I'm dual Polish/US citizen. Yes, that's true. However, you need to adjust for cultural differences. I.e. in the US people in general smile to you and pretend they don't mind you're gay. But then, Prop 8 comes up in "liberal" CA, and what happens? Yeah, right liberal. ;-)

You see, the US culture is very, very fake. Americans are fake. They'll smile in your face, tell you how much they love you, and then talk sht about you behind your back and hate just as much as a stereotypical Pole will. The only difference is that in Poland people will tell you stuff in your face while in the US it is all love, sensitivity, smiles and roses and everybody is just trained to talk the talk. But they never walk the walk. The problem with Poles is they had enough communists telling them what to say to be ignorant to the whole political correctness thing.

My guess is that if we could get into people's heads you would see they think probably the same stuff in both places. When for that example they see a gay couple kissing in public. The difference is that in the US they will pretend they're fine with it (and then show you their hate when voting), while in Poland - yeah - they'll openly tell you what they think about you.

I am beginning to realize that I made a mistake when I started talking about Eeastern Europe as a whole. I am Czech and I only know the Czech Republic really well (and Slovakia, for obvious reasons).

And also Eastern Europe is apparently not as homogeneous as I made it to be - there are big differences for example between catholic countries like Poland and atheist countries like Czech Republic (tolerance to homosexuality, abortion and stuff like that are strongly related to religious views). Despising Jews? I have seen it way more in Western Europe than here.

And if you are black or Hindu or Pakistani please excuse that some people have some bias... please try to understand that this has been very closed society and up until recently there were no black or Hindu or Pakistani people at all. People could not travel during communist regime... there was basically no opportunity to learn tolerance to different cultures etc. Yes, there are some racists here (like everywhere else) but I believe that Czech people are generally above average tolerant. But I am obviously biased.

Since I was talking about post-communist countries that were NOT part of Soviet Union I don't think that the Russian example applies here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6282131

I think that Russia today is closer in terms of crazy laws they put in place to the US than to Poland.

LekkoscPiwa's comment and your reaction to it are IMO very interesting example of a different perception which can lead to so many misunderstandings. Your comment only makes sense if you include Russia into the term 'Eastern Europe' and technically you are right - Russia is part of Eastern Europe. But I am pretty sure that LekkoscPiwa did not mean it this way - when he said 'we' he almost certainly did not mean also Russia. This is a bit difficult to explain to people who are not from here but when we talk about this stuff here we say 'we' in a sense of countries that have similar cultural background - like Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland... Russia is completely different world and they certainly are not perceived as 'we Eastern Europe' - Russia is simply Russia, separate entity, not part of the team, different culture, different rules, even the alphabet is different.

Dear LekkoscPiwa, did I get it right?

I am sure you did not mean it that way but it might be interesting to know that many people would be seriously offended here if you included Russians into the perception of 'them' - people from outside of the Eastern block do not see internal differences important to people who lived inside - like the fact that 'Rusáci' occupied us for many years and are still perceived as the enemy by many people here. To make a simplified example to make it understandable - imagine someone talking about 'you western countries' and including example of 'your' behaviour - Nazi Germany.