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Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

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Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#101

Post by __jonas »

ks1723 wrote: post #77
__jonas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to break it to you, but it has the same subtext here in Germany

Hmm, interesting. I really wonder how I could miss this all my life. (Would have made them here as well, but not anymore) Edit: spelling

To be fair, maybe I was a bit quick with this claim, I think it works across languages and is more of a generational thing, strange Reddit link (sorry) but I feel like this explains it pretty well:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fs...

With the ellipsis I do feel like the tone is very context dependent.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#102

Post by bee_rider »

wenc wrote: post #94
bee_rider wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in lots of the Northeast are, of course, known to be a bit brusque or direct, including the non-Dutch areas. I think it’s just that it has been a busy, high population area for a long time (by US standards at least). When you and everyone around you has to do lots of little interactions all day, you show care by keeping things short and efficient. Also “bless your heart” is the dumbest expression in the world.…

These are the stereotypes: (that mostly track my experiences living in different parts of the country) In the northeast, people are kind but not nice. They'll help you out when you have flat tire but may grumble under their breath that you might need to learn how to change your tires yourself. It takes a long time to get to know them, but once you do, they'll take their shirts off their backs for you. In the pacific…

The only thing I don’t really like about the “kind but not nice” formulation is that (as someone from the Northeast), it seems to give us, like, the obviously good trait. At least I read it as implying pretty heavily by separating out “kind” and “nice” that “kind” is the authentic and important thing and “nice” is some superficial and therefor not as good trait. So I would feel too self-congratulatory, using it.

I prefer to think we all just have different ways of showing that we care.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#103

Post by Brian_K_White »

Lio wrote: post #74
dotnet00 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the ellipses have that connotation in a lot of places and kind of like with all-caps and exclamation marks, it doesn't seem as strongly connected to culture. Some of my Indian friends use it the same way as you do, which often throws off some of my American friends, who interpret it as impatience, and vice versa.

A nice Indian lady I used to work with was horrified when I pointed out that her use of the "eye rolling" emoji is seen as rude and dismissive by lots of people. It's always worth being aware of these differences if you can be and also giving people the benefit of the doubt too.

American, and I almost started a fight or maybe more like almost hurt my Filipina wife's feelings one time when I tried to complain about a certain, idk facial gesture? she does in certain cases, that just reads a certain way to me and is apparently not at all what she means.

I'll be saying something, and she'll raise her eyebrows up and down twice. To me it looks almost like Groucho Marx, and looks like someone thinks you are joking or saying something silly, and are responding with a non-verbal "oh really?" Or maybe like a suggestive flirting thing, except totally out of any flirting context, so wth does flirty suggestive eyes mean when you were talking about figuring out which outlets to plug the kitchen appliances into so that they don't trip the breakers? It just throws me right off the horse and all I can think is "WTF IS THAT?"

We're old enough and adult and frank enough that I can simply say everything I just said here and we tried to figure it out. It simply became the interesting thing we talked about for a while that day. But she could not explain it. So I never got an answer. It's just something she does unconsciously and apparently is not meant to deflate or derail or laugh at whatever I was talking about. It's apparently more like an actual "oh really?"

I never saw her even-more-filipina mom do it, nor her brother or sister or other family members, and she actually mostly grew up in the us and a few years in China but in a special place with all the other foreign people as her mom worked for the UN. So it may have nothing to do with the Philipines, or China.

So a little eye-waggle can be like that.

Update: I just told her I cited her in this conversation, and now she tells me her family and extended family does all do it, just I'm not around them enough to have seen it, and it is a phillipino thing, and it means I understand or agree like what I would do with a head nod.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#104

Post by dotnet00 »

kazen44 wrote: post #75
j7ake wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere in American is asking “how are you today” to a cashier abnormal. But the article suggests that it is indeed abnormal from a a Dutch perspective. There are distinctly American customs and cultures that Europeans would look as stereotypically American.

asking someone how they are in the netherlands is considered a genuine question about someone's wellbeing, and is considered very out of place if you don't know the person. (a cashier for instance). Also, when asking this, expect a real response back.

It's not necessarily all that different in the US. I often respond honestly when asked (if I'm not focused on other things), and similarly, I often get honest responses too (eg store cashiers on a slow day).

Just because they're saying "I'm alright" instead of pouring their heart out about how they had one customer earlier who caused a lot of trouble, doesn't mean that they aren't being honest.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#105

Post by alejo »

yread wrote: post #57
technothrasher wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a cultural question I've been wondering since I visited Amsterdam as an American- I was walking along an up hill street in the evening, and I saw a young lady talking to her friends and smoking, with a baby in a stroller. The stroller started to roll down the hill slightly and she didn't seem to notice. It then picked up a little speed, so I moved to intercept it, and rolled it back up to her. When I delivered…

> Amsterdam > up hill street ? Do you mean a highway ramp or a bridge?

