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 large amount of goodwill. Our US CEO going to a sauna with 20 naked engineers...
I’ve also seen the “how are you” thing described in comments unfold.
A Hindu pm had the habit of sitting next to developers while they worked, sometimes putting a hand on their knee. After being politely explained that the size of an Estonian personal space is measured in astronomical units and that this was the reason devs literally scattered upon his approach, he immediately changed his behavior and became great friends with the team.
A US lady came to hr complaining about an Ukrainian dev approaching them inappropriately during a party. The hr-person, having witnessed the situation, explained that this was just their way of showing friendly interest and no disrespect was intended. A while later, 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.
Cultures are hard and take a lot of mutual respect to work through.
> Cultures are hard and take a lot of mutual respect to work through.
It's always beneficial, not only when dealing with people of other cultures, to adhere Postel's law [0]: "Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept".
I remember taking a doing-biz-international course - one thing that was stressed was that personal space is different for different cultures, you can back someone into a wall if your normal speaking distance is larger than someone else's.
FYI for Americans a good rule of thumb is that Americans are comfortable at roughly an arm's length - reach out and touch someone's shoulder with your knuckles - after taking that course this became a company greeting ....
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
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.
Do you mean Indian instead of Hindu? In context of your post, it would seem Indian is what you meant, given you refer to everyone else by nationality.
I see it as a common conflation where people substitute Hindu (religion) with Hindi (language) with Indian (nationality/heritage).
But yes, as an Indian myself, we often have a different understanding of personal space and contact versus European/American cultures. It's not usually meant to be anything malicious, but it is very jarring in comparison.
If you want to improve your understanding about these sort of differences between cultures, I highly recommend reading "The Culture Map" by Erin Meyer.
> A Hindu pm had the habit of sitting next to developers while they worked
Some of us do this. Many don't. I don't like touching others especially in a work environment. It is definitely not a "hindu" thing, so much as an Indian thing.
I would chalk it up to lack of social awareness and no concept of space and personal boundaries. But, I don't think within our societies it is a bad thing.
However, with enough cultural trainings and awareness learnings, we do better at this when we interact with other cultures. The company I work for has a lot of documentation on this for almost all cultures.
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 fed up with all of it. Then, one day, a surgeon comes in, says hello and asks me 'how are you?'. And I reply: 'really bad!'. And suddenly surgeon's face changes: his eyes start moving faster,he looks at me and then observes the room,then at me again. Then the surgeon,in a slightly panicky voice ask me again: well what's wrong,is it the food? Is it the nurses? Did they do all the tests? What's going on?' Then the Russian looks at the doctor and says: well look, I'm in a hospital, I'm ill as hell, I'm in pain and you have the audacity to ask how am I? Are you crazy? It should be pretty clear that it's definitely not my day! The surgeon goes on to explain the subtleties of the question and etc. At that point I already lived in the UK long enough to understand the doctor's position but I also found the Russians point to be absolutely hilarious.
From personal experience I find the Russians absolutely hilarious even without much smiling (the young ones smile more).They are somehow similar to Italians,who are also hilarious, but as is the case with the Russians, the funniest things tend to be equally tragic too. Kind of a never ending tragicomedy on full blast.
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 are and I have to disagree somewhat. To a large extent Americans use “how are you” and “what’s up” as generic greetings but at the same time you can often tell when someone is using it instead of “hello” vs having 30-120 seconds to chat pretty easily. If my day is going well I make a point of telling the random person I’m interacting with why that is: “I’m doing great. The weather is so nice and I had a lovely cup of coffee on my back porch today.” Quick interaction, mostly meaningless, but to me it’s a nice way to break up the monotony. On the other hand if I’m having a bad day I don’t feel like hiding it but the trick is to not make it the other person’s problem: “I’m getting by. I blew a tire on the way to work and I just had all four tires replaced. But oh well, that’s just how irony works I guess.” Again, quick and simple and not the typical “fine” response. At worst they go “oh that sucks. Paper or plastic?” but more often it could result in a short conversation and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.
