A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland

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By the year's end he had a better sense of what the Poles had turned their backs on – southern mountains, northern beaches, dumplings! I particularly enjoyed Ben’s stint as an ESL teacher, having personally supported non English speaking students, I found his newly acquired skills and experiences familiar and hilarious! He seems to like Poland in the whole, but it doesn’t seem to change him much, which if he had, I would have found more interesting.

Despite being an immigrant, the author, being a presumably straight white man, gets away with a lot of behaviour that I just know, most minorities could never even think about eg. Traditionally, Poles prepare an extra chair and plate at the table in case an unexpected visitor turns up. I liked the chapters in Krakow and Konin; and reading about Hubert's farm, Jerzy on the mountain, and Christmas with the Polish family was all very enjoyable. I was disappointed that the book ended with barely any resolution and the quote of another author/poet in place of the author's own words. In terms of acquisition, every language presents its own unique challenges, and Polish is no different.

As Aitken pointed out: “Not only must I learn new letters – e and a and o and s and c have alternatives that are accessorised with tails and fringes – but I must also contend with familiar letters arranged in new ways, with the result that when one finds oneself in front of a door, and is invited to pchać , one doesn’t know whether to push or pull. Aitken took his curiosity as the EU referendum approached to go and investigate Poland and why Polish people come to the UK, and to do so by living there for a year and doing minimum wage jobs. When he wasn’t peeling potatoes he was on the road scratching the country’s surface: he milked cows with a Eurosceptic farmer; missed the bus to Auschwitz; spent Christmas with complete strangers and went to Gdansk to learn how communism got the chop. Adeptly balances personal ruminations on love, attraction, and friendship, with cultural evaluations that subvert British stereotypes of Polish citizens […] An engaging romp through Polish culture, with a resonant political message of the importance of interacting with other cultures and preserving our ties with Europe.

The diary entries are a curious mixture between, on the one hand, scrappy, fairly light-hearted, at times funny, but often boring day-to-day accounts of Ben’s life in Poland, and, on the other, more sustained and serious reflections which are mainly about the EU and about, immigration to England and to Poland. He followed Bill Bryson around the UK for Dear Bill Bryson: Footnotes from a Small Island (2015) then moved to Poland to understand why everyone was leaving. There is a tradition that an extra place is set at the Christmas Eve dinner for needy strangers, although no one knew of an occasion when someone actually turned up. Interestingly, opinion was split between those who like the EU for its money and those who thought the EU is just Germany. And I also did not like his “preacher” persona when he talks about EU, racism and many other things.For instance, chapter 12 highlights Aitken’s experiences roaming around Freedom Square in Poznań to hear people’s opinions on Brexit. Ben Aitkin did his homework and was well-versed in historical facts but this is not a history book but one trying to figure out what made the locals as they were.