Wide context
Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)
/^t/For almost four decades Poles were deprived of the contact with western culture and only the things that were considered as appropriate we allowed to be seen from behind the curtain. But seven years ago the brand new world opened in front of Poles and everything that was new and so far unknown made a big impression on majority of the society. The young and the midde-age Poles were bewildered and they started to treat the western life style presented in movies as superior and deserving to be imitated. The films and pieces of news that came from the West and reached us on TV or in movie theaters started to be treated as recipes for life. First, young people, teenagers or a little older ones, took after their western equals the philosophy of spending free time and earning their pocket money. Mugging people in the streets and or younger colleques at school became very popular, to the degree that they reached the front pages of newspapers. Moreover, many Poles realized that in order to earn big money and afford a fancy house or holidays abroad one must do some illegal business as ones own or join a gang. Illegal business obviously means violence because to avoid a case in court one is forced to threaten others in order to keep them silent. Such a stereotype of successful businessman skimming their profits from some illegal business was often presented on the screen. The older comunist models favoured naive honesty and co-operation for the sake of common welfare but they had to give way to more egoistic and brutal ones which promised quick change for better as far as money is concerned.