After looking through the Wall Street Journal statistics and article last week I was interested as to what a Polish opinion would be of America. In a political and cultural sense Poland seems one of the most tolerant towards The United States due to the fact that as a nation they lived under the iron fist of communism for so many years and America to them represented freedom in an almost pure form. The lives they lived as a society were very deprived compared to what the media at the time conveyed as living 'the American dream' with a promise of Coca Cola and McDonald's on every street corner which seems a lot more tempting than the restricted market's provided by the Soviets.
The link above is a blog which i have found in which a man whose Polish parents moved to America in the 1950's wishes to get in touch with his roots and go back to his native Poland in order to look at his family history in a lot more depth. But due to the fact he is American and contemporary views upon America tend to sway a little more towards the negative side in many European countries he asks for the opinion of the Polish bloggers as to how he will be treated when he sets foot on Polish soil.
The bloggers views tend to be rather polite yet like any blog there will be some form of negative aspect. For instance it is stated that when there people will automatically assume you are rich quoting the 'rich but rough around the edges' post immediately attracting the attention of muggers and 'gold-digging' females who apparently strive for a life live across the Atlantic. The other problem seems to be the language divide as stated in the blog learning Polish is a very difficult process yet those who do learn still seem to fall victim to the ridicule of the fluent locals.
Yet the last post seems to give the best answer and opinion of Americans in general, the fact is that many people across the globe will stereotype America and it's people for being ignorant towards other cultures due to the vastness of their own nation as we talked about in our group last week. Yet, if like the young man who started the debate, they wish to go there to immerse themselves in the country's culture and history and educate themselves then they will be accepted by that country's people as they come bearing a great interest and not arrogance as some would expect from certain Americans.
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