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Why Russians do not smile (2002)

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Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#291

Post by solipsism »

reedf1 wrote: post #283
solipsism wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Hindu pm had the habit of sitting next to developers while they worked, sometimes putting a hand on their knee Eh... That doesn't sound like just an Indian being Indian. a Japanese guy came to the hr person complaining the original lady from us had hugged them. Again, it was explained that this is just what Americans do Nope... We don't hug people who don't want to be hugged. The Japanese guy was right to complain,…

We're gonna have a real tough time with aliens if you believe this!

I work with and am friends with plenty of people from various parts of India. Trust me, they can be expected to not put their hand on your thigh. Touching is common in some scenarios where they're not common in the US (e.g. between male friends), but only when people are close.

I'm American. A co-worker who isn't close to me hugging me is slightly out of line.

This just sounds like bullshit. Like any behavior at all would be explained by cultural differences, as long as the actor was from a different culture.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#292

Post by solipsism »

amazingman wrote: post #272
solipsism wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Hindu pm had the habit of sitting next to developers while they worked, sometimes putting a hand on their knee Eh... That doesn't sound like just an Indian being Indian. a Japanese guy came to the hr person complaining the original lady from us had hugged them. Again, it was explained that this is just what Americans do Nope... We don't hug people who don't want to be hugged. The Japanese guy was right to complain,…

> Expecting everyone to just accept anything because "that's what they do where they're from" is setting things up for people to be actually victimized and to feel like your company is fine with it. Your point is valid in the abstract, sure. That’s not what was said, though.

The specific examples given are bullshit.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#293

Post by kmonsen »

ngcc_hk wrote: post #233
c-smile wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian here (to be precise Russian Canadian of Ukrainian descent :-) There is a saying in Russian: if a stranger, on your question "how are you?" (ru: как дела?), starts explaining in details what is happening with him/her - please know, you've met complete idiot. So I am classifying that 'how are you?' as never ending test of my life position :)

A bit confused. My mental model is - Ukraine is part of Soviet Union - currently the Russian speaking Ukraine part is well ... other than that I do not associate Ukrainian as Russian. They are separately in identity ?

Countries and identities do not have a 1-1 mapping. This has and is causing a lot of issues I’m the world. Or is used to create a lot of friction by people that wants that.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#294

Post by LimaBearz »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #289

Lith here. One of the most embarrassing things that I've done in my life was first day of induction in my UK university. The lecture was about cultural differences. We were assigned into groups and asked to list couple of stereotypes that we know. I didn't realised we were supposed to say something like "Americans are hard working and Brits are punctual". Instead I've bombasted to 200-something students that Asian pe…

haha what?! I love me some good stereotyping humor but I’ve never even heard of that one! What do they smell like?

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#295

Post by dTal »

cperciva wrote: post #229
davidgh wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Молодец, нельзя, фу, тоска, почемучка. When learning Russian these are just a few of the words I found myself saying even when speaking English. Which gives a hint that a good direct translation maybe isn’t quite there.

There's a rule in linguistics, that the more often a word is used, the shorter it will be -- almost like Huffman coding. In that light, comparing the one-syllable English "Why?" to the three-syllable Russian "почему?" says something about the safety of asking questions in different countries.

It is no surprise that the English word is shorter, as - unlike English - Russian has two words for "why".

"почему" asks - how did things come to be this way?

"зачем" asks - what is the purpose of things being this way?

Note the difference in implication if I ask you "why" you were late for work. "почему" allows room for circumstances beyond your control, while "зачем" places the blame squarely on your shoulders.

English speakers may be completely unconscious of the overloaded nature of "why" - such is the value of learning other languages.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#296

Post by eps »

c-smile wrote: post #211
cosmodisk wrote: post #116

Plenty of contribution already,so I'll just add a personal anecdote. Some years ago I happened to have some beers with a Latvian Russian,who lived here, in London. He tells us that he doesn't get the Brits. He just doesn't understand the reasoning in some situations. I ask to elaborate. He says: last year, I had a pretty serious trauma and ended up in a hospital. It's so bad, pain, lots of tests,etc. And I'm pretty f…

Russian here (to be precise Russian Canadian of Ukrainian descent :-) There is a saying in Russian: if a stranger, on your question "how are you?" (ru: как дела?), starts explaining in details what is happening with him/her - please know, you've met complete idiot. So I am classifying that 'how are you?' as never ending test of my life position :)

What is that saying, in Russian?

