Time to say goodbye - Intellectual Take-away

Time flies and the seven-day study tour in Poland is just like a dream. The take way of Krakow is much more than I expected which is a cherish experience to enrich my eyesight. It is not only about taking classes but to get better to know about the culture and the people. To my surprise, Polish people are not as open-minded as most of western countries, and for some traditions, people are even close to Asian values. I believe the history of the country are influential to people. However, the youth generations are energetic and the street culture is popular in Krakwo too. There are numbers of street artists in Krakow, for paintings, music, and graffiti. During our study tour, we visited several business companies including Radio Krakow, Onet, Tygodnik Powszechny, and Krakow Technology Park. The most impressive company to me is Onet, which ranks right after Google and Facebook as the most influential media platform in Poland. The technical software Onet uses to follow customers watching habits are unique and exclusive to Onet. The local students are friendly and really easygoing. They are happy to share their cultures and values and what is more, all of them are modest and polite. This is also what Polish people impress me. This is the race that is respectful with their intellectual minds and hardworking. All the professors are wonderful, especially the teaching assistants. They welcome the study groups so much and take excellent care of us. They are teachers, friends, and they are part of what Polish means to us. The culture is all about people. I am so happy that I took the chance and join in the study tour in Poland, and I want to thank you all professors and my classmates, each of them are awesome!

Schindler's List

It has been a while after our visits of the Schindler’s Factory and the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp. And still, it is so hard to get out of the heavy mood and takes time to look at the issue. It is still hard to swallow that such a nation to experience such hardships. Schindler’s List is a movie full of humanitarianism with the eternal glory of the existence; however, it was time for me to actually feel it when I placed myself in Poland, with enormous mind blowing and soul stirring. The Schindler’s story would be permanently told from generation to generation. If it has to say this is a story about “redemption”, I would take the profound theme as “expiation” instead of “rescue”. Just like what Schindler said, for those who survive, nearly one thousand and two hundreds Jewish, they have to thank themselves as the race who obtains wealth with their intellectual minds and personal values, the belief. The consequences taken by the war would never be one-way. The act of killing and extermination is not only about the body, but the harm to the humanity. For the era of killing, the last thing for people to make a choice would be forgiveness. It is most touching moment when the human nature is glittering even at the most complicated situations. “Hate the sin, not the sinner.” Just like the candle flame at the beginning of the film, the human nature shines with beautiful lights.

Polish Cuisine!

During the 7 days trip in Krakow, I was almost having Polish food every day. I did enjoy them a lot, and I want to share some of my understandings here. Poland itself has over thousand years’ history, so polish cuisine also evolved over centuries and became very identical. There is some famous Polish food already became icon of Poland such as Pierogi (dumpling like traditional Pole food stuffed with meat, cheese or potato). Meanwhile, Polish cuisine shares some common ground with center east European cuisines. Such as, German and Polish consume similar sausages and bigos (slightly sour shredded cabbage). Kompot (beverage obtained by cooking fresh fruit with large amount of water and some sugar) is also very popular in eastern European country such as Czech Republic and Turkey. Regardless of those general information may everyone already know. I want to share something that I find particular interesting.  

First thing I noticed from Polish cuisine is that meal always starts with a soup. This soup is different with common western soup which mostly is thick. It’s clear and light just like soups from Japan and Southern China.

At the same time, Pole cuisine is also considered heavy by me, because of the following stories:

In the first day trip we went pierogi for lunch and it was one of the best pierogis I have ever had. After the meal Bozena told us that she especially request low fat for us, because in last year’s trip a lot of American student can’t take the pierogi since it was too fatty. It’s inferable that if last year restaurant was doing what they do all the time, the traditional way of serving pierogi in Poland would be heavy.

For the fifth day lunch, we had deep fried pork steak with bigos and mesh potato. During the meal, one of my best Pole friends Patryk mentioned that this meal is what his mother would make in Sunday (if I do not recall it mistakenly) and it’s a very common Polish food. Deep fried meat is considered delicious and high calories for me at the same time.