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 related to what Americans think is friendly / unfriendly behavior.
It's tough to navigate Americans. They're super friendly, but often I feel like it's their version of "being polite" and not more.
> “Can I ask you something? How come the Russians never smile? I’ve never seen them smiling.”
> “They’re at work. They're Russians.”
> "Is it normal for them to eat without talking to one another?”
> “This is their job. They get 20 minutes to eat.”
> “Yeah, but they never smile. Are they happy?”
> Are the Russians happy? Is anyone happy? Can one ever truly be said to be happy?
> I am tempted to go full Slav on Conor, to explain to him how we are all just grains of dust suspended in the howling void, searching for meaning in the fleeting moments before we are yanked back to the oblivion from whence we emerged, naked and screaming. But for all his faults he's just a kid stuck spending his summer microwaving Yorkshire puddings for difficult people. I take pity.
> “Russians are formal. It would be weird of them to act relaxed on duty. They are all smiling on the inside.”
[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 zoom, etc etc, so google reps had to start damage control.
And I wouldn’t even mind this positivity, if it didn’t put landmines in what you choose for daily use. Everything is so amazing and awesome, they love it, and when you try/buy it, it’s just a half-functioning crap that you have to finish yourself or wait until they do. As if these awesome’rs didn’t do anything beyond reading a tutorial. How can you relate positively to something that spent your days of learning and experimenting and in the end turned out to be a joke?
Subtleties are also difficult. If an English person say what you did was great, it most likely wasn't. And if they say it was not bad, it may have been great...
Austrian here, we are somewhat in between Russians and Americans, when it comes to smiling.
But what I can tell you is that life is just so much better when people smile at you, even if it might not be a hundred percent genuine. My comparison stems from having worked with both Russians and Americans. Being around grumpy Russians all day long makes live really miserable.
There's actually a regional difference. Growing up on the east coast in New York people rarely smiled at each other on the street. Someone you didn't know smiling at you could mean a crazy person, or some sort of con artist trying to suck you into interacting with them.
Living on the west coast for the last twenty years, the situation is totally different. On a bike trail, on the sidewalk, people often smile and nod at each other. At first it was very off-putting and I found it hard to reciprocate. Over the years I've forced myself to do it so as not to seem unfriendly, but it's been a bit of a chore. That natural paranoia I feel, suspicion about people's motives, is something I grew up with and I don't think I'll ever be able to put it down completely.
This is such a great article imo that really captures fundamental societal and cultural differences. I would say that Sweden has a similar 'grave' approach to life and that smiling is reserved for funny situations.
Much as I love the US 'etiquette smile' when passing people in the street and meeting, social pressure to conform can mask stress, anxiety and solemnity. The English used to feel pretty uncomfortable about yanks grinning away at everything but they seem to have partially become Americanized in this regard. (I'm English originally but have lived in the US for decades).
Another thing I've noticed uniquely with some Russian colleagues, and I've never quite known the meaning of, but I assume is Russian cultural attribute, is silence. A few times I've e.g. been explaining something to a Russian colleague, I'll go on and on, and when I'm done ... nothing. This always gets me anxious. What does it mean? 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? Is there some microexpression I should be looking for to differentiate? Or is this not actually a Russian thing and just an anomaly?
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.
>In Russian culture the smile is identified with laughter. Russians do not smile unless something funny happens and provides a reason for laughter. This fundamental difference in perception produces many unfortunate misunderstandings.
I think I've read this a few times before and I can hardly agree.
While smile to laughter to fun association is strong and rather obvious I think the main reason you see russian smile less often is that genuine smile is the clear sign of good mood and relative well being and we tend to keep those things for our close friends, family and simply a good company we feel click with.
And we are too straightforward for a forced\fake smile. If a russian thinks 'go f*ck yourself' about you - it will be on their face. But most likely you will hear it out loud.
