Poland - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

Culture Smart / Cultuur Bewust

by Gregory Allen, Magdalena Lipska

Have a more meaningful and successful time abroad through a better understanding of the local culture. Chapters on values, attitudes, customs, and daily life will help you make the most of your visit, while tips on etiquette and communication will help you navigate unfamiliar situations and avoid faux pas.

Culture Smart! guides provide travelers with vital information about the values and attitudes of the people they will meet, and practical advice on how to make the most of their time abroad. Travelers to Poland in particular, a country in transition from its Communist past, need to be open-minded and well-informed. Today’s Poland is very much a mix of the old and the new, and the two are not always in harmony. Background knowledge of the land, people, and history is crucial to understanding who the Poles are today: the Polish sense of identity has been forged by history, and the reader is introduced to the main events of Poland’s turbulent past. A chapter on values and attitudes provides essential insights into this relationship-based society, and will help visitors understand why things are done the way they are. Further chapters describe important festivals and rites of passage, as well as how Poles go about their daily social and work lives. Valuable advice is also offered on how to get along with them. The Polish people are warm and generous and place great value on personal relationships. Show an interest in their history and culture, and your welcome will be warmer still.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

200 pages, Paperback

Published September 28, 2023

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Reviews

[Chet Slonina]

This is a quick and easy read for a modern day look at Poland and its present daily life. There is a great mini history in the beginning which gives you a primer on the background of the people and their values as well as beliefs. The book is divided into chapters from the people and their values, tries customs and traditions as well as leisure, recreation and leisure. What I found interesting was the business briefing. It truly gives you a flavor of what to expect if ever doing business in Poland. The knowledge of present day Poland and my ancestry was appreciated and a nice springboard when visiting a generous and gracious nation with so much to offer.

[Gadi Nissim]

A useful glimpse

A very short and quite useful introduction for outsiders who visit Poland for the first time. There are some redundant technical details (postal services, for example) that it would have been better to leave them out.

[David]

Worthwhile read before a trip.

[Laura Tiessen]

Very thorough introduction to polish history and culture.