Furthermore, I think Polish people may consume more salt in their meal. In some occasions, when my Pole friends ask me how do I feel about the meal, I was totally honest and I told them it was good, but a little bit over salty for me (some of my course mate felt the same as I did). Then I asked my Pole friends their opinion about the meal and it turned out they feel just fine about the saltiness of the meal. I guess it’s the diet habit difference between us lead this diversity of opinions. 

In the end, I don’t think what I saw (or ate) in the 7 days can subjectively represent for a whole picture of Polish cuisine. However, it does represent my personal perspective. I did enjoy my 7 days food (at least most of them) and I wish, if possible, I could experience and explore further in Pole cuisine.   

Search for Contrast in Krakow

During this fantastic journey in Europe, one of the most attractive point was the cultural contrast. Not only exist among countries, the contrasts could also be felt even inside one single city as well.

On a country-level, I got totally different feeling among Poland, U.S. and other European countries such as Germany. People living in American cities, taking New York as an example, are always busy and it seems that they are  always working; In Germany, taking Berlin as  an example, people here could perfectly combine the fast and leisure in there life, which I think is a reflection of the characteristics of Germany people, cautious and considerate; In Poland, however, people here live such a peaceful life but also full of vitality. I could always feel energetic and so well-prepared to do anything while I was in Kraków.

Speaking of this, Kraków is such an amazing city that I could see a perfect combination of contrasts and harmony in this one single city. As we all know, Kraków mainly consists of two parts, old town and modern area. In old town, which is surrounded by a beautiful park, I could feel the long-existed history and the unique and special culture everywhere. On the other hand, however, it does not mean that Kraków is a totally historical and old city. In contrary, the modern area and the industrial area are the contemporary aspect of Kraków. In such a city, you could feel the contrast on so many aspects, such as ancient and contemporary, history and development, culture and technology and so on.

Contrast could be a great reflection, making us notice the most special and unique feature. In Kraków, maybe it's these contrasts and comparisons that make people feel more about the Polish culture and splendid history.

Creative Space in Poland - Media Technology

The visit of Media technology incubator company is an open-eye and impressive experience. Poland government’s policy assists start-up companies to spend less money and has creative office space to develop products and services.

When we arrived in the company’s lobby hall, there was a crew of people working on film shooting. My first impression about the company is available and flexible. It is an open space for everyone who has talent and enthusiasm about media technology products. After a walking tour around the company confirms my first impression. This incubator company is founded by government, and only receive money from office rental fee. It was such an honor for us to talk with two start-up companies’ entrepreneurs in media technology section. One is an education app, and the other one is a medical VR content company.

Through conversations with start-up media companies’ executives, I found that “media technology” is an idea that longer stay with the idea of entertainment and culture. Education app and medical VR content indicates that the future of “media” is cross fields and can be applicable in every aspect of people’s life.

Poland's media companies, instead of engaging in the trending of social networks, search for more opportunities in various dimension. This development strategy of media industry expands the idea about "what media can do" in my mind.

LGBTQ in Kraków

Right before leaving, a peer of mine alerted me that the Poland may not be a safe place for LGBTQ people. As I consider myself a member of the LGBTQ community, I immediate took an interest in this topic, and began wondering how safe I’d be in Poland, myself. I asked Professor Bozena Mierzejewska if it would be possible to learn more about Poland’s LGBTQ community, after which she connected me with one of our student guides at Jagiellonian University, our program’s sister school, and that student connected me with a classmate who is one of the top LGBTQ activists in Kraków. What an opportunity!

Another Fordham student and I met up with the activist and his friends, who took us for a brief walking tour of some of the relevant LGBTQ spots around the city, mostly friendly bars and areas around where the recent Kraków Pride March took place. Right before we landed in Kraków, a Pride March took place, which we learned was completely peaceful; there were no reported attacks during the event, although there was plenty of opposition and protesting by anti-LGBTQ extremists. It was nice to hear that such an event is planned annually, particularly because of the information I was learning regarding the climate in Kraków for LGBTQ people.

