Polish Urban Myths

[ianek70]

Everybody's heard the Banana story, and some local version of the Vampire
story, and everyone knows someone who saw the little boy saying 'jebany
sierściuch' even though nobody saw it themselves.

And if you talk about music with any Pole over 55 who's even half-funky, it's
a scientifically proven fact that within 4 minutes they'll say, "the Stones
played Warsaw in the 60s and I was there, but it's a long story..." then they
change the subject (although maybe that one's true and there actually were 3
million folk in the audience that night...)

Any more examples?

[usenetposts]

What's the Banana story?

[ianek70]

usenetposts napisał:

> What's the Banana story?

For years, most (?) people wouldn't eat the bottom end of a banana because they
had a friend who'd heard from some unknown source that tiny parasites lived
there.

[babiana]

The banana story or "siersciuch jebany"??? What is the source of these
"interesting" stories? They must circulate in a very specific Polish urban milieu.

[usenetposts]

That's true, my first wife always cut off both ends of the banana, but she
thought there were poisons in them.

But what about the cholesterol urban myth? People are always buying low-
cholesterol products when it becamse known to science long ago that you cannot
digest that huge molecule - it simply will not pass through the wall of the
gut, and the cholesterol you have you make yourself from prime ingredients -
namely the food groups you need and cannot do without.

[babiana]

and homocysteine level as a factor in a coronary disease. I've got this
information from my honest and a very good doctor.
www.spacedoc.net/cholesterol_scam.html
www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4677

[marcus_anglikiem]

is it REALLY not true that there isn't something bad in the end part of a
banana? (i avoided eating the end even BEFORE i heard of this, which served to
make me believe it all the more, as i trust in my instinct ) ?

[minimus]

> is it REALLY not true that there isn't something bad in the end part of a
> banana? (i avoided eating the end even BEFORE i heard of this, which served
to
> make me believe it all the more, as i trust in my instinct ) ?

You can always peel from the other end. This way the end will be clear. DD

[comrade]

Once I saw in Pascal - po prostu gotuj, when he peeled a banana he said that one
should always cut off both ends, didnt say why though

[minimus]

I know! I got one!
I think.
You can pour only cold water into a kettle before boiling it!!!
Hahahahaha
or maybe its not a myth. maybe there is a legit reason??

[maria333]

minimus napisał:

> I know! I got one!
> I think.
> You can pour only cold water into a kettle before boiling it!!!
> Hahahahaha> or maybe its not a myth. maybe there is a legit reason??

Sure you can - the hot water from the tap, you mean? And then drink it together
with all the chemicals they add to the hot water, to clear the pipes (I tend to
believe this one...)

[marcus_anglikiem]

> You can pour only cold water into a kettle before boiling it!!!
> Hahahahaha
> or maybe its not a myth. maybe there is a legit reason??

there's another reason... though not as nasty as the chemical one (yeuch!)
The hot water is often stored in a tank in the house, sitting around and being
heated, whilst cold water comes in direct on demand .

[minimus]

Sorry, you don't convince me. In Poland (at least) hot water is coming through
pipes 'on demand' just as the cold water. And why would there be more chemicals
in the hot water than in cold water?????

[marcus_anglikiem]

> Sorry, you don't convince me. In Poland (at least) hot water is coming
>through pipes 'on demand' just as the cold water.

that just means the big dirty old tanks in which the hot water is heated and
stored ready for use are centralised far away and not in your attic

> And why would there be more chemicals in the hot water than in cold water?????

chemicals dissolve better in hot water

[babiana]

The skyscraper the Blue Tower, a.k.a. the Peugeot Tower on pl. Bankowy has an
interesting history. Once the site of Warsaw’s largest synagogue and dynamited
by the Nazis, an urban myth was circulated that a rabbi placed a curse on the
ground that no building would ever take its place. In a supernatural twist, the
Blue Tower took over three decades to complete, allegedly only after a more
forgiving rabbi removed the curse.

