A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland

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Then we get onto the issue of politics in this book. The referendum to leave the EU is featured heavily in the book and on the blurb. I have no issue with an author giving their political opinion and I suspect that the author and myself share the same opinions on many topics. However, the politics in this book are lazy and uninspired; they are exactly the same opinions that millions of others repeat without thinking. The moments where politics come out seem completely out of place and incredibly preachy. The most uncomfortable aspect of this however, comes from the fact that the author admits to not taking part in the referendum. So how should he expect us to take his opinion seriously when he does not even take it seriously enough himself? (Strangely, one of the funniest scenes features the author giving a tedious political monologue to someone who leaves before he can finish)

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” - Dr. Suess So, why Poland?’ Frankly, it’s one of those ‘How long’s a piece of string’ type questions? When Poles ask the question, do they assume that Poland is such a dirt-poor country with zero opportunities?Before long he was asking me, first shyly but then with confidence, what I thought of Messi, Ronaldo, Kane, Lewandowski, all that mob. I told the boy that a feather would tip the scales, and then asked him who he’d want to win if Poland played England at football. He looked at his dad, then at the floor, then at his dad, then turned to me and said: “I think I’d like it to be a draw.” ‘A Chip Shop in Poznan’ is Ben’s account of his year in Poland In 2016 Ben Aitken moved to Poland while he still could. It wasn’t love that took him but curiosity: he wanted to know what the Poles in the UK had left behind. He flew to a place he’d never heard of and then accepted a job in a chip shop on the minimum wage. Anyone can join and participate in the challenges or readings at any time. Challenge participation is not a requirement of joining. Anyone who loves reading books from around the world is welcome here. The man behind me in the queue was speaking in Polish on the phone. He sounded more Polish than anyone I’d ever heard. When he finished the call, his son, who must have been nine or ten, turned to his father and said, “Ere dad, will yer ‘old me coat for a bit?” The boy sounded more English than anyone I’d ever heard. He sounded like a greengrocer from the east end of London.

Towards the end of his stay in Poland, Aitken stayed with some nuns in Staniątki, near Kraków. He also gets lost in freezing conditions in the Polish mountains – without much daylight to spare. Finally, nothing beats milking Polish cows, as Aitken did in Ełk, north-east Poland. Jollier times come though, when the author is welcomed by his flatmate Jenny at his family’s house at Christmas. There is an endearing custom in Poland of setting an extra place at the table in case a stranger turns up. This is maybe the message of the book; that the world would be a happier, healthier and better place if we all thought to lay a place for a hypothetical stranger. It’s an easy message to take, wrapped as it is, in many a witty turn of phrase. Much is said about travel improving or stretching a person. “Didn’t she grow!” they say. Less is said of travel reducing a person, infantilising them, making a child of them, and doing them a service thereby. My knowledge of Poland was certainly childlike before I went there. If you’d shown me pictures of John Paul II and Lech Walesa, I don’t think I’d have been able to say which was the pope and which the ideology-crushing electrician. I knew nobody in Poland and not a word of the language. My ignorance, far from being a deterrent, was another reason to make the switch. I wanted to not have a clue. I wanted to learn. I’ve written a few posts on this blog which detail my early days in Poland. Reflecting on those times, I fully understood where Aitken was coming from with his comments about growing tired with life in the UK and the “nice routines” there. Certainly, with my first journey to Polandand getting used to a wholly new culture, I sought to find myself – to have my character reset. Overall, it’s an effortless task to empathise with Aitken, especially when you’ve been in his shoes. Sometimes I felt like I was reading my own memoir. He intended to find out why so many Poles have been moving to the UK in recent years and what they were leaving behind. Taking a minimum wage job in a fish and chip shop, Aitken embedded himself in the ordinary lives of Polish people and gained surprising insights into their cultural traditions, social mores and political views.Another strange inclusion is the 'bumpy romance' referenced on the blurb. Not only does this romance come across as a bit shallow and one-sided, but it serves absolutely no purpose in the storyline and is left completely unresolved. Why on earth did this feature so heavily in the final draft? And so much so that it even got put on the blurb! I couldn't help but cringe every moment the romance interest was mentioned by the author (a lot); and I can only hope the author got permission from the romance interest to publish her name and their interactions. The starting point is super interesting with a Brit going to Poland at Brexit times, forming his own opinion on Poland and trying to live a real polish life. Theresa May tells Polish people they are ‘welcome’ in UK – despite her routinely tough rhetoric on EU migration