Zur Schau gestellt (6) - Sexgeschichten

Zur Schau gestellt (6)

Driving from to can be an adventurous undertaking providing you with insights into Slavic culture and mentality. I have travelled a number of times to Kiev by car to visit my friends and on every trip there were various interesting situations along the way. Once I was waiting at the German/Polish border checkpoint when a journalist and a cameraman approached me. The journalist shoved a microphone in my face and after telling me that they were from a local TV station working on a news story on the relationship between Poland and Germany, he asked me: «You are driving to Poland alone in your car, arent you afraid it might get stolen?» Can you imagine his face when I told him that I was travelling to the Ukraine and no, I was not afraid someone might steal my car for a number of reasons some of which I listed in my reply to him. I dont know why the media are so obsessed with reporting how dangerous it is to go to East European countries when in fact its probably as safe as anywhere else in Europe and the real danger might well lie in the way the media form public opinion. Sometimes travelling through Poland can be really quite interesting and pleasant. The vast majority of the people I encountered were very friendly and open minded. Ive made it a habit on my trips through Poland to approach any person, using the Polish phrases Ive learned and the response is almost always: «Oh, pan bardzo dobrze mowie po-polsku» (The gentleman speaks very good Polish) although my vocabulary ...

... is very limited to say the least. Now, if someone from Poland comes to the country I come from, we expect them to speak very good German and we would never make the effort to say a single word in Polish. Why exactly is that? When you go to another country its like visiting your neighbours in their house and you want to respect and honour their hospitality. Why dont we do the same when we travel abroad? I know many Germans who would say «Well sure, German is a much more important language than Polish.» Is that really so? How do you measure the importance of a language? Is it a question of economic power? I dont think so because when I travel as an individual and I meet another individual I honestly believe that they are just as important as I am and when Im in their country I at least make the effort to say Hello, excuse me I have a question in their language. That is really not asking too much, is it? But it tells the other person that I respect them and that Im glad to be in their country otherwise why would I go there in the first place? Trying to learn some Polish can literally open doors. Let me illustrate this with another episode that happened to me later that day: As I was getting closer to the Polish-Ukrainian border I decided to stop for the night because I was pretty tired and darkness was approaching fast. In the town of Jastkow I stopped at a small privately owned petrol station for fuel and directions to the nearest motel. Of course I used my readily available ...