UPD:
I also believe we are less emotional in general. At least when it comes to things like movies, shows etc. I was amazed when I witnessed americans reacting to Game of Thrones...
This is a risky hypothesis, but could it have something to do with access to guns?
In a society when every stranger can potentially be armed, it might be prudent to somehow display the 'I intend no harm' sign upfront, and smile might be a good proxy for that? The 'the armed society is a polite society' thing?
Living in Europe, where owning guns is not common (and carrying personally very very rare), I don't feel compelled to display or require upfront any bigger signs of 'friendliness' to/from strangers, other than 'Hello/Guten Abend/Adieu'. If the situation becomes unpleasant, I can always leave w/o physical consequences (excl. assault situations).
In a gun-loving culture, I'd probably put more effort to lower risk of misunderstandings.
I am Polish and I can not confirm that. I felt a sharp decline in "smiles" after my move to Germany where your description fits much more. I see much more people smiling for no obvious reasons when I visit Poland from time to time. Something which is not perceived as something else but friendliness by my German SO though while I've witnessed Germans being perceived as very cold by US Americans for the way they are.
I've been also smilingly welcomed by Russian friends even though they may smile less on the average. I haven't been to Russia yes so I can't tell. Maybe they are just well assimilated here.
Maybe it only is all those fake smiles you get from the US service culture which is so over the top that everything else becomes nuanced.
I spent a couple weeks in Krakow and one thing I noticed was how intensely people maintained eye contact when speaking to you. It seemed to be uniquely Polish, as I didn't notice it in Ukraine, Hungary, Germany, etc. Wondering if anyone else has noticed that or if it was just an anomaly.
Not Russian but my wife is - grew up there until college age. She was saying this exact thing a couple weeks ago (which is why I took interest in this article): that smiling at a stranger will cause them to dismiss you as stupid. So I'd say Yes.
It's as accurate as can be accurate any statement about a culture that spans thousands kilometres from East to West and from South to North and contain multitude of subcultures within itself. I.e. it depends, but "yes" is generally closer to the truth than "no"
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.
I think it has changed a bit since then. There was not a lot to smile about in Russia in 2002. Not that now we smile at each other every time, but we do this more often and even if we don't faces are a lot less grumpy :)
This the perfect opportunity to suggest a relevant book: "The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia" by Michael Booth. He's a Brit who married a Dane, relocated to Denmark, and was struck by the cultural differences between Scandinavian cultures and his own. So he wrote a book.
In it, he observes that smiles and jokes and easy conversation are more common among Brits and Americans than many Europeans, and suggests that, as you proceed northward and eastward through the continent, facial expressions tend to grow more sober and the tendency toward small talk fades. Not that these peoples are more unhappy, but there is generally less inclination to idly chat or joke around.
The author offers numerous observations, interpretations, and interviews regarding local perspectives on 'happiness' during his travels. An insightful read that doesn't take itself too seriously.
I've noticed most Russians I work with also speak slowly. I'm curious whether it is difficulty with English pronunciation or whether speaking slowly is part of Russian culture. I'm guessing more the latter, as the the things they say are also frequently quite concise and to the point, no filler words, few adverbs, so no need to speak quickly. Do Russians speak more quickly when speaking Russian?
I lived in Russia for a year and yes, they speak much faster in Russian than English. In particular if they are between just Russians and know they don't need to speak slowly to be understood. But I think it's the same for every language, people speak faster in their mother tong.
This reminds me of some research[0] that found speakers of less information-dense languages speak faster, and vice versa, with the effect that all of the studied languages had roughly the same information transmission rate.
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 other people have the same reaction?
Note: I don't see other people's smiles as threatening, it just feels that way when I do it.
In this mini-ethnography I present the main differences in perception of the smile in Russia and in the United States.
There are regional variations in the United States. In New England, NY and other parts of the Northeast, we are often quite serious/stone-faced in public, something that I have heard outsiders from the west coast and South observe. I also was struck by the demeanor of some friends from Brazil who always have a smile on their face, and seem to be more happy and upbeat even when things are not going well.