I would have assumed that the “cultural capital of Poland” would have been the safest place for LGBTQ Polish people. That is absolutely not the case. The activist was open about having been attacked multiple times for peacefully walking down the street hand-in-hand with his boyfriend, and for having a simple, private conversation regarding gay life in Poland with a friend, overheard by an attacker. This was alarming, and quite frankly, scary information to hear. What was even scarier, was hearing that these blatant hate crimes are not against Polish law. The only law protecting LGBTQ Polish people is that they cannot be fired for being LGBTQ. Anything else goes. This means that anyone can attack LGBTQ people in Poland for their born identity.

That was tough to comprehend. Coming from the United States, we have enough issues when it comes to LGBTQ rights, but at least we have protection against hate crimes, can get married, and can adopt children. Polish LGBTQ community members are not granted similar human rights. Many Polish people spend their lives living in the closet, many marrying into seemingly ordinary heterosexual relationships, having children, yet not being able to provide the full love they’d be able to give if the relationship were true to their identity.

Walking the streets of New York, it is pretty easy to see people expressing themselves in terms of their outer appearance, how they walk, and interact with others. In Kraków, however, there was much more uniformity. Most people on the street appear to be straight and white. There is little expression beyond what might be constituted as mainstream and “acceptable.” Gay and lesbian bars as we know them in New York are extremely rare in Kraków. Rather, discreet cruise bars with “dark rooms” are popular among the LGBTQ community, particularly the closeted LGBTQ community. People go there to fulfill basic human needs they have that are unable to be fulfilled by living their lives in public.

Life in Warsaw for LGBTQ people is admittedly different. I was not able to travel to Warsaw to learn how it differs, though the activist and his friends told me that Warsaw’s Pride March is much bigger and more celebratory. This was reassuring to hear, and gave me hope that this could spread to Kraków and the rest of Poland.

The closed-minded stance Poland seems to be taking on LGBTQ issues, among other issues, is due largely to the country’s strong identification with the Catholic religion. Although this is unfortunately logical, the basis of any and all religion is to treat others with kindness and love. I was taken aback when our class visited self-proclaimed Catholic magazine Tygodnik Powszechny and we learned that the magazine has printed information regarding the LGBTQ equality movement as well as the women’s equality movement. Both issues are controversial in Poland, and may be seen as controversial for a Catholic magazine to print. Although I can’t confirm completely, as its articles are in Polish, it seemed that the magazine prints articles about these issues which are more or less objective. The magazine did take somewhat of a stance on the issue, printing an image of a hand with a rainbow bracelet shaking a hand with a religious cross/rosary bracelet in harmony (see the magazine's controversial image below). Despite that, Catholic extremists took issue with the publication for even entertaining the idea of presenting these topics. Coming from a Jesuit University in New York, this is insane to me. One must educate oneself on the issues before making an opinion on them, and remember passages such as Mark 12:31, “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

All of this information was difficult to process, though there is definitely a silver lining to the above. There are multiple communities seeking equality in Poland. For example, there is a strong women’s equality movement, particularly concerning issues such as contraception, sex education, and abortion. Currently, there is little to no sex education, contraception is practically nonexistent, and abortions are outlawed (even in rape cases). The women’s equality movement seeks to fix these issues. Because these movements share a fight for equality, their communities support each other, showing up for each others’ events and rallying for each other. This creates a strong community which I found uplifting.

One of my final questions to this activist and his friends, was why are they staying in Kraków, a place which is clearly dangerous for the LGBTQ community, when they could so easily move anywhere else in the EU that might be a safer place to live. Their response was simple, that Kraków needs them to stand up for LGBTQ rights. If they were to leave, they’d be letting down their country, their community, and their friends. I was so completely humbled and inspired by that response.

