Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Russians do not smile (2002)

chicagomaroon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 502 posts

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#331

Post by mgerullis »

glogla wrote: post #275
mgerullis wrote: post #132

It’s funny, I never noticed this. I grew up in Germany and had lived in the US for a year a while back. A few years after I met an American friend here who had been on a euro trip. She went to Prague (not exactly Russia, but culturally close enough I guess) and she said something like: "why are all people there so damn depressed?" I myself had great times in that same city, I never got that feeling. But I realized th…

> She went to Prague (not exactly Russia, but culturally close enough I guess FYI those are fighting words in Prague. My people generally hate everything having to do with Russia, after being controlled by the Soviets since 1948 and outright occupied between 1968 to 1989.

I apologize, that was insensitive.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#333

Post by playpause »

IgorPartola wrote: post #226

I am Ukrainian. Came to the US when I was 14. I may never be cool like all the hard looking dudes in movies and whatnot but I smile all the time because either I find something funny in what I’m engaged in or if I don’t that I try to think of it as such. I have always been this way and I can’t imagine not doing it. Also, I have read a few comments in this discussion about how fake American smiles and “how are you?”s…

I agree in general, but I’d say the quick greeting form of “how are you?” is a bit more than just “hello”. It also asks for confirmation that there is no immediate problem that warrants attention.

If you say “how you doing?” to a coworker in passing, yes it’s weird if they launch into a lengthy report about some malaise in their life, or how they are feeling about something sad they read in the news - that’s not what you were asking. But if they say “A bit stressed actually - our servers just went down!” then that’s not weird at all. So a quick “how are you” really means something like “(a) hi, and (b) no major problems?”.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#334

Post by bpolovko »

Bunch of nonsense, which ignores the fact of crippled trust and hostility in a psychologically crippled post-communist society. What does “cultural difference” mean? If you dig a bit of history in the last 110 years in Russia and have a basic understanding of psychology - you can easily answer why people don’t smile in Russia.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#335

Post by lr4444lr »

scrollaway wrote: post #300
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,…

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.

Eh... Can't we just bomb them as usual? ;-)

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#336

Post by glogla »

mgerullis wrote: post #331
glogla wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She went to Prague (not exactly Russia, but culturally close enough I guess FYI those are fighting words in Prague. My people generally hate everything having to do with Russia, after being controlled by the Soviets since 1948 and outright occupied between 1968 to 1989.

I apologize, that was insensitive.

Don't worry, I am overstating it a bit. But even more don't say that in Poland.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#337

Post by Krasnol »

dougmwne wrote: post #195
Krasnol wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spend a decade working for an F500 US company here in Germany. The amount of bad news delivered with a fake smile was staggering. I lead to pure disgust within the German employee bubble making it actually stronger and the news worse. In the end I've been fired with one of those and some phrase along the "let's stay friends and meet again" line ;) I was always quite surprised that there seems to never have been…

I mean, you don't expect us to just hand over all our dark secrets like that in an e-learning module, do ya? The service people are supposed to mean it (if they're big enough suckers), but you can be more two-faced as you climb the ladder. I'd describe American business culture as "exploitative backstabbing bloodlust with a smile and an optimistic mission statement".

That made me smile honestly :D

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#338

Post by kmarc »

Merem wrote: post #309
kmarc wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a young Hungarian, I used to confuse the hell out of my American colleagues when I went to a "lengthy" (more than 10sec) explanation answering to "how are you?"s. It took my a while to realize why that was. Now it just entertains me how oblivious I was. OTOH I wouldn't call these "fake"; It's common, it's certainly different than how I socialized, possibly it's greatly misunderstood by many. Along the same train o…

"After all, how could I genuinely wish a random German stranger a "Guten Morgen"..." By being a nice person, just like how one would hold open a door for someone else? Though, that aside, when you say "Guten Morgen", you aren't wishing anything. It's just being polite while at the same time, you are saying something about yourself. For example, you could simply say "Morgen" which would mean you are in a hurry, or, de…

The accusative case in guteN indeed comes from wishing it for the other (English is grammatically not expressive enough here).

This is the same BTW in Hungarian. Even better, in HU we still have the form of "I wish (you) a good{Acc} morning", however a bit less formal way you can say just "a good{Acc} morning"

This simplification happened to German earlier too. In fact, my German old lady neighbor still to this day says every time: "Ich wünsche Ihnen einen guten Morgen / schönen Tag, Herr kmarc"

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#339

Post by solipsism »

scrollaway wrote: post #300
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,…

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.

Wait... Did you not read the comment? It's talking about American culture...

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#340

Post by durnygbur »

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…

I would love to work in European international corporation acknowledging and respecting different introvert/extrovert personality levels, countless languages, completely different approaches in handling problems and challenges determined by one's origin and upbringing, different needs in socializing, e.g. Nokia at its peak. I dislike the American corporate environment, their soulless "corporate culture" media materials. There is this one American school of "how to become successful" and that's it. Productivity of a generation of Europeans is getting wasted on following some motivational bollocks by people after dozen of plastic surgeries and living in Florida or California.
Post reply on HN