There was related discussion on HN about smiling and laughter that's worth reading:
Observation from a Scottish perspective: We are somewhere in between the two modes. We smile more than Russians (not difficult) and less than Americans (also not difficult), and we notice both quite clearly. I would say we used to be more like the Russians (hence why Scottish people used to often be considered "dour" or depressed), but are now being Americanised through media consumption (like many countries). That is noticeable in that younger generations smile more than older ones.
My personal take on smiles is that they're welcome if genuine, but can have adverse effects when forced. Many people think that displaying a fake smile for example at the workplace would help with interactions, especially professional ones, but rest assured that when I see someone faking a smile, particularly those working hard to look warm and sincere, I immediately feel I could be manipulated and get on the defensive.
...But I speak from personal experience of being shown daily the widest warm smile at the workplace from the same person that a few months later would dig my professional grave, so your mileage will probably vary.
Although the author attributes the lack of smiling to Russians, I would suggest this generalization should extend to continental Europe. For instance, there is a related saying describing differences between Brits and Germans - "Too polite to be honest and too honest to be polite". It captures the idea that in Anglo Saxonian culture, it is more important to be polite.
I'm living in Ireland, and this bit around non-honest smiling just drives me nuts sometimes. Otherwise, it is excellent when you're going for a walk because it creates a positive and inviting atmosphere. But adapting to a constantly cheerful and smiling surrounding was not without a challenge. Do I smile and say hi all the time to every person, or are there exceptions? There is a bit of a learning curve as after 50 smiles and hi's every day, I feel exhausted, LOL.
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 people smell.
[+] [-] andreskytt|4 years ago|reply
I’ve also seen the “how are you” thing described in comments unfold.
A Hindu pm had the habit of sitting next to developers while they worked, sometimes putting a hand on their knee. After being politely explained that the size of an Estonian personal space is measured in astronomical units and that this was the reason devs literally scattered upon his approach, he immediately changed his behavior and became great friends with the team.
A US lady came to hr complaining about an Ukrainian dev approaching them inappropriately during a party. The hr-person, having witnessed the situation, explained that this was just their way of showing friendly interest and no disrespect was intended. A while later, 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.
Cultures are hard and take a lot of mutual respect to work through.
[+] [-] pretext|4 years ago|reply
It's always beneficial, not only when dealing with people of other cultures, to adhere Postel's law [0]: "Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
[+] [-] Taniwha|4 years ago|reply
FYI for Americans a good rule of thumb is that Americans are comfortable at roughly an arm's length - reach out and touch someone's shoulder with your knuckles - after taking that course this became a company greeting ....
[+] [-] xwolfi|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] durnygbur|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ido|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dagmx|4 years ago|reply
I see it as a common conflation where people substitute Hindu (religion) with Hindi (language) with Indian (nationality/heritage).
But yes, as an Indian myself, we often have a different understanding of personal space and contact versus European/American cultures. It's not usually meant to be anything malicious, but it is very jarring in comparison.
[+] [-] tren|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fegu|4 years ago|reply
What was the inappropriate part? Seems useful to know.
[+] [-] animesh|4 years ago|reply
Some of us do this. Many don't. I don't like touching others especially in a work environment. It is definitely not a "hindu" thing, so much as an Indian thing.
I would chalk it up to lack of social awareness and no concept of space and personal boundaries. But, I don't think within our societies it is a bad thing.
However, with enough cultural trainings and awareness learnings, we do better at this when we interact with other cultures. The company I work for has a lot of documentation on this for almost all cultures.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] solipsism|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] kesava|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LightG|4 years ago|reply
Who'd have thought?
No intentional snark at this post. It was very interesting. But crikey ...
[+] [-] cosmodisk|4 years ago|reply
From personal experience I find the Russians absolutely hilarious even without much smiling (the young ones smile more).They are somehow similar to Italians,who are also hilarious, but as is the case with the Russians, the funniest things tend to be equally tragic too. Kind of a never ending tragicomedy on full blast.
