The other side of the Polish postcard

It's not a happy landscape. I doubt anyone would like to read the stories I could tell or even believe them unless they had some experience closer to living it than reading it.  In my own defense, 13 years later, I came out here with all the Anthony Robbins and confidence a man could take. I erred.

@ The Shadow: Please feel free to share your experience on the forum

I first moved to Poland in 2002 when I started in a teaching position in Kielce in the Swietokrzyskie voivodship.

There are many advantages to living in the country such as beautiful landscape, wide open spaces, a relatively cheap lifestyle compared to the United Kingdom and a culture that is northern European.

However, I want to describe here some of the difficulties. Polish bureaucracy is still very arcane and difficult to navigate through unless you do it with a Polish speaker. The standard of living is fairly average for an expat - there are not that many opportunities to get ahead if you are a non-Pole and do not speak the language fluently. The Poles are pretty hard headed about business and you have to stand your ground over issues like pay, benefits etc. The winters can be extremely dark, cold and long so one has to get accustomed to this both mentally and physically (on the other hand the summers are fantastic - hot most of the time).

Overall, I am planning to remain in Poland since I live here with my wife and two children. Like any expat living abroad, you miss the company of your friends and there have been too many evenings where I have been drinking with my wife and Polish friends and the conversation just drifts over my head once everyone starts speaking in Polish. You have to be very self-reliant and I tend to spend too much time on the Internet and watching television to compensate for a limited social life. Still, we have our own land, a big garden and live in a village so these are strong pluses.

I agree. Being foreign is not really charming. Lack of social life don't let you like your living here.Polish are friendly on the street but otherwise everyone has her or his own life and you can't really fit in the polish circle.

Hasnaa wrote:

@ The Shadow: Please feel free to share your experience on the forum

The loss is too difficult to relive in the telling. I was involved in business and rubbed shoulders with high level decision makers. The culture of business in Poland is different than where I hail from and expat opportunities to enter business here face a barrier of foreign CEO constraints (not wishing to hire non-locals or alienate leadership, or for that matter turf long-standing and ineffective Polish executives; and the ideology of hiring the best person not the most social, as is the local custom) that a potential immigrant to Poland would be wise to consider carefully whether or not they have the pugnacious, independent personality to survive. @Ivankinsman and @SOBIA are correct. Mix it together and it is a perfect cocktail for the darkest definition on Wikipedia:

[Moderated: Off topic.]

I have nothing more to add.

Plus side: warm, friendly people (once you get to know them), lots of greenery, lots of history.

Minus: arcane bureaucracy (but for an Indian, one gets used to that), the language is difficult at first to master and then the weather can be bad.

To those who say Poles are not friendly -- to me it depends on how well you get to know them and the language you speak.  Not speaking Polish is a barrier