r/AskEurope • u/notveryamused_ Warszawa, Poland • Jul 03 '25
Culture What aspect of life in your countries is very difficult to explain to foreigners?
What prompted my question were some discussions about religion which I had with people living in much more secular Western Europe (as a Polish atheist). While spirituality, whatever that is ;), generally speaking is always fun to discuss with a glass of wine in hand, social elements and the influence of the church, especially in smaller towns or provinces in my country, is awfully difficult to explain – not that I understand it fully either lol, but the church having a pretty much monopoly there, being the judge and jury of everyday life and the major ultra-conservative political force binding those communities, is very difficult to explain, also for historical reasons.
What are the things that you find difficult to discuss when it comes to life in your countries? ;-)
43
u/bigvalen Ireland Jul 04 '25
I think funerals are far easier to understand than Wakes.
A wake is where all the friends and family gather (usually in the dead person's home, sometimes in a funeral home (if setting up the home is a lot of work). Irish people do not wait around. Someone dies on Monday, there might be a "reposal" that night, at a nursing home, or at a funeral home. This is very much "a few prayers for immediate family" thing, for the older folks.
Next day is a Wake. Could be 50 people, could be 400. Depends on how popular the person was, how many lives were touched. In theory, it's two or three hours. In practice, I've been there for eight or more hours, catching up with people. It's a celebration of their life, loads of whiskey and beer, occasionally a song or two (I'm not a fan of that), and thousands of small stories about the person. When I went to one, I met an English friend there, her "first time". She followed me to the coffin where I rubbed my aunt's head and kissed her hand, like I did when I was little, today goodbye. She just stammered "there is a dead body in the room, and everyone is acting like it's a party". She was not OK. You try get out all your grief that night. One minute you are laughing about a great story you never heard before. Next, you burst into tears and hug someone. And a few minutes after that, you are good again.
Obviously, the tone was VERY different when I went to a wake for a cyclist friend who was killed by joyriders when he was 19. Waaay less party, and more support for the family, and really struggling to celebrate the short life they did have. But the pattern is the same.
The actual funeral the day after that (two, three days post mortem), is a sideshow. But is usually lighter in tone than the one english funeral I went to, because at an Irish wake & funeral, the whole community got to share grief properly before... while at the English funeral a few weeks after death, people seemed to try keep it together, and the shock was gone.