Last tuesday a lady from CNN asked me if I agreed to show on Global Connections as they have a Poland -Korea week ongoing.
It prooves imagination and high IQ actually to spot the simmilarities and connections between the two countries, cause they are there and many of them.
In OECD ranking Polish and Koreans work the longest hours in developed countries outscoring demonized USA by 7 places.
Unlike other rather cool and hush down East Asians, the Koreans are hot-tempered and one has impression that they tend to blow up even in business, and this happens to Polish as well. We do quarrel and blow up a lot, enough if I mention my dad who is like a volcano.
On Global Connections website people had been putting thoughts which popped up in their minds on the topic.
From very accurate like simmilarities in folk cuisine - cabbage (sourkraut) and dumplings, to very absurd and idiotic like paper cut and caligraphy paper.
Here I come to the very core of my point. Making superficial remarks by American who doesn't speak proper Polish anymore and had maybe one Polish grandfather does not make much sense here, does it? Yet it very often happens. So, according to some Polish-American Polish culture is all about "wy -chee - naan - kee" how he had written it in the website.
Never again mention paper-cut as something core important in Polish culture if you don't actually know it and have never been there. Polish folk culture differs a lot and when you drive 30 km the folk traditional dress maybe already the whole different. Paper cuts were peasants solution for cheap wall decorations in a region which is much smaller than Warsaw nowadays and it was ... more than 100 years ago, so it has now a museum value and is not a living culture at all. Therefore attaching it as something called "Polish culture" may be strongly insulting.
If you really want to know what Polish culture is about, get to know Możdżer, Chopin, Penderecki, Kilar, Polanski, Kieslowski, Kossak, and so on and so on. If you are interested in folk culture, move your ass and come before you say that "paper cut" is what defines it.
Core difference is that Korea had been a feudal state until 1910, and Poland had first form of democracy established as early as 1570. Therefore Korean culture is strongly homogenous, but even they had also had astonishingly beautiful poetry and even for them it may be insulting to be associated with cabbage and paper.
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Though I must admit that EXPO had been a success in terms of architecture. The EXPO -POLAND building
had been copied around whole Asia including Dubai, and within first 4 days of the show, 28000 people visited the building. Maybe those who visited will, after all, go to visit and discover even more. And especially that modern buildings in Warsaw are not made of "Wy Chee nan kee".
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The show on CNN was cool. It was very nice to get some recognition as a country on CNN, however so late. Global stocks, inverstors, funds, and business would not admit it but invests a lot in "Warsaw" related entities, bonds, financial instruments and others. As Jack Nicholson said" Better Late Than Later". Korea was also a veeery long time ago discovered by international business. Only media, as usual, are the latest.
I appeared on the show for brief second, and I do promise that I will never ever do it again because it is not nice and not professional to be "grey citizen" speaking for CNN. I had no make-up cause the lady was late, had forgotten the appointment and all my nice cloths, nice hairstyle and nice makeup was gone when she finally contacted me at more or less 1 am.
The photo shows Polish pavilon on EXPO. Wy -chee-naan-kee. Enjoy.
