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Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

blog.properrussian.com

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Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#191

Post by geoka9 »

oddx wrote: post #183
geoka9 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I genuinely wonder if the climate has something to do with this. Extreme cold and very dark days tend to bring people together, and tends to make people more genuine and humble, in my experience. I don't think it's the climate, at least it's not the sole reason. After all, Russia is a huge country and Russians live all over it - from Siberia to the Russian Black Sea coast with its subtropical climate. I suspect it…

> Also, this is probably the last thing that comes to mind about Russians in general. For the most part, they are notoriously individualistic. You understand "individualistic" in some specific (probably american) way. Russians may look individualistic if you don't know them well, but actually in Russia close friends and family means much more then in US.

> You understand "individualistic" in some specific (probably american) way.

No, I meant individualistic in a "mostly devoid of the sense of social responsibility" way. In fact, it's a common meme in Russia to lament the lack of a sense of unity pervasive in the culture (the closeness of family/friends notwithstanding) .

Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#192

Post by Yhippa »

mrjj wrote: post #75

Hi, i'm Russian sociologist of culture. The conclusion about different culture code and semantic is right. But there is more some interesting things. Russians have really poor toothcare, and this is joined with non-smiling bidirectionally. There is nothing abnormal for Russian to have couple of missing teeth. I've seen a really rich people (for example owner of Rolls Royce fleet) with just a couple of yellow teeth le…

I've lived my whole life here in America and when people ask me how I am sometimes I'll say "average", meaning not good or bad. People then assume I'm depressed or sad when I'm neither.

Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#193

Post by RogerL »

cLeEOGPw wrote: post #104
wonderzombie wrote: post #26

That said, the Russian humor page for Wikipedia is can be a real treat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes#The_Golden_Fish may be one of my favorites on there. A Russian friend of mine explained that it's sort of inappropriate to go around smiling, esp for males. There's also kind of a cultural thing going on where Russians perceive themselves as being able to scre…

> A Russian friend of mine explained that it's sort of inappropriate to go around smiling, esp for males. This is very true. If a male is smiling, it means he is showing his submission and in turn is subconsciously treated by other males as a lower level male. The exact system of hierarchy signs exists in chimps. For me it seems like russians together with some other cultures managed to save this body language compon…

Why are you assuming that we can not tell the difference between smiles? There's a huge gradation of social behavior w.r.t smiles and other social cues that we use in the west. For us, raised in the culture, it is trivially easy to tell the difference between, say, the smile of a shopkeeper in greeting, the smile of an enemy, the smile of a shopkeeper after asking after your parent (they slightly know you), the smile of the mail man you speak with once a week or so, the smile of the semi-acquaintance that lives one flight up, the smile of a friend you see each day, and the smile of a best friend when reuniting after a long absence. so on. They are all different, and constitute a "meaningful way of interaction". It's just different than your way.

Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#194

Post by ajuc »

coldtea wrote: post #188
jlgreco wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misunderstanding me, I am asserting that the data doesn't match the "smiling people live in nice places" theory. Alaskans smile, despite having a high suicide rate and living in a miserable climate. Nevadans aren't know for being particularly pleasant or cold (there isn't a stereotype about the attitudes of Nevadans one way or the other, as far as I can tell) live in a sunny climate and have a huge suicide ra…

> Alaska, with a miserable climate, high suicide rate, and very outwardly pleasant people Were did you get the last one from? > Nobody is trying to explain that platonic friends in California don't hold hands because Californians don't make close friends like Saudi Arabians do. Anyone trying to say that would be laughed at. That's because holding hands, is not a core human facial expression, unlike smiling.

Touching others is a core human expression, and has to be suppressed in kids ("boys don't do that, it's gay"). Some cultures do that, others doesn't. No difference between that and smiling to me. - both cultural stuff.

Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#195

Post by ddeck »

Reminds me of the wikitravel article on Azerbaijan:

Don't smile at an Azerbaijani in the street, because if you do they most likely will not respond in kind and they will regard you as odd. Smiling in Azerbaijan in public is not done and will be considered inappropriate. Smiling is traditionally reserved for family and friends; smiling at a stranger without addressing them, will be considered offensive, as they will either think that you are making fun of them and there is something wrong with their clothes or hair. Furthermore, an automatic "Western smile" (ie grinning) is widely regarded as insincere, as in "You don't really mean it". [1]

[1] http://wikitravel.org/en/Azerbaijan#Other_things_to_watch_fo...

Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#196

Post by coldtea »

ajuc wrote: post #194
coldtea wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alaska, with a miserable climate, high suicide rate, and very outwardly pleasant people Were did you get the last one from? > Nobody is trying to explain that platonic friends in California don't hold hands because Californians don't make close friends like Saudi Arabians do. Anyone trying to say that would be laughed at. That's because holding hands, is not a core human facial expression, unlike smiling.

Touching others is a core human expression, and has to be suppressed in kids ("boys don't do that, it's gay"). Some cultures do that, others doesn't. No difference between that and smiling to me. - both cultural stuff.

Touching others (in whatever form) is different than "holding hands" in the way some cultures do. The difference is that there are hundrends of ways to touch someone, and thousand of circumstances where you do so. So any particular form is just one of many.

On the other hand, you carry your face and its' facial expression constantly, and your expression is the most basic form of interaction you have with another person socially, with talking as distant second. Furthermore, there are few expressions, are (almost?) all are universal, like smiling and crying.

Heck, you could live in the same room with a person for a month, with all kinds of normal interaction (eating, talking, etc) and never one touch him/her, and much less in any socially meaningful way (like holding hands or hugging). Not at all like avoiding having your face seen.

Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#197

Post by coldtea »

vowelless wrote: post #32
blah32497 wrote: post #13

As a Russian-American this comes off as complete BS. I've seen this written before and it's always in the form of "It's not us that smile too little, it's you Americans that are fake and smile too much!". For one, Americans don't just smile to be polite. For the most part it's genuinely conveying positive emotions. Now I know this is going to be unpopular, but I think the real reason Russians don't smile is cultural.…

> As a Russian-American this comes off as complete BS. I've seen this written before and it's always in the form of "It's not us that smile too little, it's you Americans that are fake and smile too much!". I agree and it always appalls me how these sweeping-generalizations make it to the front page of HN.

>I agree and it always appalls me how these sweeping-generalizations make it to the front page of HN.

Agree because it's somehow wrong? Just 2-3 comments below yours:

"I'm from Prague and I was always baffled by this. How does the smiling thing work? In what situations do you smile? For example, if you're walking on street, do you eye-contact people going in the opposite direction and smile at them?"

Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#198

Post by coldtea »

pandaman wrote: post #124
pyre wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Socialism makes every other person a potential enemy and a potential victim. Resources are scarce. People come to hate one another. You're taking a look at countries that have implemented 'socialism' and ended up with what amounts to dictatorships. Do you really think that Communism as envisioned by Karl Marx included someone like Stalin, or the corrupt officials that inhabited governments in the Eastern Bloc? For…

Do you think that the life, as envisioned by children, who want to eat only ice cream when they grow up, includes scurvy, diabetes and other effects of such a diet?

>Do you think that the life, as envisioned by children, who want to eat only ice cream when they grow up, includes scurvy, diabetes and other effects of such a diet?

Do you think that people are automata, and any attempt to build a system with X attributes necesarrily also has Y attributes, in the automatic way that eating only sugar leads to diabetes?

Just because there was an attempt to build X (socialism for example), under specific circumstances (e.g less technologically and politically advanced countries such as Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia), under specific forces (20th century colonialism, WWII, cold war etc), and with specific people at the helm influencing things all around (Stalin and Mao basically), doesn't mean any attempt to build X in different circumstance will end up the same.

Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#199

Post by eli_gottlieb »

RivieraKid wrote: post #99
blah32497 wrote: post #13

As a Russian-American this comes off as complete BS. I've seen this written before and it's always in the form of "It's not us that smile too little, it's you Americans that are fake and smile too much!". For one, Americans don't just smile to be polite. For the most part it's genuinely conveying positive emotions. Now I know this is going to be unpopular, but I think the real reason Russians don't smile is cultural.…

I'm from Prague and I was always baffled by this. How does the smiling thing work? In what situations do you smile? For example, if you're walking on street, do you eye-contact people going in the opposite direction and smile at them?

>For example, if you're walking on street, do you eye-contact people going in the opposite direction and smile at them?

At least in the States, yes. It's how you show you're not about to go for their throat with a knife.

Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)

#200

Post by eli_gottlieb »

this_user wrote: post #64
pilsetnieks wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a tangential note, it's not quite right to call the European system socialist. "Social democracy" might be more correct, otherwise people confuse it with communist socialism which is an entirely different regime with much more negative connotations. There are very few things in common between the systems in, say, Sweden and Soviet Russia.

As a European I find it interesting how Americans have started to completely misusing the term 'socialism' especially over the last couple of years. Even those who don't fit the die-hard right-wing profile seem to have started calling any kind of social welfare 'socialsm' without realising what actual socialism looks like.

We're not misusing it. We support socialism. Social democracy is just the first step.

Today increased budget for food stamps, tomorrow the world, that sort of thing.

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