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#297

Post by psysharp »

solipsism wrote: post #292
amazingman wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Expecting everyone to just accept anything because "that's what they do where they're from" is setting things up for people to be actually victimized and to feel like your company is fine with it. Your point is valid in the abstract, sure. That’s not what was said, though.

The specific examples given are bullshit.

Dude you have no information, I can't sincerely understand how you think you can have such detailed understanding of the situation.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#298

Post by dragonwriter »

dTal wrote: post #295
cperciva wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a rule in linguistics, that the more often a word is used, the shorter it will be -- almost like Huffman coding. In that light, comparing the one-syllable English "Why?" to the three-syllable Russian "почему?" says something about the safety of asking questions in different countries.

It is no surprise that the English word is shorter, as - unlike English - Russian has two words for "why". "почему" asks - how did things come to be this way? "зачем" asks - what is the purpose of things being this way? Note the difference in implication if I ask you "why" you were late for work. "почему" allows room for circumstances beyond your control, while "зачем" places the blame squarely on your shoulders. Eng…

> Unlike English, Russian has two words for "why".

English has at least three in the same space, two of which are in modern use.

> "почему" asks - how did things come to be this way?

In English, that's, unambiguously, “How". Which is kind of why your own translation starts with it.

> "зачем" asks - what is the purpose of things being this way?

In English that is, again unambiguously, though somewhat archaic, “wherefore”.

“Why” can mean either and is usually disambiguated by context (but is usually read modernly as “wherefore” if the context isn’t otherwise unambiguous, though the existence of the archaic phrase “whys and wherefores” which seems to mean the same as the modern “whys and hows” suggest to me that the bias has flipped over time.)

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#299

Post by chousuke »

sebular wrote: post #90
firebaze wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't second this. Everytime I'm in the US I'm scared of all the friendly, smiling people, asking "How are you?" in such a friendly tone, it's delightful. Of course it's faked, anyone knows, and dare if you'd reply with "not good, my aunt just died". Awkward situation ensues, everybody tries to get out of the situation ("and what would you like to have for breakfast tomorrow?"). Now replay the same situation in ano…

I'm an American and I love smiling at strangers and receiving a genuine smile in return. It's the perfect minimal conversation: no words, just sharing a moment of mutual positivity and kinship. It's like you said the perfect thing, except you didn't have to think of anything clever. It sounds as though people in some countries interpret it as if the smiling person is on the inside of a joke and you're on the outside,…

I don't know how much of this is me being Finnish, but I personally don't even know how to smile at will; a smile is something that happens naturally and trying to deliberately smile at people when I'm not actually feeling it just makes me feel dishonest and usually results in a grimace instead.

While I might really be enjoying a good walk in the sun for example, I can't really say that it makes me want to smile at every random passer-by.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#300

Post by scrollaway »

solipsism wrote: post #262
andreskytt wrote: post #256

Estonian here. At Skype (10+ years ago) I observed, that members of large cultures (American, British, Hindu etc.) had real trouble adjusting to the predominantly Estonian-based engineering culture. Probably because they had never had to adjust, commonly people adjust to _their_ culture as it tends to dominate large organizations. But once they did make an honest attempt, that was always most welcomed and gained them…

A Hindu pm had the habit of sitting next to developers while they worked, sometimes putting a hand on their knee Eh... That doesn't sound like just an Indian being Indian. a Japanese guy came to the hr person complaining the original lady from us had hugged them. Again, it was explained that this is just what Americans do Nope... We don't hug people who don't want to be hugged. The Japanese guy was right to complain,…

Never seen such a lack of self-awareness in a comment.

And I've been here quite a while!

Americans having to adjust to other people's cultures. Imagine that.

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