning the architect, the style and whether it is an original structure or rebuilt. One of the more interesting ones is on the Polonia Palace Hotel, which was used by the German army to house officers during the occupation, was not destroyed and became a mini-UN afterward when nineteen nations had their diplomatic missions there. 

As I wrote previously, there are memorials to the Warsaw Uprising all over the city and an information-packed museum, while there are also markers in many places where the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto once stood.  Almost every building in the ghetto was demolished before the German army departed but others from the period have been left with visible bullet holes, bomb damage and other scars.

Everything I describe above relates to World War II, but that is not the only history on display in Poland. Wilanow Palace was not destroyed and allows a view back to the 17^th century, Wawel Castle in Krakow is from the 16th and Malbork Castle near Gdansk dates back to the 13th. 

Wilanow Palace

Wawel Castle

Malbork Castle

You can also see evidence of the more recent Communist era history and its unraveling. There is a museum on the site of the Gdansk shipyard, the birthplace of the movement that eventually led to the end of communism in Poland, that provides a history lesson about the period and its end. 

European Solidarity Centre

Another view into the Communist era can be had by apartment hunting as some of the places built during that time have not been renovated. Not long ago I went to the Museum of Life under Communism, one part of which displays typical apartment furnishings from that time. 

The living room display

While it may seem like a kitschy spoof (heightened by the ABBA music playing in the background), it was very similar to an apartment I looked at when I was house hunting last year. I did not want to rent that apartment for a long period of time, but I would have loved to stay there for a few days. 

One aspect of historical preservation that is inconsistent though (at least from what I have seen in Warsaw) is architectural preservation. Many areas, such as where the Warsaw Ghetto was, were only built up gradually over the years and don't have remarkable buildings. In other areas, older buildings that were not completely demolished were rebuilt and others survived the war. I just moved into an apartment in a nicely restored building from about 100 years ago and I notice a lot of others on the street and the surrounding area that either have been or are being restored.

My new old building

In other parts of the city, however, there are buildings with good bones and character but that are currently run down. In one neighborhood (close to stops on the new metro line) t seems that no preservation is likely and the properties will be torn down and replaced by newer, bigger buildings. 

There is a lot of new construction in the area of this lonely place

Recently, however, a piece of history in Warsaw was erased - the first McDonald's that opened in Poland after the fall of Communism. While this may not seem like a big event, I am told that, to Poles, it was huge. People got dressed up for the occasion and stood in line for hours to experience a true symbol of the West.

Opening Day - June 1992

The location, and an adjoining department store that I loved browsing in, have been torn down to make way for a new office building. If the architectural renderings are to be believed, both will be revived in the new building but I think something will be lost in the process. 

Maybe a lesson can be learned from these famous quotes:

• Edmund Burke: "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it,"
• George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,"
• Winston Churchill: "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,"

The lesson may be that if the McDonald's doesn't reopen, Warsaw will be doomed to get a Chick-Fil-A.

Tongue Tied

This past week I finished my second language course. While I still cannot hold a conversation of any substance in Polish, I do feel that I am making progress. 

As I wrote a few months back, the language has a lot of rules. And when there are rules, there are exceptions to the rules. And when there are exceptions to the rules, there can be exceptions to the exceptions. But there are rules about the exceptions (and the exceptions to the exceptions) and once I get them all straight in my mind, I might become fluent. Meanwhile, I usually have a headache at the end of each class. 

I recently read an article written by a British expat who says that with dedicated study, a non-native speaker can become reasonably fluent in about three years. He also mentions a statistic that I have heard a lot that people born here are often not fluent in their own language until age 16. Why my classes would make it faster than that I don't know but I do intend to keep trying. 

So, just to provide a sample of what one needs to contend with, here are  a few things that we covered in the second course (in which we discussed the plural present tense of verbs, past tense, a shortcut to future tense - but not real future tense - and three of the seven noun cases). [Warning - grammar terms ahead]

• In the present tense, the same word is used for third person singular (he, she, it - also including the formal version of "you")

• In the past tense, there is a different verb form depending on whether the subject is masculine or feminine (I say "I was" as byłem while I woman would say byłam)

• Sometimes these different verb forms involve different verb stems (I say "I went" as szedłem while a woman would say szłam)

• There is a separate verb form for past perfect of most verbs (in the bullet point above poszedłem and poszłam) to indicate the action was completed at a specific time

• In third person singular past tense, there is also a third verb form for neutral subjects (byłe, była, było) 

• Some verbs change a letter in the verb stem when forming the past tense (rozumieć, which means "to understand" has a verb stem of rozumia- in the past tense)

• When you talk about plural past tense, this letter change continues to apply....unless one or more of the subjects is a person who is male. In that case, the letter change does not apply plus you have a different ending. For a group of women to say "we understood" would be rozumiałyśmy but if at least one of the group is a man, the word is rozumieliśmy. 

• The masculine past tense only applies to people, and not impersonal masculine subjects (such as cars and dogs). 

• There are at least four ways to say "to go" in the present tense - depending on if you are talking about on foot (iść), going on foot but mentioning frequency (chodzić), going in a vehicle (jechać) and going in a vehicle but mentioning frequency (jeździć). Two of those four (iść and jechać) each have two separate past tense forms - one for past perfect and another for past imperfect. And all of those past tense forms have different versions for masculine, feminine and neutral subjects. 

• In addition to the point above, if you toss in other variations to indicate going to somewhere przejechać, going from somewhere wyjechać, etc., you have a lot to choose from.  

When it comes to the nouns, you also have a lot to remember. If "my sister" is the subject, you use one case (moja siostra). If I want to say "I have a sister" that is a second case (mam siostrę). If I were to say I don't have a sister, that is a third case (nie mam siostry). The same works for a masculine noun - if it is alive, such as a person or an animal - but the second and third cases are the same (for "brother", mój brat, mam brata, nie mam brata). For an inanimate masculine noun (such as "car") the first and second are the same, but not the third (samochód, samochód, samochodu) plus in this case the second to last letter changes also. As I said, I have not yet learned all of the cases, so I am sure this is not the end of it. 

As I started getting more familiar with the vocabulary, some patterns started to show up and my teacher points them out as often as possible (for example, verbs starting with wy- normally have something to do with leaving, such as exit, depart, disembark, throw out, rent out. Also, the word od (sometimes) means "from" and po (sometimes) means after. But that doesn't clarify for me the build up of verbs such as "to know" (wiedzieć) "to say" (powiedzieć) "to answer" (odpowiedzieć) and how close they are to the word "to see" (widzieć).

I have been asked recently whether learning Polish is easier or harder than learning Armenian. After giving it some thought, I have concluded that Armenian was easier - not to read, not to write, but to speak. Even with the reverse sentence structure it did not seem to me that there was as much to remember about the grammar. Granted I had more intense language lessons there and more situations where nobody spoke English forced my learning, but it seems to me that Polish is just more complicated. 

Having said all of this, some of it is sinking in. I have managed a few small successes entirely in Polish (retrieving my glasses after leaving them in a theater, buying tickets for a concert, ordering in a restaurant). Although my listening comprehension is still poor, I can pick up more words than before when someone is speaking (although I really wish people would speak more slowly...). I am paying attention to the subtitles when I see movies as a supplemental study and soon will get cable TV and start watching Polish programs to see if that helps. But I doubt they could be as good as this.

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Meanwhile, spring has arrived. Cumulatively, I estimate that Warsaw got about six inches of snow. I wore long underwear three times. It was achingly cold for about five days. So, in response to any fears I had about the weather....

Very ironic that I came to Eastern Europe to escape a cold winter.