According to urban legend, in the Palace of Culture an army of wild cats now
live in the cavernous basements, feasting on the legions of rodents who also
reside within the buildings gloomy bowels.

www.inyourpocket.com/poland/warsaw/en/feature?id=55518

Cool cats vs. Dirty rats

[ianek70]

babiana napisała:

> According to urban legend, in the Palace of Culture an army of wild cats now
> live in the cavernous basements, feasting on the legions of rodents who also
> reside within the buildings gloomy bowels.

That would make sense.
Most Polish cats are hungry, scraggy-looking and live semi-wild in city
basements, hunting for things.
British cats are generally well-fed, dearly loved pets. When they're very
young, they bring a couple of dead birds or mice into the house, their owners
get annoyed and the cats say "whatever" and immediately stop chasing things and
turn into Garfield, eating expensive cat-food and sleeping all day then
buggering off to do feline drugs at night.
UK cats are nice but spoilt and lazy, which is probably why British rats are
mostly bigger and more vicious than Polish ones.

[babiana]

ianek70 napisał:

> babiana napisała:
>
> > According to urban legend,...

Not so long ago, in the Polish countryside it was believed that when a cat
washed itself, guests would come from the direction it was pointing. When a cat,
particularly a black one, crossed someone's path, it meant bad luck. In order to
avoid bad luck, you had to spit three times over your left shoulder or change
your route. There are also some positive cat connotations in Poland. An
attractive girl or woman is called a kitten.

[ianek70]

babiana napisała:

> Not so long ago, in the Polish countryside it was believed that when a cat
> washed itself, guests would come from the direction it was pointing. When a
cat
> ,
> particularly a black one, crossed someone's path, it meant bad luck.

Cats are strangely popular in European superstitions.
They may be lucky or unlucky depending on their colour, what they're doing and
which country or region a given superstitious person comes from. For some
people a black cat is always unlucky, for others its only unlucky if it crosses
your path, for others it's the opposite.
Maybe that's why cats don't give a shit and just do their own thing.

> There are also some positive cat connotations in Poland. An
> attractive girl or woman is called a kitten.

You don't have to be a woman to be called kotku, you don't even have to be
particularly attractive (although that's a question of taste).
I've been called kotku, more often misiu, sometimes tygrysku, but never foka.

La chatte belongs in another wątek.

[babiana]

If you believe urban myth the gold flakes appeared after Neptune grew
increasingly irritated that the natives were clogging up his fountain by
repeatedly throwing coins into it. Driven to despair the irked God launched his
trident into the fountain, shattering the coins into millions of pieces. This,
according to some, is why you’ll find gold pieces floating around in your bottle
of Goldwasser.
www.inyourpocket.com/poland/gdansk/en/feature?id=56024

[babiana]

The very size of the Palace excited the imagination-and stimulated bizarre
calculations by newspapers. One estimated that all the parquet squares lined up
would reach from Warsaw to Paris. Another, theoretically lining up the
building's 4 million bricks, said they would cover a quarter of the Equator. The
electricity consumed by the Palace of Culture would power a city of 100,000. And
were a baby born in the building to sleep one night in every room, he (not, at
the time, she) would not leave the building earlier than age 22.

The first employees were selected according to severe communist standards. Even
so, the first employees' surnames included Biskup (bishop), Kieliszek (vodka
glass) and Bania (bathing, a slang word for drunk). Another urban legend says
that a group of maintenance men making their rounds stumbled on an unshaven man
who welcomed them with a cry of relief: He had lost his way two days earlier and
had not come upon a living soul. However, Hanna Szczubełek, the building's
chronicler for the past 35 years, resolutely denies the story. Somewhat more
reliably, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in outer space, is reported to
have said, "It's an awful long way down" when standing on the top deck.
www.warsawvoice.pl/archiwum.phtml/6331/

[babiana]

There is also an urban myth about nail growth continuing after death.