Comments
Comment by Will:
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I recently went to America with a bit of Europe at the end and of all the places, we found Germans from Berlin (Berliners?) the most likely to talk to you randomly on the train and certainly never less helpful than a French(/wo)man for service in a shop.
Is it different where you are?
Comment by Richard Anderson:
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When my wife and I traveled to Denmark for an extended stay, we asked a Franco-Dane how to say “please” when asking for something. The answer: no one says it. A short thanks is as far as the Danes go. The Franco side of public interaction is to be very polite but not familiar. American tendencies lean toward being instantly familiar — too familiar for my French born and raised wife.
Comment by ssp:
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Will: Perhaps people can be helpful at times, I’d still say that they’re not being particularly friendly when doing so. People from Berlin may be more talkative, perhaps.
Richard: I too found Americans a little too familiar for my taste (‘hi folks!’). But at least that means they are friendly.
Comment by d.w.:
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American kids are taught from a very young age (at least, that’s the way it was when I was a tot) that please and thank you should accompany any request when speaking to an adult. It’s so deeply ingrained that I find myself feeling uneasy not saying “thank you” even in response to rude or horrible service.
“Hihowareyou” is likewise, reflexive, since pretty much every person you’ve ever encountered from your earliest memories up to the presence has said it to you.
So yeah, we Yanks are facile, but if, say, you’re having a really crappy day, the fact that the gorgeous pixie teenager serving you your ice cream is culturally obligated to bat her eyes at you and wish you a “great day” dampens any misgivings I have about it. :)
Comment by ssp:
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Dave: I agree. There are hardly any misgivings to be had about it anyway. You just have to get used to the fact that people may not be as nice as they seem (but of course you have to keep that kind of paranoia awake elsewhere as well).
Having grown up in grumpyland, however, it is sometimes quite hard to keep up with all the smiles. It’s like everybody is making an effort to be nice in the mornings and I am just my usual self who doesn’t want to talk to anybody.
Whenever I have come back from England (where please and thanks seem to be quite common as well) or the U.S., I have tried to import a scoop of pleases and thank yous. But sometimes they don’t last long – if people don’t reciprocate my efforts, my will of keeping up the good spirit is easily broken.
Despite of that, I like to think that I am making an effort to cheer this country up.
In fact, I find that in some places people have become friendlier in the past years. Strangely that is in ‘services’. That industry is very American. While the friendliness may have been imported, so have been hire and fire strategies and underpaid jobs.
So I am a bit mixed about that development. Is it really a progress if the people selling bread at the bakery chain are more friendly and have badly paid jobs and very little competence. As compared to the better trained properly employed grumpy person in the traditional bakery?
I hoped we could have had the one development without the other.
Comment by Coop:
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I am a Canadian living in Berlin Germany, and I only experience courtesy and friendliness from people that I am introduced to. Most others in Berlin are grumpy and depressed from things like bad or unpredictable weather (constant in Berlin), heavy traffic, busy streets Auslanders, and high unemployment and express “Alles ist Scheiße”. I have found that the German women are even more grumpy than the men, but thats just my opinion. OK … Tschüs