Connecting all of this information back to my existence back in New York City, I have never been so proud and grateful for what I have in my home city. Sure we still have homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc., but life in New York is far better for minorities than in Kraków. As a descendant of Polish people myself, I am grateful to my great grandparents for moving to New York in search of a better life for themselves and their descendants, me. I live in a community which is so much more accepting and open minded than life in Poland, for which I am extremely grateful. I appreciate the opportunity that the Poland Study Tour provided to learn how my brothers and sisters in Poland are treated, and it’s helped me gain a deeper appreciation for what I have.

I am proud to have established Fordham Gabelli School of Business’s LGBTQ club, Gabelli Pride. It is important to celebrate your identity, no matter what it is, and never stop fighting for equal treatment.

Video of recent Kraków Pride March:
https://www.facebook.com/queerowymaj/videos/vb.192608494083516/1558909327453419/?type=2&theater

Comparing Poland and the USA

Now that I've been back in the United States after spending a wonderful eight days in Poland, I've had some time to reflect on my experiences with the history, businesses, students & education and food.

I'll start with the history of our countries. Compared to Poland, the United States is an incredibly young country. It felt like every step we took, there was a monument or dedication to a Polish figurehead or event. That is not something we see often in the US. However, I do believe that both countries have great pride in their histories and are proud to be from their respective countries.

We visited several businesses during our time in Poland including: Radio Krakow, Onet, Tygodnik Powszechny and Krakow Technology Park. Some of the businesses we visited had richer and more involved histories than that of the United States--especially, Radio Krakow and Tygodnik Powszechny. Both of those businesses played integral roles during the communist era. That's not to say that Poland didn't have very modern companies as well. Prime examples include Onet and Krakow Technology Park. Onet only stands behind Google and Facebook as the biggest media company in Poland. Meanwhile, Krakow Technology Park can be compared to the United States' Silicon Valley. So many new technological advancements are being made just in one area of Krakow.

Next up, the students and education! We visited Jagiellonian University, the oldest university in Poland. It was founded in 1364! Meanwhile, Harvard University, the United States' oldest university was founded in measly 1636. This goes along with the history differences. Institutions in Poland have longer histories. However, we got to spend time in the university itself and it felt just as modern as the universities I've been to in the United States. Everything was up to date (except for a minor WiFi glitch) and state of the art. Even the students in Poland are just like us! I figured we would have many similarities in the way we speak and act. I was pleased to see that I was right. When we got to spend time with them one evening, it felt like we were close friends just having a good time and our cultural differences barely played a part.

Overall, there were some differences and several similarities between the United States and Poland. While Poland has a richer history than the United States, our cultures, businesses and ways of life are very similar.

Oh yes, Onet!

Our class had the distinct privilege of visiting digital company giant Onet. Before arriving at their offices, we were told the company is comparable to what Yahoo was in its heyday, but from my experience, I see it as so much more.

I'll start with some stats... if we were back in Poland, those of us 21+ could (responsibly) take a shot of vodka every time they’re in the top of their category:

• #1 Polish mobile web destination platform (# 3 in country after global giants Facebook & Google)
• #1 in online video among Polish media news production
• 275 min of video streaming online
• #1 premium VOD platform – let’s call it the Polish Netflix
• Leading products on ecommerce market
• #1 news website in Poland
• #1 most quoted news in Poland

Na zdrowie! Whoo! I’m feeling woozy just thinking about it!

We were met by Piotr Łegowski, Head of the digital media campus, and Marzena Suchan, Editor-in-Chief of information services. It doesn’t get much better than that! Mr. Łegowski walked us through an explanation of the company and its market situation. It quickly became apparent that we were sitting in a pretty important office.

Łegowski highlighted the market’s trends, including the shift to mobile, and went into a long explanation of the problems that AdBlockers cause for a company such as Onet. He elaborated that Poland has the highest ad block rate in all of Europe, and because digital platforms such as Onet rely on ads for their funding, AdBlockers pose a threat to their revenue stream. Creative approaches need to be taken in order to sustain the business. He also took the time to explain Programmatic and how the auctioning process works for Onet.

One particular question that was raised by the class was Onet’s competition with Netflix. At this time, Netflix does not have access to beloved indigenous Polish content, helping Onet keep its #1 spot in VOD.

