I recently found a 28 page article I wrote in January 1992 about my stay in Poland then which was almost completing its 4th year. Poland had been released from the clutch of communism since the collapse of the Iron Curtain just over a year before. But things were not easy, it was almost as if democracy was turning into anarchy as so many social and economic problems paralysed the country. I felt personally affected by it all; I had overstayed my tenure and wanted badly to leave that burdensome country.
Below is an excerpt of what I wrote, the first few paragraphs of the long article.
I finally left Poland in July 1992, six months after I wrote the article. I am pleased to say that my view of Poland is today more gentle and sentimental, and I still maintain contacts with a few dear friends there. Poland is now probably the most successful of the former Eastern Bloc countries and of the new members of the EU. Still, strange as it seems, I have no desire at all to re-visit that country which hosted me through thick and thin for four years and four months!
" I saw a most beautiful twilight yesterday at the end of a rare cloudless and blue-skied, sunny winter day. The skyline of Warsaw glowed brilliantly like burning amber the colour of an unbroken golden egg yolk. It was a pleasant indication that the day was getting longer for the colourful light lingered past 5 pm.
I had not seen such a beautiful twilight. Not since that fantastic kaleidoscope of sunset colours I saw from the balcony of my hotel room in the Greek Island of Hydra on the April (1985) day of my arrival there for an Easter holiday. Nor since that serene melancholic sunset seen from the garden terrace of Mount Lavinia Hotel outside Colombo where I stayed during a holiday in Sri Lanka many years ago (1978).
In Europe twilight is supposed to be long and lingering but not so in Poland , so yesterday’s was quite exceptional. Alas today it is back to bleak, grey and wet albeit not so cold weather.
It is still very much winter now and how endless it seems. Yet it is a mild winter, nothing to suffer about except for the astronomical increase in heating and gas prices. I have long lost my purchasing power with my poor meagre allowance which had not been revised despite Poland's current 4-digit inflation, while the spiralling costs of goods, services and utilities continue like one long endless nightmare.
Four mild winters in Poland . How do I began to describe my life here these last four years – to love or to hate, to forgive or to grudge? Sweet uncertain beginnings that turned into excitement and then monotony and finally frustration. Like some marital relations perhaps?
And yet as I look forward to the day I am finally salvaged from these difficult days of merely existing from day to day, trying to fill up the hours with modest occupations and lethargic interests, aside from performing the duties required of my presence here, I look back too to a myriad of happy and not so happy experiences, the accumulation and widening of knowledge and the ongoing process of being experienced, wiser and worldly. These last years had been extremely rich with important happenings that had changes the course of world history and I have been most fortunate to be right in the middle of where it was all hap
pening.
Has it all touched my life? Not so directly, for I am but a tiny speck in the massive cloud of humanity here. The dramas, in reality at base, unfolded less dramatically and without the over-exaggeration made out by the world medias. Sometimes events even happened without one realising them as one goes about the daily routine of life, only to be shocked later into the realisation that something had actually happened which would trigger ripples of subsequent events. It is not apathy but just that outsider see more into a situation the insiders themselves.
I have been asked so often “do I like Poland ?”. If truth must be known and honesty to prevail my answer at the moment is “no”. It is a sad acknowledgement for despite this, my life had been enriched further by the mere coincidence of me having spent the last few years here. There are many things I like and admire about Poland , many things I have acquired from it. But the inconveniences and frustrations of living here outweigh them all. Just when you learn to like, appreciate or love something, something else negative, simple as it may be, occurs which blank out whatever positive feeling which is growing inside you.
My coming of age perhaps have to do with the uncomfortable relationship between me and Poland and its people. I feel I have come to a stage in my life and my career where I do not wish to have to compromise too much and basically this is the problem. To live in Poland and to interact with its people means to make many compromises and to tolerate or else one simply cannot survive. In this respect I feel I have done well, though God only knows and only time will tell if the frustrations and anger I sometimes kept bottled-up will eventually explode or have a profound negative effect on me in..."
Below is an excerpt of what I wrote, the first few paragraphs of the long article.
I finally left Poland in July 1992, six months after I wrote the article. I am pleased to say that my view of Poland is today more gentle and sentimental, and I still maintain contacts with a few dear friends there. Poland is now probably the most successful of the former Eastern Bloc countries and of the new members of the EU. Still, strange as it seems, I have no desire at all to re-visit that country which hosted me through thick and thin for four years and four months!
" I saw a most beautiful twilight yesterday at the end of a rare cloudless and blue-skied, sunny winter day. The skyline of Warsaw glowed brilliantly like burning amber the colour of an unbroken golden egg yolk. It was a pleasant indication that the day was getting longer for the colourful light lingered past 5 pm.
I had not seen such a beautiful twilight. Not since that fantastic kaleidoscope of sunset colours I saw from the balcony of my hotel room in the Greek Island of Hydra on the April (1985) day of my arrival there for an Easter holiday. Nor since that serene melancholic sunset seen from the garden terrace of Mount Lavinia Hotel outside Colombo where I stayed during a holiday in Sri Lanka many years ago (1978).
In Europe twilight is supposed to be long and lingering but not so in Poland , so yesterday’s was quite exceptional. Alas today it is back to bleak, grey and wet albeit not so cold weather.
It is still very much winter now and how endless it seems. Yet it is a mild winter, nothing to suffer about except for the astronomical increase in heating and gas prices. I have long lost my purchasing power with my poor meagre allowance which had not been revised despite Poland's current 4-digit inflation, while the spiralling costs of goods, services and utilities continue like one long endless nightmare.
Four mild winters in Poland . How do I began to describe my life here these last four years – to love or to hate, to forgive or to grudge? Sweet uncertain beginnings that turned into excitement and then monotony and finally frustration. Like some marital relations perhaps?
And yet as I look forward to the day I am finally salvaged from these difficult days of merely existing from day to day, trying to fill up the hours with modest occupations and lethargic interests, aside from performing the duties required of my presence here, I look back too to a myriad of happy and not so happy experiences, the accumulation and widening of knowledge and the ongoing process of being experienced, wiser and worldly. These last years had been extremely rich with important happenings that had changes the course of world history and I have been most fortunate to be right in the middle of where it was all hap
pening.Has it all touched my life? Not so directly, for I am but a tiny speck in the massive cloud of humanity here. The dramas, in reality at base, unfolded less dramatically and without the over-exaggeration made out by the world medias. Sometimes events even happened without one realising them as one goes about the daily routine of life, only to be shocked later into the realisation that something had actually happened which would trigger ripples of subsequent events. It is not apathy but just that outsider see more into a situation the insiders themselves.
I have been asked so often “do I like Poland ?”. If truth must be known and honesty to prevail my answer at the moment is “no”. It is a sad acknowledgement for despite this, my life had been enriched further by the mere coincidence of me having spent the last few years here. There are many things I like and admire about Poland , many things I have acquired from it. But the inconveniences and frustrations of living here outweigh them all. Just when you learn to like, appreciate or love something, something else negative, simple as it may be, occurs which blank out whatever positive feeling which is growing inside you.
My coming of age perhaps have to do with the uncomfortable relationship between me and Poland and its people. I feel I have come to a stage in my life and my career where I do not wish to have to compromise too much and basically this is the problem. To live in Poland and to interact with its people means to make many compromises and to tolerate or else one simply cannot survive. In this respect I feel I have done well, though God only knows and only time will tell if the frustrations and anger I sometimes kept bottled-up will eventually explode or have a profound negative effect on me in..."
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