Like China, Poland Needs to Catch up on Manners!

[troubledgoodangel]

The post-Communist Poland is awash with churlishness and vulgarity. Not all the people, but surely enough to spoil the image of the nation. The word k...wa is on most people's lips, especially the young and the drunk! The people spit upon, and let their dogs defecate on the sidewalks. I see a dozen drunks urinating daily in Cracow's downtown parks, mindless that everybody is watching. It is easier to find a dinosaur, than a policeman. The other day, I witnessed a scene that was utterly disgusting. As an older lady, probably a tourist, was arguing with a Cracow tram conductor (on his bad manners), two young thugs, may be 22-year olds, decided "to restrain her" by gently kicking her in her side. She kept talking (apparently oblivious), and they kept kicking. What they appeared to be saying to her, was: "Mamm, calm down." I was stunned to see this, and also the fact that no passenger said, "don't do that" (the tram was filled with people watching)! The young men weren't overly drunk; they just seemed to be thinking that that's OK! Had I not had my right arm dislocated, I would probably have stopped them myself. Having not seen anything like it in any country on earth, I wrote to President Kaczyñski about the obvious "cultural" problem Poland has. No response, as yet. I bring this up in conjunction with an article that just came up about the frantic efforts by China to spruce up her peoples' manners before the 2008 Olympics. In China, the paper said, "the honor and shame of an individual is related with that of all people. This goes back to the time of Confucius, when Chinese were taught to protect the honor of the nation." These days, China seems to have rediscovered the Confucian civility. There is sudden pressure to educate the population not to spit on the sidewalks, to speak softly and politely to strangers, and to show that China is soon to lead the world not just in economy, but in manners. In the Confucian parlance, it's all about "not losing [national] face." I think that it is hard time for Poland to rediscover her ancient civility and nobility, also!