Last weekend we were at a colleague's apartment for a dinner party. On the top floor of a pre-war building, the apartment was beautiful -- spacious, sunny, sparkling clean despite the fact that it's cottonwood season (our apartment, for example, currently features whirlwinds of white fuzz in the corners). The open plan featured a wonderful kitchen and was clearly a far cry from its pre-war original floor plan. The view out the windows east offered a changeable sky, and the company kept arriving in waves as we feasted on Mexican food.
Yes, Mexican food, including delicious guacamole. (My son would have been ecstatic.) Elegant glass pitchers held water spiked with berries or with mint leaves; the antique oak dining table had to be pulled out to accommodate the Polish and American guests who eventually assembled around it. Piles of napkins -- needed given what a mess we made with our meal -- were anchored with gorgeous skinny red peppers.
Our hostess kept saying "Mexican food really brings people together. You can't be neat eating this food, and that makes for the best atmosphere."
At one point she commented that Poles are well-known for their hospitality, and I immediately seconded that opinion. We have certainly felt it in the homes where we have been invited: sparkling conversation, plenty of wine, and more dessert than anyone could possibly eat. In this case we were treated to a flourless chocolate cake, ice cream, some kind of warm berry syrup AND a huge bowl of fresh Polish strawberries.
It's strawberry season in Poland, and one can't help but dive in headfirst in a most uncouth manner.
Absolutely amazing.
We have had several more congenial dinners and teas -- featuring homemade food or store-bought, always plentiful and delicious, professional and personal conversations, storytelling, joking and laughter. One evening we returned home from an intimate dinner party feeling like we'd known these people for years and commenting that it had truly been one of the most enjoyable evenings of our lives.
Hospitality in the home is not the same thing as hospitality in Poland, though. In our various travels across the landscape of Warsaw and Warsaw University, what has been missing is a level of casual friendliness that apparently we as Americans expect.
In Warsaw in banks, hospitals, grocery stores, museums, lines, Poles are like other people -- as friendly as it takes to get the business taken care of, annoyed if you don't have the right paperwork or somehow fall outside the norm -- including in your abilities to communicate your needs. In buses they can be grouchy -- again like most people. Fulbrighters have noted "staring contests" with people on public transportation. I've only had one, with a woman on an escalator in the metro who insisted on staring at my gorgeous Chinese daughter. Finally she acknowledged with her gaze that her behavior was untoward -- but she didn't stop staring. My daughter has felt that people in public have occasionally been downright hostile, but I think (and hope) that is mere perception, based on her own cultural expectations.
The doormen in my building have taken to smiling at us, after months of us greeting and smiling at them, and when recently I have gathered up enough Polish to ask the some questions, they answer fully and with good humor, assuring me: "Wiem, że Pani nie mówi po polsku" ("I know you don't really speak Polish"). It couldn't be more obvious that we are an American family who have shown up for some number of months and are trying to find our way here. But if I hadn't ever said a word to them, we would have left the country never having spoken with each other.
People are busy. Our experience is not their problem. But still ... a little curiosity, a little chat even about the weather, a shared anecdote of life on the bus or a wayward student. These things apparently matter to us. Some cultures find such trivial conversations to be a waste of time or hypocritical, but for Americans, I've come to discover, casual friendliness creates a basic level of comfort.
In my own institute, staff and faculty are business-like. If there's no real reason to chat, we don't, except of course that we say "Dzień dobry" and "Do widzenia" on a regular basis to anyone who happens to wander through the office. The Fulbright concept of the "shepherd" who helps with everything from paperwork to doctors and apartments to local customs and holidays is a great one -- or would have been if my shepherd weren't already overburdened with work and resentful of the time I require of her. Casual friendliness, an interest in my cultural comfort, is not in her portfolio.
It seems to me that Americans expect and even need that friendliness and consider a country "hospitable" if they find it. But the distinction between friendliness and hospitality is one that is important to make: hospitality is a personal thing, not something that happens in a hallway or on a bus. In Berlin at our Fulbright seminar a local informant told us that Germans don't want to get to know you if you'll be disappearing in 4 months, or in 9 months. For them, he said, friendship is a lifelong prospect, and there's no point spending energy on you if you may never come back again.