Maybe that’s a cultural difference as well (?)

I’m a non-american living in Austin, TX and what folks call hills here is different from what we call hills back home…

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#106

Post by 082349872349872 »

So am I alone in being offended that my android mobile addresses me per du (tutoyer/jij zeggen)?

We have only recently made each other's acquaintance; we are not friends (we haven't even shared a meal, let alone a glass); and it can't even presume to practise the same sports I do. What gives?

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#107

Post by stcredzero »

floxy wrote: post #91
stcredzero wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the past 6 years married to a woman who grew up in China, I've become more aware of how often we Americans say the exact opposite of what they mean, but instead convey their actual meaning through context, tone of voice, or whatever. It took us about 2 years to really learn how to talk to each other.

Could you give us some examples?

Well, I was in China at a reunion dinner event with my wife a couple weeks back, and she asked me if I wanted some of some dish, and I said, "Sure, ok," where I said it in a way to really mean, "Not so much, but okay, I'll take a bite just to be polite." (It was my wife's class reunion event.) And it kept on going like that for the next 4 or so dishes, and my wife kept on seeing that I was getting more and more annoyed, so she kept on trying to feed me more, which just meant that I kept on getting more stuff I really didn't want to eat.

There are other times which are the opposite. Like, when I ask my wife if she wants some rice or some porridge, and she says very imperatively. "I will do it myself." She actually means straightforwardly, I am going to do it myself, not that she's displeased with me and that she's not going to accept any token from me and is going to punish me in several small ways now. (Which is what many of my ex-girlfriends would have meant.)

It's actually hard to give examples in a text medium like this, because so much of it is really context and tone of voice.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#108

Post by Jensson »

bee_rider wrote: post #102
wenc wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the stereotypes: (that mostly track my experiences living in different parts of the country) In the northeast, people are kind but not nice. They'll help you out when you have flat tire but may grumble under their breath that you might need to learn how to change your tires yourself. It takes a long time to get to know them, but once you do, they'll take their shirts off their backs for you. In the pacific…

The only thing I don’t really like about the “kind but not nice” formulation is that (as someone from the Northeast), it seems to give us, like, the obviously good trait. At least I read it as implying pretty heavily by separating out “kind” and “nice” that “kind” is the authentic and important thing and “nice” is some superficial and therefor not as good trait. So I would feel too self-congratulatory, using it. I pr…

> it seems to give us, like, the obviously good trait

That is from your perspective, everyone think that their culture is the "obviously good one", we value what we were taught to value. You value those traits since you came from that culture, a person from a "show happiness and spread warmth" culture will think that their way is the obviously superior one and that the culture you think is superior is making the worse bleak and depressing so not good at all.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#109

Post by Jensson »

1659447091 wrote: post #84
joecool1029 wrote: post #6

I wonder if the dutch history is why most new yorkers seem to be very direct. There are definitely different regions of America that pull the fake thing more than others (one example I can think of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bless_your_heart )

As someone from "Bless your heart" country, there is nothing fake (or secret) about it. It is used in two context and everyone there knows exactly which one is meant when directed at them or others. A passive aggressive dig, or, a genuine statement of care. However, I can definitely see how people who did not grow up around it may see it as fake or weird or question intent.

> I can definitely see how people who did not grow up around it may see it as fake or weird or question intent.

That is the whole point, what words mean changes from culture to culture, punitiveness is relative. In some culture "great" is the neutral word, in other it is "it is ok" is the neutral one etc, so when a culture who feels "great" must mean you like it a lot come to a culture where it is just the normal thing to say they will feel everyone is fake since they say that things are great even though they aren't particularly excited about those things.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#110

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

greyface- wrote: post #100
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am (or was) fundamentally against tipping, and I agree that people should simply get paid to do their job. However, I've followed the debates occuring in the USA as a handful of restaurants have experimented with no-tip policies, and I am now really ambivalent about the practice. Several restaurants with owners who sounded very committed to end tipping have returned to it; I've read remarks from many waitstaff who…

One frequent criticism of tipping is that its rewards are distributed unevenly among workers, based on traits such as gender and physical appearance. When reading remarks from tipped workers, have you noticed any correlations with these traits?

I don't think the remarks have come with enough context to meaningfully comment on that.

Having said that, I strongly suspect you're correct about that, though I'd also guess that personality traits are also a very important component, and those are also not handed out "fairly".

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