I love this. Haven’t seen a good Polish joke in years and years. In the old days it was like, “Wanna hear a Polish joke?” “Careful, I’m Polish.” “That’s okay, I’ll tell it slow.”
During my childhood, in Germany, during the ninetees and early 2000s, it was manly making fun of the Polish for beeing thiefs or beeing overrun in WWII.
Insanely racist time, looking back now, but it was just completly normalised.
That’s just living in Europe in general though. Everyone makes fun of everyone. Dutch and Belgians and Germans have jokes about each other since we share borders. There’s also stereotypes about the Spanish and Greeks being lazy, the French being rude, that sort of thing.
Why is there a gutter on both sides of the pavement in Fresia?
So they can get walk without scraping their knuckles so bad.
Why are Fresian’s arms so long?
So they can feel the tits on a cow when they’re snogging them!
Eh, I don’t know. I mean, sure, there are stereotypes.
But it feels a bit different. I thinks it’s the difference between friendly banter, like friends do it sometimes, and blatant bullying.
I’ve done a little experiment. I went to https://witze.net/ , a website that is German and filled with humour that must be at least 30 years old. Many jokes refer to cultural events from that time (there was one about the explosion of the Challenger, which was in 1986). So that should give a good example of the time period I was reffing to.
You find examples of friendly banter for the French, etc.:
"Whats European heaven like?
The Englishman opens the door for you, the French is cooking, the Italian is the Entertainment and the German takes care of organising everything.
What’s European hell like?
The Frenchman opens the door, the Englishman is cooking, the German is the Entertainer and the Italian takes care of organising everything."
Not funny, but also just a play on stereotypes. It’s like that.
The polish stereotype is “they are thiefs”.
“Whs do Russians always steal two cars? Because they have to drive trough Poland on their way back.”
“Why is Viagra not allowed in Poland? Because everything that stands longer than 10 Minute is stolen.”
And on and on.
Am I imagining that there is a difference if your stereotype is “bad at humour” (which the German website proves quite well ironically) or “steals everything all the time”?
I love this. Haven’t seen a good Polish joke in years and years. In the old days it was like, “Wanna hear a Polish joke?” “Careful, I’m Polish.” “That’s okay, I’ll tell it slow.”
I don’t know know if it works in your part of the world but I’ve always enjoyed variants on the old classic:
I know someone who’s Polish.
Who’s that?
Mr. Sheen
During my childhood, in Germany, during the ninetees and early 2000s, it was manly making fun of the Polish for beeing thiefs or beeing overrun in WWII.
Insanely racist time, looking back now, but it was just completly normalised.
That’s just living in Europe in general though. Everyone makes fun of everyone. Dutch and Belgians and Germans have jokes about each other since we share borders. There’s also stereotypes about the Spanish and Greeks being lazy, the French being rude, that sort of thing.
Source; Some old German guy….
Why is there a gutter on both sides of the pavement in Fresia? So they can get walk without scraping their knuckles so bad. Why are Fresian’s arms so long? So they can feel the tits on a cow when they’re snogging them!
Eh, I don’t know. I mean, sure, there are stereotypes.
But it feels a bit different. I thinks it’s the difference between friendly banter, like friends do it sometimes, and blatant bullying.
I’ve done a little experiment. I went to https://witze.net/ , a website that is German and filled with humour that must be at least 30 years old. Many jokes refer to cultural events from that time (there was one about the explosion of the Challenger, which was in 1986). So that should give a good example of the time period I was reffing to.
You find examples of friendly banter for the French, etc.:
"Whats European heaven like?
The Englishman opens the door for you, the French is cooking, the Italian is the Entertainment and the German takes care of organising everything.
What’s European hell like?
The Frenchman opens the door, the Englishman is cooking, the German is the Entertainer and the Italian takes care of organising everything."
Not funny, but also just a play on stereotypes. It’s like that.
The polish stereotype is “they are thiefs”.
“Whs do Russians always steal two cars? Because they have to drive trough Poland on their way back.”
“Why is Viagra not allowed in Poland? Because everything that stands longer than 10 Minute is stolen.”
And on and on.
Am I imagining that there is a difference if your stereotype is “bad at humour” (which the German website proves quite well ironically) or “steals everything all the time”?
To be fair, the 90s in Poland were a rough time to own a car.
We made a tourism campaign out of it at least: “Come to Poland! Your car is already here”.