[+] [-] IgorPartola|4 years ago|reply
Also, I have read a few comments in this discussion about how fake American smiles and “how are you?”s are and I have to disagree somewhat. To a large extent Americans use “how are you” and “what’s up” as generic greetings but at the same time you can often tell when someone is using it instead of “hello” vs having 30-120 seconds to chat pretty easily. If my day is going well I make a point of telling the random person I’m interacting with why that is: “I’m doing great. The weather is so nice and I had a lovely cup of coffee on my back porch today.” Quick interaction, mostly meaningless, but to me it’s a nice way to break up the monotony. On the other hand if I’m having a bad day I don’t feel like hiding it but the trick is to not make it the other person’s problem: “I’m getting by. I blew a tire on the way to work and I just had all four tires replaced. But oh well, that’s just how irony works I guess.” Again, quick and simple and not the typical “fine” response. At worst they go “oh that sucks. Paper or plastic?” but more often it could result in a short conversation and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.
[+] [-] Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL|4 years ago|reply
It's tough to navigate Americans. They're super friendly, but often I feel like it's their version of "being polite" and not more.
Just yesterday I read https://idlewords.com/2018/12/gluten_free_antarctica.htm which is pretty amusing, and I recommend reading. Quoting the most relevant (to this discussion) part from it:
> “Can I ask you something? How come the Russians never smile? I’ve never seen them smiling.”
> “They’re at work. They're Russians.”
> "Is it normal for them to eat without talking to one another?”
> “This is their job. They get 20 minutes to eat.”
> “Yeah, but they never smile. Are they happy?”
> Are the Russians happy? Is anyone happy? Can one ever truly be said to be happy?
> I am tempted to go full Slav on Conor, to explain to him how we are all just grains of dust suspended in the howling void, searching for meaning in the fleeting moments before we are yanked back to the oblivion from whence we emerged, naked and screaming. But for all his faults he's just a kid stuck spending his summer microwaving Yorkshire puddings for difficult people. I take pity.
> “Russians are formal. It would be weird of them to act relaxed on duty. They are all smiling on the inside.”
[+] [-] to1y|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wruza|4 years ago|reply
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 zoom, etc etc, so google reps had to start damage control.
And I wouldn’t even mind this positivity, if it didn’t put landmines in what you choose for daily use. Everything is so amazing and awesome, they love it, and when you try/buy it, it’s just a half-functioning crap that you have to finish yourself or wait until they do. As if these awesome’rs didn’t do anything beyond reading a tutorial. How can you relate positively to something that spent your days of learning and experimenting and in the end turned out to be a joke?
[+] [-] flurdy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ganzuul|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeroc8|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danbmil99|4 years ago|reply
Living on the west coast for the last twenty years, the situation is totally different. On a bike trail, on the sidewalk, people often smile and nod at each other. At first it was very off-putting and I found it hard to reciprocate. Over the years I've forced myself to do it so as not to seem unfriendly, but it's been a bit of a chore. That natural paranoia I feel, suspicion about people's motives, is something I grew up with and I don't think I'll ever be able to put it down completely.
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
What a Russian Smile Means - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17445108 - July 2018 (67 comments)
What a Russian Smile Means - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17381975 - June 2018 (1 comment)
What a Russian Smile Means - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17376212 - June 2018 (1 comment)
Do Russians smile at each other? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7491944 - March 2014 (1 comment)
Why do Russians smile so little (and Americans so much?) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2375633 - March 2011 (105 comments)
Pretty sure there have been others. Anybody?
[+] [-] olivermarks|4 years ago|reply
Much as I love the US 'etiquette smile' when passing people in the street and meeting, social pressure to conform can mask stress, anxiety and solemnity. The English used to feel pretty uncomfortable about yanks grinning away at everything but they seem to have partially become Americanized in this regard. (I'm English originally but have lived in the US for decades).