Next up, Ms. Suchan spoke with us about how she leads the entire journalism department at Onet. She outlined the structure of her team and addressed the challenge of finding a sustainable business model to support independent journalism. Her spiel included an outline of her department’s use of the Onet website, which features galleries and sliders, interviews, infographics (such as how to find a husband), live reports, and video. She also mentioned that Onet is committed to reporting reliable news, and avoiding fake news and the trap of “click bait.”

Then, Łegowski and Suchan gave us an in-depth view of how they determine the placement of news stories on the Onet website, including headline composition. They showed us the software they use, which is unique to Onet, and how it personalizes each user’s view based on certain habits and demographics.

Both Łegowski and Suchan were very open and warm; they were happy to answer our questions and reveal some of the secrets that make Onet such a force in its industry. I was actually taken aback by how open and lovely they both were, considering how busy and stressful it must be to entertain a school group during their work day.

We capped off the experience with a brief tour of their trendy offices, including a video call with the office in Warsaw!

A big dziękuję to them, and to Professor Bozena Mierzejewska on hooking us up with this incredible opportunity!

Drinks in Poland

It was fun to taste the variety of drinks and juices offered in a different region of the world. During many of our meals, we were offered a pitcher of a traditional Polish juice called Kompot. Kompot is a fruit juice served with fresh fruit in the drink. In Poland, the most popular fruits are apples, cherries, strawberries and pears. I enjoyed tasting the different types of Kompot, and particularly the pieces of fresh fruit at the bottom of the glass. My personal favorite was the peach kompot.

I also had the opportunity to taste a variety of Polish beers. During some of our free time, I chose to walk around Old Town Krakow and check out a few of the local pubs. One of my favorites was a bar called House of Beer - Krakow: Strona Glowna. This pub was a unique looking spot tucked away on a quiet side street. I went to this bar mid-day, while a few locals watched the soccer game on the small TV mounted on the wall. The bar had around 50-60 Polish beers on tap, and a few dozen offered in bottles and cans. After talking with the bartender for a few minutes, I found out that Poland has a strong history of beer and is actually Europe's third largest beer producer. Poles take pride in their beer, and after I had the chance to taste a few, I understand why. The most popular Polish beers are Zywiec, Okocim, and Tyskie. Together, these three breweries make up approximately 80% of the beer produced in Poland. There is also a large number of microbrews in Poland. which are also definitely worth trying. One of the most interesting beers I had the chance to try was called Wrzoskaw. Wrzoskaw was a raspberry sour beer, something I had never heard of before. I was pleasantly surprised at the taste, and highly recommend it! Cheers!

Below the Surface: A Trip to Wieliczka Salt Mine

Wieliczka Salt Mine is one of the main attractions of the Krakow area. It is an incredible place to visit not only for its rich history, but also for the beautiful sculptures and plethora of activities. In ancient times, the mine produced rock salt, which was a valuable good at the time as it was used for preserving food and as a bartering object.

Built in the 1200s, the mine was very active during the Middle Ages and delivered thousands of tons of rock salt every year. In those times, horses were used to deliver salt, but were unfortunately not allowed to visit the outside grounds while working. In the 1800s, a doctor introduced to the public the health benefits of rock salt, and proceeded to open a spa underground in the mine.

Besides the spa, Wieliczka Salt Mine also boasts a dance theatre, a Catholic chapel, several gift shops, and an enormous hall with another chapel, a statue of St. John Paul II and Catholic scenes carved into the salt.

In the early 1960s, the mine stopped its production of rock salt, and opened the museum that visitors see today. In the late 70s, the salt mine was added to a UNESCO protected historical site list. As you can see, Wieliczka Salt Mine is a place of incredible history, amazing sights, and opportunities to try one of Poland’s oldest goods. If you’re ever in the Krakow area, be sure to pay it a visit!

Source: https://www.wieliczka-saltmine.com/about-the-mine/the-mine-of-the-past-and-of-today