Poland’s Wietnamski — Being Vietnamese and Polish in a changing Warsaw
How a group of physics students led to a new generation of Vietnamese-Poles.
Warsaw, POLAND — September 2016
“The first time I had calamari was in the 70s” recalls Andrzej, a native Varsovian. “People were poor and food was expensive, but there was an abundance of calamari from Vietnam and it was the cheapest thing my mother could buy.”
It’s the end of summer in 2016, I had just arrived in Warsaw and Andrzej, my host and friend’s father, had started drinking before my arrival. Warsaw was quite different compared to the green and fairytale-like Polish countryside through which I had just travelled from. The roads are wide, modern glass-and-steel buildings sit next to large Communist Bloki and craft breweries have popped up next to cheap vodka holes. Imagine Moscow meeting Berlin and Beijing.
“Poland and Vietnam were friends!” shouted Andrzej as he downed a shot of zytnia. He was jolly drunk and very correct. In the 1970s, the Cold War was still ongoing and Poland was part of the Eastern Bloc, under the control of the Soviet Union.
During this period, the U.S. imposed embargoes and trade sanctions as a response to the “iron curtain”, a reference to the ideological and political division between the then Communist countries and the “West”. As a result, there weren’t many countries that Poland had or could have ties with. Along with countries such as Cuba and China, Vietnam was an ally with which Poland had trade and cultural exchange agreements.
Warsaw therefore heavily relied on food products including calamari from Vietnam, which was a predominantly agrarian economy before the Doi Moi Policy was implemented in the late 80s. Student exchange programs allowed Polish and Vietnamese students with exceptional grades to study and experience life in the two countries in order to bring knowledge back home, but many decided to remain in Poland upon finishing their studies.
I meet Anh Tuan Truong, a well-known name among those familiar with the “Wietnamski” community in Warsaw. He opened the first Vietnamese restaurant in the country and found the Vietnamese sociocultural association in Poland.
Anh Tuan is part of the first wave of Vietnamese migration to Poland started in the ’70s, they were mostly Physics students, mostly men and highly educated. They were about 800 in 1972 and all chosen by the Vietnamese government to study and research in Poland, with the purpose of implementing their learnings back in Vietnam. Those students represent the bones of the Vietnamese community in Poland and the infrastructure for the migration influx that follows in the next decades.
For young and educated men like Anh Tuan, it was the perfect opportunity to escape a war torn Vietnam whilst not having to join the millions of refugees or “boat people” that fled to the US and Australia. They worked hard in order to remain in Poland, as only the best students that became fluent in the language and knowledgeable about the country and culture could have the government’s permission to continue living in Warsaw.
Younger Poles remember Vietnamese “Budkas” as their first foreign food experience, much before the opening of the first McDonald’s restaurant in 1992, these were little kiosks that sold cheap Vietnamese take-away. There is still one in central Warsaw, in Plac Zbawiciela, on a narrow road just behind Kościól Zbawiciela.
Anh Tuan’s Dong Nam, however, was the first sit-down restaurant that served as a reference point for Vietnamese in the ’80s and early ’90s, they were now migrating with the help of the original student network that was either still in Polish universities or had graduated and stayed. The students had created informal social networks by word of mouth and wanted to help those looking for a better life by offering places to sleep, help them with the language and find jobs and so on.
There are now more than 50,000 Vietnamese in Poland today and predominantly in Warsaw. The real number is expected to be much higher due to many not having a residence permit. Whilst it is a smaller number compared to the Vietnamese diaspora of 300,000 in France, it is the highest number of migrants from outside Europe in Poland and its influence is significant.
A stroll around the city centre and you can notice the large amount of hipster sandwich or “Banh mi” spots, Vietnamese fast-food joints and cafes. I’m told about Vietnamese-Polish figures, like Magdalena Ho, who was Miss Earth Poland 2015 and Lam Quan My, a famous poet. It is striking to see Phở Bò, a typical Vietnamese beef noodle soup, assimilating in a food culture centred around meat roasts and potatoes.
The abandoned station of Warszawa Glówna in Ochota is the location of an edgy night market that celebrates electronic music, tattoos and South-East Asian food. Here you find DJs playing tech house, locally brewed IPAs and Banh Cuon.
“Young people only eat Polish food with their moms or grandmas!” exaggerates Mikolaj, who’s queuing at “To To Pho”, a stall that specialises in Vietnamese street food. “All my friends cook foreign dishes at home, we experiment with everything, from hummus to sushi”. I’m not surprised, the most traditional Polish dishes are meat heavy and best eaten in winter with some vodka. Perhaps, foreign cuisines offer a space for younger generations to celebrate a more diverse Warsaw and escape from reminiscing a grey and post-war Poland.
It’s not all smooth, however. Anh Tuan thinks that half of the restaurants went bankrupt in 2012 when TV channel TVN ran a service on Vietnamese restaurants, spreading the rumour they used dog meat in their dishes — “it was all a lie, but the damage was done.” Dong Nam is also no longer a Vietnamese, but an elegant Thai restaurant and spa — “We had to innovate, I think Thai is more novel than Vietnamese food these days” explains Anh Tuan as he shows me around.
In Wólka Kosowska, a wholesale trading centre close to Pruszkow, a town just outside of Warsaw and recently the film location of the latest x-men movie, is where many Vietnamese work. The trading centre is composed of long corridors with store fronts facing one another, they are small and resemble warehouse deposits. They are selling from lingerie to electronics and food products.
Here, traders from the rest of Poland and nearby countries travel to stock up for their high street shops and stalls. The place is so large that traders move around by electric scooters, everyone has one, whether to transport boxes of goods or to move around the large complex. The majority of the store owners are Vietnamese, but a handful of Chinese and Turkish traders are selling their imported goods as well. There are Turkish, Chinese and grocery stores too, mainly for traders and workers to do their shopping after work.
Many of the traders came to Poland in the last 15 years, some just a few months ago but have already become fluent in explaining product quality and prices.
I chat to Maciek, the owner of an electronics shop I walked in, he deducts I’m not a trader and asks for what I’m doing. I stood out among the traders and customers roaming around the centre on e-scooters, everyone looked like they were in a hurry and many carried large blue plastic bags whilst I carried a camera and wore a summer dress.
Maciek’s eyes brighten as I explain that I am interested in learning about the experience of Vietnamese Polish in Warsaw. He’s 32, he moved here with his parents when he was 5 and grew up going to Polish schools, learning German as his second language. He highlights that he grew up drinking vodka with his friends rather than rice wine. He took over his parents’ shop a few years ago after he got married with a Vietnamese Polish woman who had a similar upbringing to his. When asked about his identity, he’s frank — “I feel Vietnamese with my Polish friends and I feel Polish with my Vietnamese family, but this is really our home”.
He lives in Raszyn, a nearby area in the Pruszkow county and dubbed as “Little Saigon” for the many Vietnamese living there. It’s also home to two Vietnamese Buddhist temples where both Poles and Vietnamese come “but they serve more as a meeting point for people to eat and chat rather than to pray” explains Maciek.
Whilst Maciek embraces both his identities confidently, he admits it has been more challenging for some of his friends. In Maciek’s opinion, Razsyn has never seen any problem between Polish and Vietnamese, but there are feelings of uncertainty at a time when populist and extreme right rhetoric are part of everyday media conversations. The Law and Justice Party has been gaining power and influence and a new educational bill that introduces Polish patriotism as an obligatory class in schools had just been approved and passed by the Law and Justice Party a few days ago, on August 28th.
“Are you worried?” — I ask. “No, Poland and Vietnam are friends” — he replies.