[+] [-] daxfohl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dougmwne|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] konart|4 years ago|reply
I think I've read this a few times before and I can hardly agree.
While smile to laughter to fun association is strong and rather obvious I think the main reason you see russian smile less often is that genuine smile is the clear sign of good mood and relative well being and we tend to keep those things for our close friends, family and simply a good company we feel click with.
And we are too straightforward for a forced\fake smile. If a russian thinks 'go f*ck yourself' about you - it will be on their face. But most likely you will hear it out loud.
UPD:
I also believe we are less emotional in general. At least when it comes to things like movies, shows etc. I was amazed when I witnessed americans reacting to Game of Thrones...
[+] [-] jagrsw|4 years ago|reply
In a society when every stranger can potentially be armed, it might be prudent to somehow display the 'I intend no harm' sign upfront, and smile might be a good proxy for that? The 'the armed society is a polite society' thing?
Living in Europe, where owning guns is not common (and carrying personally very very rare), I don't feel compelled to display or require upfront any bigger signs of 'friendliness' to/from strangers, other than 'Hello/Guten Abend/Adieu'. If the situation becomes unpleasant, I can always leave w/o physical consequences (excl. assault situations).
In a gun-loving culture, I'd probably put more effort to lower risk of misunderstandings.
[+] [-] Krasnol|4 years ago|reply
I've been also smilingly welcomed by Russian friends even though they may smile less on the average. I haven't been to Russia yes so I can't tell. Maybe they are just well assimilated here.
Maybe it only is all those fake smiles you get from the US service culture which is so over the top that everything else becomes nuanced.
[+] [-] j4yav|4 years ago|reply
I think otherwise though it you smile a lot for no reason people will think you are a little foolish or loony, but it isn’t dangerous.
I agree with the author that Americans and Russians have a surprising amount of similarities when you get past some surface level differences.
[+] [-] daxfohl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MarkLowenstein|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Arech|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lostwords|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shashurup|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randcraw|4 years ago|reply
In it, he observes that smiles and jokes and easy conversation are more common among Brits and Americans than many Europeans, and suggests that, as you proceed northward and eastward through the continent, facial expressions tend to grow more sober and the tendency toward small talk fades. Not that these peoples are more unhappy, but there is generally less inclination to idly chat or joke around.
The author offers numerous observations, interpretations, and interviews regarding local perspectives on 'happiness' during his travels. An insightful read that doesn't take itself too seriously.
[+] [-] daxfohl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lecarore|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] retsibsi|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2215202-all-languages-h...
[+] [-] abruzzi|4 years ago|reply
Note: I don't see other people's smiles as threatening, it just feels that way when I do it.
[+] [-] ilamont|4 years ago|reply
There are regional variations in the United States. In New England, NY and other parts of the Northeast, we are often quite serious/stone-faced in public, something that I have heard outsiders from the west coast and South observe. I also was struck by the demeanor of some friends from Brazil who always have a smile on their face, and seem to be more happy and upbeat even when things are not going well.
There was related discussion on HN about smiling and laughter that's worth reading:
From apes to birds, animal species that “laugh” (arstechnica.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27193602
[+] [-] binbag|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] squarefoot|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sublimefire|4 years ago|reply
I'm living in Ireland, and this bit around non-honest smiling just drives me nuts sometimes. Otherwise, it is excellent when you're going for a walk because it creates a positive and inviting atmosphere. But adapting to a constantly cheerful and smiling surrounding was not without a challenge. Do I smile and say hi all the time to every person, or are there exceptions? There is a bit of a learning curve as after 50 smiles and hi's every day, I feel exhausted, LOL.
[+] [-] jokethrowaway|4 years ago|reply
Someone told me if someone is smiling to you in Russia, they are probably scamming you.
A smile given away too freely for no reason can be perceived as fake and suspicious.
[+] [-] dzhiurgis|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LimaBearz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] null_object|4 years ago|reply
It’s a perfect vehicle for its message.
[+] [-] lopatin|4 years ago|reply