Why Russians do not smile (2002)

Silence is neutral complicity in russian, like “copy”. No answer means we either do not care too much or it’s all clear. Sometimes things need time to sink in, but you will not receive any signal about it, unless they have an immediate objection. When explaining something to russian, you don’t ask them if they agree, cause our language culture is mostly statement-y rather than negotiating. If you explained good enough, there is nothing to say. If you expect an answer, make it a question.

Does the person think it's the dumbest thing he's ever heard? Did the person not understand what I said? Does the person need more time to think about it? Does the person not realize I'm finished? What is expected of the speaker in this scenario? Do I just wait? Do I prod? Do I explain it again? Do I leave?

You are expected to either not care more than you did already, or ask any questions you have explicitly. If you feel anxious or confused, tell it. Nobody’s going to comfort you, unless you’re showing clear signs of breakdown, especially if you’re a guy.

All of this is true in negotiation, official situations, talking to strangers, etc. When you talk to a friend, they’ll be more chatty and supporting/feedbacky, but not as much as you probably expect.

That said, we have types whose nature is “silent partisan”, that will be hard for you to detect.

Edit: reading this thread, I really wonder why binutils do not reply kindly to your actions:

  $ ls -1
  Oh here’s your one column list please:

  $ mv foo bar
  Glad you asked, consider it done!

  $ rm -rf /root
  You know I see your point, but Permission denied.

  $ vi
  Hope you’ll enjoy exiting that!

As a German who's spent a total of about half a year (maybe too little!) in the US, I think you've kind of nailed it with this explanation, but there's a part that's missing to me.

On the one hand, focusing on potential rather than flaws is exactly what feels like one of the things that could be better here. Also, as you say, there's nothing necessarily mendacious about a little bit of friendliness.

On the other hand, the thing that somewhat rubbed me the wrong way in the states wasn't ever the extraversion or friendliness / politeness in itself, but rather those situations where I felt like a particular positive (sometimes highly) emotional reaction was somehow socially expected in a professional context, and then watching people turn into actors to fill the role.

One example of this that I remember vividly was a session at a scientific conference, where a series of larger and smaller prizes were awarded. Some to just grad students, some to senior professors.

The laureates typically had to give a small speech. Everybody tried super hard to act and talk "honored", "humbled", "grateful". Most of them weren't great actors, and looked rather uncomfortable in the process. It was somewhat creepy to watch for me.

The part that was strange to me wasn't the fact that they were saying thanks (obviously), I guess that would be the same anywhere in the world, but rather how they all seemed to think it was necessary to play-act strong displays of emotions.

To me, that was the clearest example of this that I've seen so far, but in general it just seems like Americans have much less of a problem with professional social expectations creeping into the most private realm of your personality.

I'm really late to the party, but here goes anyway.

Some context is due. The article is almost twenty years old. The experiences described there are from a time period when Latvia had gained independence from the Soviet Union only some ten years prior. So, pretty much all the people working in the hospitality industry would be someone whose formative years and/or young adulthood was spent during the nineties.

That was a pretty brutal decade. Rearranging from planned to market economy is hard. Economic crises abound, rampant organized crime, generally high levels of aggression. I come from a small town and I was a kid then, but even then I know of four murders that happened then in my home town. A guy was beaten to death in a nightclub, another guy was thrown from a bridge, my favorite sales clerk at a local store got incarcerated for axe-murdering his wife and her lover, and a body was found in the bushes behind my music school. Ah right, there was also the case of a neighbor massacring a family on a potato field. A friend who lived in Riga during that time told me how his dad always had a peace of metal pipe behind the door. Just in case. In a later interview the guy who was chief of police then revealed how he slept with body armor on at all times.

So, people who were teenagers or young adults then learned to not smile for the same reasons the prison population is not really a cheerful bunch. It's outright dangerous. There's a book and a recently made movie about coming of age as a metalhead in a mid-sized Latvian town during the nineties called Jelgava 94 (Doom 94). It really conveys the look and feel of those times quite well.

It's very different now. Sure, people don't smile as much as Americans (no one except Thais does), and are not as chatty as the Brits. But a lot of people have worked or traveled abroad, have seen and gotten accustomed to different cultures. According to my experience pretty much everyone below the age of 25 speak fluent English. And hug. They hug a lot. And yeah, the crime levels are nowhere near to how it was in the nineties.

Anecdotally, the only unprovoked bad interaction I've had with a drunk guy was also in Riga. He'd come and take my beer out of my hand, and taunt me with it, refusing to give it back.

First of all, thank you for this response. Thought about it a bit. In the end it's a thin line. "Empowering", and "walking around their possible sensibilities". In the end no one way can be said to be completely right. The connection can reasonably be made between optimism, friendliness, positivity (even if questionable), and entrepreneurship, and maybe no wonder the Americans are dominating the Tech industry, while the Germans are stuck building cars (of course grossly simplifying both economies here).

> deeply rooted ideals for independence and self determination, and a general sense of optimism.

But for every entrepreneur that makes it, I feel that hundreds walk around with false sense of optimism, pride in their mediocre work, dream naively outside their intellectual means, while it might be more advisable to be clipped of their wings, and to be grounded more in reality? Sorry I'm taking this discussion one level upwards to a more meta level, it's a tendency of mine.

In the end, who knows. I'm quite harsh dishing out criticism, and being able to take it I consider a virtue. I'd rather tell someone they're overweight than talk about positive body image. Or tell someone they should work on their presentation and speaking skills, rather than encourage them to give a speech they will fail at.

Probably best to take the best of both worlds and try to create something out of that.