Friendliness is not the same as friendship, but one leads to the other. Our best conversations have been with people who are somehow engaged with American culture, I think because they exhibit that basic friendliness and warmth. Faculty at the American Studies Center, others who have had guest stints teaching in the U.S., or, in my case, with Russian and Ukrainian types. These are people I instinctively understand, people with whom we've made a real connection.
I don't understand Poles yet. But I aim to come back and find out more about them. And as my language and knowledge improve, I feel certain that my level of cultural comfort will increase as well.
Yes, Mexican food, including delicious guacamole. (My son would have been ecstatic.) Elegant glass pitchers held water spiked with berries or with mint leaves; the antique oak dining table had to be pulled out to accommodate the Polish and American guests who eventually assembled around it. Piles of napkins -- needed given what a mess we made with our meal -- were anchored with gorgeous skinny red peppers.Our hostess kept saying "Mexican food really brings people together. You can't be neat eating this food, and that makes for the best atmosphere."
At one point she commented that Poles are well-known for their hospitality, and I immediately seconded that opinion. We have certainly felt it in the homes where we have been invited: sparkling conversation, plenty of wine, and more dessert than anyone could possibly eat. In this case we were treated to a flourless chocolate cake, ice cream, some kind of warm berry syrup AND a huge bowl of fresh Polish strawberries.
It's strawberry season in Poland, and one can't help but dive in headfirst in a most uncouth manner.Absolutely amazing.
We have had several more congenial dinners and teas -- featuring homemade food or store-bought, always plentiful and delicious, professional and personal conversations, storytelling, joking and laughter. One evening we returned home from an intimate dinner party feeling like we'd known these people for years and commenting that it had truly been one of the most enjoyable evenings of our lives.
Hospitality in the home is not the same thing as hospitality in Poland, though. In our various travels across the landscape of Warsaw and Warsaw University, what has been missing is a level of casual friendliness that apparently we as Americans expect.
In Warsaw in banks, hospitals, grocery stores, museums, lines, Poles are like other people -- as friendly as it takes to get the business taken care of, annoyed if you don't have the right paperwork or somehow fall outside the norm -- including in your abilities to communicate your needs. In buses they can be grouchy -- again like most people. Fulbrighters have noted "staring contests" with people on public transportation. I've only had one, with a woman on an escalator in the metro who insisted on staring at my gorgeous Chinese daughter. Finally she acknowledged with her gaze that her behavior was untoward -- but she didn't stop staring. My daughter has felt that people in public have occasionally been downright hostile, but I think (and hope) that is mere perception, based on her own cultural expectations.
The doormen in my building have taken to smiling at us, after months of us greeting and smiling at them, and when recently I have gathered up enough Polish to ask the some questions, they answer fully and with good humor, assuring me: "Wiem, że Pani nie mówi po polsku" ("I know you don't really speak Polish"). It couldn't be more obvious that we are an American family who have shown up for some number of months and are trying to find our way here. But if I hadn't ever said a word to them, we would have left the country never having spoken with each other.
People are busy. Our experience is not their problem. But still ... a little curiosity, a little chat even about the weather, a shared anecdote of life on the bus or a wayward student. These things apparently matter to us. Some cultures find such trivial conversations to be a waste of time or hypocritical, but for Americans, I've come to discover, casual friendliness creates a basic level of comfort.
It seems to me that Americans expect and even need that friendliness and consider a country "hospitable" if they find it. But the distinction between friendliness and hospitality is one that is important to make: hospitality is a personal thing, not something that happens in a hallway or on a bus. In Berlin at our Fulbright seminar a local informant told us that Germans don't want to get to know you if you'll be disappearing in 4 months, or in 9 months. For them, he said, friendship is a lifelong prospect, and there's no point spending energy on you if you may never come back again.
Friendliness is not the same as friendship, but one leads to the other. Our best conversations have been with people who are somehow engaged with American culture, I think because they exhibit that basic friendliness and warmth. Faculty at the American Studies Center, others who have had guest stints teaching in the U.S., or, in my case, with Russian and Ukrainian types. These are people I instinctively understand, people with whom we've made a real connection.
I don't understand Poles yet. But I aim to come back and find out more about them. And as my language and knowledge improve, I feel certain that my level of cultural comfort will increase as well.
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