Why Russians do not smile (2002) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#361

Post by volume » Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:24 AM UTC

geocrasher wrote: post #183

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…

When my wife was dying (she has since passed away) and nobody could figure out her illness, she'd be in the most wretched pain, in the ER again, and she'd be retching awfully and almost uncontrollably. A doctor would walk in, having heard of all this already and ask "How are you?" Sometimes she gave them the benefit of the doubt, and sometimes she was a bit less charitable. My point? Americans (as she was), Russians,…

maybe it's a trick because there is no you? You know, the idea of "no self" or non-duality:

Sam Harris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajfkO_X0l0

Paul Hedderman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2T9e-uW1Dc

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#362

Post by chousuke » Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:26 AM UTC

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #308

chousuke wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

The curious thing to me is why all of the generalising people are doing in this comment section is any different from “perpetuating stereotypes”, which almost universally has negative connotations. If you’re Finnish, I might say you don’t often smile but I bet you know how to neatly drift a rally car through a forest at considerable speed. Why is some generalisation good? And others bad?

Stereotypes do have a bit of truth to them, usually, though sometimes the stereotypes are just people misinterpreting others based on their own expectations. I don't know how to drive rally at all, but there are aspects of the "stereotypical Finn" that I recognize in myself.

Finns generally demand a larger personal space and thus may appear as "cold" to someone used to being in closer proximity, but it is what it is.

Believe me, I'd love to be able to act less reserved around new people, but I find it hideously difficult, and if I don't feel outgoing, I can't force myself to act that way because it causes me intense discomfort.

As for smiling, it might just be that for Finns a "neutral" face is perfectly polite and a stranger's smile elicits a stronger reaction (either positive or negative depending on context) while people from the US might expect a smile as the default state and thus react less strongly to it.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#363

Post by rcarmo » Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

Kinrany wrote: post #208

_RPL5_ wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet theory is that it takes more effort with a Russian keyboards to type the smiley face. With English, you do "SHIFT + ;" for the colon and then "SHIFT+0" for the bracket. When I type it, I hold down SHIFT with my right pinkie, and hit ";" with my middle finger. I then outstretch my pointer to hit 0. It's mostly a single fluid motion. With Russian, you have to engage two hands instead of one. We have more letters…

Using one vs two hands is a huge difference in convenience. I think this is the best version I've ever heard.

It makes perfect sense. I don’t think people realize how much the US keyboard layout has shaped online culture.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#364

Post by tgv » Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:44 AM UTC

wruza wrote: post #359

Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL wrote: post #223

Quite a lot of US culture can come off as phony to (Eastern) Europeans. Friend of mine went to the US for a business schooling event and said people were completely incapable of honest criticism. They would sugar coat criticism under 10 layers of phony praise. He was the only one who actually said something was bad outright, if someone gave a bad presentation. He attributed it to cultural difference. Guess it is rela…

[Americans] would sugar coat criticism under 10 layers of phony praise It really annoys the hell out of me. What’s wrong with just saying what’s wrong? The last example here on HN was a web version of flutter, where everyone was like “it’s amazing, so awesome, much controls” and only four comment levels deeper someone noted that it’s an utter crap that stutters at scroll on top hardware, cannot select text, cannot zo…

> It really annoys the hell out of me. What’s wrong with just saying what’s wrong?

In their minds, they probably are. Why can't the whole world have a singular word to address the second party, as in English, but require multiple levels of deference? I suspect the reasons are related: they're communication patterns that are hard to dispel. And as long as there's no need, people simply keep them up.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#365

Post by nly » Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:47 AM UTC

stordoff wrote: post #140

abruzzi wrote: post #97

I'm an American, but I don't smile by showing my teeth, though I will sometimes do a closed lip smile. For me I don't think it is cultural, but rather that smiling always feels to me like baring my teeth, i.e. aggressive and threatening. I don't honestly know why I feel that way, I don't have any history or experiences that would seem to cause that, but it just feels wrong to do. I've always wondered if there are oth…

Not American (British), and it's never felt aggressive/threatening, but smiling in a way that shows my teeth has always felt exceptionally forced. It doesn't stand out as strange when other people do it, but it just doesn't feel like a natural reaction for me.

