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Why Russians do not smile (2002)

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Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#411

Post by malshe »

solipsism wrote: post #341
psysharp wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why would I need more information? A guy was putting his hand on his co-workers' knees! Often enough that people scurried from him! It's clear the implication is made that this is just a "Hindu" thing. That's wrong. It's not a Hindu thing. It's offensive to say it is. And the idea that my comments saying so are being flagged is also offensive. Comments like Eh... Can't we just bomb them as usual? ;-) are the ones tha…

I am also really surprised that you are being downvoted for this. This is not a cultural thing at all and assuming it away is terrible.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#412

Post by corty »

tnolet wrote: post #382
xwolfi wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ever…

This is so right. There is no European culture. Even neighboring countries with similar values (NL and DE) are wildly different with regard to workplace. I The Netherlands, work stops on Friday around 16:0-ish. In Germany, I had regular meetings at 18:00 on Friday. I honestly thought they were joking.

Really really depends on the company. I've heard the saying from Siemens people (which in Germany are regarded more like public officials, less like employees): "Freitag um eins macht jeder seins". Meaning no serious work is to be done after Fr 1300.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#413

Post by ido »

scrollaway wrote: post #384
ido wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that a lot of the time it feels like meaningless platitudes. Like they feel they have to say something out of politeness but don't actually want (or able) to help you. What would have been better? To just say "I'm sorry you're having a hard time". If you don't mean something, don't say it.

Are you assuming/implying that the people who say "let me know if you need anything" don't actually mean it? Because I don't believe that's generally the case, especially if they're actually friends and not just random acquaintances. I don't personally say that sentence outside of a work context; usually I would say "call me if you need to talk", but I won't take proactive action unless I believe my friend either wan…

Let me try to explain - I've had cancer at a relatively young age, so heard that a lot. I wasn't visibly sick, i just knew there's a chance I'm gonna die in the foreseeable future from it.

Unless the person saying it had access to some experimental treatment my doctors don't know about, there really was nothing they could have done to help me. I knew it and they knew it.

So while I didn't get angry at them (because I knew they said it because didn't know how to react differently), it did annoy me as it was basically an empty promise.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#414

Post by corty »

Merem wrote: post #401
dahfizz wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you need 25 years of cultural background to understand what Guten Morgen means is the whole point. You could similarly explain why Americans asking "how are you" is not a real question; the whole point is that the culture differs from the literal phrase, which makes it difficult for non-native speakers.

Not sure why you downvote me for explaining why the language used by an old woman is not indicative of how things are today (or have been for a while even). (Though, in her case, in kmarc's example, the usage of the longform makes sense regardless.) Apart from that, we discussed German terms, not American ones. And, as explained, in German the discussed greetings are actually taken rather literally. At least I believ…

Taken literally? Well, then for "Grüss Gott" I would have to literally believe in god, then die and be lucky enough to go to heaven and greet god there (provided I'd get an audience). I think greetings are a meaningless formality anywhere, just learn them and the expected answers by heart and ignore the meaning.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#415

Post by lostwords »

dougmwne wrote: post #13

I wonder if any Russians can weigh in if this still feels accurate. I'm familiar with Polish Culture, which is less fun, frivolous, and happy than American culture, but a smile is certainly not an attack, just reserved for genuine occasions. Service people are in no way expected to smile unless there is some honest reason to.

It's quite accurate in terms of approach, but there are a lot of situations where smiling is more or less appropriate and wouldn't be considered as a rude move. For example, it's completely okay (almost) for service people to be smiling and approachable although it's not obligatory in any way (especially at small stores). At the same time if you are just smiling at strangers without saying any word, it could be perceived as a rudeness. If you smile and give a light nod, most people will think that you somehow know them. So, it's not that Russians are all grumpy and angry all the time, but they (we) need to have an explanation for your smile, you just can't smile without a reason, if that makes sense.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#416

Post by ta988 »

xwolfi wrote: post #369
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 ... t…

I've worked in France, US and Finland (all that is super subjective). In France you talk and take informal breaks all the time. In US you occasionally take a long break with a colleague. In Finland the breaks were organized and everybody took them (some food, tea, coffee). TBH I prefer the Finnish way. I'm fine with the US one, but I dread the French way.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#417

Post by gok »

xwolfi wrote: post #370
durnygbur wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ever…

It's not even really consistent within the US. Offices in (say) San Francisco, New York, and Atlanta will have very often different corporate cultures.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#418

Post by matheusmoreira »

brabel wrote: post #317
matheusmoreira wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once met a russian person online who had learned portuguese, my native language. I was extremely impressed. To this day I've never seen anyone else learn portuguese as a second language.

On my travels, I have met several people who, after living in Brazil for only a few months, learned to speak Portuguese fluently. This always impressed me hugely, because English speakers normally have a really hard time learning a language that has "gendered" nouns and inflected articles/adjectives/pronouns, for example... but many of them seem to do just fine! But I met enough of them to now think Portuguese must b…

Where were the people you met from? In my city there's a lot of japanese people, they helped create a thriving steel industry here many decades ago. Many of them learned some portuguese, they could communicate but not fluently. Gendered words in particular seemed to be particularly difficult. The russian I met on the other hand spoke it fluently, maybe even better than native speakers.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#419

Post by c-smile »

FD59A945 wrote: post #239
ngcc_hk wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

> They are separately in identity ? That is a heavily debated question, both in Russia and Ukraine. It is possible to say the "russian" culture originated in (what is today) Ukraine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus What we now call "Russia" was the expanding frontier of the original.

The history is very complicated indeed.

Rus (as statehood) originated in Novgorod (originally as a republic, btw). Then center was moved to Kiev. Then to Moscow. At those times there were no such entity (and ethnicity) as Ukraine at all.

Significantly later it was Cossacks republic on part of territory of modern Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporozhian_Sich#/media/File:0... At that time it was no Ukrainian ethnicity too. Cossacks (armed settlers) were multiethnic by definition - members were ethnically Rus, Poland, Tatar, etc. from all close and far neighbors as this was area and society of refugees. That mix eventually transformed into separate ethnicity.

In Russian Empire Cossacks were playing role of armed border guard/settlers were spread across border regions of Russia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Uk...

Ukraine as an ethnicity is relatively new entity. And needless to say that Ukraine as an entity with definitive borders was a communist invention, Lenin and later Stalin have drawn its borders - Russian Empire had no division on ethnical principles.

Re: Why Russians do not smile (2002)

#420

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

kmarc wrote: post #248
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…

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…

>> "你吃了吗?"

I was told by a Chinese colleague that this is a very informal greeting, strictly between friends - pals, rather.

I didn't ask, at the time, because I was more preoccupied with trying to pronounce it (my colleague was very helpful). But I would like to know the context behind this. I mean, what is it in asking about having eaten that signifies a greeting?

In Greek, for instance, we say "yia sou" ("γειά σου"), for "hello". It means, basically, "have health". To me (well of course it would) it makes sense to wish something good as a greeting, I think "shalom" for example, means "peace", etc. I don't get the "have you eaten" greeting and I'm very very curious. All help in this matter is deeply appreciated :)

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