I'm a smirker also. It has the unfortunate side effect of standing out in photos, where I envy people with their full smiles.

When you think about it though, a full teethy smile is a weird thing.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#366

Post by konart » Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:47 AM UTC

colanderman wrote: post #212

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…

I suspect in "American", "how are you" is often a request for actionable information. Your Russian friend took the question as an absolute, was confused why the doctor was asking a question with an obvious answer, and proceeded to give a reply which communicated no new information to the doctor. The doctor meanwhile was expecting an answer relative to the information he had, and hence took the negative reply as a sig…

>I suspect in "American", "how are you" is often a request for actionable information. Your Russian friend took the question as an absolute, was confused why the doctor was asking a question with an obvious answer, and proceeded to give a reply which communicated no new information to the doctor.

This situation is a very common standup joke here in Russia since like the 70s or 80s when some of our movie or theater stars were in the US (or some other 'capitalistic' country) and were constantly asked 'how are you' in a hallway.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#367

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:53 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#368

Post by dougmwne » Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:59 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #215

dougmwne wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way, only if you look at cars and iPhones. If you include healthcare and education, the median Pole is miles ahead.

Poland is not miles ahead of the US on education at the median, that is not remotely close to being true. http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/education/ Nationally the US is near the OECD middle, and ahead of both Britain and New Zealand on education. Poland certainly scores well, not "miles ahead" well. About 1/3 of Americans are getting a four year degree these days. The university systems in the US are vastl…

Why on earth would you exclude non-white Americans from your demographic comparisons? That's the very definition of cherry picking. Your argument about non-white Americans being all recent immigrants is just plain wrong. 13% of people living in the US are immigrants and 40% of Americans are Non-white or Hispanic. Many Black, Hispanic and Asian American families have been in the country for centuries. And of course Native Americans have been here for thousands of years.

Poland has more average years in education, a higher high-school graduation rate, higher PSIA scores. More Poles get tertiary degrees, 44%, a full 10% higher than the USA. 7/10 of those degrees are masters level. And by the way, no one needs to go into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for their degrees.

I have no idea where you got that talking point about no net economic expansion since 2008. Poland's inflation adjusted GDP is one of the fastest growing in Europe, all while its population is dropping due to low birthrates and net migration to the rest of Europe. Its life expectancy is one year lower than the USA, which is already one year lower than the OECD average, but at least you can't be bankrupted by your medical bills.

Rich Americans have it great. The best schools in the world, enormous houses, new cars, the best cutting edge medicine, and extremely high paying jobs that build products the whole world uses, and a government and social system that always works to maintain and magnify that advantage.

Things are nowhere near as rosy when you look at how the other half lives and they can't be just excluded from the comparison as "non-white".

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#369

Post by xwolfi » Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:59 AM UTC

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…

People who go to HR over this...

I am French and I work in China with a lot of Indians. It's been interesting for everyone to say the least. I swear and speak my mind way too much for a corporate Indian, so much that when I spoke frankly to someone higher than me telling him his process was useless and was going double our wasted time for really only the appearance of regulatory compliance, all he could say was ... thank you. He d never met a younger subaltern resist a stupid idea in India before, in public :D

And of course it's neither our faults: in a French company we spend maybe more time fighting each other than doing the work, while in India they double their wasteful process every 2 weeks to a point they all do their job well but produce nothing at all :D

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#370

Post by xwolfi » Sat, May 29, 2021, 12:06 PM UTC

durnygbur wrote: post #340

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 materia…

Yeah but european companies dont exist, we re all different.

Im French for instance, and we certainly dont work like the german. For us it s all about the game, the gossips, the fightings. Everyone is the CEO and it s hard to remember we have a job to do end of the day.

In Germany I ve heard things are more...rule following.

I work in China now - it's way more result oriented.

The corporate culture BS we have it everywhere, it s part of the internal marketing we all have to do, and it s not really american: it s a way to try and adapt to a workforce that doesnt only focus on the result but also the way it s achieved. And ofc, it s a shortcut, because beyond the surface there s nothing.

TL;DR dont idealize europe, it s a big place.